for the conquest of the Holy Land, and indeed had nearly succeeded in
effecting a league for that purpose between Ferdinand, Manuel of
Portugal, and Henry VII. of England. But this hope being defeated, he
was still anxious to employ the power of Spain against Mahometanism, and
used his best endeavours to persuade Ferdinand to invade the coast of
Barbary. The king’s parsimony was not to be overcome, until Ximenes
offered a loan sufficient to equip the proposed armament, and defray its
expenses for two months; and the capture of the town of Marsarquiver, in
the autumn of 1505, was the immediate result. Here the Spanish arms
remained stationary till 1509, when the Cardinal obtained permission to
attempt the siege of Oran at his own expense, on the sole condition,
that if he succeeded, either the patrimony of the church expended in
this secular undertaking was to be repaid, or the domain conquered was
to be annexed to the see of Toledo. He assumed himself the supreme
direction of the expedition, entrusting the command of the army to Peter
Navarre, an able, turbulent, and ambitious soldier. Everything was
unfavourable to the Cardinal. The king was jealous of him; Navarre
impatient of the subjection of the sword to the crozier; and other
officers, corrupt or hostile, and encouraged by the example of their
superiors, stirred the soldiers to mutiny. But the decision of Ximenes
compelled obedience, and the wisdom of his measures ensured success; so
that the surrender of Oran was the almost immediate result of his
descent upon Africa. He would willingly have remained there to pursue
his successes. But finding the disobedience of his lieutenant to be
secretly encouraged by Ferdinand, he determined to return while he could
do so with honour, leaving Navarre in the command of the troops. For
himself or his see he reserved no part of the spoil. That which was not
bestowed upon the soldiers, or consumed in the service, he set apart for
the crown. Yet a fresh disagreement arose when the Cardinal, according
to the compact, demanded payment of the advances made by the see; and
when Ferdinand at last was compelled to acquiesce, it was in the most
ungracious and unbecoming manner.
Ferdinand died January 23, 1516. On his death-bed he appointed Ximenes
Regent of Castile during the minority of Charles V., with expressions
indicative of no personal regard, but bearing strong testimony to his
unbending justice, disinterestedness, and zeal for the public welfare.
The Cardinal’s conduct in this exalted station was consistent with the
tenor of his past life; he was a just ruler, but his authority was
feared and respected rather than loved. If he had one passion
unmortified, it was ambition: he ruled with a single eye to his young
sovereign’s interests; but he evaded that sovereign’s attempts to
circumscribe his powers with as much success as he bore down the
opposition of those turbulent nobles, who hoped, in the weakness of a
minority, to find a fit opportunity for prosecuting their own
aggrandizement, and committing with impunity acts of illegal violence.
For when Charles V. sent some of his confidential Flemish ministers to
be associates in the commission of regency, the Cardinal received them
with respect, and granted them the external distinctions of office; for
the rest they were mere puppets in his hands. Of his internal policy,
the chief scope was to elevate the regal power, and to depress that of
the nobles, even by throwing a greater weight into the hands of the
unprivileged classes: the same policy as had been pursued by the wisest
princes of the age, Ferdinand and Isabella, Henry VII. of England, and
Louis XI. of France. The crown had been reduced to great poverty by
lavish grants, extorted, in disturbed times, by the necessity of
conciliating powerful noblemen, rather than granted by free-will, or out
of real gratitude for services; and it was one of Ximenes’ first objects
to remedy this evil, even by means which showed none of that regard to
vested interests, which belongs to times in which the course of law is
regular and supreme, and consequently the rights of property are rigidly
respected. Such pensions as had been granted in Ferdinand’s reign he cut
off at once, on the plea that the grantor could only have bestowed them
for his own life. The crown lands alienated during the same period were
resumed: even the Cardinal’s boldness did not venture to carry the
inquiry farther back, from the apprehension of driving the whole body of
the nobility into revolt.
