Travels in Italy. The first effect produced by this Narrative was
disappointment. The crowd of readers who expected politics and scandal,
speculations on the projects of Victor Amadeus, and anecdotes about
the jollities of convents and the amours of cardinals and nuns, were
confounded by finding that the writer’s mind was much more occupied by
the war between the Trojans and Rutulians than by the war between France
and Austria; and that he seemed to have heard no scandal of later date
than the gallantries of the Empress Faustina. In time, however, the
judgment of the many was overruled by that of the few; and, before the
book was reprinted, it was so eagerly sought that it sold for five times
the original price. It is still read with pleasure: the style is pure
and flowing; {360}the classical quotations and allusions are numerous
and happy; and we are now and then charmed by that singularly humane and
delicate humour in which Addison excelled all men. Yet this agreeable
work, even when considered merely as the history of a literary tour, may
justly be censured on account of its faults of omission. We have already
said that, though rich in extracts from the Latin poets, it contains
scarcely any references to the Latin orators and historians. We must
add, that it contains little, or rather no information, respecting the
history and literature of modern Italy. To the best of our remembrance,
Addison does not mention Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Boiardo, Berni,
Lorenzo de Medici, or Machiavelli. He coldly tells us that at Ferrara he
saw the tomb of Ariosto, and that at Venice he beard the gondoliers sing
verses of Tasso. But for Tasso and Ariosto he cared far less than for
Valerius Flaccus and Sidonius Apolinaris. The gentle flow of the Ticin
brings a line of Silius to his mind. The sulphurous steam of Albula
suggests to him several passages of Martial. But he has not a word
to say of the illustrious dead of Santa Croce; he crosses the wood of
Ravenna without recollecting the Spectre Huntsman, and wanders up and
down Rimini without one thought of Francesca. At Paris he had eagerly
sought an introduction to Boileau; but he seems not to have been at
all aware that at Florence he was in the vicinity of a poet with whom
Boileau could not sustain a comparison, of the greatest lyric poet of
modern times, Vincenzio Filicaja. This is the more remarkable, because
Filicaja was the favourite poet of the accomplished Somers, under whose
protection Addison travelled, and to whom the account of the Travels is
dedicated. The truth is, that Addison knew {361}little, and cared less,
about the literature of modern Italy. His favourite models were Latin.
His favourite critics were French. Half the Tuscan poetry that he had
read seemed to him monstrous, and the other half tawdry.
His Travels were followed by the lively Opera of Rosamond. This
piece was ill set to music, and therefore foiled on the stage, but it
completely succeeded in print, and is indeed excellent in its kind. The
smoothness with which the verses glide, and the elasticity with which
they hound, is, to our ears at least, very pleasing. We are inclined to
think that if Addison had left heroic couplets to Pope, and blank verse
to Rowe, and had employed himself in writing airy and spirited songs,
his reputation as a poet would have stood far higher than it now does.
Some years after his death, Rosamond was set to new music by Doctor
Arne; and was performed with complete success. Several passages long
retained their popularity, and were daily sung, during the latter part
of George the Second’s reign, at all the harpsichords in England.
While Addison thus amused himself, his prospects, and the prospects of
his party, were constantly becoming brighter and brighter. In the spring
of 1705 the ministers were freed from the restraint imposed by a
House of Commons in which Tories of the most perverse class had the
ascendency. The elections were favourable to the Whigs. The coalition
which had been tacitly and gradually formed was now openly avowed. The
Great Seal was given to Cowper. Somers and Halifax were sworn of the
Council. Halifax was sent in the following year to carry the decorations
of the order of the garter to the Electoral Prince of Hanover, and was
accompanied on this honourable mission by {362}Addison, who had just
been made Undersecretary of State. The Secretary of State under whom
Addison first served was Sir Charles Hedges, a Tory. But Hedges was soon
dismissed to make room for the most vehement of Whigs, Charles, Earl of
Sunderland. In every department of the state, indeed, the High Churchmen
were compelled to give place to their opponents. At the close of 1707,
the Tories who still remained in office strove to rally, with Harley
at their head. But the attempt, though favoured by the Queen, who had
always been a Tory at heart, and who had now quarrelled with the Duchess
of Marlborough, was unsuccessful. The time was not yet. The Captain
General was at the height of popularity and glory. The Low Church party
had a majority in Parliament. The country squires and rectors, though
occasionally uttering a savage growl, were for the most part in a state
of torpor, which lasted till they were roused into activity, and indeed
into madness, by the prosecution of Sacheverell.
