=Motto.= "This thirst of kindred blood, my sons, detest,
Nor turn your force against your country's breast."
--Virgil, _Æneid_, vi. 832. Dryden's tr.
=155=: 1. =The malice of parties.= Party feeling had perhaps never been
more bitter in England than just at this time; and it was probably all
the more bitter and personal because there were no very clear questions
at issue between the two parties. Swift, writing in the Tory _Examiner_
a few months before the date of this paper (November 16, 1710), says,
"Let any one examine a reasonable honest man, of either side, upon
those opinions in religion and government, which both parties daily
buffet each other about, he shall hardly find one material point in
difference between them." The principal questions upon which Whig and
Tory had once actively differed, and still continued to differ in
theory, were two. The first was the nature of the monarchy and its
relation to the other parts of the government. The extreme Tories
held that the king had a divine right to his throne, by hereditary
succession; that this was indefeasible, and implied the duty of
unconditional obedience from the subject. The extreme Whigs held that
the king was the creation of the people, and held his office purely by
act of Parliament. But it would have been difficult to find many such
extreme Tories or extreme Whigs. The doctrine of the divine right of
kings had been practically refuted by the Revolution of 1688; if there
were any such right, then the crown belonged, not to Anne, but to the
Pretender, son of James II. On the other hand, few Whigs would have
denied that the monarchy was an essential part of the English system of
government, and not the mere creature of parliament.
The other and more important subject of difference between the two
parties was the relation of the Church to the State and to Dissent. The
Tories were Churchmen, and held that the interests of the Church and of
religion demanded more constant and detailed attention from the State,
and more stringent measures to repress dissent. They always called
themselves the Church party; Queen Anne never called them anything
else. The Whigs, on the other hand, though many of them were good
Churchmen, apprehended less danger from dissent and were more liberal
toward it. The Dissenters themselves, of course, were all Whigs.
There was, however, another difference between the two parties quite
as important as any speculative question, and daily growing more
important. As was stated in the Introduction, the most significant
social fact in the England of the first half of the eighteenth century
is the growth of a great middle, commercial class, who were gaining
wealth rapidly and filling up the towns. At the bottom of much
political controversy between 1700 and 1715 was the undefined jealousy
between this class and the landed class. It was trade against land,
new wealth against old aristocracy, town against country. For this
commercial class almost to a man were Whigs; the landed gentry and
their dependants, country squires and country parsons, almost to a man,
were Tories.
This jealousy became extremely bitter about 1710. During all the reign
of Anne, England had been engaged in the great war of the Spanish
succession, the real object of which was to prevent the virtual union
of the crowns of France and Spain. The war was heartily supported from
the first by the Whigs, but opposed, or only languidly supported, by
the Tories. A successful war is always popular, and strengthens the
party that favours it most; accordingly, through the earlier years
of the reign, when the English general Marlborough was winning his
famous victories, the Whigs had everything their own way, and by (1708)
the government was entirely in their hands. But as the war, however
successful, seemed no nearer ending, and its burdens began to press
more heavily, Tory opposition strengthened, and party feeling grew more
and more intense. The financial load fell mostly on the Tory or landed
class; for, as the Tories said, so soon as ever a trading Whig could
get a thousand pounds, he put it into government securities, which he
had to pay no tax upon, while the land had to pay him a handsome rate
of interest. This opposition to the Whigs, strengthened by a feeling
that the cause of the church and of religion was endangered by Whig
supremacy, grew to such volume that in the memorable elections of (1710)
the Whigs were defeated, and a Tory majority brought into the Commons.
The Whig ministers were dismissed; Marlborough, the great general, a
little later was recalled from the army; and finally the queen took the
unprecedented step of creating twelve new Tory peers, and so making a
Tory majority in the House of Lords also.
It was in these stormy years that _The Spectator_ appeared. In the
tumult of partisan controversy Addison succeeded in keeping his
paper out of the strife. He was a pronounced Whig himself, and his
preferences are plainly enough to be seen even in these papers; but he
sincerely deprecated the rancorous tone of party writing, and he wisely
refused to allow _The Spectator_ to become the organ of a party. Steele
had more difficulty in restraining his pen, and finally retired from
_The Spectator_ rather than remain quiet on public questions.
=155=: 4. =Roundheads and Cavaliers.= The Puritans, during the term of
the Civil War, were nicknamed Roundheads because they wore their hair
short (as everybody does now), instead of allowing it to fall over
their shoulders as was the fashion with the Royalists or Cavaliers.
=155=: 6. =St. Anne's Lane.= Probably the lane of that name in
Westminster, near the Abbey.
=155=: 12. =Prick-eared cur.= A dog with pointed ears. The epithet was
applied to the Puritans, because they wore their hair short, and their
ears were not covered by long locks.
=156=: 4. =Tend to the prejudice of the land-tax.= Sir Roger naturally
finds the mischiefs of parties to come mostly from the Whigs, who
support the war, and so raise the land tax.
=156=: 25. =Plutarch.= The Greek historian and moralist, born about 46
A.D. His _Lives_ are perhaps the most interesting work of biography in
the world. The quotation in the text is from his other principal work,
the _Morals_.
=157=: 5. =That great rule.= _Luke_ vi. 27-29.
=157=: 8. =Many good men ... alienated from one another.= It is
probable Addison had especially in mind his own old friendship with
Swift, which had grown very chill of late on account of their political
differences. As early as December 14, 1710, when he began to be
intimate with the new Tory ministry, Swift writes in the _Journal to
Stella_, "Mr. Addison and I are as different as black and white, and I
believe our friendship will go off by this damned business of party."
A month later, January 14, 1711, he says, "At the coffee-house talked
coldly awhile with Mr. Addison; all our friendship and dearness are
off; we are civil acquaintances, talk words, of course, of when we
shall meet, and that is all."
=158=: 26. =Guelphs and Ghibellines.= The two great political parties
in Italy, fiercely opposed to each other from the middle of the
twelfth to the end of the fifteenth century. The Guelphs or popular
party, supported the pope; the Ghibellines, or aristocratic party, the
emperor.
=158=: 27. =The League.= The Holy Catholic League, formed in France,
1546, to resist the claims of Henry IV to the throne, and check the
advance of Protestantism.