These changes, and other important measures, were not carried into
effect without great discontent and considerable open resistance. But
the Cardinal was strong, in the resources of his own powerful mind, in
the general reverence of the people for the sanctity of his character,
in his exalted rank as head of the Spanish church, and in the immense
revenues of his see, which gave him a command of money not enjoyed by
the crown, and enabled him to keep in his own pay a considerable body of
troops. With these he maintained order, and repressed feuds, which the
barons, trusting to the common weakness of a regency, hastened to decide
by the sword; and set at defiance the enmity of the nobility at a later
period, when more decided encroachments on the privileges of the order
had produced a general spirit of discontent. On one occasion a
deputation of the chief grandees of Castile required to be informed,
under what title he presumed to exercise such high authority. The
Cardinal showed the will of Ferdinand, and its confirmation by Charles
V., and finding them still unsatisfied, led them to a window, from which
he pointed out a strong military force under arms. “These,” he said,
“are the powers which I have received from the king. With these I govern
Castile; and with these I will govern it, until the king, your master
and mine, takes possession of his kingdom.”
One of his schemes for strengthening the crown was the erection of a
species of militia, composed of burghers of cities; but that class was
not sufficiently advanced in knowledge to appreciate the immense
accession of importance which would accrue from this measure, which they
regarded solely as a burden. It was therefore unpopular among them, as
well as unpalatable to the barons; and was entirely dropped soon after
the regent’s death.
His foreign policy was nearly confined to the conduct of two wars: the
one to maintain Navarre, which had been usurped by Ferdinand, against
the legitimate monarch John d’Albret; the other, an expedition against
the pirate Barbarossa, King of Algiers, who inflicted a signal and
entire discomfiture on the invading army.
In the administration of the kingdom Ximenes displayed the same
inflexible love of justice, and the same economy, integrity, and order,
as in the management of his own diocese of Toledo; and he brought the
finances into so flourishing a state, that after discharging the crown
debts, and placing the military establishment in a more than commonly
efficient state, he was enabled to remit large sums of money to the
young king in Flanders. And he had something of a title to Charles’s
more immediate and personal gratitude, for having used with success his
own overpowering influence to obtain the recognition of that prince as
king of Castile during the lifetime of his insane mother, against the
usage of the realm, although he had remonstrated with earnestness
against pressing the indecorous and unfilial claim. All these services
however were thrown into the shade by one thing. Ximenes hated the
Flemish ministers whom Charles sent into Spain, and who disgraced their
high station, and corrupted the country by open and abandoned venality.
He never ceased to remonstrate against these abuses, and to importune
Charles to visit his Spanish dominions; and the Flemish favourites saw
that their own ruin was certain if the regent once gained an ascendance
over the king’s mind. They retarded therefore the departure of the
latter as much as possible, and succeeded in prejudicing him against his
most sincere and judicious friend and servant. Convinced at last of the
necessity for his presence, Charles set out for Spain, and landed in the
province of Asturias, September 13, 1517. The Cardinal hastened towards
the coast to meet him, but was stopped at Bos Equillos by a severe
illness, which, as was very usual in past times, was imputed to poison.
He wrote to the king, entreating him to dismiss the train of foreigners
by whom he was attended, and earnestly soliciting a personal interview,
which, from the pressure of illness, he was unable himself to seek. This
favour was not granted, and he was vexed and harassed by a series of
petty slights. At the point of death he received a letter of dismissal
couched in civil but cold terms, permitting him to return to his
diocese, and repose from his labours. Whether the Cardinal retained his
faculties so as to be aware of this final mark of ingratitude is
doubtful; but his end was assuredly hastened by mortification at the
evil return made for his faithful service. He died a few hours after
receiving the dismissal in question, November 8, 1517.
Though austere in temper, Ximenes was not cruel, and in civil matters
had great reluctance to the shedding of blood. Yet in eleven years, as
Grand Inquisitor, he burnt at the stake 2500 persons, for the glory of
God and the good of the sufferer’s souls. Such miserable self-delusion
in so great and good a man ought to teach humility, as well as to
inspire abhorrence.
Our sketch has necessarily been personal rather than historical: a
fuller account of the public life of Ximenes will be found in
Robertson’s ‘Charles V.,’ as well as in the biographies of Flechier,
Marsollier, and others. Barrett’s ‘Life of Ximenes’ appears to be a
compressed translation from the Life by Flechier. We conclude with the
short and comprehensive praise of Leibnitz, who said, that “If great men
could be bought, Spain would have cheaply purchased such a minister by
the sacrifice of one of her kingdoms.”
