were inscribed on her Book of Gold, Addison made a short stay. He
admired the narrow streets overhung by long lines of towering palaces,
the walls rich with frescoes, the gorgeous temple of the Annunciation,
and the tapestries whereon were recorded the long glories of the House
of Doria. Thence he hastened to Milan, where he contemplated the Gothic
magnificence of the cathedral with more wonder than pleasure. He passed
Lake Benacus while a gale was blowing, and saw the waves raging as they
raged when Virgil looked upon them. At Venice, then the gayest spot in
Europe, the traveller spent the Carnival, the gayest season of the year,
in the midst of masques, dances, and serenades. Here he was at once
diverted and provoked by the absurd dramatic pieces which then disgraced
the Italian stage. To one of those pieces, however, he was indebted for
a valuable hint. He was present when a ridiculous play on the death of
Cato was performed. Cato, it seems, was in love with a daughter of
Scipio. The lady had given her heart to Caesar. The rejected lover
determined to destroy himself. He appeared seated in his library, a
dagger in his hand, a Plutarch and a Tasso before him; and, in this
position, he pronounced a soliloquy before he struck the blow. We are
surprised that so remarkable a circumstance as this should have escaped
the notice of all Addison's biographers. There cannot, we conceive, be
the smallest doubt that this scene, in spite of its absurdities and
anachronisms, struck the traveler's imagination, and suggested to him
the thought of bringing Cato on the English stage. It is well known that
about this time he began his tragedy, and that he finished the first
four acts before he returned to England.
On his way from Venice to Rome, he was drawn some miles out of the
beaten road, by a wish to see the smallest independent state in Europe.
On a rock where the snow still lay, though the Italian spring was now
far advanced, was perched the little fortress of San Marino. The roads
which led to the secluded town were so bad that few travellers had ever
visited it, and none had ever published an account of it. Addison could
not suppress a good-natured smile at the simple manners and institutions
of this singular community. But he observed, with the exultation of a
Whig, that the rude mountain tract which formed the territory of the
republic swarmed with an honest, healthy, and contented peasantry, while
the rich plain which surrounded the metropolis of civil and spiritual
tyranny was scarcely less desolate than the uncleared wilds of America.
At Rome Addison remained on his first visit only long enough to catch a
glimpse of St. Peter's and of the Pantheon. His haste is the more
extraordinary because the Holy Week was close at hand. He has given no
hint which can enable us to pronounce why he chose to fly from a
spectacle which every year allures from distant regions persons of far
less taste and sensibility than his. Possibly, travelling, as he did,
at the charge of a government distinguished by its enmity to the Church
of Rome, he may have thought that it would be imprudent in him to assist
at the most magnificent rite of that Church. Many eyes would be upon
him; and he might find it difficult to behave in such a manner as to
give offence neither to his patrons in England, nor to those among whom
he resided. Whatever his motives may have been, he turned his back on
the most august and affecting ceremony which is known among men, and
posted along the Appian Way to Naples.
Naples was then destitute of what are now, perhaps, its chief
attractions. The lovely bay and the awful mountain were indeed there.
But a farmhouse stood on the theatre of Herculaneum, and rows of vines
grew over the streets of Pompeii. The temples of Paestum had not indeed
been hidden from the eye of man by any great convulsion of nature; but,
strange to say, their existence was a secret even to artists and
antiquaries. Though situated within a few hours' journey of a great
capital, where Salvator had not long before painted, and where Vico was
then lecturing, those noble remains were as little known to Europe as
the ruined cities overgrown by the forests of Yucatan. What was to be
seen at Naples Addison saw. He climbed Vesuvius, explored the tunnel of
Posilipo, and wandered among the vines and almond trees of Capreae. But
neither the wonders of nature, nor those of art, could so occupy his
attention as to prevent him from noticing, though cursorily, the abuses
of the government and the misery of the people. The great kingdom which
had just descended to Philip the Fifth was in a state of paralytic
dotage. Even Castile and Aragon were sunk in wretchedness. Yet, compared
with the Italian dependencies of the Spanish crown, Castile and Aragon
might be called prosperous. It is clear that all the observations which
Addison made in Italy tended to confirm him in the political opinions
which he had adopted at home. To the last he always spoke of foreign
travel as the best cure for Jacobitism. In his Freeholder, the Tory
fox-hunter asks what travelling is good for, except to teach a man to
jabber French, and to talk against passive obedience.
From Naples, Addison returned to Rome by sea, along the coast which his
favorite Virgil had celebrated. The felucca passed the headland where
the oar and trumpet were placed by the Trojan adventurers on the tomb of
Misenus, and anchored at night under the shelter of the fabled
promontory of Circe. The voyage ended in the Tiber, still overhung with
dark verdure, and still turbid with yellow sand, as when it met the eyes
of Aeneas. From the ruined port of Ostia, the stranger hurried to Rome;
and at Rome he remained during those hot and sickly months when, even in
the Augustan age, all who could make their escape fled from mad dogs and
from streets black with funerals, to gather the first figs of the season
in the country. It is probable that, when he, long after, poured forth
in verse his gratitude to the Providence which had enabled him to
breathe unhurt in tainted air, he was thinking of the August and
September which he passed at Rome.
It was not till the latter end of October that he tore himself away from
the masterpieces of ancient and modern art which are collected in the
city so long the mistress of the world. He then journeyed northward,
passed through Sienna, and for a moment forgot his prejudices in favor
of classic architecture as he looked on the magnificent cathedral. At
Florence he spent some days with the Duke of Shrewsbury, who, cloyed
with the pleasures of ambition, and impatient of its pains, fearing both
parties, and loving neither, had determined to hide in an Italian
retreat talents and accomplishments which, if they had been united with
fixed principles and civil courage, might have made him the foremost man
of his age. These days, we are told, passed pleasantly; and we can
easily believe it. For Addison was a delightful companion when he was
at his ease; and the Duke, though he seldom forgot that he was a Talbot,
had the invaluable art of putting at ease all who came near him.
Addison gave some time to Florence, and especially to the sculptures in
the Museum, which he preferred even to those of the Vatican. He then
pursued his journey through a country in which the ravages of the last
war were still discernible, and in which all men were looking forward
with dread to a still fiercer conflict. Eugene had already descended
from the Rhaetian Alps, to dispute with Catinat the rich plain of
Lombardy. The faithless ruler of Savoy was still reckoned among the
allies of Louis. England had not yet actually declared war against
France; but Manchester had left Paris; and the negotiations which
produced the Grand Alliance against the House of Bourbon were in
progress. Under such circumstances it was desirable for an English
traveller to reach neutral ground without delay. Addison resolved to
cross Mont Cenis. It was December; and the road was very different from
that which now reminds the stranger of the power and genius of Napoleon.
The winter, however, was mild; and the passage was, for those times,
easy. To this journey Addison alluded when, in the ode which we have
already quoted, he said that for him the Divine goodness had warmed the
hoary Alpine hills.
It was in the midst of the eternal snow that he composed his Epistle to
his friend Montague, now Lord Halifax. That Epistle, once widely
renowned, is now known only to curious readers, and will hardly be
considered by those to whom it is known as in any perceptible degree
heightening Addison's fame. It is, however, decidedly superior to any
English composition which he had previously published. Nay, we think it
quite as good as any poem in heroic metre which appeared during the
interval between the death of Dryden and the publication of the Essay
on Criticism. It contains passages as good as the second-rate passages
of Pope, and would have added to the reputation of Parnell or Prior.
But, whatever be the literary merits or defects of the Epistle, it
undoubtedly does honor to the principles and spirit of the author.
Halifax had now nothing to give. He had fallen from power, had been held
up to obloquy, had been impeached by the House of Commons, and, though
his Peers had dismissed the impeachment, had, as it seemed, little
chance of ever again filling high office. The Epistle, written at such a
time, is one among many proofs that there was no mixture of cowardice or
meanness in the suavity and moderation which distinguished Addison from
all the other public men of those stormy times.
