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LIBRARY FOR THE PEOPLE.

THE LIFE OF ADDISON.

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THE LIFE

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PHILADELPHIA: CAR EVM ART. 1846.

PHILADELPHIA: T. K. AND P, G. COLLINS, PRINTERS,

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ADVERTISEMENT BY THE AMERICAN PUBLISHERS.

Tue celebrity of Miss Aikin’s previous productions—the Me- moirs of the Courts and Reigns of Elizabeth, James the First, and Charles the First—suggested the propriety of republishing the “ Life of Addison,”’ the latest work of the accomplished authoress. But the intended re-print was delayed, in conse- quence of Mr. Macaulay’s admirable review, pointing out a number of errors into which Miss Aikin has fallen.

A careful re-examination of the work disclosed that most of these drawbacks had no necessary connection with the “ Life of Addison ;”’ that they referred to matters of collateral interest; and that it would be unjust to withhold from the American pub-

~ lie a valuable work, emanating from so distinguished a source, when the very article that pointed out its defects, supplied the

aid by which they could be so easily corrected.

In the present edition, the publishers, availing themselves of Mr. Macaulay’s suggestions, have—they believe without an omission—made every correction which he has indicated; in many instances, by silent alterations of the text, in others, by foot notes, for which Mr. Macaulay is credited.

These defects thus remedied, the American Publishers believe that the memoirs now introduced for the first time to the Ame- rican reader, will be found neither inferior in interest nor defi- cient in value to Miss Aikin’s former biographies.

Philadelphia, 1846.

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PREFACE.

‘Te present work was undertaken from the desire of supply- ing what appeared a real deficiency in our literature. While the lives of Pope and Swift had been written and re-written with unwearied research and distinguished ability ; while Dryden had in recent times been made the object of a detailed and interesting biography, what accounts did we possess of a cotemporary infe- rior to none of these in genius or in fame, and certainly superior to them all in the purity, amenity and moral tendency of his writings, as well as in the virtues of his life? . What records had we of Addison? Two prefaces: that of Tickell to the general edition of his works, that of Johnson to his poetry, included in the collection of the English poets! The first of these, invalu- able for its authenticity, and the absolute reliance to be placed on the statements which it founds on the personal knowledge of the writer, does not aim at the character of a complete biogra- phy. It is a literary notice only, though of a very pleasing kind, and much resembling the academical eulogies of the French. That of Dr. Johnson is principally a piece of criticism; to which it may be added, that his judicial scales were never held with an unswerving hand when the character, whether personal or literary, of a decided Whig was placed in the balance. In the case of Addison too, the unfavorable bias has been aggravated by his reliance on the manuscript anecdotes of Spence which he had under his eye, and which embody all the prejudice and en- mity of Pope.

x PREFACE.

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Of narratives compiled from these authorities it is needless to speak.

The numerous and scattered sources from which the facts contained in the following pages have been derived, are pointed out in their proper places whenever they could be clearly ascer- tained. Addison’s own correspondence, never before collected and applied to the illustration of his biography, has been the best guide of the writer, and will no doubt be regarded by the reader as the most interesting part of the work. A large pro- portion of the letters have never before appeared in print. And here the writer cannot deny herself the satisfaction of repeating her grateful acknowledgments to Edward Tickell, Esq., Q. C. of Dublin, through whose eminent liberality and kindness exerted towards a stranger, she has been enabled to lay before the public letters and private papers of Addison’s which, passing into the hands of his executor, have been carefully preserved ever since in the Tickell family, and now appear with the freshness of no- velty. Her cordial thanks must also be extended to her friend and kinsman the Rev. Charles Strong, prebendary of St. Pat- rick’s, for his valuable services on this occasion.

To Mr. Bolton Corney she has likewise been indebted for much useful information and many good offices of various kinds.

CONTENTS.

}

CHAPTER I, . 1672 to 1687.

PAGE

Introductory remarks. Account of the Rev. Dr. Addison, his father. His epitaph. Birth of Joseph Addison. His brothers and sisters. Anecdote of his childhood. His first schools. Is removed to the Charter-House. Forms a friendship with Richard Steele. Account of him - - -

CHAPTER II. 1687 to 1695.

Addison at Oxford. Traditional notices of him there. His Latin verses. His acquirements. Designed for the Church. Patronage of letters at this period. Its results. His first English verses addressed to Dryden. Trans- lation from the Georgics, Essay on the Georgics. Verses to Sachevere)

on the English Poets. Lines by Garth - - - - “

CHAPTER III. 1695 to 1700.

Poems on public occasions why generally failures. Lines of Addison to the king. To Lord Somers, who becomes his patron. Account of Somers. Latin poem on the peace inscribed’ to Charles Montague. Account of him. He patronises Addison. Addison reluctant to take orders. Different causes assigned for it. Moptague’s share in it. He and Somers procure him a pension from the king to travel. Publication of Muse Anglicane. Account of his Latin poems. His celebration of Dr, Burnet’s theory. Boileau’s remarks on his poems. He sets out on his travels. His letters to several friends. Takes up his residence at Blois, His mode of life there. Letters. Friendship and correspondence with Wortley Montague. Letters to Bishop

Hough and others - -

17

28

40

xil CONTENTS.

RELA

CHAPTER IV. 1700 to 1702.

PAGE

Account of Addison’s travels in Italy. He reaches Geneva on his return. Letter to Wortley Montague. Epistle from Italy. Letter to Lord Halifax. Causes of his detention at Geneva. His prospects destroyed by the death of King William. Travels in Switzerland. Proceeds to Vienna. Forms a friendship with Mr. Stepney. Account of him - - - -

CHAPTER V. 1702 to 1704.

Addison in adversity. Erroneous representations of this period of his life., Swift's lines full of misrepresentation. He quits Vienna. Letter to Stepney

on his Dialogues on Ancient Medals. Account of this work. His travels in _

Germany. Letters to Mr. Stepney. To Lord Winchelsea. His character. To Mr. Wyche. To Mr. Bathurst. Arrives at the Hague. Meets Tonson there. His business in Holland. Letter of Addison to him. Letters of the Duke of Somerset to Tonson concerning Addison. Letter of Addison to the Duke., Of the Duke to Tonson. Remarks. Letter to Bishop Hough. To Mr. Wood. To Mr. Wyche. Return of Addison to England -

CHAPTER VI. 1704 to 1706.

Addison chosen of the Kitcat Club. His lines to the Countess of Man- chester. Still unemployed. Better prospects of the Whigs. War with France. Battle of Blenheim. Halifax now restored to power, names Ad- dison to Godolphin to celebrate the victory. Rewarded by being Commis- sioner of Appeals. Poem of the campaign. Le Clerc reviews it. Travels in Italy published. Dedication to Lord Somers. Reception of the work. Le Clere’s favorable review. Addison presents a copy to Swift. Rise and progress of their friendship. Swift’s testimony to Addison’s social powers. Lady M. Wortley Montague’s. Steele’s. Pope’s. Young’s. Addison Under Secretary of State to Sir C. Hedges. To Lord Sunderland. Attends Lord

Halifax to Hanover. Particulars of his journey and return. Official letters to Stepney - - - ;

CHAPTER VII. 1706 to 1708.

Opera of Rosamond. Unsuccessful on the stage and why printed. Lines on it by Tickell. His introduction to Addison and favor with him. Addi- son assisted in the Tender Husband. Doubtful nature of his connection with the Warwick family. Letters to the young earl. Rise of his acquaint-

68

86

CONTENTS.

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xiii

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PAGK

ance with the Dowager countess, whom he afterwards married. Political movements. Gradual preponderance of Mrs. Mashham and Harley and Bolingbroke. Pamphlet on the necessity of an augmentation. Renewal of his intimacy with Steele. Notices from Steele’s correspondence. Pecuniary transactions between the friends. Correspondence private and official with Mr. Cole. Mr. Wortley Montague, Earl of Manchester = - - -

CHAPTER VIII. 1708—1709.

Earl of Sunderland dismissed. Addison loses the Vice-secretaryship in consequence. Earl of Wharton, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, appoints him his chief Secretary. Account and character of Earl Wharton. His policy and conduct in Ireland. Letter of Swift respecting Addison. Of Steele. Addison chosen a member of Parliament for Malmsbury. Unable to speak in the House. Takes Budgell to Ireland. His official conduct. State of Parties - - - - - . - - -

CHAPTER IX. 1709 to 1712,

The Tatler begun by Steele. Addison becomes a contributor. State of manners. Times favorable to the design. Character,and purposes of Ad- dison’s papers. The war unpopular. General dismissal of the Whigs. Letter of Addison in favor of Ambrose Philips. Notice of Hoadley. Letter to Desmaiseaux. Situation of Swift. Letter of Steele to him. Correspond- ence of Addison with Swift. Keally. Lord Wharton. Is re-clected for Malmsbury. Adheres to his party. Writes the Whig Examiner. Account of the Work. Attacks Sacheverel. Coolness with Swift on political grounds. Extracts from Swift’s Journal relating to Addison. Steele drops the Tatler. And why. Sets up the Spectator. Private concerns of Addison. Corre- spondence with Wortley Montague. Misrepresentations of his Course of Life by Pope or Spence. Residence at Sandy End. Improved circum- stances. Purchase of Bilton. Political services to the House of Hanover

CHAPTER X. 1712 & 1713.

Remarks on the Spectator. Transactions and intercourse with Whiston. Clarke. Berkley. Notice of Pope’s Essay on Criticism in the Spectator. Letter of Steele to Pope. Of Pope to Addison. His patronage of Ambrose Philips. Cato brought on the stage. Account of its reception by Tickell. By Cibber. Error of Young. Pope’s opinion on it. Hughes applied to by Addison to write a fifth act. Anxiety of the author. Pope’s account of

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140

149

xiv CONTENTS.

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PAGE

its reception. Literary remarks. Publication of the Tragedy. Compli- mentary poems prefixed. Criticism of Dennis, who is chastised by Pope. Letters on this subject. Further honors paid to Cato. Letter of Dr. Smal- ridge - - - - . s, 2 = =

CHAPTER XI. 1712 to 1715.

Quarrel of Pope with Addison. Preface to Tickell’s Tiad, and letters concerning it - - - - - = = =

CHAPTER XII. 1713 to 1715.

Peace of Utrecht attacked by Whigs. Addison’s Count Tariff. Pamphlet ascribed to him perhaps wrongfully. The Crisis. Steele expelled the House of Commons for it. Assisted in his defence by Addison and Walpole. Bolingbroke attempts to bring him over to his party, but fails. His Treatise on the Evidences of Christianity, Character of the work. Steele puts a stop to the Spectator at the end of the seventh volume and sets up the Guardian. Character of Addison’s papers in it. Termination of the Guar- dian. Eighth volume of the Spectator. Correspondence respecting a New Periodical Work. State of public affairs. Declining health of the queen. Treachery of the ministers who conspire to bring in the Pretender. Efforts of the Jacobites. Counter-measures of Whig Peers. Quarrels of Oxford and Bolingbroke. Death of the queen. Vigorous measures of the council. George I. proclaimed. Lords Justices appointed. Addison chosen their secretary. Foolish tale concerning him. Letter to M. De Robethon. . His memorial to the king. Lord Sunderland, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, ap- points him chief secretary. He refuses to give up the acquaintance of Swift. Correspondence of Archbishop King. Letters to Major Dunbar. Remarks, Anecdote. Authorship of the Drummer - 2

CHAPTER XIII. 1716 to 1718.

Addison’s Irish secretaryship ended. Rebellion of 1715. Addison em- ployed to write the Freeholder. Account of the work. Rewarded with commissionership of trade and colonies. Marries the Countess Dowager of Warwick. Accounts of his courtship. Reasons for doubting them. Wel- stead’s lines to Lady Warwick. Addison’s Lines to Kneller. Halifax without power to advance him. Death of Halifax. Lord Sunderland, Se- cretary of State, appoints Addison Joint Seeretary. His qualifications for business. Official Letters to the Lords Justices of Ireland. 'To Mr. Dave-

“

177

200

220

CONTENTS. - x

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PAGE _nant. Tothe Earl of Peterborough. Answer of the Earl. To the Duchess

of St. Albans. Minutes of official letters. Mr. Temple Stanyan. Anec- dote of Addison. Embassy to the Porte. Mr. Wortley Montague. Letter of Addison tohim. Letter of Archbishop King. Of Mr. Budgell. Of Mr. Gibson to Mr. Tickell. Of the Archbishop of Canterbury to Mr. Addison. Lawrence Echard. Sickness of Addison. Latin Lines of Vincent Bourne. Addison’s Letter of Resignation . - - - - - 239

CHAPTER XIV. 1718 to 1719.

Addison in retirement. Letters to Swift. Literary projects. Peerage bill. Writes the Old Whig against Steele’s Plebeian. Account of the controversy. Death of Addison. Discussion of his imputed intemperance. His will in favour of his lady. Anecdotes of his last days. Notice of him by Whiston. His interview with Gay. Circumstance related by Dr. Young. His funeral] and monument. Notice of his daughter. His library and pic- tures. Conclusion - - - - - - - - 263

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HE LIFE

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JOSEPH ADDISON.

CHAPTER I. 1672 to 1687.

Introductory remarks. Account of the Rev. Dr. Addison, his father. His epitaph. Birth of Joseph Addison. His brothers and sisters. Anecdote of his childhoud. His first schools. Is removed to the Charter-House. Forms a friendship with Richard Steele. Account of him. °

Tue study of biography brings home to the mind no one truth with greater force and distinctness than the impossibility of ex- plaining, onany general system, the formation of human character. Hereditary or innate propensities appear to afford the solution of one set of facts, the power of early associations, of another; the influence of education, of outward circumstances, of imitation, must all in turn be called in to solve the different classes of exam- ples; no single theory will account for all. There evidently lies at the root a great mystery inscrutable by man.

On this account every life should be written on the plan suited to itself, and no general rule can be given with regard to the insertion or omission of accessory circumstances. Thus, the in- stances are many ii which the judicious biographer will find no inducement to dwell at any length on the parentage of his subject; for although this circumstance can seldom be considered as totally insignificant, its operation is often not clearly distinguishable ; sometimes even the results are in direct opposition to what might naturally have beenexpected. It can rarely be made toappear, either that genius ran in the blood, or that the particular direction which

2

18 THE LIFE OF

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it took in any given instance wasa designed or calculated effect of parental agency. Nay, the examples are not a few in which the vehement opposition of a father to the native bent of his child’s genius, has only served, like most other surmountable obstacles, to add strength to the original propensity, by calling forth the energy of resistance. -

With respect to Addison the case is different. In his modest and amiable character there were few striking peculiarities, in his conduct there were no eccentricities, in his opinions no tendency to startling paradox.

An admirable, and certainly a very original genius in his own line,—that of wit and humor, combined with fancy and an inde- scribable grace,—in the other parts of literature he was rather the judicious and discriminating follower of the best classical models, than the inventor of any new style of excellence; and the exqui- site taste which is one of his most pervading qualities, was doubt- less in great part the product of early and well-adapted culture. When, therefore, after running over in the mind his life and con- duct, the career which he chose, his favorite studies, and the general current of his sentiments, we turn to contemplate in a father, whom he revered, the united characters of the churchman, the scholar, the traveler, and the perspicuous, lively, and instruct- ive writer, it is obvious to conclude, that it was hence that his mind received its determining bias, and his genius its peculiar dress and coloring. A brief account of the father thus becomes a proper, almost an indispensable introduction to the biography of the son.

Lancelot Addison, born in the year 1632, at the obscure village of Maltesmeaburn, in the parish of Corby Ravensworth and the county of Westmoreland, was the son of a person described in the phrase of the time as “a minister of the Gospel,’ but in circum- stances so humble, that it was in the character of “a poor child” that Lancelot, after passing through the grammar school of Ap- pleby, was received into Queen’s College, Oxford. Here, how- ever, his quick and lively parts, seconded by steady application to the studies of the place, speedily raised him above obscurity. Having obtained his bachelor’s degree in 1654, and his master’s in 1657, he was the next year chosen a terre Jilius at the com- mencement,—the Oxford terre filius being a kind of licensed jester, after the manner of Shakspeare’s fools:—a dangerous office, since amid the seeming license of a Saturnalia, the scourge was in reality kept suspended over the head of the luckless jester whose gibes should come too near the consciences or the dignity

JOSEPH ADDISON. 19

of men in power! On this occasion, the youthful academic suf- fered the monarchical and episcopalian principles which he fos- tered in his bosom to break forth without restraint; and he satirized the pride, ignorance, avarice, and hypocrisy of the party then in authority with a keenness that drew upon him the severe animad- version of his superiors. He was compelled to make his submi sion, and according to the practice of elder times, to ask pardon on his knees; soon after which humiliation he quitted the univer- sity, whether voluntarily or by expulsion has been differently reported. Whichever might be the case, he had entitled himself, in the opinion of those who shared his sentiments, to the character of a confessor. He was encouraged to take up his tempdrary residence at a village near Petworth, and passed his time chiefly in visits at the houses of Sussex gentry attached to the royal cause, occupied in inculcating on the younger members of their families a steadfast adherence to the principles and ritual of the then proscribed Church of England.

On the Restoration, these manifestations of his zeal in times of peril, being represented at court, procured him the appointment of chaplain to the garrison of Dunkirk, which small preferment he accepted, contrary, it is said, to the wishes of the Bishop of Chichester, who would have provided for him; and on his return to England in 1662, in consequence of the cession of Dunkirk to France, he embraced the still less inviting offer, as it appears, of a similar situation at Tangier. Eight years he remained on the coast of Africa, in what might well be termed a state of banish- ment, alleviated to him, however, by the occupation of collecting that local information which he afterwards made the basis of two interesting publieatinygoat the end of this period, he thought it allowable to indulge hifnself with a visit to England, purposing, after a time, to resume his station; but the appointment being hastily transferred to another, he found himself without employ- ment or resource, till relieved by the kindness of a private friend who presented him to the living of Milston, near Ambrosebury Wilts, worth 120/. per annum. On this pittance he sat down as a married man, having united himself to Jane, daughter of Nat'. Gulstone, D. D., and sister to the Bishop of Bristol. At Milston his children were born, and in part brought up, and it was from this place that he sent into the world his earlier works. After a time his merits made their way, and he began to mount, though slowly, the ladder of preferment. He was a prebendary of Salis- bury cathedral and one of the king’s chaplains in ordinary when he took, in 1675, the degree of D. D.; soon after he was made

20 THE LIFE OF

Archdeacon of Salisbury; and ‘at length, in 1683, the ecclesiastical commissioners conferred upon him the deanery of Lichfield, in reward of his services at Tangier, and as remuneration for his losses by a fire at Milston. é

Meantime he was employing his pen diligently and acceptably on professional topics; his character for consistency and for private worth stood always unimpeached, and so high was his general reputation, that he is said to have been destined to the mitre, but lost it by the display which he made in the convocation of 1689, of principles inconsistent with attachment to the cause of the Revolution. The dean died in 1703. '

Of the works of Dr. Addison, all of them esteemed in their day, several deserve particular notice in this place, partly for the light which they reflect on the character of the author, but chiefly on account of the influence which they may be presumed to have exercised over the tastes and sentiments of his son.

His earliest publication, which appeared in 1671, in a small octavo volume, with a dedication to Joseph Williamson, Esq., bore the title of « West Barbary, or a Short Narrative of the Revolu- tions of the Kingdoms of Fez and Morocco, with an Account of the present Customs, Sacred, Civil and Domestic.” This relation commences with the year 1508, at which period the fall of the reigning family in these kingdoms was prepared by the machina- tions of a Moorish priest, who, says the author, “ began to grow into reputation with the people by reason of his high pretensions to piety and fervent zeal for their law, illustrated by a stubborn rigidity of conversation and outward sanctity of life.” Having craftily added to these recommendations the claim of a descent from Mahomet, he became, we are told, of no vulgar esteem with a generation who from time to time have been fooled with such mountebanks in religion.’””. The narrative proceeds to mention, that the Zeriffe, as he had styled himself, finding the time not yet ripe for an attempt on the throne, in order to facilitate the design,

‘sent his three sons to make the pilgrimage of Mecca in the mean time. ‘ Much was the reverence and reputation of holiness which they thereby acquired among the superstitious people, who could hardly be kept from kissing their garments and adoring them as saints ; while they failed not in their parts, but acted as much de- votion as high contemplative looks, deep sighs, tragical gestures, and other passionate interjections of holiness could express; Allah, Allah, was their doleful note, their sustenance the people’s alms.”

Two of these young men, it is added, being afterwards sent by

JOSEPH ADDISON. 1

their father to court, and kindly received by the “too credulous king,” desired his permission to display a banner against the Christians, (the Portuguese,) which was granted contrary to the opinion of the king’s brother, who “ warned him not to arm this name of sanctity, which being once victorious might grow insolent and forgetful of duty.” He “likewise told him that war makes men awless, and through popularity many become ambitious and studious of innovation.”” Wonderful successes attended the arms of these adventurers, till the King of Fez, seeing that they had poisoned the King of Morocco and placed their brother on his throne, “ mistrusted his own safety, and began, but too late, to repent his approving of an armed hypocrisy.” “ Puffed up with their successes they forgot their obedience, and these saints denied the king the fifth part of their spoils. ... By which it appeared that they took up arms, not out of love for their country and zeal for their religion, but out of desire of rule.” :

These and other satirical strokes against rebels in the disguise of saints, will be seen to have a designed application to events and parties at home; notwithstanding which, there is no ground for looking upon this narrative as anything different from what it professes to be,—a true history of the revolutions of West Bar- bary. Its style is blemished by some foreign idioms, and some native vulgarisms, but the piece is on the whole composed with an ease, a spirit, and a vivacity, which give a very agreeable idea of the author, and throws a charm even over so uninviting a theme as the domestic treasons, murders, and civil wars of fierce and ignorant barbarians.