[Illustration:
_Engraved by J. Thomson._
ADDISON.
_From a Picture copied by J. Thurston in the Possession of the
Publisher._
Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]
[Illustration]
ADDISON.
Joseph Addison, the second of the six children of Dr. Launcelot Addison
and Jane Gulstone, was born May 1, 1672, at Milston in Wiltshire. The
feebleness of his infancy seems to have impaired his spirit as a boy;
for, in the General Dictionary, Dr. Birch relates, that when at school
in the country, he was so afraid of punishment as to have absconded,
lodging in a hollow tree in the fields, till a hue and cry restored him
to his parents. At the Charter-House was formed that friendship between
him and Sir Richard Steele, which led to their close alliance in a new
kind of literary undertaking. Addison could not but feel his own
superiority; and Spence intimates, that the one was too fond of
displaying, and the other too servile in acknowledging it. Steele
occasionally availed himself not only of his friend’s pen, but of his
purse. Johnson has given currency to the story, that Addison enforced
the repayment of 100_l._ by an execution, and the fact is said to have
been related by Steele himself, with tears in his eyes. Hooke, the Roman
historian, professed to have received it from Pope. The biographer
sarcastically remarks, that the borrower probably had not much purpose
of repayment; but the lender, who “seems to have had other notions of
100_l._, grew impatient of delay.” Now no date is assigned to this
anecdote; and Addison’s finances were so low during the greater part of
his life, that he might have suffered greatly by the disappointment; nor
does it detract from the character of a man in narrow circumstances,
that he entertains serious notions of 100_l._
In 1687 Addison was entered at Queen’s College, Oxford, where he took
the degree of M.A., February 14, 1693. One of his early poetical
attempts was ‘An Account of the greatest English Poets, inscribed to H.
S.;’ initials which have been currently assigned to Dr. Henry
Sacheverell, who is indebted, for no enviable place in history, to his
trial and its consequences. But a college friend of Addison has left it
on record, that the initials were the property of a gentleman bearing
the same name, who died young, after having shown some promise in
writing a history of the Isle of Man, and who bequeathed his papers to
Addison, containing, among other things, the plan of a tragedy 011 the
death of Socrates, which the legatee had some thoughts of working up
himself. In this poem the writer tells his friend that Spenser can no
longer charm an understanding age. Now the judgment of the present age
disclaims this confident decision; nor would it be worth recording, but
for Spence’s assertion, that the critic had never read the ‘Faery
Queene,’ when he drew its character. In after life he spoke of his own
poem as a “poor thing;” but his general level as a versifier was not
high. The ‘Campaign’ is his masterpiece in rhyme.
He was indebted to Congreve for his introduction to Montague, then
Chancellor of the Exchequer. Johnson says, that “he was then learning
the trade of a courtier, and subjoined Montague as a poetical name to
those of Cowley and of Dryden.” In 1695 he wrote a poem to King William,
with an introduction addressed to Lord Somers, who is said by Tickell to
have sent a message to the author to desire his acquaintance.
In 1699, he obtained an annual pension of 300_l._ to enable him to
travel. He passed the first year in preparation at Blois, and then
departed for Italy. That he was duly qualified to appreciate the
attractions of “classic ground,”—his own phrase, sneered at for
affectation by contemporary critics, but since sanctioned by general
adoption,—appears by his ‘Travels,’ and by the letter from Italy to Lord
Halifax. His ‘Dialogues on Medals’ were composed at this time. On the
death of King William, in March, 1702, he became distressed for money by
the stoppage of his pension. This compelled him to become tutor to a
travelling squire. The engagement seems to have been for one year only,
for he was at Rotterdam in June, 1703. In the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ for
November, 1835, may be found three very curious, because characteristic,
letters, from the Duke of Somerset, surnamed by his contemporaries the
Proud, to old Jacob Tonson, forwarding a proposal to Addison to
undertake the office of tutor to his son, then going abroad. We
transcribe a passage from the second letter, as a sample of the proud
Duke’s liberality. “I desire he may be more on the account of a
companion in my son’s travels, than as a governor, and as such shall
account him; my meaning is that neither lodging, travelling, nor diet,
shall cost him sixpence, and over and above that, my son shall present
him at the year’s end with a hundred guineas, as long as he is pleased
to continue in that service to my son, by taking great care of him, by
his personal attendance and advice, in what he finds necessary during
his time of travelling.” It appears from the Duke’s quotation of the
answer, in the third letter to Tonson, that Addison had “other notions”
of this offer than the proposer entertained. “I will set down his own
words, which are these:—‘As for the recompense that is proposed to me, I
must confess I can by no means see my account in it,’ &c.” A hundred
guineas and maintenance was, even in those days, a mean appointment from
a Duke to a gentleman.