At Geneva, the traveller learned that a partial change of ministry had
taken place in England, and that the Earl of Manchester had become
Secretary of State. Manchester exerted himself to serve his young
friend. It was thought advisable that an English agent should be near
the person of Eugene in Italy; and Addison, whose diplomatic education
was now finished, was the man selected. He was preparing to enter on his
honorable functions, when all his prospects were for a time darkened by
the death of William the Third.
Anne had long felt a strong aversion, personal, political, and
religious, to the Whig party. That aversion appeared in the first
measures of her reign. Manchester was deprived of the seals, after he
had held them only a few weeks. Neither Somers nor Halifax was sworn of
the Privy Council. Addison shared the fate of his three patrons. His
hopes of employment in the public service were at an end; his pension
was stopped; and it was necessary for him to support himself by his own
exertions. He became tutor to a young English traveller, and appears to
have rambled with his pupil over great part of Switzerland and Germany.
At this time he wrote his pleasing Treatise on Medals. It was not
published till after his death; but several distinguished scholars saw
the manuscript, and gave just praise to the grace of the style, and to
the learning and ingenuity evinced by the quotations.
From Germany Addison repaired to Holland where he learned the melancholy
news of his father's death. After passing some months in the United
Provinces, he returned about the close of the year 1703 to England. He
was there cordially received by his friends, and introduced by them into
the Kitcat Club, a society in which were collected all the various
talents and accomplishments which then gave lustre to the Whig party.
Addison was, during some months after his return from the Continent,
hard pressed by pecuniary difficulties. But it was soon in the power of
his noble patrons to serve him effectually. A political change, silent
and gradual, but of the highest importance, was in daily progress. The
accession of Anne had been hailed by the Tories with transports of joy
and hope; and for a time it seemed that the Whigs had fallen never to
rise again. The throne was surrounded by men supposed to be attached to
the prerogative and to the Church; and among these none stood so high in
the favor of the Sovereign as the Lord Treasurer Godolphin and the
Captain General Marlborough.
The country gentlemen and country clergymen had fully expected that the
policy of these ministers would be directly opposed to that which had
been almost constantly followed by William; that the landed interest
would be favored at the expense of trade; that no addition would be made
to the funded debt; that the privileges conceded to Dissenters by the
late King would be curtailed, if not withdrawn; that the war with
France, if there must be such a war, would, on our part, be almost
entirely naval; and that the government would avoid close connections
with foreign powers, and, above all, with Holland.
But the country gentlemen and country clergymen were fated to be
deceived, not for the last time. The prejudices and passions which raged
without control in vicarages, in cathedral closes, and in the manor
houses of fox-hunting squires, were not shared by the chiefs of the
ministry. Those statesmen saw that it was both for the public interest,
and for their own interest, to adopt a Whig policy, at least as
respected the alliances of the country and the conduct of the war. But,
if the foreign policy of the Whigs were adopted, it was impossible to
abstain from adopting also their financial policy. The natural
consequences followed. The rigid Tories were alienated from the
government. The votes of the Whigs became necessary to it. The votes of
the Whigs could be secured only by further concessions; and further
concessions the Queen was induced to make.
At the beginning of the year 1704, the state of parties bore a close
analogy to the state of parties in 1826. In 1826, as in 1704, there was
a Tory ministry divided into two hostile sections. The position of Mr.
Canning and his friends in 1826 corresponded to that which Marlborough
and Godolphin occupied in 1704. Nottingham and Jersey were, in 1704,
what Lord Eldon and Lord Westmoreland were in 1826. The Whigs of 1704
were in a situation resembling that in which the Whigs of 1826 stood. In
1704 Somers, Halifax, Sunderland, Cowper, were not in office. There was
no avowed coalition between them and the moderate Tories. It is probable
that no direct communication tending to such a coalition had yet taken
place; yet all men saw that such a coalition was inevitable, nay, that
it was already half formed. Such, or nearly such, was the state of
things when tidings arrived of the great battle fought at Blenheim on
the thirteenth of August, 1704. By the Whigs the news was hailed with
transports of joy and pride. No fault, no cause of quarrel, could be
remembered by them against the Commander whose genius had, in one day,
changed the face of Europe, saved the Imperial throne, humbled the House
of Bourbon, and secured the Act of Settlement against foreign hostility.