The description of the country, with its agriculture, products, and wild animals, and of the inhabitants, with their modes of living, manners, customs, and religious observances, abounds in curious and amusing particulars, derived from diligent inquiry and personal observation, and no doubt full of novelty for the English public at the time of their appearance. What is still higher praise, the work is written in a truly catholic and candid spirit, and willing justice is everywhere done to the Mussulmans with respect to their piety and attachment to their own faith and law, as well as to the moral virtues found among them.

A later publication, entitled «The First State of Mahometism,” reprinted as “The Life and Death of Mahomet,” further evinced the intimate acquaintance of the author with the religious his- tory, rites and opinions of the followers of Islam; and to the images suggested to his youthfal imagination by the writings or ‘conversation of his father on these subjects, we can scarcely hesi-

92 THE LIFE OF LS oS tate to ascribe the origin of the propensity so often evinced by Addison, to engraft the fine creations of his fancy on some Orien- tal tradition, or to lay the scene and seek the personages of his tales or visions, among sultans and dervises.

The work, however, which does most honor to the learning, the research, and in some, though certainly not in all respects, to the candor and impartiality of Dr. Addison, was his “ Present State of the Jews, more particularly relating to those in Barbary,” published in 1675, and dedicated to his former patron, now Sir Joseph Williamson and principal secretary of state. The intro- duction represents, that although the inveterate obstinacy of the Jews against the truth has justly rendered them the objects of the divine displeasure, yet “their primitive ancestry, religion and privileges, ought still to secure to them a great measure of regard, and that Christians ought to labor for the restoration of those whose fall was their rise, whose diminution their riches.’’

In the first chapter, a touching and compassionate view is given of the depressed and almost slavish condition of this people under the Moors; of the daily contumelies and injuries to which they are exposed, and their stoical endurance of them. ‘In the midst of the greatest abuses,’’ it is said, “you shall never see a Jew with an angry countenance, or appearing concerned, which can- not be imputed to any heroic temper in this people, but rather to their customary suffering, being born and bred to this kind of slavery.”’ 'The Moors, it appears, quiet their consciences on this head with a notion that the Jews do not descend from Adam, and that the end of their being was to serve the Moslem. There are no sects, we are told, among them, but whatever may be their pri- vate judgments, they are careful to preserve an outward uniform- ity, and are “signally vigilant to avoid divisions, as looking upon those among Christian professors to be an argument against the truth of the things they profess.”

Proceeding to delineate the moral character of this people, the author candidly declares that setting aside “their artifices of com- merce and collusions of trade,” they cannot be charged with any of those vicious practices ‘* which are grown into reputation with whole nations of Christians, to the scandal and contradiction of their name and profession. Fornication, adultery, drunkenness, gluttony, pride of apparel, &c., are so far from being in request with them, that they are scandalized at their frequent practice with Christians, and out of a malicious insinuation, are very sorry that any of their nation should give a name to, and die for a peo- ple of such vices.”’

JOSEPH ADDISON. 23

The account which follows of the religious opinions of the Jews of Barbary, in which they differ, it appears, “in many and important points from their brethren in other parts of the world,” is a clear and very interesting summary, evidently the result of learned as well as diligent inquiry into authorities, and capable as serving as a very instructive commentary on many passages of the New Testament, dark to the modern reader from ignorance of the popular opinions then and ever since prevalent among the Jews : to this;purpose, however, the author himself has not pointed. out its applicability. é;

A striking creed of seventeen articles is brought under the notice of the reader, accepted and revered by these Jews as of immemorial tradition, concerning which the writer permits him- self to affirm, that although many of the articles of faith “may be capable of a good construction, yet according to the present re- ceived interpretation thereof among the Jews, they are not so much a system of Judaism, as a cunning and malicious contradic- tion of Christianity. . . . For,’’ he adds, “ I have heard from one whose understanding in their religion had got him the title of a master, that there was not an article of their faith which they did not understand in a sense wholly opposite to Christianity. And taking a freedom to rail at our religion, in which they are all well gifted, he instanced in the eleventh article, (that God will recompense good to those who keep his commandments, and will punish those who transgress them,) as seeming to bear the least ill will to Christianity, and from thence warmly beat down all thoughts of redemption, with great assurance protesting, that he would have none to pay his debts, nor any but himself to justify divine justice for his sins . . . with a great deal more of the like stuff, even too heinous to be inserted.’’ ‘To those who have read the creed, the Doctor will here appear to have afforded an exam- ple of the proneness of a polemic to impute sinister motives to his opponent, and of his reluctance to permit him to carry out into their fair consequences the principles which he avowedly entertains.

A detailed and very interesting account is given of the educa- tion of these people, and it is candidly stated that “their care is very laudable in this particular, there not being many people in the world more watchful to have their children early tinctured with religion than the present Hebrews ;” and this is assigned as a principal cause of their unshaken adherence to their ancient faith. ; 4

A full account of the laws, usages and opinions, civil and reli-

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24 THE LIFE OF

OI his mn hn At ee gious, of these Jews, occupies the remainder of this piece, to which is appended, a “Summary Discourse concerning the He- brew Talmud, Misna, and Gemary.”’

On the whole, it is probable that Judaism had never before been delineated by a Christian writer in so kind or so equitable a spirit; and even at the present day it might be difficult to point out any piece in our language containing the same amount of accurate information respecting the Barbary Jews, as this now neglected and nearly forgotten work. There is far greater depth of thought in this than in the former publication of the author; the style also exhibits a marked improvement. Addison himself could scarcely, on the same subjects, have written better.

Having presented to the public in these pieces the fruits of his African residence, Dr. Addison began to exercise his pen on sub- jects more immediately connected with the duties of his profession, and the controversies of the time. He produced in succession, “The primitive Institution, or a seasonable Discourse of Cate- chising;’’ a tract with the remarkable title of « A modest Plea for the Clergy, wherein is briefly considered the Original, Antiquity and Necessity of that calling ; together with genuine and spurious Reasons of their present Contempt;’’ and “An Introduction to the Sacrament,” which proved so generally acceptable as to pass through repeated impressions. This piece is written with great plainness and bears the stamp of unaffected piety. The doctrine held in it with respect to the nature and efficacy of the rite, is not by any means what would have satisfied the followers of Andrews and of Laud,

A few pieces of minor importance closed the list of his publi- cations.

It was no more than a just sense of the honor due from him to such a parent, which inspired Joseph Addison, when at the sum- mit of his fortune and reputation, with the design of erecting in Lichfield cathedral a monument to his father, beneath which his own remains might likewise be deposited. Of this pious work

‘he did not live to see the completion ; and with respect to himself

the design was frustrated by his honorable interment in Westmin- ster Abbey. The tomb was completed however by his executors, with an inscription, the composition probably of Tickell, since a

copy of itin his handwriting now exists among his papers,—of which the following is a transcript.

JOSEPH ADDISON. “26

P.M. .~ LANCELOTI ADDISON S.T.P.

- AGRO WESTMORLANDIZ ORIUNDI,

IN COLL. REG. OXON. BONARUM LITERARUM PROFECTU, DIUTINIS PER EUROPAM AFRICAMQU. PEREGRINATIONIBUS RERUM PERITIA SPECTABILIS,

HUJUS TANDEM ECCLESIE DECANI, ET COVENTRIENSIS ARCHIDIACONI.

EXIMIAS NATURZ DOTES, MORUM INNOCENTIAM, b& BENEYOLENTIAM ERGA HOMINES, ET IN DEUM PIETATEM, LUCULENTUM, SI QUOD ALIUD, AB EO PATRIMONIUM ACCEPIT FILIUS EJUS NATU MAXIMUS, JOSEPHUS, SEHCULI SUI DECUS, QUI IN CONSORTIUM OPTIMI PARENTIS, DUM HOC MARMOR IPSI ADORNARET, PREPROPERA MORTE ADSCITUS EST. A.D. MDCCXIX.

Uxorem alteram habuit Janam...... Gulstone S.T.P. Filiam, et Gulielmi Gul- stone Episcopi Bristoliensis, Sororem, ex qu4 tres Filios et totidem Filias sus- cepit; Josephum, supra dictum, Gulstonum Fortalitii St. Georgii, in India Orien- tali Gubernatorem, Lancelotum Coll. Magd. Oxon. Socium. Janam et Annam, prima juventute defunctas, et Dorotheam, unicam ex tot liberis superstitem. Uxorem alteram duxit Dorotheam Johannis Danvers de Shackerson, in Agro Leicestriensi, Armigeri, Filiam, mortem Mariti, de se optim? meriti, adhue plo- rantem.

our. A.D. 17, mTAT. LXXxI. ss

Joseph Addison was born at Milston on May the first, 1672. It is probable that he owed his baptismal name to Sir Joseph Wil- liamson, his father’s patron. His younger brothers and sisters, as the inscription records, were Gulstone, so called from his mother’s family, a merchant and finally governor of Fort St. George in the East Indies, and Lancelot, who became a fellow of Magdalene College, Oxford. Of the sisters, two died young, the third, Doro- thy, was first married to Dr. Satre, refugee French minister from Montpellier, who became a prebendary of Westminster, and after- wards to Daniel Combes, Esq. Swift has described her as “a kind of a wit, and very like her brother.”

In Steele’s dedicatory letter to Congreve, prefixed to the comedy of the Drummer, the several’members of this distinguished family are thus commemorated. ‘Mr. Dean Addison, the father of this memorable man, left behind him four children, each of whom, for excellent talents and singular perfections, was as much above the ordinary world as their brother Joseph was above them.”

The only anecdote of the childhood of Addison which has come down to us, seems to indicate something of the constitu- tional sensitiveness which lay at the root of that reserve, or that modesty carried to bashfulness,—whichever it may best be called, —which attended him through life, without, however, perceptibly

26 THE LIFE OF

impeding his worldly success. Having, while at a country school in his father’s neighborhood, committed some trifling fault, the dread of punishment or disgrace so affected his imagination as to prompt him to make his escape into the fields and woods, where he is said to have subsisted on fruits, and lodged in a hollow tree, till discovered and brought back to his parents.

After some preliminary school education at Salisbury and Lich- field, places where his father’s eye would be over him, he was removed to the Charter-house, as a private pupil, not on the foundation, where he drank deep of the fountains of classical learning. ‘He employed his first years,’ says Tickell, “in the study of the old Greek and Roman writers; whose language and manner he caught at that time of life as strongly as other young people gain a French accent or a genteel air.”’

It was at the Charter-house, also, that he formed with one of his schoolfellows a friendship of great cordiality and long en- durance, which, from its results in after life, deserves to be classed among the most important circumstances in the histories of both. This schoolfellow was Richard Steele.

Born at Dublin, though of English parentage, Steele appears to have partaken much both of the habits and dispositions re- garded as characteristic of the Irishman. He was warm alike in his affections and his temper; gay, convivial, frank and gene- rous; of bright and lively parts, with an invention ever active and ingenious; but vain, ostentatious and recklessly profuse, and perpetually hurried along by his love of pleasure in courses contradictory to his strong religious convictions and his own better resolves. His, in fact, was one of those characters which often inspire the stronger interest from their very infirmities, through the alternate hopes and fears, praises and reproofs which they eall forth, as now the good, now the evil genius seems about to gain the ascendency. At this early period of life, his faults and follies would be esteemed light in the balance against his amiable dispositions and promising abilities, while the very opposition be- tween his bold and open temper, and the timidity and shyness of Addison’s, would offer an additional inducement to the cultivation of their intimacy. By a mutual communication of sentiments and designs, each might be enabled in some measure to supply the deficiencies, or mitigate the extremes of the other. We may therefore safely credit the testimony of Steele himself to the strong parental sanction under which. their friendship grew up and flourished.

“Were things of this nature,” he says, in the letter to Con-

JOSEPH ADDISON. 27

~~ t=

greve already cited, “to be exposed to public view, I could show under the dean’s own hand, in the warmest terms, his blessing on the friendship between his son and me; nor had he a child who did not prefer me in the first place of kindness and esteem, as their father loved me like one of them.”’

Of the two friends, Steele must have been somewhat the elder, since his baptism is dated in 1671; yet his entrance into Merton College is said not to have taken place till 1691, four years later than the admission of Addison at Queen’s. There may be some ' error here, but in any case, he must have been long the Oxford cotemporary of Addison, who did not leave the university till 1699.

Steele must have been destitute of patrimony, since he men- tions in one of his letters that he was indebted to his uncle Gas- coine for a liberal education. Of his academic career two facts only, but those significant ones, are recorded: that he wrote a comedy while at Oxford, and that he quitted it without a degree. Afterwards, under what stress of circumstances we are not in- formed, he entered the army as a trooper in the Horse Guards; an incident to which, after he had rendered himself formidable to the last ministry of Queen Anne as a political writer, he re- ferred in the following terms: “When he cocked his hat, and put on a broad-sword, jack-boots and shoulder-belt, under the command of the unfortunate Duke of Ormond, he was not ac- quainted with his own parts, and did not then know he should ever have been able (as he has since appeared to be in the case of Dunkirk), to demolish a fortified town with a goose-quill.”’

Even in this inferior station, however, he found means to exhibit his amiable qualities and social talents in so favorable a light as to gain him warm friends among his officers; and he was speedily rescued from his self-imposed degradation by the gift of an en- sign’s commission.

From this period, when the avocations of a military life must of necessity have broken off his habits of personal intercourse with the Oxford student, we hear nothing further of him till the pub- lication of his Christian Hero in 1701, at which time he had be- come private secretary to General Lord Cutts, to whom the piece is inscribed. Meantime his friend was pursuing a straighter path to literary fame and worldly advancement.

28 THE LIFE OF

WR nee

een

CHAPTER II. 1687 to 1695.

Addison at Oxford. Traditional notices of him there. His Latin verses. His acquirements. Designed for theChurch. Patronage of letters at this period.

* Zts results. His first English verses addressed to Dryden. Translation from the Georgics. Essay on the Georgics. Verses to Sacheverell on the English Poets. Lines by Garth.

Trapition has preserved to us few particulars concerning Ad- dison during his residence at Oxford; fewer by much than we might reasonably desire, on the consideration that the earlier periods of the life of a man of eminence, who was the architect of his own fortune, are necessarily the most fertile of interest and instruction. Of the steps of his academic progress, however, the following notices are derived from the highest authority.

He was removed from the Charter-house to Oxford in 1687, and entered of Queen’s College. Two years afterwards, the accidental sight of some of his Latin verses excited so much ad- miration in Dr. Lancaster, afterwards provost of that society, that he exerted himself to procure his admission into Magdalene Col- lege, of which he was elected Demy (semi-communarius), in 1689. That was called the golden election, because twice the usual number were admitted, there having been no election the year before, by reason of the quarrel between the college and James Il. Among those elected at the same time with Addison were the noted Sacheverell, Boulter, who became primate of Ire- Jand, and Smallbroke, afterwards a theologian of some note. Ad- dison became probationary Fellow in 1697, and actual Fellow the following year.* That he had long before his attainment of a

eee

* From the obliging information of the Rev. Dr. Routh, the President of Mag- dalene College.

Another early discoverer of Addison is indicated in the following letter writ- ten by Young to Tickell when preparing the posthumous edition of his works. The exercises alluded to appear to have escaped the search of his editor.

’ - March ist, 1738.

Dn. TrckeLt—I have now with me some gentlemen of Maudlin, who, giving an account of Dr. Farryer’s funeral, (who is succeeded in his professorship by Dr. Bertie of this college,) say Tom Collins made an affecting speech over him and among other points dilated on his being a means of discovering Mr. Addi- eons genius, and improving it by exercises imposed on him, which exercises he

- Eh Ti JOSEPH ADDISON. eat

fellowship engaged in the labor of tuition, we learn from the brief statement, that “ Sir John Harper is under Mr. Addison’s care at Magdalene,”’ contained in a letter of Mr. Smalridge’s without date, but certainly written about 1690.* Of his habits and dis- position the following notices are all that could now be collected at Oxford. That he was always very nervous; that he kept late hours ; and that most of his studies were after dinner ;—a cir- cumstance, it may be observed, pretty conclusive of the sobriety of his habits at this period.. A walk with rows of trees along the side of the college meadow, is still pointed outas his favorite haunt ; it continues to bear his name, and some of the trees are said to have been planted by him. The particular direction of his assiduous studies we are left to discover by the results; from these we may safely conclude them to have comprised the classi- cal authors, Greek and Latin, and a wide range in polite litera- ture. There is no appearance that the exact sciences ever obtained any great share of his attention; but he was not like Pope and Swift, chargeable with the arrogance and folly of de- crying and attempting to turn into ridicule subjects which he did not understand. It is evident that at this or some later stage of his progress he made himself a master in the art of criticism, and acquainted himself widely with systems of metaphysics ancient and modern, and distinct traces are discernible in his writings of a taste for natural history and a respectable proficiency in some of its branches.t His first destination was for the church, and it is

said in express terms, he hoped ye gentlemen now publishing that great man’s works, would search after, as being much too valuable to be neglected. I asked y@ gentlemen if they could guess in whose hands they were, who said. Tom Col- lins was ye man to be consulted. ,

Gr is this moment come in, who says he has writ to this purpose to Ox-

ford—Excuse therefore, dear sir, ; Yours most faithfully, E. Youne.

(Tickell Papers.)

* See Mr. Smalridge to Mr. Gough, in Atterbury’s Correspondence (edition in 5 volumes), i. 28, 29.

+ Thus the Spectator represents his friend Sir Roger as joking him on pass- ing so much of his time among his poultry. ‘‘ He has caught me twice or thrice looking after a bird’s nest, and several times sitting an hour or two together near an hen and chicken. He tells me he believes I am personally acquainted with every fowl about his house; calls such a particular cock my favorite, and frequently complains that his ducks and geese have more of my company than himself. I must confess that I am infinitely delighted with those speculations of nature which are to be made in a country life; and as my reading has lain very much among books of natural history, I cannot forbear recollecting upon this occasion the several remarks which I have met with in authors, and com- paring them with what falls under my own obseryation.’? This passage serves as preface to some beautiful remarks on instinct, occupying the remainder of

THE LIFE OF

probable that moral and theological topics had begun already to engage his attention. It was the fortune of Addison to enter life

~~" ata period which, whether or not the merits of its writers have

justly earned for it the appellation of the Augustan age of Eng- land,—a much disputed question,—is clearly entitled to be dis- tinguished as the age of Mecenases. Such was the power of fashion in this point, that no sooner did a new aspirant announce himself in any of the walks of elegant literature, than the dedi- cation of his first work and the character of his patron, became almost an object of contention among the great. Not an author of any class, however slender his talents, was long unnoticed or unfriended by some person of eminence ;—as an infallible, how- ever unhappy consequence, there was scarcely any man of letters who long preserved his natural freedom, or stood clear of the reproach of interested adulation. ‘This state of things was not indeed entirely novel. Learned incense had long been a market- able commodity both in England and on the continent. For nearly half a century, Louis XIV. had carried on the splendid traffic of pensions for eulogy with the greater part of the literati of Europe, and to this wholesale patronage, his courtiers and even historians of his reign, have not scrupled to ascribe the rising of that constellation of great writers by which his * Age’”’ was distin- guished. But that heaven-born genius could be actually created by the fiat of a despot, and for the low purpose of ministering to his vanity and ostentation, is surely a faith too enormous to have been seriously entertained. Louis himself lived to exhaust al- most all the distinguished ability which had contributed to the glories of his earlier years, and it was in general replaced by me- diocrity. In England, adulation itself would have blushed to ascribe to the influence of its successive sovereigns the ripening of a corresponding “ harvest of the mental year.” Nothing is more notorious than the disregard of good letters and their pro- fessors evinced by Charles II., whose smiles and bounties were engrossed by the ministers of his passions and pleasures, and afterwards by his brother, whose whole soul was absorbed by his enterprises against the religion and liberties of his subjects. The hero William, occupied with the art of war and the destinies of Europe, was equally destitute of leisure, and very probably of

a

this paper, and the whole of the following (Nos. 120-1) and evincing considera- ble acquaintance with the subject.

See also two letters to the young Earl of Warwick, hereafter to be quoted, in which the writer invites him to a concert of singing birds.

JOSEPH ADDISON. 31

taste, for the encouragement of elegant literature. The passive partner of his throne, on whom he chiefly devolved the ecclesias- tical patronage of the crown, although sufficiently accessible and gracious to churchmen who had distinguished themselves by the zealous avowal of revolution-principles, is not recorded as having bestowed either acts or words of favor on the poets or general writers of the time. In fact, superioras Mary undoubtedly was in character and capacity to the dull and feeble-minded Anne, there is no reason to believe that she had received higher mental cul- ture than her sister, or that she would have betrayed less of apathy than was afterwards exhibited by this princess to the brilliant manifestations of literary genius which surrounded her. William, however, little as he was disposed to court those blandishments of the Muses in which his great opponent reveled with so much self-complacency, had doubtless marked with the eye of a politician the rapidly augmenting influence exerted through the press on public opinion. Hence he was never slow to lend his sanction to those acts of favor and bounty which his ministers suggested to him, as the means of retaining the best pens for the defence of those great maxims of civil liberty on which his throne was founded. This new perception it was, of the utility of men of letters as political partisans, which gave rise to a patronage of writers by rival statesmen: under William and Anne, so comprehensive as scarcely to stop short of placing every name of the smallest celebrity in the long list of pensioners and placemen.*

It can scarcely be supposed that the wary and observant spirit of Addison at any time overlooked the encouragement to political partizanship afforded by this state of things; yet in the earlier productions of his muse, it was to the attainment of reputation as the poet and the scholar that his efforts were chiefly directed.

We have already seen, that a specimen of his skill in the com- position of Latin verse had been the means of gaining for him, in his eighteenth year, a demyship of Magdalene college; and in this art he continued occasionally to exercise himself during the whole period of his residence at Oxford. His first attempt in

* Voltaire, struck with the different kinds of patronage of the learned prac- tised at this period in England and in his own country, remarked, with reference to the brilliant success of Addison, that had he been born in France, he would have been elected a member of one of the academies, and by some female influence might have obtained a yearly pension of 1200 livres: or else might have been imprisoned in the Bastile, on pretence that certain strokes in his tragedy of Cato had been discovered to glance at the porter of some man of

quality.

32 THE LIFE OF

i TTT it, OO ee English verse which has come down to us, was a short’ piece ad- dressed in 1693 to Dryden, then descending into the vale of years, and compelled by that penury from which neither his surpassing genius nor his unwearied industry had exempted him, to occupy with the servile task of translation the remnant of his days. ‘The gentle office of cheering the aged bard at his labors by praise and sympathy, was not less congenial to the disposition of the youthful aspirant than creditable to his taste and discernment. With all the ardor of genuine feeling he congratulates the vete- ran on a fire unquenchable by the injuries of time,—a “second youth rekindled in his breast ;” and he compliments him on having heightened the majesty of Virgil,* given new charms to Horace, lent to Persius “smoother numbers and a clearer style,” and set a new edge on the satire of Juvenal. Ovid is referred to as his present task, and a fervent prayer is breathed, that neither age nor sickness may impede him, till his Ovid, thus transformed, shall “reveal,

*¢ A nobler change than he himself can tell.’

Soon afterwards, the ambition of emulating what he praised, engaged Addison himself in a translation of the second Georgic, of which the elder poet complaisantly remarked, after this, ‘my second swarm is scarce worth the hiving.”’t This courtesy was again requited on the part of the younger, by the humble but welcome service of supplying arguments to most of the books of the Awneid, and by the present of a critical essay on the Georgics, which Dryden printed as a preface to his own translations, but, by the special desire of the author, without his name. ‘To write a preface for Dryden, whose performances in this kind are both the first specimens in our language of literary criticism, worthy of at- tention, and still among the best models of English prose,—was indeed an undertaking too hazardous to be avowed by any literary novice. ‘lo have received no foil in such an enterprise, was, if not a higher, certainly a more valuable distinction, than to have reaped laurels in the fields of Latin verse. The essay on the Georgics, though interesting almost solely as the trial-piece of Addison in a kind of writing of which he afterwards became so eminent a master, has nothing, however, in the style to mark it as a juvenile composition. ‘I'he diction is very elegant, but rather

* His entire translation of this poet had not yet appeared, but specimens had been given in his Miscellany,

+ According to Mr. Macaulay, Dryden’s compliment referred to Addison’s version of the fourth Georgic.

*

‘tame. The tone of the remarks is calm, judicious, and tasteful;

JOSEPH ADDISON. 33

~~

and though the piece exhibits no depth of thought or of learning, it answers the most valuable end of popular criticism; that of re- commending, and pointing out to the observation of inexperienced readers, the characteristic excellences of a great master and a noble work. “After this particular account of the beauties in the Georgics,” says the modest writer, “I should in the next place endeavor to point out its imperfections, if it has any. But though I think there are some few parts in it that are not so beautiful as the rest, I shall not presume to name them, as rather distrusting my own judgment, than I can believe a fault to be in that poem which lay so long under Virgil’s correction, and had his last hand put to it.””. Such was the deference for established and merited reputation with which one youthful critic judged it decent to enter upon his office !

Another proof of the literary diligence of Addison at this period of his life, and also of what Dr. Johnson seemed to doubt, his sound-Greek scholarship, has recently come to light. From let- ters preserved in the family of Tonson the bookseller, it appears that he engaged in the important enterprise of a translation of Herodotus, a part to be executed, and the whole superintended, by himself. ‘The exact period of this undertaking is unknown, for the letters are without date of year; but it was evidently dur- ing his residence at Oxford, and from one expression, it seems as if Dryden’s translation of Virgil was then in progress. From what causes this work was never given to the public, we are not

‘informed, nor do we learn how much of it was executed, except-

ing that Addison’s two books were completed. The English translation made by Isaac Littlebury, which remained for about a century the only one, was published in 1709.

The letters relative to this translation follow :—

MR. ADDISON TO MR. TONSON.

Dear Sir,—I was yesterday with Dr. Hannes,* and communi- cated your request to him. I told him that Dr. Blackmore, Mr. Adams, Mr. Boyle and myself had engaged'in it, and that you had gained a kind of promise from Dr. Gibbons, so that he could not plead want of time. The Doctor seemed particularly solicitous about the company he was to appear in, and would fain hear all

* Dr. Hannes was residing as a practising physician at Oxford. He was a contributor to the Muse Anglicane.

3

34 THE LIFE OF

the names of the translators. In short he told me that he did not know how to deny Mr. Tonson any request that he made, and therefore if you would desire it, he’d undertake the last Muse. | I would fain have you write to the Doctor and engage him in it, for his name would much credit the work among Us,* and pro- mote the sale. As for myself, if you remember I told you that I did not like my Polymnia, if therefore I can do you any service, I will if you please translate the eighth book, Urania, which if you will send me down, you need not fear any delays in the translation. I was walking this morning with Mr. Yalden, and asked him when we might expect to see Ovid “ de arte Amandi” in English; he told me he thought you had dropped the design since Mr. Dryden’s translation of Virgil had been undertaken, but that he had done his part almost a year ago, and had it lying by him, &c. Iam afraid he had done little of it..... I believe a letter from you about it would set him at work. He takes care to convey my pieces of Herodotus to you. Iam, sir, your humble serv‘.

Feb, 12!» To Mr. Jacob Tonson, at the sign of the Judge’s Head near ‘emple Bar in Fleet St. London, '

MR. ADDISON TO MR. TONSON,

Dear Sir,—I received your parcel about the beginning of last week, and not being able to find Dr. Hannes at home, have left his part with his servitor. I shall see him next week, and if I find it necessary, will let you know what he says. I shall have but little business about the latter end of Lent, and then will set about my Muse, which I’ll take care to finish by your time...

You shall have your Urania the beginning of this week, &c.

MR. ADDISON TO MR. TONSON,.

..+.T have been so very full of business since the receipt of your papers, that [ could not possibly find time to translate them so soon as I desired. I have now almost finished them..... Mr, Clay tells me he let you know the misfortune Polymnia met with upon the road.....

Your discourse with me about translating Ovid, made such an impression on me at my first coming down from London, that I ventured on the second book, which I turned at my leisure hours,

PAE RAN

SAN

Lest

* Us at Oxford must be understood.

JOSEPH ADDISON. 35

and will give you a sight of it, if you will give yourself the trouble of reading it. He has so many silly stories with his good ones, that he is more tedious to translate than a better poet would be. But though I despair of serving you this way, I hope I may find out some other to show you how much I am yours, &c.

May 28",

The second book of Ovid, and, afterwards, the third book and part of the fourth, were all that Addison ever accomplished of this author ; they appeared first in a volume of the Miscellany Poems, and were republished by Tickell. That Addison’s poetical trans- lations “‘ want the exactness of a scholar” has been remarked by Dr. Johnson, and doubtless they must be reckoned free, or lax ones. It should be recollected, however, that the notion,—surely a very erroneous one respecting translation, especially of poetry, —then generally received was, that the ancient or foreign writer should be rendered into such a style as it might be supposed that he would have written had he been an Englishman and the co- temporary of his translator, and it is difficult to say what room is left on this principle for “the accuracy of a scholar,” except in avoiding evident mistakings of the sense, and of these he is by no means accused. The same high authority, however, has done justice to the powers of subtile and refined criticism displayed by Addison in the notes, which in fact amount almost to a commen- tary, and add to particular remarks, judicious observations on the pervading manner of the writer. In these notes will be found the first draught of that system of pure taste which he reproduced in its finished state in his admirable Spectators on True and False wit. Great indeed and rapid had been his advancement in the arts of criticism and of composition since the production of his timid essay on the Georgics!

-He now produced in the form of an epistle to his academical cotemporary and companion Mr. Henry Sacheverel,—whose sister is said to have been at this time the lady of his affections,—* An account of the greatest English poets, from Chaucer to Dryden.” This piece, on the whole, does him far less credit as a critic than the prose essay just mentioned, without entirely compensating this inferiority by its poetical merits, It was held cheap by its author in his riper years, and never reprinted by himself from the mis- cellany where it first appeared; but it was included by Tickell in the posthumous edition of his works. Asa record, however, of his estimates of native writers, at a period of life when it is probable that his tastes and opinions would mostly be those professed in the

36 THE LIFE OF

4

learned body to which he belonged, it deserves an attentive con- sideration. ‘The prepossessions of the youth are never without influence on the mature performances of the man.

By way of preliminary, it may be well to remind the reader that this work was produced at a peculiarly unfavorable juncture. Dry- den was the only living poet of eminent genius, and it was in pur- ity of taste rather than in fervor of imagination that his successors were to excel. Readers had learned, chiefly in the French school of criticism, to require of their poets great accuracy in the use of language, a stricter control of judgment over the flights of fancy, and a finer and more uniform polish, than had satisfied their less fastidious ancestors. These excellences, however, had not yet been attained. Garth and Addison himself, the destined chiefs of the correct, or classical school, were at present only tuning their instruments; and the sole effect of these new ideas as yet percep- tible, was an unusual aggravation of the disdain with which, in periods of rapid progress, every age is disposed to look back upon ils immediate predecessors. The vigor, the raciness, the exube- rant fancy, the exquisite strains of melody which immortalize the venerable fathers of English verse, were unable to redeem them from neglect or scorn. It was presumptuously assumed that all excellence, all skill, and especially all taste, was but of yesterday ; and even the times of Elizabeth, now celebrated as our Augustan reign, were reckoned into the “ barbarous ages.’’ Such a state of public feeling may serve to explain, and in some measure to excuse, what must else be stigmatized as the unaccountable and unpardonable injustice perpetrated by our youthful critic against two imperishable names in the following passage :—

*¢ Long had our dull forefathers slept supine, Nor felt the raptures of the tuneful Nine, Till Chaucer first, a merry bard, arose, And many a story told, in rhyme and prose’; But age has rusted what the poet writ, | Worn out his language, and obscured his wit: In vain he jests in his unpolish’d strain, And tries to make his readers laugh, in vain. Old Spenser next, warm’d with poetic rage, In ancient tales amused a barbarous age; An age that yet uncultivate and rude, Where’er the poet’s fancy led, pursued, Thro? pathless fields and unfrequented floods, To dens of dragons and enchanted woods. ; But now the mystic tale, that pleased of yore, Can charm an understanding age no more; The long spun allegories fulsome grow, While the dull moral lies too plain below.”

Pb

: JOSEPH ADDISON. 37

It is satisfactory to know that the last of these rash sentences was modified on an appeal from Addison ignorant to Addison bet- ter informed. He is said by Spence,—a very indifferent autho- rity indeed,—to have confessed that he had never read Spenser when he wrote the lines; and we find him, long after, making an indirect amende honorable in his paper on True and False wit in the Spectator, where, after observing that « Milton had a genius much above false wit,’’ he adds that “ Spenser is in the same class with Milton.” “Great Cowley,” a “mighty genius,” is com- mended with more effort than skill; in remarking on his lavish Seagee of wit and thought, the poet stumbled on the luckless ine,

**He more had pleased us, had he pleased us less,??

which, long years afterwards, Pope gratified his surviving malig- 7. against the dead, by inserting among the examples in his “Treatise on the Bathos.”” Few probably even among the sincere admirers of Cowley, would now concur in the kind of praise here given to his Pindarics; still fewer in the concluding tribute to his episcopal editor and eulogist : *< Blest man! whose spotless life and charming lays

Employ’d the tuneful prelate in thy praise ;

Blest man! who now shall be for ever known

By Sprat’s successful Jabors and thy own’!??

Milton is next named, and a rapturous burst of admiration and delight succeeds, evidently from the heart, and expressed with characteristic grace, though not with appropriate energy. It con- cludes, however, with an,

‘¢O had the poet ne’er profaned his pen To varnish o’er the guilt of faithless men!” and the demerits of the political partisan seem, in the estimate of the critic, to neutralize the praises due to Paradise Lost.

Waller is characterized with some elegance, but the wish ex- pressed after the couplet,

** Thy verse can show e’en Cromwell’s innocence,

And compliment the storm that bore him hence,’? that his muse had not “come an age too soon,” but had survived to celebrate “ great Nassau” and “ his Maria’? on the throne, is, to say the least of it, peculiarly unfortunate in its juxtaposition, After a civil salute to Roscommon and Denham on his way, he summons all his powers for those happy lines, once familiar to every reader:

—

38 THE LIFE OF

ee

‘¢ But see where artful Dryden next appears, Grown old in rhyme, but charming e’en in years, Great Dryden next, whose tuneful Muse affords The sweetest numbers and the fittest words. Whether in comic sounds or tragic airs She forms her voice, she moves our smiles or tears. ‘Ifsatire or heroic strains she writes,

' Her hero pleases and her satire bites. From her no harsh unartful numbers fall, ‘ She wears all dresses, and she charms in all.’

Now that the dramatic works of Dryden are nearly forgotten, while those of Congreve are the only performances of his which keep him in remembrance, it isa kind of surprise to find him proceeding thus:

¢¢ How might we fear our English poetry, That long has flourished, should decay with thee, Did not the Muse’s other hope appear, Harmonious Congreve, and forbid our fear: Congreve! whose fancy’s unexhausted store Has given already much, and promis’d more, Congreve shall still preserve thy name alive,

2h, And Dryden’s Muse shall in his friend survive.’?

It is perhaps still more extraordinary that Dryden himself, in an address to Congreve on his comedy of the Double Dealer, should have complimented him as the destined future wearer of his own laurel. He had as yet published nothing but a noveland two prose comedies, and except that some of his occasional poems, —performances, it must be said, of very slender merit,—were pro- bably already printed in the miscellanies, we should be led to imag- ine that the drama was considered by these high authorities as forming a species of poetry in itself, without regard to the cir- cumstance of its being written in verse or prose. More probably, however, this is one of the frequent instances in which the par- tiality, or flattery, of cotemporaries has ventured upon auguries of future success and glory which have been falsified by the event. In this case, we must likewise make allowance for the unusual dearth of poetical genius at the time.

No other dramatists, not even Shakspeare, is found in this scanty catalogue of English poets; but ‘justice demands,’’ says our author, that «The noble Montague” should not be left unsung, «For wit, for humor and for judgment famed,” and who, besides, addressing Lord Dorset, In numbers such as Dorset’s self might use,”” had adorned his lines with the “ god-like acts’ of the hero of the Boyne. He adds,

‘But now to Nassau’s secret councils rais?’d, He aids the hero whom before he prais’d.?

JOSEPH ADDISON. 39

Possibly we may be allowed to infer from the last couplet, that it

was as much to the statesman as the poet, that the homage of Ad” dison was in this instance offered. The poem concludes with an expression of the author’s intention to quit poetry and prepare to tell of “greater truths.’’*

It may be interesting to compare with this poem of Addison’s, a passage in Garth’s Dispensary, written not many years after- wards, indeed, yet when the catalogue of living English poets had already received some important accessions, including that of Addison himself. It will be seen that Congreve and Montague still retained in the estimation of the best cotemporary judges a reputation which, as poets, they have totally lost with posterity: so capricious is literary taste, so Table to be affected by temporary or personal considerations.

*¢In sense and numbers if you would excel, Read Wycherley, consider Dryden well. In one, what vigorous turns of fancy shine ! In th’ other Sirens warble in each line! If Dorset’s sprightly Muse but touch the lyre, The Smiles and Graces melt in soft desire, And little Loves confess their am’rous fire. The gentle Isis claims the ivy crown ‘To bind th? immortal brows of Addison. As tuneful Congreve tries his rural strains, Pan quits the woods, the list’ning, Fauns the lain, And Philomel in notes like his complains ; And Britain sincet Pausanias was writ, Knows Spartan virtue and Athenian wit. When Stepney paints the godlike acts of kings, Or what Apollo dictates Prior sings, The banks of Rhine a pleas’d attention show, And silver Sequana forgets to flow. ....’Tis Montague’s rich vein alone must prove, None but a Phidias should attempt a Jove.’ The Dispensary, Cant. iv. 1. 207.

—P POO PLP PPLE AAS

* All the early pieces of Addison referred to in this chapter, together with his translation from Virgil, and of the story of Salmacis from Ovid were published in the third and fourth vols. of Miscellany Poems. London, 1693, 1694. See Wood’s Athen Oxon. by Bliss, vol. iv. col. 603,

t By Mr. Norton.

&

40 THE LIFE OF ©

. CHAPTER III. 1695 to 1700.

Poems on public occasions why generally failures. Lines of Addison to the king. To Lord Somers, who becomes his patron. Account of Somers. Latin poem on the peace inscribed to Charles Montague. Account of him. He patronises Addison. Addison reluctant to take orders. Different causes assigned for it. Montague’s share in it. He and Somers procure him a pen- sion from the king to travel. Publication of Muse Anglicane. Account of his Latin poems. His celebration of Dr. Burnet’s theory, Boileau’s remarks on his poems. He sets out on his travels. His letters to several friends. Takes up his residence at Blois. His mode of lifethere. Letters. Friendship and correspondence with Wortley Montague. Letters to Bishop Hough and others.

Ir was another of the unfavorable results of that activity of the spirit of literary patronage which, with its causes, has been already adverted to, that it tempted the poets to an injudicious choice of themes. Extraordinary as it may at first sight appear, facts will bear out the assertion, that public events of the day, whatever their nature or magnitude, however agitating to the passions or import- ant to the destinies of a people, have scarcely ever, in a single instance, served for the foundation of an excellent poem. Even the laureate strains of Dryden, though abounding in those flashes of brightness which his genius could not help emitting, form no just exception to the rule. Victories and peace-makings, royal accessions and births and marriages, so long as they continue topics for the gazette, have always about them too much of vulgar notoriety, too much of the everyday notions and phrases of every man, not to be the scorn and disgust of the Muses. Their sacred flame, we might say, is never kindled at the parish bonfire. Yet these are precisely the topics on which poems are wont to be commanded, or likely to be rewarded, by the rulers of the state.

The embarrassments attending a scanty allowance, and the ne- cessity of seeking patronage, betimes, as the only passport to the emoluments and dignities of the profession which he purposed to embrace, strongly persuaded Addison to this employment of his talents; and on the return of his majesty from the continent, after the campaign of 1695, the young Oxonian offered him the homage of what was then styled, “a paper of verses.” The great event of the year, the capture of Namur in sight of the whole French |

JOSEPH ADDISON. 41

army under Villeroi, who feared to risk a battle for its relief, sup- plies, as might be supposed, the prominent theme of eulogy ; and in fact it was an action which greatly advanced the military repu- tation of William. The poet, however, has taken occasion to cast a backward glance upon his former éxploits, not omitting the battle of the Boyne; and to celebrate the race of Nassau, as

4 “¢ By heav’n design’d To curb the proud oppressors of mankind ; To bind the tyrants of the earth with laws, And fight in ev’ry injured nation’s cause, The world’s great patriots,”’-—

while of the immediate hero of his verse he says, not unhappily,

‘¢ His toils for no ignoble ends design’d, Promote the common welfare of mankind; No wild ambition moves, but Europe’s fears, The cries of orphans and the widow’s tears ; Oppress’d Religion gives the first alarms, And injured Justice sets him in his arms; His conquests freedom to the world afford, And nations bless the labors of his sword.’

This address, therefore, is to be regarded less in the light of a mere laureate effusion of court compliment, than a deliberate as- sertion of Whig principles, in which, through whatever means he caine by them, born of such a father and educated at Oxford, the life-long perseverance of Addison through all changes of fortune is a sufficient pledge of his sincerity. He prefaced his poem like- wise, with what Dr. Johnson scornfully designates, “a kind of rhyming introduction to Lord Somers.”’ Fortunately for their author, his unpretending, and certainly elegant lines, experienced a more generous reception from the illustrious statesman to whom they were inscribed,—himself an ardent cultivator of literature, and justly commended, in this very piece, as, “above degrading envy.’ The “present of a muse unknown,” was accepted with characteristic urbanity, and rewarded by a request tosee the author.

From this first introduction, Somers, attracted doubtless by a classic elegance of mind, clothed, like his own, in all the graces of native modesty, adopted the patronage of Addison with the zeal of real friendship; such favor, and from such a personage, could not fail of exerting a decided influence, both on the feelings and judgments of its object. In his politica] capacity, Addison would assuredly have made no difficulty in avowing himself the disciple of Somers; and a slight sketch of the character and ca- reer of this memorable statesman will thus cast a reflected light on his own.

.

42 THE LIFE OF

’ Somers was born at Worcester in 1651, and received the rudi- ments of education at the collegiate school of that city. His enemies have reproached him with a low extraction; it is evident, however, that his father, who practised as an attorney, could have been destitute neither of fortune nor liberality, since it was as a gentleman-commoner that he entered his son of Trinity College, Oxford. Swift, writing to Lord Bolingbroke, then-in exile, and consoling his lordship’s disappointed ambition, and his own, by bitterly remarking on the good success of «men of a lower degree of discretion and regularity,’ both in rising to high offices, and in filling them, and the contrary results attending on men of genius in the administration of public affairs, adds, “I know but one exception, and that was Lord Somers, whose timorous nature, joined with the trade of a common lawyer, and the consciousness of a mean extraction, had taught him the regularity of an alder- man or a gentleman usher.’ From this casual remark of a bitter enemy, and one who was beyond the reach of scruples in vilify- ing those whom he hated, we may learn, that while no one dared to refuse to Somers the character of a man of genius, he possessed likewise the qualities of a punctual and methodical man of busi- ness, invaluable in the high public offices to which his merit raised him. ‘The reproach of timorousness is sufficiently refuted by the whole tenor of his political conduct.

It appears that he was early admitted on the terms of a familiar companion at the country seat of the young earl, afterwards duke, of Shrewsbury, in the convivialities of which, enlivened as they were, with the sallies of wit and the play of fancy, he is said to have partaken, like the duke himself, too freely for his constitu- tion. Being destined by his father to pursue the law in earnest and as a profession, Somers quitted the university without taking a degree, but not without having imbibed a strong passion for literature, of which he still found leisure to afford some proof by contributions to the miscellaneous translations, both of Plutarch’s lives and Ovid’s epistles. But politics were his true element, and, moved with patriotic indignation against the measures of the court towards the latter end of the reign of Charles II., he com- menced his inestimable services to the cause of English liberty by a succession of tracts on all the important questions of that alarming period, as they arose. He ably supported the Exclu- sion Bill by his pen; and having established his reputation at the bar by his defence, in 1683, of the sheriffs of London and others accused of a riot, he afterwards augmented it to the highest pitch by his appearance as counsel for the seven bishops under James II.

JOSEPH ADDISON. 43

In common with his early friend, the Earl of Shrewsbury, Somers was deep in the counsels for bringing over the Prince of Orange; and in the Convention-parliament, where he represented his native city, he managed with great dexterity the conference with the lords concerning the critical word abdicate. For these services he was rewarded by King William in 1689 with the office of solicitor-general; three years afterwards he became at- torney-general, then keeper of the seals, and still rising in esteem with the public through his ability and integrity as a magistrate, and the meekness with which his faculties were borne, and with ~ his royal master as a minister on whom, in the midst of almost universal perfidy, he could place firm reliance, he was elevated in 1695 to the dignity of lord chancellor and the peerage. On this occasion his good taste prompted him to employ the pen of Addison in the honorary office of drawing up the preamble to his patent. Lord Somers was soon after solicited to add to his political and professional honors the literary one of the presidency of the Royal Society, then rising into reputation and importance. Of this institution, John Evelyn, that model of a meritorious English gentleman, was one of the original founders and most active managers; and partly from the opportunities of personal acquaintance thus afforded him, he was enabled to draw for pos- terity the following sketch of its President.

“Jt is certain that this chancellor was a most excellent law- yer, very learned in all polite literature, a superior pen, master of a handsome style, and of easy’conversation; but he is said to make too much haste to be rich, as his predecessor and most in place in this age did, to a more prodigious excess than was ever known,’’*

With regard to the serious charge which here counterbalances so much commendation, and from a person of adverse politics, it may be freely admitted, that the general charge brought against the public men of these times, of unexampled rapacity, is per- fectly well-founded. It originated probably in the universal both profusion and corruption of the government of Charles II., and especially in the extraordinarily brief and precarious tenure by which all offices were held under the profligate rulers of that unworthy sovereign. It was natural for those to catch with a greedy grasp at present profit, who could place so little depend- ence on the future; and the same excuse, whatever be its force, must in fairness be extended to the official persons of several

~

—~_—~_~eVoeooro * Evelyn’s Memoirs, iii. 382.

44 THE LIFE OF

<u ITE ete cc, eS succeeding reigns, forming a period of balanced parties, active political intrigue, and frequent ministerial revolutions. With re- gard to Lord Somers in particular, he held a place of the most uncertain duration, and in which, from its allowing of no retum to legal practice, he had need to avail himself of all honest expe- dients as a protection against absolute penury whenever a poli- tical change should throw him out of play. On the removal of his incompetent successor, Sir Nathan Wright, this highest legal dignity was refused by several eminent lawyers to whom it was successively tendered; and it was only accepted at length by Lord Cowper on the equitable, but novel stipulation of a retiring pension of 20007. If, therefore, as is probable, Evelyn’s charge against Somers is founded only on the grants of crown lands which he obtained, as necessary for the support of the rank to which it had pleased his sovereign to elevate him, there is but little ground for it. . Of venality or corruption in his office he has never lain under the slightest suspicion.

The favorable reception granted to the inspirations of his loyal Muse by one minister of state, naturally disposed Addison to re- peat the experiment; and in 1697 he produced a second celebration of the glory of William in a Latin poem on the peace of Ryswick, which he presented to the first commissioner of the Treasury, the same Montagu whom he had before celebrated in English verse as a poet.

If a second patron were to be sought, Addison could not have made a selection in every respect more appropriate; while Somers was the chief of the Whig administration in the House of Lords, Montagu was its leader in the Commons, where his elo- quence, his constitutional zeal and knowledge, and his political dexterity, were equally conspicuous; and as a patron of letters his name already stood pre-eminent. Like Somers, this cele- brated person, better known by his later designation of Earl of Halifax, owed his elevation to his talents ; although he was of noble extraction. Charles Montagu, descended in a right line from the chief justice of that name, was a younger son of a younger brother of that Earl of Manchester who was general of the parliament’s army during the civil wars. According to the information of Dr. Johnson, it was the practice of Busby to detain his brightest pupils as long as possible under his own tuition ; and it is therefore to be taken as a testimony both to the genius and the classical proficiency of Montagu, that he had attained the age of majority before he quitted Westminster school for Cam-

JOSEPH ADDISON. 45

bridge, in 1682, with the design of qualifying himself to enter the church,

In accordance with the taste and practice of the most disgrace- ful period of English history, he first exhibited himself as a can- didate for poetical celebrity in two pieces of court flattery; an Ode on the marriage of the Princess Anne, and verses on the death of Charles Il. The last perforrnance had the good for- tune to attract the notice of the Mecenas of that time, the Earl of Dorset, who immediately invited the author to London, and intro- duced him to the wits. Soon after, he gave an indication of a freer and less courtly turn of mind, by joining Prior in the com- position of “The Country and City Mouse,”—a parody on Dry- den’s celebrated defence and panegyric of the Church of Rome, “The Hind and Panther.’ This fact might at least have shel- tered him from Pope’s reproach, that, “ Dryden alone escaped this judging eye ;’’ while the admission of the satirist that his Bufo, « Helped to burn whom he helped to starve,” proves that this true patron of letters knew how to honor as a poet him on whom he had poured just contempt as a mercenary apostate.

Consistently with his principles, Montagu was one of those who signed the invitation to the Prince of Orange; and having now given up all thoughts of the church, he obtained a seat in the Convention-parliament. Under the reign of William a pension was conferred upon him, in acknowledgment of his eminent ser- vices as a parliamentary debater, and he rose by two or three suc- cessive steps to the head of the treasury board, having proved his ability for this branch of the public service, by his successful management of the difficult business of a re-coinage, and the es- tablishment of the first sinking-fund.

_ From the facts which came out at a subsequent period, when he was impeached by the House of Commons, but shielded by the Lords, it is pretty clear that he had been guilty of some impro- per and irregular practices in his official capacity ; and he seems to have died too rich for his honor. He was splendid, however, in his establishment and his collections of books and objects of art, and his extensive patronage of men of letters was a credit both to himself and his country; although it may well be true, that « fed with soft dedication all day long,’ he grew too fond of that inflating food. Asa politician, though certainly not free from self-interest, he deserves the praise of enlightened views, manly principles, and an honorable consistency. When Addison first addressed himself to Montagu he was at the summit of his power ; no imputation had as yet fallen on his conduct; and there was

46 ‘THE LIFE OF

certainly not a writer in the country who would have regarded his notice and favor otherwise than as one of the first objects of © ambition. The advances of the rising poet were received by this discerning patron with all the cordiality he could have hoped or desired.

Addison had now attained the age of 25; he had spent ten years in the University, and it was four since he had taken his Master’s degree. His residence in college, notwithstanding his fellowship and the resource of pupils, brought him so little of emolument that he was still burdened with debts. His father had Jong been urgent with him to put a period to his general studies, and proceed to take orders; nevertheless he still continued to defer that irrevocable step, like one waiting upon fortune. Tickell, in his brief memoir, has expressed himself on the causes of this backwardness in the following terms: ‘ Of some other copies of verses printed in the Miscellanies when he was young, the largest is, ‘ An account of the greatest English poets,’ in the close of which he intimates a design he then had of going into holy orders, to which he was strongly importuned by his father. His remarkable seriousness and modesty, which might have been urged as power- ful reasons for his choosing that life, proved the chief obstacles to it. These qualities, by which the priesthood is so much adorned, represented the duties of it as too weighty for him; and rendered him still the more worthy of that honor which they made him decline. It is happy that this circumstance has since turned so much to the advantage of virtue and religion, in the cause of which he has bestowed his labors the more successfully, as they were his voluntary, not his necessary employment. ‘The world became insensibly reconciled to wisdom and goodness, when they saw them recommended by him with at least as much spirit and elegance as they had been ridiculed for half a century.”

On this passage, which perhaps deserved some reprehension for the abjectness of spirit which it unwarily imputed to a man of wit and genius whose after. career certainly evinced no such undue opinion of his own incapacity even for high and difficult stations, —Steele, with a true zeal for the memory of his friend, inflamed however by jealousies and personal resentments against Tickell, thus indignantly remarks; “As the imputation of any the least attempt of arrogating to myself, or detracting from Mr. Addison, is without any color of truth, you (t. e., Mr. Congreve, to whom the letter is addressed), will give me leave to go on in the same ardor towards him, and resent the cold, unaflectionate, dry, and barren manner in which this gentleman gives an account of as

JOSEPH ADDISON. 47

/

great a benefactor as any one learned man ever had of another. . ... Asfor the facts and considerable periods of his life, he either knew nothing of them, or injudiciously places them in a worse light than that in which they really stood. When he speaks of Mr. Addison’s declining to go into orders, his way of doing it is, to lament that his seriousness and modesty, which might have recommended him, ‘ proved the chief obstacles to it.’ It seems ‘those qualities by which the priesthood is so much adorned, re- presented the duties of it as too weighty for him, and rendered him still more worthy of that honor which they made him decline.’ These, you know very well, were not the reasons which made Mr. Addison turn his thoughts to the civil world; and as you were the instrument of his becoming acquainted with Lord Hali- fax, I doubt not but you remember the warm instances that noble lord made to the head of the college not * to insist upon Mr. Addi- son’s going into orders. His arguments were founded upon the general pravity and corruption of men of business, who wanted liberal education. And I remember, as if I had read the letter yesterday, that my lord ended with a compliment, that however

~he might be represented as no friend to the church, he never would do it any other injury than keeping Mr. Addison out of it. The contention for this man, in his early youth, among the people of greatest power, Mr. Secretary Tickell, the executor for his fame, is pleased to ascribe toa serious visage and modesty of behaviour.”

That we have here the true statement of the case, cannot be doubted, and the warm feeling and right appreciation of the merits of the eminent person concerned which it evinces, excite unavail- ing regret for Steele’s omission to fulfill his promise of himself giving, as supplementary to the literary memoir of 'Tickell, a fuller account of the friend whom he had known so long and loved so well.

It was apparently the duty of Montagu, after rescuing the ob- ject of his protection from the spiritual arm, immediately to pro- vide for him by some civil employment; but, regarding him as not yet fully qualified for any considerable office, he could only concur with his earlier patron Lord Somers, in a step than which indeed none could be more flattering to the merits, or grateful to the feelings of Addison,—that of soliciting for him from the crown

—————— eee»

* By this expression is perhaps meant, not to insist upon his resigning his fellowship if he failed to do so.

48 THE LIFE OF

ees

a pension of 300. per annum, to enable him to complete the cir- cle of his accomplishments by travel.*

Queen Elizabeth, when prevailed upon, as she sometimes was by Lord Burleigh, to charge herself with the traveling expenses of young gentlemen of promise, was accustomed to require of them in return, that they should keep up a correspondence with her. secretary of state, and take upon them the offices of what were termed intelligencers, in plainer English, spies. But in this re- spect manners had doubtless changed for the better. We do in- deed possess one letter of Addison’s offering his services to a new secretary, yet there is no ground to imagine that swch services were required, or that much more was expected, than that he should do credit to the bounty of his sovereign by accomplishing himself in the French tongue and other branches of knowledge appropriate to a future candidate for political employments. At the same time he was anxious to contribute to the honor of his country by exhibiting to foreign scholars that exquisite skill and taste in the language of ancient Rome of which he had already given such striking evidence. ,

In furtherance of this design, he now printed at the Sheldon press a second volume of the Muse Anglicans, in which his own poems occupy a conspicuous place;—celebrated productions of which some account must here be given. ;

The composition of Latin verse, even when not a commanded exercise of the schools, seems an effort of imitation so natural and obvious to the academic, with a memory stored from the treasury of the ancient classics, and a taste formed almost exclusively on their models, that it cannot but be regarded as a serious derogation from the credit of early English scholarship, to have produced so little of this kind of fruit. Dr. Johnson has remarked, that before the appearance of the works of Milton and Cowley, and of May’s continuation of Lucan’s Pharsalia, the English “ appeared unable to contest the palm of Latin poetry with any other of the learned

ROR ee

I

* Ina memorial addressed by Addison to George I., of which a copy in his own handwriting exists among the Tickell papers, this cireumstance of his life is thus stated: “* That your memorialist was sent from the university by King William, in order to travel, and qualify himself to serve his majesty, by which means he was diverted from making his fortune in any other way. ,

* That the king allowed him an annual pension for this end, but his majesty dying in the first year of this his allowance, and the pension being discontinued your memorialist pursued his travels upon his own expense for above: three years.” From this account it should seem, either that the pension was not granted on his first leaving England, in 1799, or that it had been long in arrear at the time of William’s death, which did not occur till March 1701-2.

JOSEPH ADDISON. 49

nations.” These writers had found no successors of equal merit when Addison, whether moved by the example of two poets both of them early objects of his fervent admiration, or solely by the promptings of his own elegant and highly classical spirit, first determined to build up a literary reputation on the foundation of Roman song. Some pieces of merit had however been produced, which, mingled with others of inferior quality, had issued from the Oxford press, but with a London editor, in 1691, in a single volume entitled Muse Anglicane.

A sequel to this work, also from the Sheldon press, appeared in 1699, in which all the Latin pieces of Addison, eight in number, were contained; his poern on the Peace leading the way. No name of editor is given, but there is no doubt that the selection was made by Addison himself, nor, of course, that the elegant Latin preface which reappeared with some improvements in the enlarged and corrected edition of 1714, was from his pen. In this address to the public it is emphatically stated that no piece has been inserted in this collection but with the consent of its author; and a severe censure is passed on the editor of the former volume,

»who, in publishing without authority several imperfect and juve- nile attempts, is said to have consulted his own profit more than the reputation of the writers. The absence of any contributions from Cambridge scholars, is adverted to in terms of great politeness, which yet suggest the suspicion that they had been withheld from a spirit of petty jealousy towards the rival university.

“Fatendum est tamen opus hoc minis esse perfectum, quod nullis Cantabrigiensium exornetur carminibus. I}lud vez0 infortu- nium nimie potius ipsorum modestie tribuendum est quam nostris Volis, qui prestantissima illorum poémata non semel frustra expec- tavimus. Eorum sané haud pauca summa cum voluptate legimus, quibus denud recudendis prelum ultrd (si ita visum fuisset autori- bus) nec sine honore inserviisset. Nolumus tamen alicujus scripta sese inscio in lucem emittere, ne invitis famam donare videremur, et nostro exemplo approbare quod olim in alio Poético Examine vituperandum meritd censemus.”’*

* That Cambridge could at this time boast of many Latin poets, though not a single English one since their still vaunted Montagu, is proved by the following letter from Mr. James Talbot to Lord Herbert:

‘¢ Cambridge, 28th Nov. 1697.

‘¢ My Lord—The vice-chancellor having favored me with the disposal of some copies of our book of verses upon the peace, I was ambitious of this opportunity of presenting one to your lordship, as a token of our loyalty to the king, and of my dutiful respects to your lordship........ I doubt, my lord, your critics of

4

50 THE LIFE OF

~_—~

ARPA AR RRR RD LAS

Great and general was the applause given by cotemporary scholars to the first fruits of the learned muse of Addison; nor has their fame proved fugitive. The correctness and classical purity of these graceful productions have received no attaint ; and although, as Dr. Johnson observes, that praise must not be too nicely weighed which assigned to his poem on the Peace the character of “the best Latin poem since Virgil,’ judges of the present day, both competent and impartial, have held that in the flow and cadence of his verse, at least, Addison has more nearly attained the sweetness and majesty of Virgil than any other mo- dern. In the subjects also of his pieces, as well as in the treat- ment of them, it is certain that more of originality, and of imagi- nation is exhibited, than in the earlier, at least, of his English poems. He must indeed be master of a dead language who ven- tures to sport in it, and it is therefore a conclusive proof of the force of his scholarship, as well as a very remarkable circum- stance in itself, that the vein of humor which, though unques- tionably native to the mind of Addison, is nowhere perceptible in his vernacular poetry, discloses itself very happily in several of his Latin pieces. It tinges several passages of his mock-heroic, the Battle of the Pygmies and Cranes, comes out more broadly and amusingly in the “ Machine gesticulantes, anglice a Puppet- show ;” and “ Spheristerium”’ (the Bowling-green) is altogether in a style of easy playfulness.

The Ode addressed to Dr. Thomas Burnet, author of the « Sa- ered Theory of the Earth,’’ though too much of a Horatian cento in the diction, is undoubtedly the highest effort of his muse in respect of thought and imagery ; he appears indeed to have caught fancy and sublimity from the remarkable work of genius which he celebrates. In another point of view, the publication of this poem, exactly at the juncture when it appeared, is a fact highly honorable to its author. ’

It was in 1680 that Dr. Burnet, then a fellow of Christ-church, Cambridge, published the work in question. Five years after-

the drawing-room will be somewhat displeased by our omission of English poetry, whichis not the constant growth of this soil. °Tis enough if once ina reign our university can produce a Montagu or a Dryden: here are many indeed that would be more willing than the latter to compliment the government upon this joyful occasion, but as we have very few, (if any) that can pretend to the abilities of these masters, so it was thought advisable not to encourage any at- tempts in that kind, from which we could promise ourselves so little success. But though our Latin poetry is not calculated for the meridian of the court, your

lordship, I hope who is so able a judge, may find some entertainment in this book,?? &.—Warner’s Epistolary Curiosities, yol. i. p. 167.

JOSEPH ADDISON. 51 wards, he was appointed master of the Charter-house, in which capacity he opposed a firm and successful resistance to the jin- trusion of a popish pensioner upon that establishment, when attempted by James II. This conduct had obtained for him, after the revolution, the appointment of chaplain to the king, and through the influence of Archbishop Tillotson, that of clerk of the closet. But his next work, published in 1692, under the title .of « Archwologia Philosophica, being an inquiry into the opinions of the ancients concerning the origin of all things,’’ had given extreme offence to the clerical body by its criticism of the Mosaic accounts of the creation, the fall of man, and the de- luge.* In consequence, he had been deprived of the clerkship of the closet, and the intention of raising him to the episcopal bench had been abandoned. In the position of Addison at this period,—a young man with his fortune to make,—the public and distinguished celebration of a divine under disgrace at court and in the church on such a ground, deserves to be commemorated as no slight evidence of independence of mind and moral courage.

It appears that Addison, on setting out for his travels, carried with him the new volume of Muse Anglicanew, and occasionally availed himself of it as a kind of credential letter in his visits to the scholars of the continent. Hence it happened that, in the words of 'Tickell, “he was admired in the two universities, and in the greater part of Europe, before he was talked of asa poet in town.”’ On this subject, the same biographer gives us likewise the following anecdote and remarks:—‘*Our country owes it to him, that the famous M. Boileau first conceived an opinion of the English genius for poetry, by perusing the present which he made him of the Muse Anglicane. It has been currently reported, that this famous French poet, among the civilities he showed Mr. Ad- dison on that occasion, affirmed that he would not have written against Perrault, had he before seen such excellent pieces by a modern hand.

“ Such a sentiment would have been impertinent and unworthy Boileau, whose dispute with Perrault turned chiefly upon some passages in the ancients, which he rescued from the misinterpre- tations of his adversary. The true and natural compliment made by him was, that these books had given him a very: new idea of the

LLL

a

* ¢¢ The Archeologia Philosophica of Thos. Burnet is intended to question the literal history of the creation and fall. But few will pretend that either La Clere or Burnet were disbelievers in revelation.”—Hatiam’s Introd. to the Literature of Europe, §¢.

