Pygmeadum ductor, qui, majestate verendus,
Incessuque gravis, reliquos supereminet omnes
Mole gigantea, mediamque exsurgit in ulnam."
The Latin poems of Addison were greatly and justly admired both at
Oxford and Cambridge, before his name had ever been heard by the wits
who thronged the coffee-houses round Drury Lane Theatre. In his
twenty-second year, he ventured to appear before the public as a writer
of English verse. He addressed some complimentary lines to Dryden, who,
after many triumphs and many reverses, had at length reached a secure
and lonely eminence among the literary men of that age. Dryden appears
to have been much gratified by the young scholar's praise; and an
interchange of civilities and good offices followed. Addison was
probably introduced by Dryden to Congreve, and was certainly presented
by Congreve to Charles Montague, who was then Chancellor of the
Exchequer, and leader of the Whig party in the House of Commons.
At this time Addison seemed inclined to devote himself to poetry. He
published a translation of part of the fourth Georgic, Lines to King
William, and other performances of equal value, that is to say, of no
value at all. But in those days, the public was in the habit of
receiving with applause pieces which would now have little chance of
obtaining the Newdigate prize or the Seatonian prize. And the reason is
obvious. The heroic couplet was then the favorite measure. The art of
arranging words in that measure, so that the lines may flow smoothly,
that the accents may fall correctly, that the rhymes may strike the ear
strongly, and that there may be a pause at the end of every distich, is
an art as mechanical as that of mending a kettle, or shoeing a horse,
and may be learned by any human being who has sense enough to learn
anything. But, like other mechanical arts, it was gradually improved by
means of many experiments and many failures. It was reserved for Pope
to discover the trick, to make himself complete master of it, and to
teach it to everybody else. From the time when his Pastorals appeared,
heroic versification became matter of rule and compass; and, before
long, all artists were on a level. Hundreds of dunces who never
blundered on one happy thought or expression were able to write reams of
couplets which, as far as euphony was concerned, could not be
distinguished from those of Pope himself, and which very clever writers
of the reign of Charles the Second, Rochester, for example, or Marvel,
or Oldham, would have contemplated with admiring despair.
Ben Jonson was a great man, Hoole a very small man. But Hoole, coming
after Pope, had learned how to manufacture decasyllable verses, and
poured them forth by thousands and tens of thousands, all as well
turned, as smooth, and as like each other as the blocks which have
passed through Mr. Brunel's mill, in the dockyard at Portsmouth. Ben's
heroic couplets resemble blocks rudely hewn out by an unpractised hand,
with a blunt hatchet. Take as a specimen his translation of a celebrated
passage in the Aeneid:--
"This child our parent earth, stirr'd up with spite
Of all the gods, brought forth, and, as some write,
She was last sister of that giant race
That sought to scale Jove's court, right swift of pace,
And swifter far of wing, a monster vast
And dreadful. Look, how many plumes are placed
On her huge corpse, so many waking eyes
Stick underneath, and, which may stranger rise
In the report, as many tongues she wears."
Compare with these jagged misshapen distichs the neat fabric which
Hoole's machine produces in unlimited abundance. We take the first lines
on which we open in his version of Tasso. They are neither better nor
worse than the rest:--
"O thou, whoe'er thou art, whose steps are led.
By choice or fate, these lonely shores to tread,
No greater wonders east or west can boast
Than yon small island on the pleasing coast.
If e'er thy sight would blissful scenes explore,
The current pass, and seek the further shore."
Ever since the time of Pope there has been a glut of lines of this sort;
and we are now as little disposed to admire a man for being able to
write them, as for being able to write his name. But in the days of
William the Third such versification was rare; and a rhymer who had any
skill in it passed for a great poet, just as in the dark ages a person
who could write his name passed for a great clerk. Accordingly, Duke,
Stepney, Granville, Walsh, and others whose only title to fame was that
they said in tolerable metre what might have been as well said in prose,
or what was not worth saying at all, were honored with marks of
distinction which ought to be reserved for genius. With these Addison
must have ranked, if he had not earned true and lasting glory by
performances which very little resembled his juvenile poems.
Dryden was now busied with Virgil, and obtained from Addison a critical
preface to the Georgics. In return for this service, and for other
services of the same kind, the veteran poet, in the postscript to the
translation of the Aeneid, complimented his young friend with great
liberality, and indeed with more liberality than sincerity. He affected
to be afraid that his own performance would not sustain a comparison
with the version of the fourth Georgic, by "the most ingenious Mr.
Addison of Oxford." "After his bees," added Dryden, "my latter swarm is
scarcely worth the hiving."