The feeling of the Tories was very different. They could not indeed,
without imprudence, openly express regret at an event so glorious to
their country; but their congratulations were so cold and sullen as to
give deep disgust to the victorious general and his friends.
Godolphin was not a reading man. Whatever time he could spare from
business he was in the habit of spending at Newmarket or at the
card-table. But he was not absolutely indifferent to poetry; and he was
too intelligent an observer not to perceive that literature was a
formidable engine of political warfare, and that the great Whig leaders
had strengthened their party, and raised their character, by extending a
liberal and judicious patronage to good writers. He was mortified, and
not without reason, by the exceeding badness of the poems which appeared
in honor of the battle of Blenheim. One of those poems has been rescued
from oblivion by the exquisite absurdity of three lines:--
"Think of two thousand gentlemen at least,
And each man mounted on his capering beast;
Into the Danube they were pushed by shoals."
Where to procure better verses the Treasurer did not know. He understood
how to negotiate a loan, or remit a subsidy; he was also well versed in
the history of running horses and fighting cocks; but his acquaintance
among the poets was very small. He consulted Halifax; but Halifax
affected to decline the office of adviser. He had, he said, done his
best, when he had power, to encourage men whose abilities and
acquirements might do honor to their country. Those times were over.
Other maxims had prevailed. Merit was suffered to pine in obscurity; and
the public money was squandered on the undeserving. "I do know," he
added, "a gentleman who would celebrate the battle in a manner worthy of
the subject; but I will not name him." Godolphin, who was expert at the
soft answer which turneth away wrath, and who was under the necessity of
paying court to the Whigs, gently replied that there was too much ground
for Halifax's complaints, but that what was amiss should in time be
rectified, and that in the meantime the services of a man such as
Halifax had described should be liberally rewarded. Halifax then
mentioned Addison, but, mindful of the dignity as well as of the
pecuniary interest of his friend, insisted that the Minister should
apply in the most courteous manner to Addison himself; and this
Godolphin promised to do.
Addison then occupied a garret up three pair of stairs, over a small
shop in the Haymarket. In this humble lodging he was surprised, on the
morning which followed the conversation between Godolphin and Halifax,
by a visit from no less a person than the Right Honorable Henry Boyle,
then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and afterwards Lord Carleton. This
high-born Minister had been sent by the Lord Treasurer as ambassador to
the needy poet. Addison readily undertook the proposed task, a task
which, to so good a Whig, was probably a pleasure. When the poem was
little more than half finished, he showed it to Godolphin, who was
delighted with it, and particularly with the famous similitude of the
Angel. Addison was instantly appointed to a Commissionership worth about
two hundred pounds a year, and was assured that this appointment was
only an earnest of greater favors.
The Campaign came forth, and was as much admired by the public as by the
Minister. It pleases us less on the whole than the Epistle to Halifax.
Yet it undoubtedly ranks high among the poems which appeared during the
interval between the death of Dryden and the dawn of Pope's genius. The
chief merit of the Campaign, we think, is that which was noticed by
Johnson, the manly and rational rejection of fiction. The first great
poet whose works have come down to us sang of war long before war
became a science or a trade. If, in his time, there was enmity between
two little Greek towns, each poured forth its crowd of citizens,
ignorant of discipline, and armed with implements of labor rudely turned
into weapons. On each side appeared conspicuous a few chiefs, whose
wealth had enabled them to procure good armor, horses, and chariots, and
whose leisure had enabled them to practise military exercises. One such
chief, if he were a man of great strength, ability, and courage, would
probably be more formidable than twenty common men; and the force and
dexterity with which he flung his spear might have no inconsiderable
share in deciding the event of the day. Such were probably the battles
with which Homer was familiar. But Homer related the actions of men of a
former generation, of men who sprang from the gods, and communed with
the gods face to face, of men, one of whom could with ease hurl rocks
which two sturdy hands of a later period would be unable even to lift.