Harley and his adherents were compelled to retire. The victory of the
Whigs was complete. At the general election of 1708, their strength in
the House of Commons became irresistible; and before the end of that
year. Somers was made Lord President of the Council, and Wharton Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland.
Addison sat for Malmsbury in the House of Commons which was elected
in 1708. But the House of Commons was not the field for him. The
bashfulness of his nature made his wit and eloquence useless in debate.
He once rose, but could not overcome his diffidence, and ever after
remained silent. Nobody can think it strange that a great writer should
fail as a speaker. But many, probably, will think it strange that
Addison’s failure as a speaker should have had {363}no unfavourable
effect on his success as a politician. In our time, a man of high rank
and great fortune might, though speaking very little and very ill,
hold a considerable post. But it would now be inconceivable that a mere
adventurer, a man who, when out of office, must live by his pen, should
in a few years become successively Undersecretary of State, chief
Secretary for Ireland, and Secretary of State, without some oratorical
talent. Addison, without high birth, and with little property, rose to a
post which Dukes, the heads of the great houses of Talbot, Russell, and
Bentinck, have thought it an honour to fill. Without opening his lips in
debate, he rose to a post, the highest that Chatham or Fox ever reached.
And this he did before he had been nine years in Parliament. We must
look for the explanation of this seeming miracle to the peculiar
circumstances in which that generation was placed. During the interval
which elapsed between the time when the Censorship of the Press ceased,
and the time when parliamentary proceedings began to be freely reported,
literary talents were, to a public man, of much more importance,
and oratorical talents of much less importance, than in our time. At
present, the best way of giving rapid and wide publicity to a fact or
an argument is to introduce that fact or argument into a speech made in
Parliament. If a political tract were to appear superior to the Conduct
of the Allies, or to the best numbers of the Freeholder, the circulation
of such a tract would be languid indeed when compared with the
circulation of every remarkable word uttered in the deliberations of
the legislature. A speech made in the House of Commons at four in the
morning is on thirty thousand tables before ten. A speech made on
the Monday is read on the Wednesday by multitudes {364}in Antrim and
Aberdeenshire. The orator, by the help of the shorthand writer, has to
a great extent superseded the pamphleteer. It was not so in the reign of
Anne. The best speech could then produce no effect except on those who
heard it. It was only by means of the press that the opinion of the
public without doors could be influenced; and the opinion of the public
without doors could not but be of the highest importance in a country
governed by parliaments, and indeed at that time governed by triennial
parliaments. The pen was therefore a more formidable political engine
than the tongue. Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox contended only in Parliament. But
Walpole and Pulteney, the Pitt and Fox of an earlier period, had
not done half of what was necessary, when they sat down amidst the
acclamations of the House of Commons. They had still to plead their
cause before the country, and this they could only do by means of the
press. Their works are now forgotten. But it is certain that there
were in Grub Street few more assiduous scribblers of Thoughts, Letters,
Answers, Remarks, than these two great chiefs of parties. Pulteney,
when leader of the Opposition, and possessed of thirty thousand a year,
edited the Craftsman. Walpole, though not a man of literary habits, was
the author of at least ten pamphlets, and retouched and corrected many
more. These facts sufficiently show of how great importance literary
assistance then was to the contending parties. St. John was, certainly,
in Anne’s reign, the best Tory speaker; Cowper was probably the best
Whig speaker. But it may well be doubted whether St. John did so much
for the Tories as Swift, and whether Cowper did so much for the Whigs
as Addison. When these things are {365}July considered, it will not be
thought strange that Addison should have climbed higher in the state
than any other Englishman has ever, by means merely of literary talents,
been able to climb. Swift would, in all probability, have climbed as
high, if he had not been encumbered by his cassock and his pudding
sleeves. As far as the homage of the great went, Swift had as much of it
as if he had been Lord Treasurer.