Addison returned to England at the latter end of 1703. In 1704, at the
request of Lord Godolphin, to whom he was introduced by the Earl of
Halifax, he undertook to celebrate the victory of Blenheim, and composed
the first portion of his poem called the ‘Campaign.’ This proved his
introduction into office. After filling some inferior appointments, he
became, in 1706, Under-Secretary of State. About the same time, he wrote
the comic opera of ‘Rosamond,’ which was neglected by the public, has
been overpraised by Johnson, and is now deservedly forgotten.
Thomas Earl of Wharton was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland,
December 4, 1708, and proceeded to his destination April 10, 1709,
accompanied by Addison as his Secretary. Addison therefore left London
two days before the commencement of the ‘Tatler,’ the first number of
which came out April 12; and his own first contribution appeared May 26.
His last was No. 267, and the work ended with No. 271, January 2,
1710–11. In No. 93 is an article on a ‘Letter from Switzerland, with
Remarks on Travelling,’ and a sly hint that ‘Fools ought not to be
exported,’ in Addison’s happiest style of playful satire. The praise of
original design clearly belongs to the projector of the ‘Tatler.’
Tickell however was justified in saying, that Addison’s aid “did not a
little contribute to advance its reputation;” and Steele candidly
allows, that his coadjutor not only assisted but improved his original
scheme. In his dedication of the comedy of the ‘Drummer,’ he says, “It
was advanced indeed, for it was raised to a greater thing than I
intended it; for the elegance, purity, and correctness, which appeared
in his writings, were not so much to my purpose, as in any intelligible
manner I could, to rally all those singularities of human life, through
the different professions and characters in it, which obstruct any thing
that was truly good and great.”
The first No. of the ‘Spectator’ appeared March 1, 1710–11, and the
paper was discontinued December 6, 1712; No. 555 concluded the seventh
volume, as first collected by the publishers. The work was resumed June
18, 1714, with No. 556, and the eighth volume closed with No. 635. Of
the first forty-five papers of the revived ‘Spectator,’ Addison wrote
twenty-three; more than half: he did not contribute to the last
thirty-five. Notwithstanding the avowed purpose of exclusively treating
general topics, Steele’s Whiggism once burst its bounds, by reprinting
in the ‘Spectator’ a preface of Dr. Fleetwood to some sermons, for the
purpose of attracting the Queen’s notice to it. Had the Number been
published at the usual hour, the household might have devised means for
its suppression, with some plausible excuse for its absence from the
royal breakfast table; but the non-issue until twelve o’clock, the time
fixed for that meal, left no opening for cabal, and her Majesty’s
subjects were, for her sake, deprived of their morning’s speculation
till that hour. In No. 10 Addison states the daily sale at three
thousand: Johnson makes it sixteen hundred and eighty; apparently far
below the real number. The latter number is given on calculation from
the product of the tax; the assertion of the publisher was Addison’s
authority; and he might, in the commencement of the work, have indulged
in the puff oblique. No. 14, composed of Letters from the Lion—from an
Under-Sexton—on the Masquerade—and Puppet Show, is selected by the
annotators, as “meriting the attention of such as pretend to distinguish
with wonderful facility between Addison’s and Steele’s papers.” It is
wholly Steele’s. The ‘Guardian’ was published in the interval, between
the ‘Spectator’s’ being laid down and taken up again. The first Number
came out March 12, 1713; the last, October 1, 1713. Inattention to marks
has sometimes subjected Addison to undeserved censure. Dr. Blair
vindicates Tasso’s description of Sylvia against the ‘Guardian;’ but by
a double inadvertence, he quotes No. 38 for a passage contained in 28,
and ascribes to Addison what was written by Steele. The ‘Whig Examiner,’
and the ‘Freeholder,’ both exclusively Addison’s, have been enabled by
their wit to survive the usual fate of party-writings. The former is so
much more pungent than usual with the author, and excited so much alarm
and jealousy in Swift, that he triumphantly remarks, “it is now down
among the dead men;” part of the burthen of a popular Tory song. The
humour of the latter, Steele thought too gentle for such blustering
times; and is reported to have said, that the ministry made use of a
lute, when they should have called for a trumpet.
