motives which induced Sunderland to frame it were not honourable to him.
But we cannot deny that it was supported by many of the best {416}and
wisest men of that age. Nor was this strange. The royal prerogative had,
within the memory of the generation then in the vigour of life, been so
grossly abased, that it was still regarded with a jealousy which, when
the peculiar situation of the House of Brunswick is considered, may
perhaps be called immoderate. The particular prerogative of creating
peers had, in the opinion of the Whigs, been grossly abused by Queen
Anne’s last Ministry; and even the Tories admitted that her Majesty, in
swamping, as it has since been called, the Upper House, had done
what only an extreme case could justify. The theory of the English
constitution, according to many high authorities, was that three
independent powers, the sovereign, the nobility, and the commons, ought
constantly to act as checks on each other. If this theory were sound,
it seemed to follow that to put one of these powers under the absolute
control of the other two, was absurd. But if the number of peers were
unlimited, it could not well be denied that the Upper House was under
the absolute control of the Crown and the Commons, and was indebted only
to their moderation for any power which it might be suffered to retain.
Steele took part with the Opposition, Addison with the Ministers.
Steele, in a paper called the Plebeian, vehemently attacked the bill.
Sunderland called for help on Addison, and Addison obeyed the call. In
a paper called the Old Whig, he answered, and indeed refuted
Steele’s arguments. It seems to us that the premises of both the
controversialists were unsound, that, on those premises, Addison
reasoned well and Steele ill, and that consequently Addison brought out
a false conclusion while Steele blundered upon the truth. In style, in
wit, and in politeness, Addison {417}maintained his superiority, though
the Old Whig is by no means one of his happiest performances.
At first, both the anonymous opponents observed the laws of propriety.
But at length Steele so far forgot himself as to throw an odious
imputation on the morals of the chiefs of the administration. Addison
replied with severity, but, in our opinion, with less severity than was
due to so grave an offence against morality and decorum; nor did he,
in his just anger, forget for a moment the laws of good taste and good
breeding. One calumny which has been often repeated, and never yet
contradicted, it is our duty to expose. It is asserted in the Biographia
Britannica, that Addison designated Steele as “little Dicky.” This
assertion was repeated by Johnson, who had never seen the Old Whig, and
was therefore excusable. It has also been repeated by Miss Aikin, who
has seen the Old Whig, and for whom therefore there is less excuse. Now,
it is true that the words “little Dicky” occur in the Old Whig, and that
Steele’s name was Richard. It is equally true that the words “little
Isaac” occur in the Duenna, and that Newton’s name was Isaac. But we
confidently affirm that Addison’s little Dicky had no more to do with
Steele, than Sheridan’s little Isaac with Newton. If we apply the
words “little Dicky” to Steele, we deprive a very lively and ingenious
passage, not only of all its wit, but of all its meaning. Little Dicky
was the nickname of Henry Norris, an actor of remarkably small stature,
but of great humour, who played the usurer Gomez, then a most popular
part, in Dryden’s Spanish Friar. (1)
(1) We will transcribe the whole paragraph. How it can ever
have been misunderstood is unintelligible to us.
“But our author’s chief concern is for the poor House of
Commons, whom he represents as naked and defenceless, when
the Crown, by losing this prerogative, would be less able to
protect them against the power of a House of Lords. Who
forbears laughing when the Spanish Friar represents little
Dicky, under the person of Gomez, insulting the Colonel that
was able to fright, him out of his wits with a single frown?
This Gomez, says he, flew upon him like a dragon, got him
down, the Devil being strong in him, and gave him bastinado
on bastinado, and buffet on buffet, which the poor Colonel,
being prostrate, suffered with a most Christian patience.
The improbability of the fact never fails to raise mirth in
the audience; and one may venture to answer for a British
House of Commons, if we may guess, from its conduct
hitherto, that it will scarce be either so tame or so weak
as our author supposes.”
The {418}merited reproof which Steele had received, though softened by
some kind and courteous expressions, galled him bitterly. He replied
with little force and great acrimony; but no rejoinder appeared. Addison
was fast hastening to his grave; and had, we may well suppose, little
disposition to prosecute a quarrel with an old friend. His complaint
had terminated in dropsy. He bore up long and manfully. But at length
he abandoned all hope, dismissed his physicians, and calmly prepared
himself to die.