52 THE LIFE OF

English politeness ; and that he did not question but there were excellent compositions in the native language of a country that possessed the Roman genius to so eminent a degree.”

In this explanation of the Frenchman’s compliment, there can be no question that Tickell is in the right; at the same time it must have required in the compatriot of Shakspeare and Milton, a large allowance for the “proud ignorance”’ of the French in the language and literature of all other modern nations, to receive such aspeech with his best bow of humble acknowledgment. Dr. Jobn- son cuts the knot in his own manner: * Nothing,” says he, “is better known of Boileau than that he had an injudicious and peevish contempt of modern Latin, and therefore his profession of regard was probably the effect of his civility rather than appro- bation.”’

It was in the summer of 1699 that Addison, taking his final leave of an Oxford residence, though he still retained his fellow- ship, made his way by Dover to France, and in the first instance, it appears, to Paris. Under what high auspices he traveled, will be manifest from the following letters, of which the first is ad-

dressed to that Charles Montagu who speedily became Lord Hali- fax.

MR. ADDISON TO CHARLES MONTAGUE, ESQ.

Honour’d Sir,—I am now in a place where nothing is more usual than for mean people to press into y® presence and conver- sation of great men and where modestie is sovery scarce that I think I have not seen a Blush since my first Landing at Callice, which I hope may in some measure excuse me for presuming to trouble you with a Letter. However if I may not be allowd to Improve a little in y* confidence of y® Country I am sure I receive in it such Effects of your favour in y° civilities my L’ Ambassador has bin pleas’d to show me that I cant but think it my Duty to make you acquainted with them; I am sorry my 'Travails have not yet furnisht me with any thing else worth your knowlege. As for the state of Learning; There is no Book comes out at present that has not something in it of an Air of Devotion. Dacier has bin fore’d to prove his Plato a very good Christian before he ven- tures upon his Translation and has so far comply’d with y® Tast of the Age that his whole book is over-run with Texts of Scrip- ture, and y* notion of pre-existence supposed to be stol’n from two verses of the prophets. Nay y* Humour is grown so uni- versal that it is got among y* Poets who are ev’ry day publishing

JOSEPH ADDISON. 53

~

Lives of Saints and Legends in Rhime. My Imperfect Acquaint- ance with y* French tongue makes me incapable of learning any particular News of this Nature so that I must end my Letter as I begun it with my most humble Acknowlegements for all your favours. Iam &c.

To Charles Montague Esq‘. &c. Paris August 1699.

The next letter is written to Lord Chancellor Somers. Of Mr. Sansom, the third correspondent of Addison, I am unable to sup- ply any information.*

MR. ADDISON TO LORD SOMERS.

My Lord—I have now for some time liv’d on y* Effect of your L’ship’s patronage without presuming to return you my most humble Thanks for it. But | find it no less difficult to suppress y® Sense I have of your L‘ship’s favour than I do to represent itas I ought. Gratitude for a kindness receiv’d is generally as troublesome to the Benefactour as the Importunity in soliciting it; and I hope your L*‘ship will pardon me if I offend in one of these respects who had never any occasion or pretence to do it on the other. The only Return I can make your L‘ship will be to apply myself entirely to my Business, and to take such a care of my Conversation that your favours may not seem misplaced on my Lord your L'ship’s &c.

To my L* Chancellour Paris 7 1699.

MR. ADDISON TO MR. SANSOM,

Dear Sir—You may be sure [ have not bin in a little Hurry at my first Arrival in Paris that I cou’d so long forget returning you my Thanks for your last kindness: and truly I think I have paid no small compliment to the Shows of the place in letting ’em take up my thoughts so far as to make me deny myself y® satisfaction

RADRRARR NR ee AAR ARRAN

* For the power of presenting to the public these, and other letters which will appear in their proper places, I am indebted to Edward Tickell, Esq., Q.C. of Dublin, the lineal descendant of Tho. Tickell, Esq., executor to Addison, and editor of his works, who has permitted them to be transcribed from originals in his possession for the purposes of this biography, with a liberality and kindness of which { want words adequately to express my grateful sense. They will be found to supply many instructive and entertaining particulars of one of the most interesting periods of Addison’s life, regarding which scarcely anything has hitherto been known. ‘Their original othography has been preserved, as well as the contractions which mark them for copies made by himself.

54 ‘ THE LIFE OF of writing to you. Your letter to Mr. Breton has gain’d me y° Acquaintance of a Gentleman who is in all respects such as I shou’d have guess’d Mr. Sansom’s friend to have bin: His Con- versation at Dover made my Stay there very pleasant as his In- terest in the Officers made my Departure easy. The great Talk of this place at present is about y° King’s statue that is lately set up in the Place Vendéme. It is a noble figure but looks very naked without a Square about it: for they have set up the Furni- ture before the House is half Built. If I meet with anything here worth your knowledge I will trouble you with y° relation of it and in the mean time am Dear S' &c. To John Sansom Esqe. Paris 7 1699.

The deficiency in his knowledge of the French tongue, which he owns to Lord Halifax, led Addison, after snatching a first view of the sights of Paris, to take up his temporary abode at Blois; a city celebrated for purity of accent, where he might devote him- self without interruption to the study of what, through the pre- dominancy of Louis XIV., had now become the universal language of diplomacy and politics throughout Europe. Spence, on the authority of a certain Abbé Philippeaux, an inhabitant of the place, gives an account of his manners and habits during his resi- dence here, in which, while it betrays in every line the little and vulgar mind of the reporter, there seems, however, to be some- thing genuine and characteristic. “Mr. Addison stayed above a year at Blois. He would rise as early as between two and three in summer, and lie abed till between eleven and twelve in the depth of winter. He was untalkative while here, and’ often thoughtful; sometimes so lost in thought, that I have come into his room and stayed five minutes there before he has known any- thing of it. He had his masters generally at supper with him, kept very little company beside; and had no amour whilst here, that | know of; and I think I should have known it if he had had any.” In what branches of knowledge all these “ masters” were to instruct him does not appear; he had, of course, one for the language, and it is possible that he might also embrace this opportunity of taking some lessons in what were called the exer- cises, that is, fencing, dancing, and riding, usually acquired at this time by young gentlemen on their travels. He doubtless invited his instructors to his table for the sake of practice in speaking French; we learn from his own letters that there was little other society in the place worth cultivating even with this view. There is reason to think that he here began his Cato, but

JOSEPH ADDISON. 55

a great part of his private studies must have been in the Latin classics. He has himself told us, that he read before he went to Italy to refresh his memory. After the publication of his travels, it was indeed invidiously suggested that “he was indebted to Alberti for his mode of viewing Italy ;” a notion which is deservedly repro- bated by Tyers,* while Johnson contents himself with the dry re- mark, that “he had made from the Latin poets preparatory col- lections, of which he might have spared himself the trouble, had he known that such collections had been made twice before by Italian authors.” This may indeed be true, but that such trouble would have been well spared will be admitted by those only who have not learned by experience the incalculable superiority of original research over second-hand information.

Addison wrote a letter to Colonel Frowde from Paris, in No- vember, immediately before his removal to Blois. We perceive from its contents that this gentleman was an Oxford acquaintance ; from later letters we learn that his friendship with Addison was a lasting one; and he is doubtless the same person described by Nichols in his edition of Swift, who corresponded with him, as Comptroller of the Foreign Office, at the Post Office; a gentle- man much beloved by his friends, and the author of two tragedies.

MR. ADDISON TO COLONEL FROWDE.

Dear Colonel—I was extremely glad to receive your Letter, not only because I saw Colonel Frowde’s name at y® Bottom of it but because it was written in English, a Language that had not bin spoken to me six weeks before, so that I read it over with y*® same pleasure as a man sees an Old Acquaintance. I was sorry however to hear in it that you had bid Farewell to Poetry by y* Instigation and contrivance of my brother Garr, that friend to strong drink and Enemy to the Muses: but I hope you will repent of so Rash a resolution, and that you have so much of y* Ambition as well as y® other talents of a Poet as to value Fame and Immor- tality beyond 10 pound. If you are to forfeit so much for every copy of Verses you write, you may consider for your comfort that y° poorer you grow y® more you will resemble those of your Brotherhood. As for myself I am so Embarras’d with nouns and Verbs that I have no time to think of Verse, but am forc’d to Decline and conjugate words, instead of putting ’em into Rhime. I cou’d wish as well as you that I were:able to Learn y* Language

Tee

* See his Historical Memoir of Addison.

56 THE LIFE OF

sooner and so hope to see you quickly in England: but I have so

much of a Wit in me that I have a Bad Memory, which hinders

me from performing my Task so speedily as I wou’d wish. How-

ever as bad as it is, it will never let me forget how much Iam &c. To Collonel Frowde. Paris 9°". 1699.*

The following letter is doubtless also addressed to an Oxford friend, then on his travels, but of whom nothing further is now known. The Dr, Davenant whose scrip is mentioned, must have been the celebrated author on political arithmetic, who was one of the first to call the attention of his fellow-countrymen to subjects of this nature. He was at the same time a party writer, and made it one of his principal objects to animadvert with keenness on the conduct of the Whig ministers of King William, and the policy which they pursued.

MR. ADDISON TO MR. ADAMS.

Dear Sir—I have bin lately very much indispos’d with a Feaver or I wou’d have answered your Letter sooner, but am at present very well recover’d, notwithstanding I made use of one of y° Physicians of this place, who are as cheap as our English Farriers and generally as Ignorant. I hope y® news you sent me of ST Edward Seymour’s Act will prove true, for here are a couple of English Gentlemen that have turn’d off a Fencing-Master on the streneth of it. I have here sent you a scrip of Dr. Davenant’s new Book as it came to me ina Letter. It is level’d against the Ministry and makes a great noise in its own country &c. To pass from Statesmen to the Cloath-Hat you left with me: You must know that it has travail’d many miles and run through a great variety of Adventures since you saw it last. It was left at Orleans for above a week, and since that fell into y® hands of a Hackne Coachman that took a particular Liking to our English Manufac- ture and wou’d by no means part with it, but by many fair words and a few menaces I have at last recovered it out of his Hands; tho not without y* Entire Loss of y® Hatband. I hear there is at present a very great Ferment in Maudlin College which is workt up toa great height by Newnam Ale and frequent Canvassings. I suppose both parties before they engage will send into France for their Foreign Succours. [am &c.

To Mr. Adams. Blois.t

a_—eeer

a ae ante te a aaa TCC CCC CCR

* Tickell papers. ° + Tickell papers.

JOSEPH ADDISON. 57

A long and entertaining letter to Congreve succeeds, including one equally good to his patron. Of the dispute with M. L’Espag- nol to which the short note to him refers, no particulars can now be recovered, but the equally manly and temperate tone of Addison is much in character. Dr. Newton’s name is not found among the graduates of Oxford at this period, and no notices of him have been met with. He is not described as the reverend, and was

probably of the medical profession.

MR. ADDISON TO MR. CONGREVE.

Dear Sir—I was very sorry to hear in your last Letter that you were so terribly afflicted with the Gout, tho for your Comfort I believe you are the first English poet that have bincomplimented with the Distemper: I was myself at that time sick of a Feaver which I believe proceeded from the same Cause; But at present I am so well Recover’d that I can scarce forbear beginning my Letter with Tully’s preface, Si vales bene est Ego quidem Valeo. You must excuse me for giving you a Line of Latin now and then since I find myself in some danger of Losing the Tongue, for I perceive a new Language, like a new Mistress, is apt to make a man forget all his old ones. I assure you I met with a very Re- markable Instance of this nature at Paris in a-poor Irish-man that had lost the little English he had brought over with him without being able to learn any French in its stead: I askt him what Lan- guage he spoke, he very Innocently answered me ‘no Language Monsieur ;’ w" as I afterwards found were all the words he was Master of in both Tongues. I am at present in a town where all the Languages in Europe arg spoken except English, which is not to be heard I believe within fifty miles of the place. My greatest diversion is to run over in my Thoughts the Variety of noble scenes I was entertain’d with before I came hither. I dont believe, as good a poet as you are, that you can make finer Lan- skips than those about the Kings houses, or with all yo" descrip- tions build a more magnificent palace than Versailles. Lam how- ever so singular as to prefer Fontainebleau to all the rest. It is situated among rocks and woods that give you a fine variety of Savage prospects. The King has Humor’d the Genius of the place, and only made use of so much art as is necessary to Help and regulate Nature without reforming her too much. The cas- cades seem to break through the Clefts and cracks of Rocks that are cover’d over with Moss, and look as if they were piled upon one another by Accident. ‘There is an Artificial Wildness in the

58 THE LIFE OF

Meadows, Walks and Canals, and y* Garden instead of a Wall is Fenc’d on the Lower End by a Natural mound of Rock-work that strikes the Eye very Agreeably. For my part I think there is something more charming in these rude heaps of Stone than in so many Statues, and wou’d as. soon see a River winding through Woods and Meadows as when it is toss’d up in such a Variety of figures at Versailles. But I begin to talk like D". Lister. To pass therefore from Works of Nature to those of Art: In my opinion the pleasantest part of Versailles is the Gallery. Every one sees on each side of it something that will be sure to please him, for one of ’em commands a View of the finest Garden in the World, and the other is wainscoted with Looking-Glass. The History of the present King, till y° Year 16,* is painted on the Roof by Le Brun, so that his Majesty has Actions enough by him to Furnish another Gallery much Longer than the first. He is represented with all the Terror and Majesty that you can Imagine in ev’ry part of the picture, and sees his Young face as perfectly drawn in the Roof as his present one in the side. The Painter has represented His most Xtian Majesty under y* figure of Jupiter throwing thunderbolts all about the cieling and striking terror into y* Danube and Rhine that lie astonished and blasted w™ Lightning a little above the Cornice. I believe by this time you are afraid I shall carry you from room to room and lead you through the whole palace ; truly if I had not tir’d you already I cou’d not for- bear showing you a Stair-case that they say is the noblest in its kind: but after so tedious a letter I shall conclude with a petition to you that you would deliver the enclos’d to M". Montague, for I am afraid of interrupting him with my Impertinence when he is Engaged in more serious Affairs. »

Tu faciles aditus et mollia tempora novis.

Iam &c. Blois, 10, 1699. To Mr. Congreve.

MR. ADDISON TO CHARLES MONTAGU, ESQ.

Honoured Sir—You will be surpris’d I dont question to find among your Correspondencies in Foreign parts a Letter Dated from Blois: but as much out of y* world as we are, I have often the pleasure to hear you mention’d among the Strangers of other Nations whose company I am here sometimes Engag’d in: I have found since my leaving England that tis Impossible to talk

* The sixteenth year of his reign must be meant.

JOSEPH ADDISON. 59

IA

PLA LIDAR ALR ARI

of her with those that know there is such a Nation, but you make a part of the Discourse. Your name comes in upon the most different subjects, if we speak of the men of Wit or the men of Business, of Poets or Patrons, Politicians or Parliament men. I must confess I am never so sensible of my Imperfection in the, French Language as when I wou’d express myself on so agree- able a subject; tho’ if I understood it as well as my Mother Tongue I shou’d want words on this occasion. I cant pretend to trouble you with any News from this place, where the only Ad- vantage I have besides getting the Language is to see the man- ners and temper of the people, which I believe may be better learn’t here than in Courts and greater Citys where Artifice and Disguise are more in fashion. And truly by what I have yet seen they are the Happiest nation in the World. Tis not in the pow’r of Want or Slavery to make ’em miserable. There is nothing to be met with in the Country but Mirth and Poverty. Ev’ry one sings, laughs and starves. Their Conversation is generally Agreeable ; for if they have any Wit or Sense, they are sure to show it. They never mend upon a Second meeting, but use all the freedom and familiarity at first Sight that a Long In- timacy or Abundance of wine can scarce draw from an English- man. ‘I'heir Women are perfect Mistresses in this Art of show- ing themselves to the best Advantage. They are always gay and sprightly and set off y* worst Faces in Europe with y° best airs. Ev’ry one knows how to give herself as charming a Look and posture as 8". Godfrey Kneller c' draw her in. J cannot end my Letter without observing, that from what I have already seen of the world I cannot but set a particular mark upon those who abound most in the Virtues of their Nation and least with its Im- perfections. When therefore see the Good sense of an English- man in its highest perfection without any mixture of the Spleen, I hope you will excuse me if I admire the Character and am Ambitious of subscribing myself Hon" Sir, Yo" &ec. To the Right Honorable Ch. Montague Esq’. Blois 10, 1699,

MR. ADDISON A MONS" L’ESPAGNOL.

Sir.—I am always as slow in making an Enemy as a Friend and am therefore very ready to come to an Accommodation with you; but as for any satisfaction, I dont think it is due on either side when y° Affront is mutual. You know very well that ac- cording to the opinion of y* world a man would as soon be called

/ 60 THE LIFE OF

a Knave as a fool, and I believe most people w* be rather thought to want Legs than Brains. But I suppose whatever we said in y° heat of discourse is not y* real opinion we have of each other since otherwise you wou’d have scorn’d to have subscrib’d your- self as I do at present S' y’ very, &e.

A Mons'. L’Espagnol. Blois 10. 1699.

MR. ADDISON TO DR. NEWTON.

S'™—I have a long time wisht for a pretence to write to you and tho y* kindness I have received from you at London might have bin a good Excuse for my returning you my Humble Thanks, I cou’d not think it proper after your former civilities to give you a fresh trouble by my acknowledgments. I must therefore be forc’d to confess that tis nothing but y° desire I have to improve myself by your advice that is y® occasion of my pre- sent letter, for I am very willing to spend my time to y® best Ad- vantage whilst I stay abroad, and should therefore be very glad of a better directour than myself. My L* Chancellor’s having bin pleas’d to procure me this opportunity of Travailing will I hope be some motive with you to lend me your Assistance: I am sure tis a very strong argument with myself to use all y® Ap- plication possible that may make me answer his Lordp’s Ex- pectations. I have already seen as I informed you in my last, all y* IKKing’s palaces, and have now seen a great part of y* Coun- try; I never thought there had been in y* world such an Ex- cessive Magnificence or Poverty as I have met with in both together. One can scarce conceive y*® pomp that appears in everything about y* King, but at y® same time it makes half his subjects go Bare-foot. The people are however y* happiest in y® world, and enjoy from y* Benefit of their Climate and natural Constitution such a perpetual Mirth and Easiness of tem- per as even Liberty and Plenty cannot bestow on those of other Nations. Devotion and Loyalty are ev’ry where at their greatest height, but Learning seems to. run very low, especially in y® younger people: for all the rising Geniuses have turn‘d their Ambition another way, and endeavor’d to make their fortunes in y* Army. The Belles Lettres in particular seem to be but short hiv’d in France. Ev’ry Book that comes out has some pages to show how much its Argument conduces to y* Honor of y* Holy Church, & nothing is more usual than to hear ’em at y* Sorbonne quote y* Depths of Ecclesiastical History and y* Fathers, in false Latin. But 8", I have already troubled you with too long a Let-

JOSEPH ADDISON. 61

ter, and ought not to enlarge it any further than to beg your par- don for writing it. Iam St &c. Blois 10°. 1699. To D'. Newton.

Mr. Abraham Stanyan or Stanian, to whom the next letter from Blois is addressed, was secretary to the English embassy at Paris, and appears to have directed the attention of his friend to the studies fitted to qualify him for the diplomatic department of the public service.

MR. ADDISON TO MR. STANYAN.

Dear Sir—I thank you for y* news and poetry you were pleas’d to send me, tho I must confess I did not like either of ’em. The Votes had too much fire in’em and y®* Verses none at all: how- ever I hope the first will prove as harmless to y* Ministers of State as y* others are to y° Knights of y® Toast. It is y® first speech of 8" John Falstaff’s that did not please me, but truly I think y* merry Knight is grown very dull since his being in y® other world. I really think myself very much obliged to you for your directions, and if you would be a little particular in y® names of y° Treaties that you mention, I shou’d have reason to look upon your Correspondence as y* luckiest Adventure I am like to meet with in all my T'ravails. The place where I am at present, by reason of its situation on the Loire and its reputation for y® Language, is very much Infested with Fogs and German Counts. These last are a kind of Gentlemen that are just come wild out of their country, and more noisy and senseless than any I have yet had y° honor to be acquainted with. They are at y* Cabaret from morning to night, and I suppose come into France on no other account but to Drink. To make some Amends for all this, there is not a word of English spoken in the whole town, so that I shall be in danger of Losing my Mother-tongue unless you give me leave to practise it on you sometimes in a letter, I might here be very troublesome to you with my Acknowledgments, but I hope there is no need of any formal professions to assure you that I shall always be Dear S" &c.

To Abraham Stanian, Esq'®. Blois, Feb., 1699.* 1700.

A second letter to the same gentleman is inserted as a fragment, the rest having been published by its writer in the Guardian, N° nee OE EI 0 2 2 0 0000000 0 0 Oe

: * Tickell papers. ,

62 THE LIFE OF

nS ~~

104. A portion of the letter to Dr. Newton just given is likewise found in that work, but could not be detached from it without injury.

TO MR. STANYAN.