To the influence which Addison derived from his literary talents was
added all the influence which arises from character. The world, always
ready to think the worst of needy political adventurers, was forced
to make one exception. Restlessness, violence, audacity, laxity of
principle, are the vices ordinarily attributed to that class of men. But
faction itself could not deny that Addison had, through all changes of
fortune, been strictly faithful to his early opinions, and to his early
friends; that his integrity was without stain; that his whole deportment
indicated a fine sense of the becoming; that, in the utmost heat of
controversy, his zeal was tempered by a regard for truth, humanity, and
social decorum; that no outrage could ever provoke him to retaliation
unworthy of a Christian and a gentleman; and that his only faults were a
too sensitive delicacy, and a modesty which amounted to bashfulness.
He was undoubtedly one of the most popular men of his time; and much
of his popularity he owed, we believe, to that very timidity which his
friends lamented. That timidity often prevented him from exhibiting his
talents to the best advantage. But it propitiated Nemesis. It averted
that envy which would otherwise have been excited by fame so splendid,
and by so rapid an elevation. No man is so great a favourite with the
public as he who is at once an object of admiration, of {366}respect,
and of pity; and such were the feelings which Addison inspired. Those
who enjoyed the privilege of hearing his familiar conversation, declared
with one voice that it was superior even to his writings. The brilliant
Mary Montague said, that she had known all the wits, and that Addison
was the best company in the world. The malignant Pope was forced to own,
that there was a charm in Addison’s talk, which could be found nowhere
else.. Swift, when burning with animosity against the Whigs, could not
but confess to Stella that, after all, he had never known any
associate so agreeable as Addison. Steele, an excellent judge of lively
conversation, said, that the conversation of Addison was at once the
most polite, and the most mirthful, that could be imagined; that it was
Terence and Catullus in one, heightened by an exquisite something which
was neither Terence nor Catullus, but Addison alone. Young, an excellent
judge of serious conversation, said, that when Addison was at his ease,
he went on in a noble strain of thought and language, so as to chain the
attention of every hearer. Bor were Addison’s great colloquial powers
more admirable than the courtesy and softness of heart which appeared in
his conversation. At the same time, it would be too much to say that he
was wholly devoid of the malice which is, perhaps, inseparable from
a keen sense of the ludicrous. He had one habit which both Swift and
Stella applauded, and which we hardly know how to blame. If his first
attempts to set a presuming dunce right were ill received, he changed
his tone, “assented with civil leer,” and lured the flattered coxcomb
deeper and deeper into absurdity. That such was his practice we should,
we think, have guessed from his works. The Tatler’s criticisms on Mr.
Softly’s sonnet, and the {367}Spectator’s dialogue with the politician
who is so zealous for the honour of Lady Q--p--t--s, are excellent
specimens of this innocent mischief.
Such were Addison’s talents for conversation. But his rare gifts were
not exhibited to crowds or to strangers. As soon as he entered a large
company, as soon as he saw an unknown face, his lips were sealed,
and his manners became constrained. None who met him only in great
assemblies would have been able to believe that he was the same man who
had often kept a few friends listening and laughing round a table, from
the time when the play ended, till the clock of St. Paul’s in Covent
Garden struck four. Yet, even at such a table, he was not seen to the
best advantage. To enjoy his conversation in the highest perfection, it
was necessary to be alone with him, and to hear him, in his own
phrase, think aloud. “There is no such thing,” he used to say, “as real
conversation, but between two persons.”
This timidity, a timidity surely neither ungraceful nor unamiable,
led Addison into the two most serious faults which can with justice be
imputed to him. He found that wine broke the spell which lay on his fine
intellect, and was therefore too easily seduced into convivial excess.
Such excess was in that age regarded, even by grave men, as the
most venial of all peccadilloes, and was so far from being a mark of
ill-breeding, that it was almost essential to the character of a fine
gentleman. But the smallest speck is seen on a white ground; and almost
all the biographers of Addison have said something about this failing.
Of any other statesman or writer of Queen Anne’s reign, we should no
more think of saying that he sometimes took too much wine, than that he
wore a long wig and a sword.
{368}To the excessive modesty of Addison’s nature we must ascribe
another fault which generally arises from a very different cause. He
became a little too fond of seeing himself surrounded by a small circle
of admirers to whom he was as a King or rather as a God. All these men
were far inferior to him in ability, and some of them had very serious
faults. Nor did those faults escape his observation; for, if ever there
was an eye which saw through and through men, it was the eve of
Addison. But with the keenest observation, and the finest sense of the
ridiculous, he had a large charity. The feeling with which he looked on
most of his humble companions was one of benevolence, slightly tinctured
with contempt. He was at perfect ease in their company; he was grateful
for their devoted attachment; and he loaded them with benefits. Their
veneration for him appears to have exceeded that with which Johnson was
regarded by Boswell, or Warburton by Hurd. It was not in the power of
adulation to turn such a head, or deprave such a heart, as Addison’s.