His works he intrusted to the care of Tickell, and dedicated them a very
few days before his death to Craggs, in a letter written with the sweet
and graceful eloquence of a Saturday’s Spectator. In this, his last
composition, he alluded to his approaching end in words so manly, so
cheerful, and so tender, that it is difficult to read them without
tears. At the same time he earnestly recommended the interests of
Tickell to the care of Craggs.
Within a few hours of the time at which this dedication was written,
Addison sent to beg Gay, who was then living by his wits about town, to
come to Holland House. Gay went, and was received with great kindness.
To his amazement his forgiveness was implored {419}by the dying man.
Poor Gay, the most good-natured and simple of mankind, could not imagine
what he had to forgive. There was, however, some wrong, the remembrance
of which weighed on Addison’s mind, and which he declared himself
anxious to repair. He was in a state of extreme exhaustion; and the
parting was doubtless a friendly one on both sides. Gay supposed that
some plan to serve him had been in agitation at Court, and had been
frustrated by Addison’s influence. Nor is this improbable. Gay had paid
assiduous court to the royal family. But in the Queen’s days he had been
the eulogist of Boling-broke, and was still connected with many Tories.
It is not strange that Addison, while heated by conflict, should have
thought himself justified in obstructing the preferment of one whom
he might regard as a political enemy. Neither is it strange that, when
reviewing his whole life, and earnestly scrutinising all his motives, he
should think that he had acted an unkind and ungenerous part, in using
his power against a distressed man of letters, who was as harmless and
as helpless as a child.
One inference may be drawn from this anecdote. It appears that Addison,
on his deathbed, called himself to a strict account, and was not at ease
till he had asked pardon for an injury which it was not even suspected
that he had committed, for an injury which would have caused disquiet
only to a very tender conscience. Is it not then reasonable to infer
that, if he had really been guilty of forming a base conspiracy against
the fame and fortunes of a rival, he would have expressed some remorse
for so serious a crime? But it is unnecessary to multiply arguments and
evidence for the defence, when there is neither argument nor evidence
for the accusation. {420}The last moments of Addison were perfectly
serene. His interview with his son-in-law is universally known.
“See,” he said, “how a Christian can die.” The piety of Addison was,
in truth, of a singularly cheerful character. The feeling which
predominates in all his devotional writings is gratitude. God was to him
the allwise and allpowerful friend who had watched over his cradle with
more than maternal tenderness; who had listened to his cries before they
could form themselves in prayer; who had preserved his youth from the
snares of vice; who had made his cup run over with worldly blessings;
who had doubled the value of those blessings, by bestowing a thankful
heart to enjoy them, and clear friends to partake them; who had rebuked
the waves of the Ligurian gulf, had purified the autumnal air of the
Campagna, and had restrained the avalanches of Mont Cenis. Of the
Psalms, his favourite was that which represents the Ruler of all things
under the endearing image of a shepherd, whose crook guides the flock
safe, through gloomy and desolate glens, to meadows well watered
and rich with herbage. On that goodness to which he ascribed all the
happiness of his life, he relied in the hour of death with the love
which casteth out fear. He died on the seventeenth of June 1719. He had
just entered on his forty-eighth year.
His body lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, and was borne thence
to the Abbey at dead of night. The choir sang a funeral hymn. Bishop
Atterbury, one of those Tories who had loved and honoured the most
accomplished of the Whigs, met the corpse, and led the procession by
torchlight, round the shrine of Saint Edward and the graves of the
Plantagenets, to the Chapel of Henry the Seventh. On the north side of
{421}that Chapel, in the vault of the House of Albemarle, the coffin of
Addison lies next to the coffin of Montague. Yet a few months; and the
same mourners passed again along the same aisle. The same sad anthem was
again chanted. The same vault was again opened; and the coffin of Craggs
was placed close to the coffin of Addison.
Many tributes were paid to the memory of Addison; but one alone is
now remembered. Tickell bewailed his friend in an elegy which would do
honour to the greatest name in our literature, and which, unites the
energy and magnificence of Dryden to the tenderness and purity of
Cowper. This fine poem was prefixed to a superb edition of Addison’s
works, which was published, in 1721, by subscription. The names of
the subscribers proved how widely his fame had been spread. That his
countrymen should be eager to possess his writings, even in a costly
form, is not wonderful. But it is wonderful that, though English
literature was then little studied on the continent, Spanish Grandees,
Italian Prelates, Marshals of France, should be found in the list. