We love him for his vanities as much as his virtues. What is ridiculous is
delightful in him; we are so fond of him because we laugh at him so. And
out of that laughter, and out of that sweet weakness, and out of those
harmless eccentricities and follies, and out of that touched brain, and
out of that honest manhood and simplicity--we get a result of happiness,
goodness, tenderness, pity, piety; such as doctors and divines but seldom
have the fortune to inspire. And why not? Is the glory of Heaven to be
sung only by gentlemen in black coats?
When this man looks from the world, whose weaknesses he describes so
benevolently, up to the Heaven which shines over us all, I can hardly
fancy a human face lighted up with a more serene rapture; a human
intellect thrilling with a purer love and adoration than Joseph Addison's.
Listen to him: from your childhood you have known the verses; but who can
hear their sacred music without love and awe?
"Soon as the evening shades prevail,
The moon takes up the wondrous tale,
And nightly to the listening earth
Repeats the story of her birth;
And all the stars that round her burn,
And all the planets in their turn,
Confirm the tidings as they roll,
And spread the truth from pole to pole.
"What though, in solemn silence, all
Move round this dark terrestrial ball;
What though no real voice nor sound
Among their radiant orbs be found;
In reason's ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice,
Forever singing, as they shine,
The Hand that made us is divine."
It seems to me those verses shine like the stars. They shine out of a
great, deep calm. When he turns to Heaven, a Sabbath comes over that man's
mind; and his face lights up from it with a glory of thanks and prayers.
His sense of religion stirs through his whole being. In the fields, in the
town; looking at the birds in the trees; at the children in the streets;
in the morning or in the moonlight; over his books in his own room; in a
happy party at a country merrymaking or a town assembly, good will and
peace to God's creatures, and love and awe of Him who made them, fill his
pure heart and shine from his kind face. If Swift's life was the most
wretched, I think Addison's was one of the most enviable. A life
prosperous and beautiful--a calm death--an immense fame and affection
afterwards for his happy and spotless name.
NOTES.--Goldsmith (see biographical notice, page 215) founded his
descriptions of Auburn in the poem of "The Deserted Village," and of
Wakefield, in "The Vicar of Wakefield," on recollections of his early home
at Lissoy. Ireland.
Addison. See biographical notice, page 295. The quotation is from a
"Letter from Italy to Charles Lord Halifax."
Swift, Jonathan (b. 1667, d. 1745), the celebrated Irish satirist and
poet, was a misanthrope. His disposition made his life miserable in the
extreme, and he finally became insane.