Dear Sir—I could not have let a whole Lent pass without troub- ling you with a letter cou’d I have met with anything worth your knowledge: but news has bin as scarce among us as flesh, and I know you don’t much care to hear of mortification and repentance, which have been the only business of this place for several weeks past. Ev’rything at present looks very agreeable, and I assure you I don’t envy your entertainments at Paris as long as this season lasts. I wou’d as soon be in a neighboring Wood as at y° Opera, and in my opinion find in it more beautiful scenes and pleasanter music * * * * *

But as pleasant as y°® country is, I think of leaving it as soon as I have rec‘ directions from England, which I expect ev’ry Post. I shou’d have went to Italy before now, had not y* French tongue stopt me, which has bin a Rub in my way harder to get over than y°® Alps, but I hope y°® next time I have y* honor to wait on you I shall be able to talk with you in y® language of y* place. In y°® meantime, [am Dear 8S", Y™ &e.

To Abraham Stanyan, Esq"™., Secretary of ye Ambassy.

One of the earliest, and one of the best fruits of his travels, in the judgment of Addison himself, was the intimate, affectionate, and enduring friendship which they gave him the opportunity of forming with Mr. Edward Wortley Montagu. This gentleman, afterwards the husband of the brilliant and celebrated Lady Mary, was grandson to that true hero’admiral the Earl of Sandwich, by his younger son Sidney Montagu, who, on marrying the heiress of Sir Francis Wortley, assumed her name. Born a second son, though he afterwards became heir to the vast estates of the family, Edward received a very complete classical education, became a first-rate scholar, and took the degree of L.L.D, at Cambridge. It is thus evident that his acquaintance with Addison was not an academical one; probably it was either formed under the auspices of Charles Montagu, Lord Halifax, in London, or under those of the Ear] of Manchester, the English Ambassador at Paris, both of whom were Wortley’s relations, and the first, his political patron. He was a person of clear understanding and very de- cided character, and in party a zealous and consistent Whig. The

JOSEPH ADDISON. 63 travels in which he was at this time engaged seem to have em- ployed him longer, and to better purpose, than was usual among his cotemporaries. On the accession of George I. he is said, but not with perfect correctness, to have been the only privy council- or capable of conversing with his sovereign in the French lan- guage; and while he rendered himself a proficient in the study of antiquities, more especially in buildings and inscriptions, he viewed the laws and institutions of foreign states with the eyes of a politician and future legislator. He probably joined Addison at Chateaudun, which is in the direct road from Blois to Paris ; and after some stay in that capital they traveled to Marseilles, crossed together to Genoa, and perhaps made a part of their Italian tour in company. The first of Addison’s letters to this gentleman which has been preserved is the following :

TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. July 23%,

Dear Sir—I am now at Chateaudun, where I shall expect your company, or a letter from you, with some impatience. Here is one of the prettiest views in the world, if that can tempt you, and a ruin of about fourscore houses, which I know you would think a pleasanter prospect than the other, if it was not somodern. The inhabitants tell you the fire that has been the occasion of it was put out by a miracle: and that in its full rage it immediately ceased at the sight of him that in his lifetime rebuked the winds and the waves with a look. He was brought hither in the dis- guise of a wafer, and was assisted, I dont question, with several tons of water. It would have been a very fair occasion to have signaliz’d your Holy Tear at Vendome, if the very sight of a single drop could have quench’d such a terrible fire. This is all the news I can write you from this place, where I have been hitherto taken up with the company of strangers that lodge in the same inn. I shall hope to see you within about a week hence ; though I desire you not to hasten against your own inclinations ; for, as much as [I esteem your company, I can’t desire it unless it be for your own convenience. I am, dear sir, your very faith- ful humble servant,

J. Appison.*

Aux Trois Rois a Chateaudun, abe Bee tas RTE ee

* See for this and all following letters to the same correspondent, Addinsonia,

(2 yols. 12mo. London 1803,) where they are given in fac-simile from the ori- ginals, stated to be in the possession of Mr. Phillips of St. Paul’s Church Yard,

See

64 THE LIFE OF ®

The second visit of Addison to Paris must have been far more productive to him of pleasure and instruction than the first; since he was now able to converse with ease in the language of the country, and to prove to the distinguished men of letters who received his visits, his full right of admission to the privileges of free and equal conversation. How far he was able, notwithstanding the weight of bashfulness with which he is imagined to have been constantly oppressed, to raise himself into the favor and confidence of such men as Boileau and Malebranche, will best appear from a beautiful letter of his own, eminently characteristic of his unas- suming temper as well as his literary accomplishment, and ad- dressed to the exemplary Bishop Hough. ‘The first sentence refers to the advancement of Philip Duke of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV., who was .proclaimed King of Spain in November, 1700. Boileau, who is mentioned as old, was now sixty-four. Since the death of his dear friend Racine, he had almost ceased to appear at court, paid few visits, and is said to have admitted’ to his presence only a small number of friends; his notice of the young Englishman was therefore a very unusual favor, for which, =~ notwithstanding the remark of Johnson, it is pretty evident that Addison must have been originally indebted to his Latin poems. Malebranche, on the other hand, received the visits of almost every lettered foreigner who arrived at Paris. His manners were cheer- ful, simple, and complaisant, and his conversation usually turned, as with Addison, on the subjects of his writings. His first sight of the works of Des Cartes had formed an epoch in his life, since he immediately devoted himself to the study of them, which he pursued during ten years. He had recently written a paper on

Light and Colors for insertion in the Transactions of the Academy of Sciences.

MR. ADDISON TO BISHOP HOUGH.

My Lord—I receiv’d y* honor of your L'ship’s Letter at Paris, and am since got as far as Lyons in my way for Italy. 1 am at present very well content to quit y* French conversation, which since y* promotion of their young prince begins to grow Insup- portable. ‘That w" was before y* vainest nation in y°® world is now worse than ever. There is scarce a man in it that does not give himself greater airs upon it, and look as well pleased as if he had rec’d some considerable advancement in his own fortunes. The best company I have met with since my being in this country has been among y* men of Letters, who are generally easy of

JOSEPH ADDISON. 65

access, especially y° Religious who have a great deal of time on their hands, and are glad to pass some of it off in y® society of strangers. Their Learning for y* most part lies among y* old schoolmen. Their public disputes run upon y* Controversys between the Thomists and Scotists, which they manage with abundance of Heat and False Latin. When I was at Paris I visited y* Pére Malbranche, who has a particular esteem for y® English Nation, where I believe he has more admirers than in his own. The French dont care for following him through his Deep Researches, and generally look upon all y* new Philosophy as Visionary or Irreligious. Malbranche himself told me that he was five and twenty years old before he had so mach as heard of y* name of Des Cartes. His book is now reprinted with many Additions, among which he show’d me a very pretty hypothesis of Colours w" is different from that of Cartesius or Mr. Newton, tho they may all three be True. He very much prais’d Mr. Newton’s Mathematics, shook his head at the name of Hobbes, and told me he thought him a pauvre esprit. He was very soli- citous about y* English translation of his work, and was afraid it had bin taken from an IJ] Edition of it. Among other Learned men I had y* honour to be introduc’d to Mr. Boileau, who is now retouching his works and putting ’em out in a new impression. He is old and a little Deaf but talks incomparably well in his own calling. He heartily hates an IJ] poet and throws himself into a passion when he talks of any one that has not a high respect for Homer and Virgil. I don’t know whether there is more of old Age or Truth in his Censures on y* French writers, but he won- derfully decrys y* present and extols very much his former cotem- porarys, especially his two intimate friends Arnaud and Racine. I askt him whether he thought Telemaque was not a good modern piece: he spoke of it with a great deal of esteem, and said that it gave us a better notion of Homer’s way of writing y" any trans- lation of his works could do, but that it falls however infinitely short of y* Odyssee, for Mentor, says he, is eternally Preaching; but Ulysses shows us evry thing in his character and behaviour y' y° other is still pressing on us by his precepts and Instructions. He said y*® punishment of bad Kings was very well invented, and might compare with anything of that nature in y* 6" Eneid, and that y° deceit put on ‘Telemaque’s Pilot to make him misguide his master is more artful and poetical than y* Death of Palinurus. I mention his discourse on this Author because it is at present y® Book y* is everywhere talked of, and has a great many partizans for and against it in this country. I found him as warm in crying

66 THE LIFE OF up this man and y® good poets in general, as he has bin in censur- ing y° bad ones of his time, as we commonly observe y* man that makes y°® Best friend is y° worst enemy. He talk’d very much of Corneille, allowing him to be an excellent poet, but at y° same time none of y* best Tragique writers, for that he declaimed too frequently and made very fine Descriptions often when there was no occasion for’em. Aristotle, says he, proposes two passions y* are proper to be rais’d by Tragedy, Terrour and Pity, but Cor- neille endeavours at a new one w" is Admiration. He instane’d in his Pompey (w" he told us y* late Duke of Condy thought y° best Tragedy y* was ever written) where in y° first scene y* King of Egypt runs into a very pompous and long description of y* battle of Pharsalia, tho’ he was then in a great hurry of affairs and had not himself bin present at it. I hope your L'ship will excuse me for this kind of Intelligence, for in so beaten a Road as that of France it is impossible to talk of anything new unless we may be allow’d to speak of particular persons, y‘ are always changing and may therefore furnish different matter for as many travellers as pass thro’ y® country. [am my L" Your L'ship’s &c.

To the Br of Lichfield and Coventry.*

The Earl of Manchester was not appointed secretary of state till January 1701;+ it must therefore have been from some place in Italy that Addison addressed to him a short letter of congratu- lation, worth preservation chiefly for the offer of executing any of his commands, which it conveys. Whether his services were accepted or not, we have nothing to show; but it is probable that his travels in Germany, hereafter to be related, were not without some political objects, and many circumstances indicate the inti- macy of his connection with this nobleman in after life. In fact there is no feature in the biography of Addison more striking than his power of exciting the admiration, and at the same time concili- ating the esteem and affection, of the most considerable persons,

whether for rank, genius, or virtue, with whom he came even into accidental contact.

MR. ADDISON TO THE EARL OF MANCHESTER.

My Lord—I was extremely glad to hear your L*ship had en- tered on a post that would give you an occasion of advancing so

ae RAP AR ARIA AR AR RR ARIA ARAARAALRAN PPAR ALO ~~ PARA AAA,

PRA PRA LARD ARE PAR ARAL

* Tickell papers. t * Miss Aikin misdates this event by a year.2»—Macaulay.

JOSEPH ADDISON. 67

much y° Interest and Reputation of your Country ; but I now find that I have more particular reasons to rejoice at your promotion, since I hear you have lately done me the honour to mention me kindly to my Lord Halifax. As this is not y° first favour you have bin pleased to show me, I must confess I shou’d be very ambitious of an opportunity to let you know how just a sense I have of y* Gratitude and Duty that I owe to your L*ship. And if you think me fit to receive any of your commands abroad, it shall not be for want of Diligence or Zeal for your L'ship’s service if they are not executed to your satisfaction. [I could not dispense with myself from returning my most humble thanks for y* notice you have bin pleased to take of me, as I dare not presume any longer to encroach upon your time that is fill’d up with affairs of so much greater consequence. I am my L'" &c. * To my L‘ Manchester Principal Secretary of State.

A handsome and elegantly turned letter of compliment to Lord Halifax follows next in time; it is without date of place.

MR. ADDISON TO LORD HALIFAX.

My Lord—I have for a long time denied myself the Honour of writing to your Lordship, as knowing you have bin’So taken up with matters of greater Importance that any Information I cou’d give you of foreign Curiosities wou’d have seemed Impertinent: but having lately heard that I am still kindly remembered by your Lordship, I cou’d not forbear troubling you with a letter, least what I design for Respect shou’d look too much like Ingratitude. As I first of all undertook my Travails by your L‘ships encourage- ment, I have endeavour’d to pursue ’em in sucha manneras might make me best answer your Expectations; and though I dare not boast of any great Improvements that I have made in ’em, I am sure there is nothing that I more desire than an opportunity of showing my utmost Abilitys in your L'ship’s service. I could almost wish y* it was less for my advantage than it is to be entirely devoted to your L'ship, that I might not seem to speak so much out of Interest as Inclination: for I must confess y* more J see of mankind y° more I learn to value an extraordinary character, which makes me more ambitious than ever of showing myself my L"

Your L'ships &c. To my Lé Halifax March 1703.*

PPR PPL

* All the letters in this chapter are transcribed Jiteratim from the Tickell papers.

68 THE LIFE OF

Se ———————e——e—eeeeeeee

CHAPTER IV. 1700 to 1702.

Account of Addison’s travels in Italy. He reaches Geneva on his return. Letter to Wortley Montagu. Epistle from Italy. Letter to Lord Halifax. Cause of his detention at Geneya. His prospects destroyed by the death of King William. Travels in Switzerland. Proceeds to Vienna. Forms a friendship with Mr. Stepney. Account of him. :

Tne volume of travels which was published by Addison after his return from the Continent, comprising his tour in Italy and a brief account of his journey through Switzerland, is almost the sole record we possess of a portion of his life which his classical enthusiasm and his love for the beauties of scenery, must have rendered rich beyond any other in instruction and delight. On this account, we might be tempted to wish that the work had answered more to the character of a journal, or what in modern phrase is termed a personal narrative. It would indeed have grati- fied our curiosity to know in what proportions he divided his time among the principal cities of Italy; what society he chiefly fre- quented, and especially how far he succeeded in introducing him: self to natives of the country distinguished either in politics or in letters ;—or whether indeed this was any object of his endeavors,. which the total silence of his narrative respecting living persons renders very doubtful. But we have great reason to congratulate ourselves on what we possess. In the way of incident, the author had probably nothing very striking to relate ; and whether design- edly or not, he has traced out for us in his observations a very perfect map of his own mind. Temper, manners, tastes, acquire- ments, principles and genius, are all distinctly indicated, and even . the modest seclusion in which the author seems to sequester him- self and his personal concerns, is an additional trait of character, and perhaps the most graceful of the whole.

An outline of his journey, with a few extracts, will best illus- trate what is here advanced. It was in December 1700 that he embarked at Marseilles for Genoa, which he gained after a tem- pestuous and dangerous voyage, and whence he proceeded through Milan, Venice, Ravenna and Loretto to Rome; thence to Naples by land, back to Rome by sea, and homeward through Florence,

JOSEPH ADDISON. 69

Bologna and Turin to Geneva ; where he arrived exactly one year from his quitting Marseilles, and two and a half after his departure from England. The first remarkable passage in his volume is the following :—

«There are but two towns in the dominions of the Prince of Monaco. The chief of them is situate on a rock which runs out into the sea, and is well fortified by nature. It was formerly under the protection of the Spaniards, but not many years since drove out the Spanish garrison and received a French one, which consists at present of five hundred men, paid and officered by the French king. The officer who showed me the palace, told me, with a great deal of gravity, that his master and the King of France, amidst all the confusions of Europe, had ever been good friends and allies.” The drift of this sarcasm at once on the insignificance and the French dependence of the Prince of Monaco, will be evi- dent on calling to mind that the queen of James II. was a princess of this house.

A popular sentiment is thus introduced: «The Duke of Doria’s palace has the best outside of any in Genoa..... there is one room..... that is hung with tapestry, in which are wrought the figures of the great persons that the family has produced; as per- haps there is no house in Europe that can show a longer line of heroes that have still acted for the good of their country. Andrew Doria has a statue erected to him at the entrance of the Doge’s palace with the glorious title of Deliverer of the Commonwealth ; and one of his family another, that calls him its Preserver. In the Doge’s palace are the rooms where the great and little coun- cil, with the two colleges, hold their assemblies ; but as the state of Genoa is very poor, though some of its members are extremly rich, so one may observe infinitely more splendor and magnifi- cence in particular persons’ houses than in those that belong to the public. But we find in most of the states of Europe, that the people show the greatest marks of poverty, where the governors live in the greatest magnificence..... The republic of Genoa has a crown and sceptre for its Doge, by reason of their conquest of Corsica, where there was formerly a Saracen king. ‘This in- deed gives their ambassadors a more honorable reception at some courts, but, at the same time, may teach their people to have a

-mean notion of their own form of government, and is a tacit ac- knowledgment that monarchy is more honorable. ‘The old Ro- mans, on the contrary, made use of a very barbarous kind of politics to inspire their people with a contempt of kings, whom they treated with infamy, and dragged at the wheels of their

70 THE LIFE OF

triumphal chariots.” We perhaps see here the germ of that passage of his Cato, . «¢ A senator of Rome, while Rome survived,

Would not have match’d his daughter with a king.”

On more than one occasion a classical, we might say pedantical, | contempt for Gothic architecture breaks out; “I saw between Pavia and Milan the convent of Carthusians, which is very spa- cious and beautiful. Their church is extremely fine, and curiously adorned, but of a Gothic structure.”

St. Charles Boromeo’s shrine at Milan suggests the following ~ just and acute reflections: “He was but two-and-twenty years old when he was chosen Archbishop of Milan, and forty-six at his death ; but made so good use of so short a time, by his works of charity and munificence, that his countrymen bless his memory, which is still fresh among them. He was canonized about a hundred years ago; and indeed if this honor were due to any - man, I think such public-spirited virtues may lay a juster claim to it than a sour retreat from mankind, a fiery zeal against hetero- doxies, a set of chimerical visions or of whimsical penances, which are generally the qualifications of Roman saints..... One would wonder that Roman Catholics who are for this kind of worship, do not generally address themselves to the holy apostles—but these are at present quite out of fashion in Italy, where there is scarce a great town which does not pay its devotions in a more particular manner to some one of their own making. This ren- ders it very suspicious that the interests of particular families, | religious orders, convents, or churches, have too great a sway in their canonizations. When I was at Milan, I saw a book newly published, that was dedicated to the present head of the Boromean family, and entitled, ‘A discourse on the humility of Jesus Christ, and of St. Charles Boromeo.’

“In the court of Milan, as in several others of Italy, there are many who fall in with the dress and carriage of the French. One may however observe a kind of awkwardness in the Italians, which easily discovers the airs they give themselves not to be natural..... The French are always open, familiar, and talka- tive: the Italians on the contrary are stiff, ceremonious, and reserved.. In France, every one aims ata gayety and sprightli- ness of behavior, and thinks it an accomplishment to be brisk and lively. The Italians, notwithstanding their natural fieriness of temper, affect always to appear sober and sedate; insomuch that one sometimes meets young men walking the streets with

JOSEPH ADDISON. 71

spectacles on their noses, that they may be thought to have im- paired their sight by much study, and seem more grave and judi- cious than their neighbors. This difference of manners proceeds chiefly from difference of education. In France it is usual to bring their children into company, and to cherish in them, from their infancy, a kind of forwardness and assurance; besides that, the French apply themselves more universally to their exercises than any other nation in the world, so that one seldom sees a young gentleman in France that does not fence, dance, and ride in some tolerable perfection. These agitations of the body do not only give them a free and easy carriage, but have a kind of me- chanical operation on the mind, by keeping the animal spirits always awake and in motion. But what contributes most to this light, airy humor of the French, is the free conversation that is allowed them with their women, which does not only communi- cate to them a certain vivacity of temper, but makes them endea- vor after such a behavior as is most taking with the sex.” The writer goes on to remark the general aversion entertained for the French by the common people of Italy, which he accounts for partly by this difference in the humors and manners of the two nations, partly by the matter of exasperation which, being great politicians, they find in many particulars of the conduct of the French king towards different states, adding: “That however which [ take to be the principal motive, among most of the, Italians, for their favoring the Germans above the French, is this, that they are entirely persuaded it is for the interest of Italy to have Milan and Naples rather in the hands of the first than of the other. One may generally observe, that the body of a people has juster views for the public good, and pursues them with greater uprightness than the nobility and gentry, who have so many private expecta- tions and particular interests, which hang like a false bias upon their judgments, and may possibly dispose them to sacrifice the good of their country to the advancement of their own fortunes.” The last passage is probably an addition made to his original notes at the time of publication, when the war with France had been renewed, and it was a leading object with the Whig party to sup- port the cause of the house of Austria against the projects of Louis XIV.

From Milan to Venice, the face of the country, its lakes, rivers, mulberry trees and vineyards are the principal objects of remark, and descriptive passages from Virgil and Claudian are thickly interspersed. At Venice, again, the tone is changed; and we have a grave exposition of the circumstances which render this cele-

72 THE LIFE OF

brated republic one of the most secure of cities, and a detailed account of what would now be called its statistics, which must apparently have been the result of careful examination and many personal inquiries. He partook also of the pleasures of the carni- val, and criticises the theatrical entertainments with some severity ; observing, however, with respect to the dialogue of the comedies that it is “no wonder that the poets of so jealous and reserved a nation fail in such conversations on the stage, as they have no pat- terns of it in nature.”’ From Rimini he traveled twelve miles out of his way to visit the miniature republic of St. Marino, from which, he says, one may form “an idea of Venice in its first beginnings, when it had only a few heaps of earth for its dominions, or of Rome itself, when it had yet covered but one of its seven hills.” By no part of this work has the author gained more applause than by his ele- gant, but perhaps somewhat elaborate, description of this little state. A quiet vein of mock-heroic humor runs through it; and we seem to be reading a parody, till we reach this manly con- cluding reflection. ‘The people are esteemed very honest and rigorous in the execution of justice, and seem to live more happy and contented among their rocks and snows, than others of the Italians do in the pleasantest valleys of the world. Nothing indeed can be a greater instance of the natural love that mankind has for liberty, and of their aversion to arbitrary government, than such a savage mountain covered with people, and the Campania of Rome, which lies in the same country, almost destitute of inhabitants.” The riches of the Holy house and treasury of Loretto, surpassed his expectation, he says, as much as other sights had usually fallen short of it. ‘Silver can scarcely find an admission, and gold itself looks but poorly among such an incredible number of precious stones.”’ He regards it as certain, however, that the pope would make use of these treasures in case of danger to the holy see from an unfortunate war with the Turk, or a powerful league among the Protestants;—he had before remarked, that the place is weakly guarded, and might easily be surprised by a Christian prince who has ships continually passing to and fro without sus- picion; but that such an act would cause great horror, and be resented by all the Catholic princes in Europe. Addison was per- haps the first to suggest, what Middleton has since shown much more in detail, the pagan origin of most of the popular superstitions of papal Italy. He says, of the house of Loretto, that whoever were the inventors of the imposture, they seem to have taken the hint from the veneration of the Romans for the cottage of Romulus,

JOSEPH ADDISON. 73 which stood on the mount of the capitol, and was repaired from time to time as it fell to decay.