The time had now arrived when it was necessary for Addison to choose a
calling. Everything seemed to point his course towards the clerical
profession. His habits were regular, his opinions orthodox. His college
had large ecclesiastical preferment in its gift, and boasts that it has
given at least one bishop to almost every see in England. Dr. Lancelot
Addison held an honorable place in the Church, and had set his heart on
seeing his son a clergyman. It is clear, from some expressions in the
young man's rhymes, that his intention was to take orders. But Charles
Montague interfered. Montague had first brought himself into notice by
verses, well timed and not contemptibly written, but never, we think,
rising above mediocrity. Fortunately for himself and for his country, he
early quitted poetry, in which he could never have attained a rank as
high as that of Dorset or Rochester, and turned his mind to official and
parliamentary business. It is written that the ingenious person, who
undertook to instruct Rasselas, prince of Abyssinia, in the art of
flying, ascended an eminence, waved his wings, sprang into the air, and
instantly dropped into the lake. But it is added that the wings, which
were unable to support him through the sky, bore him up effectually as
soon as he was in the water. This is no bad type of the fate of Charles
Montague, and of men like him. When he attempted to soar into the
regions of poetical invention, he altogether failed; but, as soon as he
had descended from that ethereal elevation into a lower and grosser
element, his talents instantly raised him above the mass. He became a
distinguished financier, debater, courtier, and party leader. He still
retained his fondness for the pursuits of his early days; but he showed
that fondness, not by wearying the public with his own feeble
performances, but by discovering and encouraging literary excellence in
others. A crowd of wits and poets, who would easily have vanquished him
as a competitor, revered him as a judge and a patron. In his plans for
the encouragement of learning, he was cordially supported by the ablest
and most virtuous of his colleagues, the Lord Chancellor Somers. Though
both these great statesmen had a sincere love of letters, it was not
solely from a love of letters that they were desirous to enlist youths
of high intellectual qualifications in the public service. The
Revolution had altered the whole system of government. Before that
event, the press had been controlled by censors, and the Parliament had
sat only two months in eight years. Now the press was free, and had
begun to exercise unprecedented influence on the public mind. Parliament
met annually and sat long. The chief power in the state had passed to
the House of Commons. At such a conjuncture it was natural that literary
and oratorical talents should rise in value. There was danger that a
government which neglected such talents might be subverted by them. It
was, therefore, a profound and enlightened policy which led Montague and
Somers to attach such talents to the Whig party, by the strongest ties
both of interest and of gratitude.
It is remarkable that, in a neighboring country, we have recently seen
similar effects follow from similar causes. The Revolution of July,
1830, established representative government in France. The men of
letters instantly rose to the highest importance in the state. At the
present moment, most of the persons whom we see at the head both of the
Administration and of the Opposition have been professors, historians,
journalists, poets. The influence of the literary class in England,
during the generation which followed the Revolution, was great, but by
no means so great as it has lately been in France. For, in England, the
aristocracy of intellect had to contend with a powerful and deeply
rooted aristocracy of a very different kind. France had no Somersets and
Shrewsburies to keep down her Addisons and Priors.
It was in the year 1699, when Addison had just completed his
twenty-seventh year, that the course of his life was finally determined.
Both the great chiefs of the Ministry were kindly disposed towards him.
In political opinions he already was, what he continued to be through
life, a firm, though a moderate Whig. He had addressed the most polished
and vigorous of his early English lines to Somers, and had dedicated to
Montague a Latin poem, truly Virgilian, both in style and rhythm, on the
peace of Ryswick. The wish of the young poet's great friends was, it
should seem, to employ him in the service of the crown abroad. But an
intimate knowledge of the French language was a qualification
indispensable to a diplomatist; and this qualification Addison had not
acquired. It was, therefore, thought desirable that he should pass some
time on the Continent in preparing himself for official employment. His
own means were not such as would enable him to travel; but a pension of
three hundred pounds a year was procured for him by the interest of the
Lord Chancellor. It seems to have been apprehended that some difficulty
might be started by the rulers of Magdalene College. But the Chancellor
of the Exchequer wrote in the strongest terms to Hough. The State--such
was the purport of Montague's letter--could not, at that time, spare to
the Church such a man as Addison. Too many high civil posts were already
occupied by adventurers, who, destitute of every liberal art and
sentiment, at once pillaged and disgraced the country which they
pretended to serve. It had become necessary to recruit for the public
service from a very different class, from that class of which Addison
was the representative. The close of the Minister's letter was
remarkable. "I am called," he said, "an enemy of the Church. But I will
never do it any other injury than keeping Mr. Addison out of it."
