published a translation of part {333}of the fourth Georgie, Lines to
King William, and other performances of equal value, that is to lay,
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 favourite measure. The art of
arraiminn; 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 mend ing a kettle or shoeing a horse,
and may be learned by any human being who has sense enough to learn.
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 decasyllabic 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 {334}which have
passed through Mr. Brunei’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 Æneid:
This child our parent earth, stirred 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 {335}at all, were honoured 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 Georgies. In return for this service, and for other
services of the same kind, the veteran poet, in the postscript to the
translation of the Æneid, 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 Georgie, 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. Every thing 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 honourable 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 l’hymes, 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 {336}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, 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 {337}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 neighbouring 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 Révolution, 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 {338}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
{339}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 Kit Cat Club,
described the envy which her cheeks, glowing with the genuine bloom of
England, had excited among the painted beauties of Versailles.
Lewis 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 chanced its character to snit 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 Abbé 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 Abbé. A man
who, even when surrounded by fellow countrymen and fellow students,
had always been remarkably shy and {340}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 Lewis 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 {341}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 Ahitophel; 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 bad 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 selfconfident spirit rebelled against that authority to
which every thing else in France bowed down. He had the spirit to tell
Lewis 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. {342}And who can think otherwise? That 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 blâmer les vers
Latins que vous m’avez envoyés d’un de vos illustres académiciens. Je
les ai trouvés 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 {343}Père Fragnier’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 uatum de pâtre Sicambro,
Rusa, jubés?”
For these reasons we feel assured that the praise which Boileau bestowed
on the _Machines Gesticulantes_, and the _Grerano-Pygmoomachia_, 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 favourite 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, lo
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. {344}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 (1) 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
(1) It is strange that Addison should, in the first line of
his travels, have misdated his departure from Marseilles by
a whole year, and still more strange that this slip of the
pen, which throws the whole narrative into inextricable
confusion, should have been repeated in a succession of
editions, and never detected by Tickell or by Hurd.
{345}to be on board. The English heretic, in the mean time, 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 da vs 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.
At Genoa, still ruled by her own Doge, and by the nobles whose names
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
disputed 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 Cæsar. 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
{346}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 traveller’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 goodnatured 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.