“O Marcia, should thy brothers, for my sake—
I die away with horror at the thought.’
“She fancies that there can be no cutting of throats but it must be for
her. If this is tragical, I would fain know what is comical. Well, upon
this they spy the body of Sempronius; and Marcia, deluded by the habit,
it seems, takes him for Juba; for, says she,
“‘The face is muffled up within the garment.’
“Now, how a man could fight, and fall, with his face muffled up in his
garment, is, I think, a little hard to conceive! Besides, Juba, before
he killed him, knew him to be Sempronius. It was not by his garment that
he knew this; it was by his face, then: his face therefore was not
muffled. Upon seeing this man with his muffled face, Marcia falls
a-raving; and, owning her passion for the supposed defunct, begins to
make his funeral oration. Upon which Juba enters listening, I suppose on
tip-toe; for I cannot imagine how any one can enter listening in any
other posture. I would fain know how it came to pass that, during all
this time, he had sent nobody—no, not so much as a candle-snuffer—to take
away the dead body of Sempronius. Well, but let us regard him listening.
Having left his apprehension behind him, he, at first, applies what
Marcia says to Sempronius; but finding at last, with much ado, that he
himself is the happy man, he quits his eaves-dropping, and discovers
himself just time enough to prevent his being cuckolded by a dead man, of
whom the moment before he had appeared so jealous, and greedily
intercepts the bliss which was fondly designed for one who could not be
the better for it. But here I must ask a question: how comes Juba to
listen here, who had not listened before throughout the play? Or how
comes he to be the only person of this tragedy who listens, when love and
treason were so often talked in so public a place as a hall? I am afraid
the author was driven upon all these absurdities only to introduce this
miserable mistake of Marcia, which, after all, is much below the dignity
of tragedy; as anything is which is the effect or result of trick.
“But let us come to the scenery of the fifth act. Cato appears first upon
the scene, sitting in a thoughtful posture; in his hand Plato’s Treatise
on the Immortality of the Soul; a drawn sword on the table by him. Now
let us consider the place in which this sight is presented to us. The
place, forsooth, is a long hall. Let us suppose that any one should place
himself in this posture, in the midst of one of our halls in London; that
he should appear solus, in a sullen posture, a drawn sword on the table
by him; in his hand Plato’s Treatise on the Immortality of the Soul,
translated lately by Bernard Lintot: I desire the reader to consider
whether such a person as this would pass with them who beheld him for a
great patriot, a great philosopher, or a general, or some whimsical
person who fancied himself all these? and whether the people who belonged
to the family would think that such a person had a design upon their
midriffs or his own?
“In short, that Cato should sit long enough in the aforesaid posture, in
the midst of this large hall, to read over Plato’s Treatise on the
Immortality of the Soul, which is a lecture of two long hours; that he
should propose to himself to be private there upon that occasion; that he
should be angry with his son for intruding there; then that he should
leave this hall upon the pretence of sleep, give himself the mortal wound
in his bedchamber, and then be brought back into that hall to expire,
purely to show his good breeding, and save his friends the trouble of
coming up to his bedchamber; all this appears to me to be improbable,
incredible, impossible.”
Such is the censure of Dennis. There is, as Dryden expresses it, perhaps
“too much horse-play in his railleries;” but if his jests are coarse, his
arguments are strong. Yet, as we love better to be pleased than to be
taught, _Cato_ is read, and the critic is neglected. Flushed with
consciousness of these detections of absurdity in the conduct, he
afterwards attacked the sentiments of Cato; but he then amused himself
with petty cavils and minute objections.
Of Addison’s smaller poems no particular mention is necessary; they have
little that can employ or require a critic. The parallel of the princes
and gods in his verses to Kneller is often happy, but is too well known
to be quoted. His translations, so far as I compared them, want the
exactness of a scholar. That he understood his authors, cannot be
doubted; but his versions will not teach others to understand them, being
too licentiously paraphrastical. They are, however, for the most part,
smooth and easy; and, what is the first excellence of a translator, such
as may be read with pleasure by those who do not know the originals. His
poetry is polished and pure; the product of a mind too judicious to
commit faults, but not sufficiently vigorous to attain excellence. He has
sometimes a striking line, or a shining paragraph; but in the whole he is
warm rather than fervid, and shows more dexterity than strength. He was,
however, one of our earliest examples of correctness. The versification
which he had learned from Dryden he debased rather than refined. His
rhymes are often dissonant; in his Georgic he admits broken lines. He
uses both triplets and Alexandrines, but triplets more frequently in his
translation than his other works. The mere structure of verses seems
never to have engaged much of his care. But his lines are very smooth in
_Rosamond_, and too smooth in _Cato_.
Addison is now to be considered as a critic: a name which the present
generation is scarcely willing to allow him. His criticism is condemned
as tentative or experimental rather than scientific; and he is considered
as deciding by taste rather than by principles.