He therefore naturally represented their martial exploits as resembling
in kind, but far surpassing in magnitude, those of the stoutest and most
expert combatants of his own age. Achilles, clad in celestial armor,
drawn by celestial coursers, grasping the spear which none but himself
could raise, driving all Troy and Lycia before him, and choking
Scamander with dead, was only a magnificent exaggeration of the real
hero, who, strong, fearless, accustomed to the use of weapons, guarded
by a shield and helmet of the best Sidonian fabric, and whirled along by
horses of Thessalian breed, struck down with his own right arm foe after
foe. In all rude societies similar notions are found. There are at this
day countries where the Lifeguardsman Shaw would be considered as a much
greater warrior than the Duke of Wellington. Bonaparte loved to describe
the astonishment with which the Mamelukes looked at his diminutive
figure. Mourad Bey, distinguished above all his fellows by his bodily
strength, and by the skill with which he managed his horse and his
sabre, could not believe that a man who was scarcely five feet high, and
rode like a butcher, could be the greatest soldier in Europe.
Homer's descriptions of war had therefore as much truth as poetry
requires. But truth was altogether wanting to the performances of those
who, writing about battles which had scarcely anything in common with
the battles of his times, servilely imitated his manner. The folly of
Silius Italicus, in particular, is positively nauseous. He undertook to
record in verse the vicissitudes of a great struggle between generals of
the first order; and his narrative is made up of the hideous wounds
which these generals inflicted with their own hands. Asdrubal flings a
spear which grazes the shoulder of the consul Nero; but Nero sends his
spear into Asdrubal's side. Fabius slays Thuris and Butes and Maris and
Arses, and the long-haired Adherbes, and the gigantic Thylis, and
Sapharus and Monaesus, and the trumpeter Morinus. Hannibal runs Perusinus
through the groin with a stake, and breaks the backbone of Telesinus
with a huge stone. This detestable fashion was copied in modern times,
and continued to prevail down to the age of Addison. Several versifiers
had described William turning thousands to flight by his single prowess,
and dyeing the Boyne with Irish blood. Nay, so estimable a writer as
John Philips, the author of the Splendid Shilling, represented
Marlborough as having won the battle of Blenheim merely by strength of
muscle and skill in fence. The following lines may serve as an
example:--
"Churchill, viewing where
The violence of Tallard most prevailed,
Came to oppose his slaughtering arm. With speed
Precipitate he rode, urging his way
O'er hills of gasping heroes, and fallen steeds
Rolling in death. Destruction, grim with blood,
Attends his furious course. Around his head
The glowing balls play innocent, while he
With dire impetuous sway deals fatal blows
Among the flying Gauls. In Gallic blood
He dyes his reeking sword, and strews the ground
With headless ranks. What can they do? Or how
Withstand his wide-destroying sword?"
Addison, with excellent sense and taste, departed from this ridiculous
fashion. He reserved his praise for the qualities which made Marlborough
truly great, energy, sagacity, military science, but, above all, the
poet extolled the firmness of that mind which, in the midst of
confusion, uproar, and slaughter, examined and disposed everything with
the serene wisdom of a higher intelligence.
Here it was that he introduced the famous comparison of Marlborough to
an Angel guiding the whirlwind. We will not dispute the general justice
of Johnson's remarks on this passage. But we must point out one
circumstance which appears to have escaped all the critics. The
extraordinary effect which this simile produced when it first appeared,
and which to the following generation seemed inexplicable, is doubtless
to be chiefly attributed to a line which most readers now regard as a
feeble parenthesis,--
"Such as, of late, o'er pale Britannia pass'd."
Addison spoke, not of a storm, but of the storm. The great tempest of
November, 1703, the only tempest which in our latitude has equalled the
rage of a tropical hurricane, had left a dreadful recollection in the
minds of all men. No other tempest was ever in this country the occasion
of a parliamentary address or of a public fast. Whole fleets had been
cast away. Large mansions had been blown down. One Prelate had been
buried beneath the ruins of his Palace. London and Bristol had presented
the appearance of cities just sacked. Hundreds of families were still in
mourning. The prostrate trunks of large trees, and the ruins of houses,
still attested, in all the southern counties, the fury of the blast.
The popularity which the simile of the Angel enjoyed among Addison's
contemporaries has always seemed to us to be a remarkable instance of
the advantage which, in rhetoric and poetry, the particular has over the
general.