This interference was successful; and, in the summer of 1699, Addison,
made a rich man by his pension, and still retaining his fellowship,
quitted his beloved Oxford, and set out on his travels. He crossed from
Dover to Calais, proceeded to Paris, and was received there with great
kindness and politeness by a kinsman of his friend Montague, Charles,
Earl of Manchester, who had just been appointed Ambassador to the Court
of France. The Countess, a Whig and a toast, was probably as gracious as
her lord; for Addison long retained an agreeable recollection of the
impression which she at this time made on him, and, in some lively
lines written on the glasses of the Kitcat Club, described the envy
which her cheeks, glowing with the genuine bloom of England, had excited
among the painted beauties of Versailles.
Louis the Fourteenth was at this time expiating the vices of his youth
by a devotion which had no root in reason, and bore no fruit of charity.
The servile literature of France had changed its character to suit the
changed character of the prince. No book appeared that had not an air of
sanctity. Racine, who was just dead, had passed the close of his life in
writing sacred dramas; and Dacier was seeking for the Athanasian
mysteries in Plato. Addison described this state of things in a short
but lively and graceful letter to Montague. Another letter, written
about the same time to the Lord Chancellor, conveyed the strongest
assurances of gratitude and attachment. "The only return I can make to
your Lordship," said Addison, "will be to apply myself entirely to my
business." With this view he quitted Paris and repaired to Blois, a
place where it was supposed that the French language was spoken in its
highest purity, and where not a single Englishman could be found. Here
he passed some months pleasantly and profitably. Of his way of life at
Blois, one of his associates, an Abbe named Philippeaux, gave an account
to Joseph Spence. If this account is to be trusted, Addison studied
much, mused much, talked little, had fits of absence, and either had no
love affairs, or was too discreet to confide them to the Abbe. A man
who, even when surrounded by fellow countrymen and fellow students, had
always been remarkably shy and silent, was not likely to be loquacious
in a foreign tongue, and among foreign companions. But it is clear from
Addison's letters, some of which were long after published in The
Guardian, that, while he appeared to be absorbed in his own meditations,
he was really observing French society with that keen and sly, yet not
ill-natured side glance, which was peculiarly his own.
From Blois he returned to Paris; and having now mastered the French
language, found great pleasure in the society of French philosophers and
poets. He gave an account, in a letter to Bishop Hough, of two highly
interesting conversations, one with Malbranche, the other with Boileau.
Malbranche expressed great partiality for the English, and extolled the
genius of Newton, but shook his head when Hobbes was mentioned, and was
indeed so unjust as to call the author of the Leviathan a poor silly
creature. Addison's modesty restrained him from fully relating, in his
letter, the circumstances of his introduction to Boileau. Boileau,
having survived the friends and rivals of his youth, old, deaf, and
melancholy, lived in retirement, seldom went either to Court or to the
Academy, and was almost inaccessible to strangers. Of the English and of
English literature he knew nothing. He had hardly heard the name of
Dryden. Some of our countrymen, in the warmth of their patriotism, have
asserted that this ignorance must have been affected. We own that we see
no ground for such a supposition. English literature was to the French
of the age of Louis the Fourteenth what German literature was to our own
grandfathers. Very few, we suspect, of the accomplished men who, sixty
or seventy years ago, used to dine in Leicester Square with Sir Joshua,
or at Streatham with Mrs. Thrale, had the slightest notion that Wieland
was one of the first wits and poets, and Lessing, beyond all dispute,
the first critic in Europe. Boileau knew just as little about the
Paradise Lost, and about Absalom and Achitophel; but he had read
Addison's Latin poems, and admired them greatly. They had given him, he
said, quite a new notion of the state of learning and taste among the
English. Johnson will have it that these praises were insincere.