But it must in candour be admitted that he contracted some of the faults
which can scarcely be avoided by any person who is so unfortunate as to
be the oracle of a small literary coterie.
One member of this little society was Eustace Budgell, a young Templer
of some literature, and a distant relation of Addison. There was at this
time no stain on the character of Budgell, and it is not improbable that
his career would have been prosperous and honourable, if the life of his
cousin had been prolonged. But, when the master was laid in the grave,
the disciple broke loose from all restraint, descended rapidly from one
degree of vice and misery to another, ruined his fortune by follies,
attempted to repair it by crimes, and {369}at length closed a wicked and
unhappy life by selfmurder. Yet, to the last, the wretched man,
gambler, lampooner, cheat, forger, as he was, retained his affection and
veneration for Addison, and recorded those feelings in the last lines
which he traced before he hid himself from infamy under London Bridge.
Another of Addison’s favourite companions was Ambrose Phillipps, a good
Whig and a middling poet, who had the honour of bringing into fashion
a species of composition which has been called, after his name, Nam by
Pamby. But the most remarkable members of the little senate, as Pope
long afterwards called it, were Richard Steele and Thomas Tickell.
Steele had known Addison from childhood. They had been together at the
Charter House and at Oxford; but circumstances had then, for a time,
separated them widely. Steele had left college without taking a degree,
had been disinherited by a rich relation, had led a vagrant life, had
served in the army, had tried to find the philosopher’s stone, and had
written a religious treatise and several comedies. He was one of those
people whom it is impossible either to hate or to respect. His temper
was sweet, his affections warm, his spirits lively, his passions strong,
and his principles weak. His life was spent in sinning and repenting; in
inculcating what was right, and doing what was wrong. In speculation, he
was a man of piety and honour; in practice he was much of the rake and a
little of the swindler. He was, however, so goodnatured that it was not
easy to be seriously angry with him, and that even rigid moralists felt
more inclined to pity than to blame him, when he diced himself into a
sponging house or drank himself into a fever. Addison regarded Steele
with kindness {370}not unmingled with scorn, tried, with little success,
to keep him out of scrapes, introduced him to the great, procured a good
place for him, corrected his plays, and, though by no means rich, lent
him large sums of money. One of these loans appears, from a letter dated
in August 1708, to have amounted to a thousand pounds. These pecuniary
transactions probably led to frequent bickerings. It is said that, on
one occasion, Steele’s negligence, or dishonesty, provoked Addison to
repay himself by the help of a bailiff. We cannot join with Miss Aikin
in rejecting this story. Johnson heard it from Savage, who heard it from
Steele. Few private transactions which took place a hundred and twenty
years ago, are proved by stronger evidence than this. But we can by no
means agree with those who condemn Addison’s severity. The most amiable
of mankind may well be moved to indignation, when what he has earned
hardly, and lent with great inconvenience to himself, for the purpose of
relieving a friend in distress, is squandered with insane profusion. We
will illustrate our meaning by an example which is not the less striking
because it is taken from fiction. Dr. Harrison, in Fielding’s Amelia,
is represented as the most benevolent of human beings; yet he takes in
execution, not only the goods, but the person of his friend Booth. Dr.
Harrison resorts to this strong measure because he has been informed
that Booth, while pleading poverty as an excuse for not paying just
debts, has been buying fine jewellery, and setting up a coach. No person
who is well acquainted with Steele’s life and correspondence can doubt
that he behaved quite as ill to Addison as Booth was accused of behaving
to Dr. Harrison. The real history, we have little doubt, was something
like {371}this:--A letter comes to Achlison, imploring help
in pathetic terms, and promising reformation and speedy repayment. Poor
Dick declares that he has not an inch of candle, or a bushel of coals,
or credit with the butcher for a shoulder of mutton. Addison is moved.
He determines to deny himself some medals which are wanting to his
series of the Twelve Cæsars; to put off buying the new edition of
Boyle’s Dictionary; and to wear his old sword and buckles another year.