Remains of antiquity, together with classical images and quota- tions, crowd upon him at the sight of Clitumnus, Nar, and the falls of Velinus; which last he depicts well and clearly, ending with the remark: “I think there is something more astonishing in this cascade than in all the waterworks of Versailles.” A charming passage of description shows us his fine imagination feed- ing itself on those images of the beautiful and romantic in natural scenery, which he has reproduced so often, under various forms and with so much evident delight, in the most poetical of his prose lucubrations.

“The fatigue of our crossing the Appenines and of our whole journey from Loretto to Rome, was very agreeably relieved by the variety of scenes we passed through. For, not to mention the rude prospect of rocks rising one above another, of the deep gutters worn in the sides of them by torrents of rain and snow-water, or the long channels of sand winding about their bottoms, that are sometimes filled with so many rivers; we saw, in six days’ traveling, the several seasons of the year in their beauty and perfection. We were sometimes shivering on the top of a bleak mountain, and a little while after basking in a warm valley, covered with violets and almond trees in blossom, the bees already swarming over them, though but in the month of February. Sometimes our road led us through groves of olives, or by gardens of oranges, or into seve- ral hollow apartments among the rocks and mountains, that look like so many natural green-houses; as being always shaded with a great variety of trees and shrubs that never lose their verdure.””

On reaching Rome, our traveler contented himself for the pre- sent with a view of “the two masterpieces of ancient and modern architecture,’ the Pantheon and St. Peter’s, reserving the rest for a leisurely survey on his return from Naples.

Nothing struck him so much, on his way to this city, as the beauty of the country and the extreme poverty and fewness of the inhabitants; and finding this desolation to appear nowhere more than in the pope’s territories, he enters into a very able and can- did inquiry into the causes of it ; concluding with the opinion, that although the miseries of the people “ may arise, in a great measure out of the arbitrariness of the government, they are chiefly to be ascribed to the very genius of the Roman Catholic religion, which here shows itself in its perfection ;’’ and he adds a perspicuous statement of the circumstances to which it gives rise, and the

manner of its operation.

44 THE LIFE OF

«The greatest pleasure I took in my journey from Rome to Naples,’ he says, “was in seeing the fields, towns, and rivers, that have been described by so many classic authors, and have been the scenes of so many great actions; for this whole road is extremely barren of curiosities ;”’ and it is delightful to follow him through the crowd of poetical illustrations which he proceeds to pour forth over what must else have proved a dry itinerary.

Amid some brief remarks on the excess of superstition prevail- ing at modern Naples, and the nature and policy of its Spanish government, he returns to the fair Parthenope, and again recreates himself on poetry and description. The curiosities, both artificial and natural, in the neighborhood of Naples, occupy a considera- ble space. At the grotto del Cane we find him performing a variety of experiments, and borrowing “+a weatherglass,”’ in order to investigate the nature of the deleterious vapor. His notions are of course crude, for nothing, in fact, was then known, even to the best chemists, of the real nature of gaseous substances; but we have a striking indication of a kind of acuteness capable of having carried him far in natural philosophy, had he turned the force of his mind in this direction, in his concluding observation, that “there is an unctuous clammy vapor that arises from the stum of grapes, when they lie mashed together in a vat, which puts out a light when dipped into it; and perhaps would take away the breath of weaker animals were it put to the trial.’ A few such experiments, and carbonic acid gas would have been discovered as the common cause of tle phenomena of the grotto, and of the mash tub!

Of Vesuvius he says, that “ there is nothing about Naples, nor indeed in any part of Italy, which deserves our admiration so much as this mountain ;” he ascended it, and has given a descrip- tion of what he saw, which, it is remarkable, is as dry matter-of- fact, as if he had beheld nothing with the eyes of a poet. After a thorough survey of the objects of curiosity about Naples, he took a felucca for his return to Rome, and adds, “As in my journey from Rome to Naples I had Horace for my guide, so I had the pleasure of seeing my voyage from Naples to Rome described by Virgil.” This voyage is particularly rich in poetical illustra- tions.

The account of Rome is the most elaborate portion of the work, and that in which the scholar and the antiquary are most con- spicuous. He certainly made a long abode in the Eternal City, where he was too happy to take refuge from the degraded present in the contemplation of the glory-beaming past. The following

JOSEPH ADDISON. 73 are his preliminary remarks: ‘There are in Rome two sets of antiquities, the Christian and the heathen. ‘The former, though of a fresher date, are so embroiled with fable and legend, that one receives but little satisfaction from searching into them. The other give a great deal of pleasure to such as have met with them before in ancient authors, fora man who is in Rome can scarce ‘see an object that does not call to mind a piece of a Latin poet or historian. Among the remains of old Rome, the grandeur of the commonwealth shows itself chiefly in works that were either necessary or convenient, such as temples, highways, aqueducts, walls, and bridges of the city. On the contrary, the magnificence of Rome under the emperors, was rather for ostentation or luxury than any real usefulness or necessity, as in baths, amphitheatres, circuses, obelisks, triumphant pillars, arches and mausoleums. . . . These several remains have been so copiously described by abund- ance of travelers, and other writers, that it is very difficult to make any discoveries on so beaten a subject. There is, however, so much to be observed in so spacious a field of antiquities, that it is almost impossible to survey them without taking new hints, and ‘raising different reflections, according as a man’s natural turn of thoughts, or the course of his studies directs him.

“No part of the antiquities of Rome pleased me so muchas | the ancient statues, of which there is still an incredible variety. The workmanship is often the most exquisite of ,anything in its kind. A man would wonder how it were possible for so much life to enter into marble, as may be discovered in some of the best of them; and even in the meanest one has the satisfaction of see- ing the faces, postures, airs and dress of those that have lived so many ages before us.’’ From the last clause it might be conjec- tured, as is the fact, that on the whole our traveler beheld these remains of ancient art rather with the eyes of the antiquary and commentator, than those of the connoisseur; the descriptions how- ever are the more informing on this account; and medals, as well as passages of the poets, are brought to illustrate some curious points of learning.

Addison appears from several indications to have been a lover of music, although Sir J. Hawkins denies him any skill in it; and he has some observations on the ancient instruments, as shown in sculpture, which appear new.

A letter, without date of place, or address, but manifestly writ- ten from Rome, and no doubt genuine, from the style, which is completely Addison’s, may here be inserted, as throwing some light on his pursuits in this city.

eee

76 THE LIFE OF ORT in eee as

Dear Sir—I hope this will find you safe at Geneva; and that the adventure of the rivulet, which you have so well celebrated in your last, has been the worst that you have met with in your journey thither. I can’t but envy your being among the Alps, where you may see frost and snow in the dog-days: we are here quite burnt up, and are at least ten degrees nearer the sun than when you left us. Iam very well satisfied that twas in August that Virgil wrote his “O, qui me gelidis sab montibus Hemi!” &c. Our days at present, like those in the first chapter of Genesis, consist only of the evening and the morning; for the Roman noons are as silent as the midnights in other countries. But among all these inconveniences, the greatest I suffer is from your departure, which is more afflicting to me than the canicule. I am forced, for want of better company, to converse with pic- tures, statues and medals; for you must know, I deal very much in ancient coin, and can count out asum in sesterces with asmuch ease as in pounds sterling. [ama great critic in rust, and can tell you the age of it at first sight: Iam only in some danger of losing my acquaintance with our English money, for at present Iam much more used to the Roman. If you glean up any of our country news, be so kind as to forward it this way. Pray give [ ‘| Mr. Dashwood, and my very humble service to Sir 'Tho- mas, and accept of the same yourself, from,

Dear sir, your most affectionate humble servant, J. Appison.* Aug. 7.

My Lord Bernard, &c., give their service,

In his survey of “towns lying within the neighborhood of Rome,” our author has given fresh examples of that difficult art of painting landscape by words, in which he was certainly one of the very earliest English proficients ; much as we are now tempted to regard a feeling for the picturesque and skill in describing it, in the light of a national endowment. A prospect at the dis- tance of about a mile from the town of Tivoli, is thus displayed. “Jt opens on one side into the Roman Campania, where the eye loses itself on a smooth spacious plain. On the other side is a more broken and interrupted scene, made up of an infinite variety of inequalities and shadowings that naturally arise from an agreeable mixture of hills, groves and valleys. But the most

Fh Addisoniana, p. 128. The original is stated to be preserved in the Bodleian ibrary. ;

JOSEPH ADDISON. 17 0 EE LA Ee enlivening part of all is the river Teverone, which you see at about a quarter of a mile’s distance throwing itself down a pre- cipice, and falling by several cascades from one rock to another, till it gains the bottom of the valley, where the sight of it would be quite lost, did it not sometimes discover itself through the breaks and openings of the woods that grow about it... .... After a very turbulent and noisy course of several miles among the rocks and mountains, the Teverone falls into the valley above mentioned, where it recovers its temper, as it were, by little and little, and after many turns and windings glides peaceably into the Tiber.”

In an exquisite description of the cathedral of Sienna, we may perceive “a treacherous inclination,” taking part with the “ false beauties” of Gothic architecture, more warmly than is quite consistent with the exclusiveness of his classical principles: his sensibility was evidently too strong for his system. “'There is nothing in this city so extraordinary as the cathedral, which a manmay view with pleasure after he has seen St. Peter’s, though *tis quite of another make, and can only be looked upon as one of the masterpieces of Gothic architecture. When a man sees the prodigious pains and expense that our forefathers have been at in these barbarous buildings, one cannot but fancy to himself what miracles of architecture they would have ‘left us, had they only been instructed in the right way. . . . One would wonder to see the vast labor that has been laid out on this single cathe- dral. The very spouts are loaden with ornaments, the windows are formed like so many scenes of perspective, with a multitude of little pillars retiring behind one another; the great columns are finely engraven, with fruits and foliage that run twisting about them from the very top to the bottom; the whole body of the church is checkered with different lays of black and white mar- ble, the pavement curiously cut out in designs and scripture-stos ries, and the front covered with such a variety of figures, and overrun with so many little mazes and labyrinths of sculpture, that nothing in the world can make a prettier show to those who pre- fer false beauties and affected ornaments, to a noble and majestic simplicity.”

The view of Lucca suggests the following sentiment: “ It is very pleasant to see how the small territories of this little republic are cultivated to the best advantage, so that one cannot find the least spot of ground that is not made to contribute its utmost to the owner. In all the inhabitants there appears an air of cheer- fulness and plenty, not often to be met with in those of the coun-

78 THE LIFE OF eT a a a ttt ant tries which lie: about them. There is but one gate for strangers to enter at, that it may be known what numbers of them are in ‘the town. Over it is written in letters of gold Libertas.”

The principalities of Modena and Parma call forth other re- marks. “Their subjects would live in great plenty amidst so rich and well-cultivated a soil, were not the taxes and impositions so very exorbitant; for the courts are much too splendid and magnificent for the territories that lie about them .... it happens very ill at present to be born under one of these petty sovereigns, that will still be endeavoring, at his subjects’ cost, to equal the pomp and grandeur of greater princes, as well as to outvie those of his own rank. For this reason, there are no people in the world who live with more ease and prosperity than the subjects of little commonwealths, as, on the contrary, there are none who suffer more under the grievances of a hard government, than the subjects of little principalities.”

At Asti, the frontier town of Savoy, our traveler came at length in sight of the Po, which awakened in him a crowd of poetical recollections ; he proceeded thence to Turin, and onward, through a country still bearing distinct traces of the devastation of French armies, to Geneva, whence he addressed to his friend Wortley Montagu, the following letter:

Dear Sir—I am just arrived at Geneva by a very troublesome journey over the Alps, where I have been for some days together shivering among the eternal snows. My head is still giddy with mountains and precipices, and you can’t imagine how much I am. pleased with the sight of a plain, that is as agreeable to me at present, as a shore was about a year ago, after our tempest at Genoa. During my passage o’er the mountains, I made a rhym- ing epistle to my Lord Halifax, which perhaps I will trouble you with the sight of, if I don’t find it to be nonsense upon a review. You will think it, I dare say, as extraordinary a thing to make a copy of verses in a voyage o’er the Alps as to write an heroic poem in a hackney coach, and I believe Iam the first that ever thought of Parnassus on Mount Cenis. At Florence I had the honor to have about three days’ conversation with the Duke of Shrewsbury, which made me some amends for the missing Sir ‘Th. Alston’s company, who had taken another road for Rome. I find Iam very much obliged to yourself and him, but will not be so troublesome in my acknowledgments as I might justly be. I shall only assure you that I think Mr. Montagu’s acquaintance the luckiest adventure that I could possibly have met with in my

JOSEPH ADDISON. 29 travels. I suppose you are in England as full of politics as we are of religion at Geneva. I hope you will give me a little touch of it in your letters.

The rake Wood is grown a man of a very regular life and con- versation, and often begins our good friends’ health in England. I am, dear sir, your most affectionate humble servant,

J. Appison.*

10 9% 1701,

‘Tt will be difficult to obtain pardon for our traveler, from the modern lover of the picturesque, for the horror here expressed of the most awfully sublime scenery in Europe, and the rapture with which he appears to have once more welcomed the sight of a plain. It may be recollected, however, that the month was De- cember, and modern roads and modern accommodations as yet undreamed of amid these frowning solitudes. That he was the first traveler who could boast of having thought of Parnassus on Mount Cenis, is likely to have been quite true, in an age when mountains were regarded as blemishes on the face of nature, and when so professed a man of taste as Evelyn, speaks of Salisbury plain as the most enchanting prospect that the eye could rest on. Addison, it may also be pleaded, was eminently a classical tra- veler, and in exchanging the soft airs, smiling fields and purple vineyards of Italy, for the storms, rocks and glaciers of the Swiss Alps, he had likewise bid adieu to all associations inspiring to the scholar and the antiquary.

It is precisely these associations, uniting with an ardent love of liberty, which have breathed into the Epistle to Lord Halifax from Italy, which he was at this time composing, a spirit and a charm which animate no other of his poems. Who does not share in the genuine ecstasy with which he exclaims,

*¢ Poetic fields encompass me around, And still I seem to tread on classic ground ; For here the Muse so oft her harp has strung, That not a mountain rears its head unsung ; Renown’d in verse each shady thicket grows, And ev’ry stream in heav’nly numbers flows. How am I pleas’d to search the hills and woods For rising springs and celebrated floods! To View the Nar, tumultuous in his course, And trace the smooth Clitumnus to his source,

To see the Mincio draw his wat’ry store Through the long windings of a fruitful shore,

* Addisoniana, —

80 THE LIFE OF eR AAR eee @9@@>OoO@a@a—@D@D*SO _;_0bwWeEOmaeEeEereeereeess err ee ees, es sSc<=E 0 OOO And hoary Albula’s infected tide O’er the warm bed of smoking sulphur glide. Fir’d with a thousand raptures I survey Eridanus through flow*ry meadows stray, The king of floods! that rolling o’er the plains The tow’ring Alps of half their moisture drains, And proudly swol’n with a whole winter’s snows Distributes wealth and plenty as he flows.”

It should not escape remark, that the very phrase “classic ground,” which from the familiarity of repetition has to us so trite a sound, here makes its appearance, in all probability, for the first time; and it is by no means the only felicitous expression with which Addison, in his poetical capacity, has enriched our language. In the praises of Italy which follow, he has happily adapted new figures to the canvas supplied him by Virgil, and the passage which closes up the splendid enumeration as with a long sigh, is not easily to be paralleled in moral poetry for energy or for pathos.

‘¢ How has kind heav’n adorn’d the happy land, = And scatter’d blessings with a wasteful hand! But what avails her unexhausted stores,

Her blooming mountains and her sunny shores, With all the gifis that heav’n and earth impart, The smiles of nature and the charms of art, While proud Oppression in her valleys reigns, And Tyranny usurps her happy plains?

The poor inhabitant beholds in vain

The red’ning orange and the swelling grain; Joyless he sees the growing oils and wines, And in the myrtle’s fragrant shade repines :

Starves, in the midst of nature’s bounty curst, And in the loaden vineyard dies for thirst.??

The apostrophe to Liberty which follows, well introduces the praises of England, and the animated passage beginning,

** On foreign mountains may the sun refine The grape’s soft juice and mellow it to wine,??

serves as preface to a skillful transfusion of Virgil’s

‘* Excudent alii spirantia mollius era.”

Politics seldom mingle happily with poetry, and it must be confessed that the celebration of King William’s foreign policy which follows is somewhat of an anticlimax. Nor can such an expression as “lines like Virgil’s or like yours,’ addressed to Lord Halifax, pass for less than egregious flattery. One circum- stance alone mitigates our disgust; Halifax was at this time out of office and under disgrace, having been addressed against and impeached by the House of Commons, though still favored by

JOSEPH ADDISON. 8t

teas

the king, and afterwards justified by the peers.* The letter addressed by Addison to this statesman at the same critical period of his affairs, further attests, and in plain prose, the sincerity of his attachment to his early patron.

It was in the month of December, 1701, as appears from the date of his letter to Wortley Montagu, that Addison arrived at _ Geneva; and it was here that he paused in his homeward journey, as Tickell informs us, on receiving “advice from his friends that he was pitched upon to attend the army under Prince Eugene, who had just begun the war in Italy, as secretary from his ma- jesty.”” He was still in waiting at this city when the disastrous news of the death of King William on March 8, 1702, arrived to sweep away all his hopes and projects. Not only was he robbed by this event of the privilege, which he would have known how to prize, of attending on a hero, but the dismissal of his Whig friends from office, which speedily followed under the new reign, shut out for the present all his prospects of advancement at home; and to add to his misfortune, his pension ceased as we have seen, with the life of the sovereign by whom it had been granted. Tickell, however, has not thought proper to point attention to this critical state of his affairs, but dismisses the subject with the cold remark, that “he had leisure to make the tour of Germany in his way home.’ Of his private letters we have none which throw any light on his feelings or projects in this conjuncture: that to Wortley Montagu already cited, was written before his reverse of fortune, and so no doubt was one addressed to Congreve, and de- scribing in the same tone of feeling the miseries of a winter pas- sage of the Alps, which he afterwards gave to Steele for insertion in the Tatler No. 93. A letter addressed to his friend Mr. Dash- wood some months later, but still from Geneva, proves only that worldly anxieties had not the power to repress the playful humor of his pen.

_—~

*

MR. ADDISON TO CHAMBERLAIN DASHWOOD, ESQ.

Dear Sir—About three days ago Mr. Bocher put a very pretty snufi-box in my hand. I was nota little pleas’d to hear that it belonged to myself, and was much more so when I found it was a present from a Gentleman that I have so great an honour for. You

Sete ti P58 ORS SE TR RE te a tes bee D 85S eh SE

* <¢ Miss Aikin says that the Epistle was written before Halifax was justified by the Lords. This is a mistake. The Epistle was written in December, 1701; the impeachment had been dismissed in the preceding June.’’—Macaulay.

6

82 THE LIFE OF

ae eS eee did not probably foresee that it wou’d draw on you y® trouble of a Letter, but you must blame yourself for it. For my part I can no more accept of a Snuff-box without returning my Acknowlege- ments, than I can take snuff without sneezing after it. This last I must own to you is so great an absurdity that I should be ashamed to confess it, were not [ in hopes of correcting it very speedily. I am observ’d to have my Box oft’ner in my hand than those that have bin used to one these twenty years, for I cant forbear taking it out of my pocket whenever I think of Mr. Dashwood. You know Mr. Bays recommends snuff as a great provocative to Wit, but you may produce this Letter as a standing Evidence against him. I have since y® beginning of it taken above a dozen pinches, and still find myself much more inclin’d to sneeze than to jest. From whence I conclude that Wit and Tobacco are not insepara- ble, or to make a Pun of it, tho’ a Man may be master of a snuff- box,

*¢ Non cuicunque datum est habere Nasam.’?

I should be affraid of being thought a Pedant for my Quotation did not I know that y® Gentleman I am writing to always carrys a Horace in his pocket. But whatever you may think me, pray S* do me y® Justice to esteem me your most &c.

To Chamberlain Dashwood Esq. Geneva July 1702.*

The published travels of Addison afford no hint of his personal circumstances ; the dates of his arrival at Geneva and departure from it are both omitted, and the narrative proceeds with his tour through the Swiss cantons.

