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 {347}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 Pæstum 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 Capreæ. 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 {348}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
Troy foxhunter 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
favourite 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 Æneas. 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 {349}prejudices
in favour 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 a dread to a still fiercer conflict. Eugene had already descended
from the Rhætian Alps, to dispute with Catinat the rich plain of
Lombardy. The faithless ruler of Savoy was still reckoned amoung the
allies of Lewis. 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 {350}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 honour 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
{351}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 honourable 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 Kit Cat 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 {352}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 favour 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 favoured 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 foxhunting 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
{353}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 13th Almost, 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
{354}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 honour of the battle of Blenheim. One of these 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 honour 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 {355}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 he rectified, and that in the mean time 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 Honourable 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 at 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 favours.
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 {356}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 labour rudely turned into
weapons. On each side appeared conspicuous a few chiefs, whose wealth
had enabled them to procure good armour, horses, and chariots, and whose
leisure had enabled them to practise military exercises. One such chief,
if he were a man of great strength, agility, 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 hinds 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 ana most
expert combatants of his own age. Achilles, clad in celestial armour,
drawn by celestial coursers, grasping the spear which none but himself
could raise, driving all Troy and Lycia before him, and choking
Seamander 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 {357}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. Buonaparte 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 any thing 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 longhaired Adherbes, and the gigantic Thylis, and
Sapharus and Momesus, 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 {358}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 wav
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 every thing
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.”
{359}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.