In this way he manages to send a hundred pounds to his friend. The
next day he calls on Steele, and finds scores of gentlemen and ladies
assembled. The fiddles are playing. The table is groaning under
Champagne, Burgundy, and pyramids of sweetmeats. Is it strange that a
man whose kindness is thus abused, should send sheriff’s officers to
reclaim what is due to him?
Tickell was a young man, fresh from Oxford, who had introduced himself
to public notice by writing a most ingenious and graceful little poem
in praise of the opera of Rosamond. He deserved, and at length attained,
the first place in Addison’s friendship. For a time Steele and Tickell
were on good terms. But they loved Addison too much to love each other,
and at length became as bitter enemies as the rival bulls in Virgil.
At the close of 1708 Wharton became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and
appointed Addison Chief Secretary. Addison was consequently under
the necessity of quitting London for Dublin. Besides the chief
secretaryship, which was then worth about two thousand pounds a year, he
obtained a patent appointing him keeper of the Irish Records for life,
with a salary of three or four hundred a year. Budgell accompanied his
cousin in the capacity of private Secretary.
Wharton and Addison had nothing in common but {372}Whiggism. The Lord
Lieutenant was not only licentious and corrupt, but was distinguished
from other libertines and jobbers by a callous impudence which presented
the strongest contrast to the Secretary’s gentleness and delicacy. Many
parts of the Irish administration at this time appear to have deserved
serious blame. But against Addison there was not a murmur. He long
afterwards asserted, what all the evidence which we have ever seen tends
to prove, that his diligence and integrity gained the friendship of all
the most considerable persons in Ireland.
The parliamentary career of Addison in Ireland has, we think, wholly
escaped the notice of all his biographers. He was elected member for
the borough of Cavan in the summer of 1709; and in the journals of
two sessions his name frequently occurs. Some of the entries appear to
indicate that he so far overcame his timidity as to make speeches. Nor
is this by any means improbable; for the Irish House of Commons was a
far less formidable audience than the English House; and many tongues
which were tied by fear in the greater assembly became fluent in the
smaller. Gerard Hamilton, for example, who, from fear of losing the fame
gained by his single speech, sat mute at Westminster during forty years,
spoke with great effect at Dublin when he was Secretary to Lord Halifax.
While Addison was in Ireland, an event occurred to which he owes his
high and permanent rank among British writers. As yet his fame rested
on performances which, though highly respectable, were not built for
duration, and which would, if he had produced nothing else, have now
been almost forgotten, on some excellent Latin verses, on some English
verses which occasionally rose above mediocrity, and on a book of
{373}travels, agreeably written, but not indicating any extraordinary
powers of mind. These works showed him to be a man of taste, sense,
and learning. The time had come when he was to prove himself a man of
genius, and to enrich our literature with compositions which will live
as long as the English language.
In the spring of 1709 Steele formed a literary project, of which he
was far indeed from foreseeing the consequences. Periodical papers
had during many years been published in London. Most of these were
political; but in some of them questions of morality, taste, and love
casuistry had been discussed. The literary merit of these works was
small indeed; and even their names are now known only to the curious.
Steele had been appointed Gazetteer by Sunderland, at the request, it
is said, of Addison, and thus had access to foreign intelligence earlier
and more authentic than was in those times within the reach of an
ordinary newswriter. This circumstance seems to have suggested to him
the scheme of publishing a periodical paper on a new plan. It was to
appear on the days on which the post left London for the country, which
were, in that generation, the Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. It was
to contain the foreign news, accounts of theatrical representations, and
the literary gossip of Will’s and of the Grecian. It was also to contain
remarks on the fashionable topics of the day, compliments to beauties,
pasquinades on noted sharpers, and criticisms on popular preachers. The
aim of Steele does not appear to have been at first higher than this.
He was not ill qualified to conduct the work which he had planned. His
public intelligence he drew from the best sources. He knew the town,
and had paid dear for his knowledge. He had read much more than the
{374}dissipated men of that time were in the habit of read-inf. He was
a rake among scholars, and a scholar among rakes. His style was easy and
not incorrect; and, though his wit and humour were of no high order, his
gay animal spirits imparted to his compositions an air of vivacity
which ordinary readers could hardly distinguish from comic genius. His
writings have been well compared to those light wines which, though
deficient in body and flavour, are yet a pleasant small drink, if not
kept too long, or carried too far.