It is not uncommon for those who have grown wise by the labour of others
to add a little of their own, and overlook their masters. Addison is now
despised by some who perhaps would never have seen his defects but by the
lights which he afforded them. That he always wrote as he would think it
necessary to write now, cannot be affirmed; his instructions were such as
the characters of his readers made proper. That general knowledge which
now circulates in common talk was in his time rarely to be found. Men not
professing learning were not ashamed of ignorance; and, in the female
world, any acquaintance with books was distinguished only to be censured.
His purpose was to infuse literary curiosity, by gentle and unsuspected
conveyance, into the gay, the idle, and the wealthy; he therefore
presented knowledge in the most alluring form, not lofty and austere, but
accessible and familiar. When he showed them their defects, he showed
them likewise that they might be easily supplied. His attempt succeeded;
inquiry was awakened, and comprehension expanded. An emulation of
intellectual elegance was excited, and from this time to our own life has
been gradually exalted, and conversation purified and enlarged.
Dryden had, not many years before, scattered criticism over his prefaces
with very little parsimony; but though he sometimes condescended to be
somewhat familiar, his manner was in general too scholastic for those who
had yet their rudiments to learn, and found it not easy to understand
their master. His observations were framed rather for those that were
learning to write than for those that read only to talk.
An instructor like Addison was now wanting, whose remarks, being
superficial, might be easily understood, and being just, might prepare
the mind for more attainments. Had he presented “Paradise Lost” to the
public with all the pomp of system and severity of science, the criticism
would perhaps have been admired, and the poem still have been neglected;
but by the blandishments of gentleness and facility he has made Milton an
universal favourite, with whom readers of every class think it necessary
to be pleased. He descended now and then to lower disquisitions: and by a
serious display of the beauties of “Chevy Chase” exposed himself to the
ridicule of Wagstaff, who bestowed a like pompous character on Tom Thumb;
and to the contempt of Dennis, who, considering the fundamental position
of his criticism, that “Chevy Chase” pleases, and ought to please,
because it is natural, observes; “that there is a way of deviating from
nature, by bombast or tumour, which soars above nature, and enlarges
images beyond their real bulk; by affectation, which forsakes nature in
quest of something unsuitable; and by imbecility, which degrades nature
by faintness and diminution, by obscuring its appearances, and weakening
its effects.” In “Chevy Chase” there is not much of either bombast or
affectation; but there is chill and lifeless imbecility. The story cannot
possibly be told in a manner that shall make less impression on the mind.
Before the profound observers of the present race repose too securely on
the consciousness of their superiority to Addison, let them consider his
Remarks on Ovid, in which may be found specimens of criticism
sufficiently subtle and refined: let them peruse likewise his Essays on
Wit, and on the Pleasures of Imagination, in which he founds art on the
base of nature, and draws the principles of invention from dispositions
inherent in the mind of man with skill and elegance, such as his
contemners will not easily attain.
As a describer of life and manners, he must be allowed to stand perhaps
the first of the first rank. His humour, which, as Steele observes, is
peculiar to himself, is so happily diffused as to give the grace of
novelty to domestic scenes and daily occurrences. He never “o’ersteps the
modesty of nature,” nor raises merriment or wonder by the violation of
truth. His figures neither divert by distortion nor amaze by aggravation.
He copies life with so much fidelity that he can be hardly said to
invent; yet his exhibitions have an air so much original, that it is
difficult to suppose them not merely the product of imagination.
As a teacher of wisdom, he may be confidently followed. His religion has
nothing in it enthusiastic or superstitious: he appears neither weakly
credulous nor wantonly sceptical; his morality is neither dangerously lax
nor impracticably rigid. All the enchantment of fancy, and all the
cogency of argument, are employed to recommend to the reader his real
interest, the care of pleasing the Author of his being. Truth is shown
sometimes as the phantom of a vision; sometimes appears half-veiled in an
allegory; sometimes attracts regard in the robes of fancy; and sometimes
steps forth in the confidence of reason. She wears a thousand dresses,
and in all is pleasing.
“Mille habet ornatus, mille decenter habet.”
His prose is the model of the middle style; on grave subjects not formal,
on light occasions not grovelling; pure without scrupulosity, and exact
without apparent elaboration; always equable, and always easy, without
glowing words or pointed sentences. Addison never deviates from his track
to snatch a grace; he seeks no ambitious ornaments, and tries no
hazardous innovations. His page is always luminous, but never blazes in
unexpected splendour.
It was apparently his principal endeavour to avoid all harshness and
severity of diction; he is therefore sometimes verbose in his transitions
and connections, and sometimes descends too much to the language of
conversation; yet if his language had been less idiomatical it might have
lost somewhat of its genuine Anglicism. What he attempted, he performed;
he is never feeble and he did not wish to be energetic; he is never rapid
and he never stagnates. His sentences have neither studied amplitude nor
affected brevity; his periods, though not diligently rounded, are voluble
and easy. Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not
coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights
to the volumes of Addison.