"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 approbation." Now, nothing is better known of Boileau than that he
was singularly sparing of compliments. We do not remember that either
friendship or fear ever induced him to bestow praise on any composition
which he did not approve. On literary questions, his caustic,
disdainful, and self-confident spirit rebelled against that authority to
which everything else in France bowed down. He had the spirit to tell
Louis the Fourteenth firmly, and even rudely, that his Majesty knew
nothing about poetry, and admired verses which were detestable. What was
there in Addison's position that could induce the satirist, whose stern
and fastidious temper had been the dread of two generations, to turn
sycophant for the first and last time? Nor was Boileau's contempt of
modern Latin either injudicious or peevish. He thought, indeed, that no
poem of the first order would ever be written in a dead language. And
did he think amiss? Has not the experience of centuries confirmed his
opinion? Boileau also thought it probable, that, in the best modern
Latin, a writer of the Augustan age would have detected ludicrous
improprieties. And who can think otherwise? What modern scholar can
honestly declare that he sees the smallest impurity in the style of
Livy? Yet is it not certain that, in the style of Livy, Pollio, whose
taste had been formed on the banks of the Tiber, detected the inelegant
idiom of the Po? Has any modern scholar understood Latin better than
Frederic the Great understood French? Yet is it not notorious that
Frederic the Great, after reading, speaking, writing French, and nothing
but French, during more than half a century, after unlearning his mother
tongue in order to learn French, after living familiarly during many
years with French associates, could not, to the last, compose in French,
without imminent risk of committing some mistake which would have moved
a smile in the literary circles of Paris? Do we believe that Erasmus and
Fracastorius wrote Latin as well as Dr. Robertson and Sir Walter Scott
wrote English? And are there not in the Dissertation on India, the last
of Dr. Robertson's works, in Waverley, in Marmion, Scotticisms at which
a London apprentice would laugh? But does it follow, because we think
thus, that we can find nothing to admire in the noble alcaics of Gray,
or in the playful elegiacs of Vincent Bourne? Surely not. Nor was
Boileau so ignorant or tasteless as to be incapable of appreciating good
modern Latin. In the very letter to which Johnson alludes, Boileau says,
"Ne croyez pas pourtant que je veuille par la blamer les vers Latins que
vous m'avez envoyes d'un de vos illustres academiciens. Je les ai
trouves fort beaux, et dignes de Vida et de Sannazar, mais non pas
d'Horace et de Virgile." Several poems, in modern Latin, have been
praised by Boileau quite as liberally as it was his habit to praise
anything. He says, for example, of the Pere Fraguier's epigrams, that
Catullus seems to have come to life again. But the best proof that
Boileau did not feel the undiscerning contempt for modern Latin verses
which has been imputed to him is that he wrote and published Latin
verses in several metres. Indeed it happens, curiously enough, that the
most severe censure ever pronounced by him on modern Latin is conveyed
in Latin hexameters. We allude to the fragment which begins:--
"Quid numeris iterum me balbutire Latinis,
Longe Alpes citra natum de patre Sicambro,
Musa, jubes?"
For these reasons we feel assured that the praise which Boileau bestowed
on the Machinae Gesticulantes, and the Gerano-Pygmaeomachia, was sincere.
He certainly opened himself to Addison with a freedom which was a sure
indication of esteem. Literature was the chief subject of conversation.
The old man talked on his favorite theme much and well, indeed, as his
young hearer thought, incomparably well. Boileau had undoubtedly some of
the qualities of a great critic. He wanted imagination; but he had
strong sense. His literary code was formed on narrow principles; but in
applying it, he showed great judgment and penetration. In mere style,
abstracted from the ideas of which style is the garb, his taste was
excellent. He was well acquainted with the great Greek writers; and,
though unable fully to appreciate their creative genius, admired the
majestic simplicity of their manner, and had learned from them to
despise bombast and tinsel. It is easy, we think, to discover, in The
Spectator and The Guardian, traces of the influence, in part salutary
and in part pernicious, which the mind of Boileau had on the mind of
Addison.
While Addison was at Paris, an event took place which made that capital
a disagreeable residence for an Englishman and a Whig. Charles, second
of the name, King of Spain, died, and bequeathed his dominions to
Philip, Duke of Anjou, a younger son of the Dauphin. The King of France,
in direct violation of his engagements both with Great Britain and with
the States General, accepted the bequest on behalf of his grandson. The
House of Bourbon was at the summit of human grandeur. England had been
outwitted, and found herself in a situation at once degrading and
perilous. The people of France, not presaging the calamities by which
they were destined to expiate the perfidy of their sovereign, went mad
with pride and delight. Every man looked as if a great estate had just
been left him. "The French conversation," said Addison, "begins to grow
insupportable; that which was before the vainest nation in the world is
now worse than ever." Sick of the arrogant exultation of the Parisians,
and probably foreseeing that the peace between France and England could
not be of long duration, he set off for Italy.
In December, 1700,[11] he embarked at Marseilles. As he glided along
the Ligurian coast, he was delighted by the sight of myrtles and olive
trees, which retained their verdure under the winter solstice. Soon,
however, he encountered one of the black storms of the Mediterranean.
The captain of the ship gave up all for lost, and confessed himself to a
Capuchin who happened to be on board. The English heretic, in the
meantime, fortified himself against the terrors of death with devotions
of a very different kind. How strong an impression this perilous voyage
made on him, appears from the ode, "How are thy servants blest, O Lord!"
which was long after published in The Spectator. After some days of
discomfort and danger, Addison was glad to land at Savona, and to make
his way, over mountains where no road had yet been hewn out by art, to
the city of Genoa.