On the demise of the other papers, Hughes formed a project of a society
of learned men of various characters, who were to meet and carry on a
conversation on all subjects, empowering their secretary to draw up any
of their discourses, or publish any of their writings, under the title
of Register. Addison, in answer, applauds the specimen, and approves the
title; but adds, “To tell you truly, I have been so taken up with
thoughts of that nature, for these two or three years last past, that I
must now take some time _pour me délasser_, and lay in fuel for a future
work. I am in a thousand troubles for poor Dick, and wish that his zeal
for the public may not be ruinous to himself; but he has sent me word,
that he is determined to go on, and that any advice I can give him, in
this particular, will have no weight with him.”
Tickell says respecting Cato, “He took up a design of writing a play
upon this subject, when he was very young at the university, and even
attempted something in it there, though not a line as it now stands. The
work was performed by him in his travels, and retouched in England,
without any formal design of bringing it on the stage, till his friends
of the first quality and distinction prevailed with him to put the last
finishing to it, at a time when they thought the doctrine of liberty
very seasonable.” Cibber says, that in 1704 he had the pleasure of
reading the first four acts privately with Steele, who told him they
were written in Italy. Oldmixon in his ‘Art of Criticism,’ 1728, talks
about Addison’s reluctance to resume the work, and his request to Hughes
to write the fifth act. According to Pope, the first packed audience was
made to support the ‘Distressed Mother;’ the scheme was tried again for
Cato with triumphant effect. The love-scenes are the weakest in the
play, and are by some supposed to have been foisted on the original
plan, to humour the false taste of the modern stage. When the tragedy
was shown to Pope, he advised the author to print it, without committing
it to the theatre, as thinking it better suited to the closet than
representation.
When Lord Sunderland was sent as lord lieutenant to Ireland in 1714,
Addison was appointed his secretary. This, as well as another step in
his promotion, has been omitted by Johnson. In 1715 he was made a lord
of trade. In 1716 he married the Countess Dowager of Warwick, to whom he
had long paid his addresses. Johnson pleasantly suggests, that his
behaviour might be not very unlike that of Sir Roger to his disdainful
widow, and supposes that the lady might amuse herself by playing with
his passion. Spence dates his first acquaintance with her from his
appointment as tutor to the young earl; but as neither the time of that
appointment is known, nor the footing on which he stood with the family,
the first steps in this affair are left in obscurity. The result is
better known. Mr. Tyers, in an unpublished essay on ‘Addison’s Life and
Writings,’ says, “Holland House is a large mansion, but could not
contain Mr. Addison, the Countess of Warwick, and one guest, peace.” He
became possessed of this house by his marriage, and died in it. His last
and great promotion was to the dignity of Secretary of State in 1717;
but he was unfit for it, and gained no new laurels by it. He carried so
much of the author into the office of the statesman, that he could not
issue an order of mere routine without losing his time in hunting after
unnecessary niceties of language. During his last illness he sent for
Gay, and with a confession of having injured him, promised him a
recompense if he recovered. He did not specify the nature of the injury;
nor could Gay, either then or subsequently, guess at his meaning. Dr.
Young furnished the received account of his interview with Lord Warwick
on his death-bed; but there appears to be no ground for Johnson’s
imputation on the young man’s morals or principles, or for supposing
that it was a last effort on Addison’s part to reclaim him. Young
mentions his lordship as a youth finely accomplished, without a hint of
looseness either in opinions or conduct. Addison died June 17, 1719: his
only child, a daughter, died at Bilton, in Warwickshire, at an advanced
age, in 1797. Not many days before his death he commissioned Mr. Tickell
to collect his writings; a gentleman of whom Swift said that Addison was
a whig, but Tickell, _whigissimus_.