This portion of the work exhibits its author more distinctly than perhaps any other, in the character of an observing traveler. The country afforded few hints for classical allusion or quotation, and he had only to note the objects which offered themselves to his senses, and to record such information concerning the present situation of the country as his leisurely survey of it had enabled him to collect. The manner however in which he has performed this, is characteristic of him in many respects,

A minute, and what may be called an instructive, description is given of Geneva and its lake; and without giving way to the raptures felt or feigned by modern tourists, the writer sufficiently indicates his sensibility to the beauty, and the singularity at least of the surrounding scenes. After some remarks on the effects of

* Tickell papers.

JOSEPH ADDISON. 83 the Alps on the climate and aspect of Geneva, « These moun- tains,”’ he adds, “ likewise very much increase their summer heats, and make up an horizon that has something in it very singular and agreeable. On one side you have the long tract of hills that goes under the name of Mount Jura, covered with vineyards and pasturage, and on the other huge precipices of naked rocks rising up in a thousand odd figures, and cleft in some places so as to discover high mountains of snow that lie several leagues behind them. Towards the South the hills rise more insensibly, and leave the eye a vast uninterrupted prospect for many miles. But the most beautiful view of all is the lake, and the borders of it that lie North of the town.”’ In a voyage of five days round the lake, touching on the several towns that lie on its coasts, he describes all that he found remarkable, not forgetting to observe that in those on the side of Savoy “there is nothing but misery and poverty.” The convent of Ripaille had a forest cut into walks, at one side of which “ you have a near prospect of the Alps, which are broken into so many steeps and precipices, that they fill the mind with an agreeable kind of horror, and form one of the most irregular misshapen scenes in the world.”’ Versoy, in the Canton of Berne, attracted the notice of our traveler as the last asylum of Edmund Ludlow. “The house he lived in has this inscription over the door: ae fete

** Omne solum forti patria quia patris.’?

“ The first part,’’ he adds, “is a piece of verse in Ovid, as the last is a cant of his own.”’ Notwithstanding this stroke of contempt, which so fine a classic could scarcely resist, he proceeds to tran- scribe and translate the Latin epitaph of the old republican, as well as another placed beside it, to one Andrew Broughton, who js said to have had * the honor to pronounce the sentence of the’ King of Kings:’’ “I suppose,” he says, “ by his epitaph, it is the same person that was clerk to the pretended high court of Justice, which passed sentence on the Royal Martyr.”

The description of Meldingen has some humor, “It is a re- public of itself, under the protection of the eight ancient Cantons. There are in it a hundred bourgeois and about a thousand souls. The government is modeled after the same manner with that of the Cantons. .... For this reason, though they have very little business to do, they have all the variety of councils and officers that are to be met with in the greater states..... They have three councils, the great council of fourteen, the little council of ten, and the privy council of three. . . . The several councils meet

84 THE LIFE OF eee every Thursday upon affairs of state, such as the reparation of a trough, the mending of a pavement, or any the like matters of im- portance. The river that runs through their dominions puts them to the charge of a very large bridge, that is all made of wood, and coped over head, like the rest in Switzerland... .. You may be sure the preserving of the bridge, with the regulation of the dues arising from it, is the grand affair that cuts out employment for the several councils of state.”

The very handsome town house of Zurich gives occasion to a remark characteristic of his fine taste in writing: “It is a pity they have spoiled the beauty of the walls with abundance of childish Latin sentences that consist often in a jingle of words. I have indeed observed in several inscriptions of this country, that your men of learning here, are extremely delighted in playing little tricks with words and figures; for your Swiss wits are not yet got out of the anagram and acrostic.”’

A visit to the Abbey of St. Gall suggests the following Protest- ant reflections. “I have often wished that some traveler would take the pains to gather together all the modern inscriptions which are to be met with in Roman Catholic countries, as Gruter and others have copied out the ancient heathen monuments. Had we two or three volumes of this nature, without any of the col- lector’s own reflections, I am sure there is nothing in the world could give a truer idea of the Roman Catholic religion, nor expose more the pride, vanity, and self-interest of convents, the abuse of indulgences, the folly and impertinence of votaries, and, in short, the superstition, credulity, and childishness of the Roman Catho- he religion. One might fill several sheets at St. Gall, as indeed there are few considerable convents or churches that would: not afford large contributions.”’

Some remarks on the admirable union and harmony maintained among the Swiss Cantons notwithstanding their number and their division in religion, evince the same preference of republican over monarchical government, for small and poor countries, which so often breaks forth in his accounts of the Italian states. “A prince’s court,” he says, “eats too much into the income of a poor state, and generally introduces a kind of luxury and mag- nificence, that sets every particular person upon making a higher figure in his station than is generally consistent with his revenue.” He highly praises the endeavors used in the Cantons to banish all appearances of pomp and superfluity; observes that luxury wounds a republic in its very vitals, and that precautions against it have become more necessary in some of the governments since

JOSEPH ADDISON. 85 the influx of French refugees; “for though the Protestants in France affect ordinarily a greater plainness and simplicity of man- ners than those of the same quality who are of the Roman Ca- tholic communion, they have, however, too much of their country gallantry for the genius and constitution of Switzerland.” As an illustration of the frugality of these states, he observes that “their holiday clothes go from father to son, and are seldom worn out till the second or third generation; so that it is common enough to see a countryman in the doublet and breeches of his great-grandfather.”’

Many passages in the relation of this Swiss tour refer to the influence, or authority, exerted by the King of France, in the cantons, and attest the mingled feelings of apprehension and ab- horrence with which this ambitious and persecuting monarch was regarded by our Protestant English traveler. In consequence of the death of James II., and the proclamation of his son at Paris by the arrogant command of Louis XIV., war against France had again been declared by the English court, which had renewed its engagements with its former continental allies.

On reaching the imperial town of Lindau, Addison found the inhabitants all in arms, and under great apprehensions from the Bavarian troops, and “ we were advised,” he says, “ by our mer- chants by no means to venture ourselves in the Duke of Bava- ria’s country, so that we had the mortification to lose the sight of Munich, Augsburgh, and Ratisbon, and were forced to take our way to Vienna through the Tyrol, where we had very little to entertain us beside the natural face of the country.’’ By whom he was accompanied in this part of his travels, nowhere appears; possibly by a pupil.

A remark on the beauty added to the fine scenery of the Inn by the colors of the changing foliage, apprises us that it was already Autumn when he reached Vienna; whence we may conjecture that he had purposely lingered in Switzerland till finally assured of the disappointment of his hopes, and the fall of his political friends, through the Tory predilections of Queen Anne.

He found some consolation for his disappointments, in the friendship which he had the opportunity of forming at the [mpe- rial capital with Mr. Stepney, then the British envoy to that court. With this gentleman, long the chosen intimate of his friend Mr. Wortley Montagu, it is curious to observe how nume- yous were his points of similarity or sympathy. Stepney, like himself, desirous of turning to worldly advantage a distinguished

86 THE LIFE OF

ptoficiency in classical learning, had composed an Ode on the marriage of the Princess Anne, which formed a portion of the customary homage paid by the University of Cambridge on that auspicious occasion. He had also celebrated in English verse the accession of James II.; these, added to other effusions of loyalty, with some attempts in the humorous line; and transla- tions in verse from the Latin poets,—a favorite exercise with the writers of the time,—had gained him considerable distinction as a poet. This character, joined to the claims of a school friend- ship, entitled him to the zealous patronage of Lord Halifax, by whose persuasion he enlisted himself, after the revolution in the Whig party, and became a successful candidate for diplomatic em- ployments. From the year 1692, he had been engaged in a series of missions to the different states and princes of Germany, and was now, for the second time, deputed to the Emperor. The official character of Stepney afforded him the means of bestowing on our traveler marks of attention peculiarly welcome in the de- pressed state of his fortunes ; and the warm expressions of grati- tude which occur, even in the official correspondence which it was subsequently the duty of Addison to maintain with him, prove that his inclination to serve him had not fallen short of his ability. Their friendship continued without interruption till the early death of Stepney a few years afterwards.

CHAPTER V. 1702 to 1704.

Addison in adversity. Erroneous representations of this period of his life. Swift’s lines full of misrepresentation, He quits Vienna. Letter to Stepney on his Dialogues on Ancient Medals. Account of this work. His travels in Germany. Letters to Mr. Stepney. To Lord Winchelsea. His charac- ter, To Mr. Wyche. To Mr. Bathurst. Arrives at the Hague. Meets Tonson there. His business in Holland. Letter of Addison to him. Let- ters of the Duke of Somerset to Tonson concerning Addison. Letter of Addison to the Duke. Ofthe Duke toTonson. Remarks. Letter to Bishop Hough. To Mr. Wood. To Mr. Wyche. Return of Addison to England.

Tar the period of Addison’s life now under consideration must have been one of considerable anxiety, if not embarrassment, is unquestionable. Every circumstance seemed to conspire against

JOSEPH ADDISON. 87 him : disappointed of his promised office abroad, he was return- ing to meet a defeated party at home; in the meantime his re- sources had been curtailed by the cessation of his pension, his Oxford debts still pressed upon his mind, and his fellowship and whatever supplies could be afforded him by a father certainly far from affluent, seemed to have formed his whole reliance for pre- sent support.

The conduct of a man of merit under difficulties is always the most instructive, as well as interesting part of his history; the total silence, therefore, of Tickell, respecting his situation and engagements after quitting Geneva, till he was called upon to celebrate the battle of Blenheim, must always have been a disap- pointment to the curious reader. Yet no blame can properly be said to attach to the editor of his works on this account; he pro- fessed to give no more than a view of the literary life of Addison; his personal acquaintance with him was of much later date, and his own reverence for a patron of such rank in the state as well as in letters, perhaps, too, the pride of a titled widow, forbade the exhibition of him under circumstances, which, in the eye of the world, mightappear humiliating. To these considerations it may be added, that he is not chargeable with veiling any particulars morally disgraceful, for none such, as he well knew, had existed ; and it must have cost him a struggle to deny himself the satisfac- tion of displaying the high and honorable friendships by which Addison was still graced and protected when pensionless, destitute of office, profession or inheritance, and rich in nothing but his genius and the treasures of his accomplished mind. One effect, however, of Tickell’s silence, and which he certainly did not anti- cipate, has been, that of leaving room for a variety of false repre- sentations, which have passed unexamined from one biographical compiler to another, till they have become a regular part of what is universally believed respecting this eminent person. The source of these must now be carefully laid open.

There appeared in the works of Swift a poem, written as late as the year 1728, and entitled «A libel on the Reverend Dr. De- lany, and his Excellency John lord Carteret.’’ ‘This piece was composed by the dean with the design of deterring his clerical friend from paying his court to the Lord-lieutenant of Ireland by literary flatteries, with the hope of obtaining in return the solid benefits of his patronage. In pursuance of this purpose, he cites a variety of examples exhibiting the unfeeling disregard to the worldly interests of men of letters evinced by pretended patrons, who had cultivated their society from vanity, or merely as the

88 THE LIFE OF A tanh pS RRO SRL OO LOLS E BALES LSS LOT te TNT amusement of an idlehour. For the sake of insulting the memory of Lord Halifax, Congreve is included in the number, who was im fact a remarkable contrary instance of speedy and substantial benefits received through the favor of a statesman. Afterwards occurs the following : «¢ Thus Addison, by lords caress’d,

Was left in foreign lands distress’d,

Forgot at home, became for hire

A tray’ling tutor to a squire, ‘

But wisely left the Muses? hill,

To business shaped the poet’s quill,

Let all his barren Jaurels fade,

Took up himself the courtier’s trade,

And, grown a minister of state,

Saw poets at his levee wait.”

Swift had assuredly no ill-will to Addison; on the contrary, he was always very decidedly one of the small number whom the dean was pleased to except out of his general hatred of a race of which he was himself, in many respects, a very bad specimen. But when any point was to be carried, and especially any private or party malice to be gratified, he was one of the most unscru- pulous of assertors; this occasion, he perceived, might be im- proved to the dishonor of Somers and Halifax, who, though dead, were still chosen objects of his vindictive feelings; and it is really something extraordinary to consider what a tissue of utter falsehoods he has deliberately woven into so few lines for the sake of involving in it those Whig leaders by whom he thought himself to have been neglected and deceived. That Addison was not ‘forgot at home”’ by the lords who had “ caressed’? him, so long as they retained the power of serving him in public life, is manifest, both from the intended mission to Prince Eugene, which has been mentioned, and from Addison’s own letters. Afterwards, displaced and im- peached, what succor could they have offered their friend, short of settling him as a pensioner on their private bounty ?—A. degra- dation to which we may feel confident that a spirit so delicate, so well acquainted with true dignity, and conscious of such resources in itself, would never have submitted. That Addison was tempted by the want of due encouragement to “quit the Muses’ hill” for business, is so absolutely contrary to fact, that this his first check in an intended political career had the immediate effect, as we shall see, of throwing him back upon literature as his best resource, Such, indeed, it continued to be to him through all the subsequent vicissitudes of his career. No English writer of any age, whose life was not wholly that of a secluded scholar, could with more pro-

JOSEPH ADDISON. R 89 ne en ETS RRR ne nee een Ga priety have adopted Cicero’s celebrated praise of letters, as the companions of all hours, all scenes and circumstances, all periods of life, all varieties of fortune. With poetry his course began; with poetry and Cato it almost concluded. We have no evidence that he ever actually undertook the charge of a traveling tutor, though he had it in his thoughts; for the latter part of his tour, the letters now produced to the public for the first time, from the Tickell and the Tonson papers, added to some reprinted in their proper connection and sequence, will be found to afford under his own hand, strong contrary presumptions. They show likewise that Addison, the intimate and equal associate of persons of rank, merit and influence, modest as he was, knew how to set a due value on himself, his hopes and his fortunes.

His stay at Vienna was brief. Autumn was already advanced, as we have seen, when he reached it, and he appears to have quitted it soon after he addressed to Stepney the following letter.

MR. ADDISON TO MR. STEPNEY.

Sir—That I may be as troublesome to you in prose as in verse, I take the liberty to send you the beginning of a work that I told you I had some design of publishing at my Return into England, I have wrote it since my being at Vienna, in hopes that it might have y* advantage of your correction. I cant hope that one who is so well acquainted with y* persons of our present modern princes shou’d find any pleasure in a discourse on y® faces of such as made a figure in y® World above a thousand years agoe. You will see however that I have endeavoured to treat my subject, that is in itself very bare of Ornaments, as divertingly as I cou’d. I have proposed to myself such a way of instructing as that in the dialogues on y* Plurality of Worlds. The very owning of this design will I believe look like a piece of vanity, tho’ I know Iam guilty of a much greater in offering what I have wrote to your perusal. Iam 8S". &.

To M". Stepney Envoy at the Court of Vienna. November 1702.*

It was thus that he introduced to his friend his beautiful « Dia- logues on the usefulness of ancient medals ;” perhaps the most per- fect, certainly the most graceful examples in our language of this form of composition. Dr. Johnson’s assertion,—whose scanty ac- quaintance with French literature probably did not include even the

el eee

rs,

* Tickell papers.

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celebrated and popular work of Fontenelle,—that Dryden’s Dia- logue on Dramatic poetry was Addison’s model, is thus disproved; and this information of the real prototype suggests a curious national contrast. The informing spirit of the dialogues of Fon- tenelle is that of gallantry ; and the fair pupil whom he addresses imbibes the principles of the astronomy of Descartes diluted and dulcified with at least an equal portion of flattery, on the graces of her person and the charms of her mind; but although the study of medals could scarcely be regarded as less within the sphere of female inquiry than worlds and their vortices,—and in fact there had been ladies in this country of a former and a better age cele- brated for their numismatic attainments,—the English wit care- fully exonerates himself from all obligation to compliment the ladies on the occasion, and admits not even a humble listener of the feminine gender. A knowledge of the pattern on which he worked might likewise have shielded the author from a criticism of Bishop Hurd, who imputes it as a fault to these dialogues that they deviate from the classical examples in not exhibiting real characters as the interlocutors. In any case, this appears an ill- considered objection ; and it is probable that the judgment of the bishop was warped by his own practice. Whatever dignity or seeming authority this kind of artifice,—an offensive one at the best to the true lover of historical and biographical truth,—might lend to the discussion of questions of philosophy, politics or history, it would be difficult to point out any advantage to be gained by it on such a topic as the usefulness of medals, essentially a branch of erudition; while the difficulties and objections are obvious. The part of a leading speaker must in all propriety have been assigned to some one of the very small number of learned persons who had distinguished themselves by devoting their lives to pro- found investigations in this dark and difficult science; and with what modesty could a writer who had only skimmed its surface, have uttered conjectures or remarks of his own under the sanction of names such as those of Spanheim or Le Vailliant?

It appears that the study of medals had been a favorite object of pursuit with Addison in Italy, and especially at Rome, where he had availed himself of the technical instructions of a professor of this branch of antiquities, besides embracing the opportunity of inspecting the most celebrated collections. According to his gene- ral plan in the study of antiquity, he applied his knowledge of these objects to the illustration of passages in the Latin poets, by which, in return, he frequently explained the signification of

JOSEPH ADDISON. 91

ERE ee, Ee medals. Several examples of this application of his reading occur in his Travels. J

The two first of these dialogues are much more thickly inter- spersed than even his Travels with quotations from ancient writers, brought to explain the objects, customs, and events represented by the charges of the medals; and the wide range of subjects, with the great number and variety of authors quoted, highly hon- orable as they are to the learned diligence of the author, are also quite effectual in relieving whatever of dryness might have been found in the topic itself. The playful turns of fancy, and the strokes of character and humor which give distinctness and anima- tion to the speakers, have as much of the peculiar zest of his genius as his best Spectators. Besides the two dialogues which strictly answer to the general title, there is a third called « A paral- lel between ancient and modern medals,’”’ which is laudable for the moderation and absence of national prepossession with which it discusses the merits and defects of those struck by order of Louis XIV., to record the glories of his reign. Itis frankly avowed that, in most points of excellence, these come nearer to the ancients than any other modern ones, and it is added, that to the French we are also * indebted for the best lights that have been given to the whole science in general.”

For what reason the author of these elegant and highly-finished pieces should have left them to make their first appearance in the posthumous edition of his works, it is not easy to divine. Pos- sibly he might apprehend that he had already introduced in his Travels as much of classical matter as the English public, im- mersed in party contests, would find leisure or inclination to attend to; possibly he might not fully have satisfied the excessive deli- cacy of his own taste in the execution ; probably he might soon become distrustful of the soundness of some of his conjectural interpretations of enigmatical inscriptions and half-effaced or ill- formed figures.

What objects of a more peculiar and personal nature than the general benefits of travel Addison might have had at this time in his view, we do not learn; but we may conclude that he had such, since it was both by a very leisurely and a very circuitous jour- ney, including both the free town of Hamburgh, where his stay was long, and almost all the Protestant courts of Germany, that he proceeded towards Holland, which country he did not reach till the spring of 1703. His correspondence supplies scanty, yet amusing notices of his progress, and of the gay, and it must be owned, somewhat convivial associates with whom he traveled or

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joined company on the different stages of his progress. A frag- ment of a second letter to Mr. Stepney affords some notices of his winter journey to Dresden.

‘ * 4

MR. ADDISON TO MR. STEPNEY.

S'—If I trouble you with another letter so soon after my last you must impute it to y* frequency of y° favors I receive from you. It is to them we owe all y® pleasures we find at Dresden as well as what we met with at Vienna. Since our leaving Prague we have seen nothing but a great varietie of Winter pieces, so that all y° account I can give you of y* Country is, that it abounds very much in Snow. If it has any other beauties in it this is not a time of year to look for ’em when almost ev’rything we see is of y° same colour, and scarce anything we meet with except our sheets and napkins that is not white. &c. &c.

Jan. 34 1703.

Tt is difficult to conceive what congeniality of tastes can have engaged him in a correspondence with Charles third, earl of Winchelsea, unless we may impute some malice or misinforma- tion to Macky, who, after mentioning that his lordship was brought into the government by the Earl of Nottingham, and held some appointments at the beginning of the queen’s reign, thus charac- terizes him: * He hath neither genius nor gusto for business ; loves hunting and a bottle; was an opposer to his power of the measures of King William’s reign ; and is zealous for the monar- chy and church in the highest degree. He loves jests and puns,

and that sort of low wit—not thirty years old.’””, He was probably of Oxford.

MR. ADDISON TO THE EARL OF WINCHELSEA.

My Lord—I can no longer deny myself y® honour of troubling your L'ship with a Letter, tho Hambourg has yet furnisht me with very few materials for it. The great Business of the place is Commerce and Drinking: as their chief Commoditie, at least that which I am best acquainted with, is Rhenish Wine. This they have in such prodigious Quantities that there is yet no sen- sible diminution of it tho M*. Perrot and myself have bin among em above a week. The principal Curiositie of y° town, and what is more visited than any other I have met with in my Travails, is a great Cellar fill’d with this kind of Liquor. It

JOSEPH ADDISON. 93

holds more hogsheads than others can bottles, and I believe is capable of receiving into it a whole Vintage of y’ Rhine. By this cellar stands y° little English Chappel, w* your L'ship may well suppose is not all-together soe much frequented by our Countrymen as y* other. I must however do ’em y* justice, as they are all of ’em Loyal Sons of y* Church of England, to as- _ sure your L'ship that her Majestie can have no subjects in any part of her Dominions that pray more heartily for her health or drink to it oft’ner. We are this evening to take a bottle with Mr. Wyche and Stratford. ‘To draw us in they tell us it shall be to my L* Winchelsea’s Health. I dare not lett you know my L*,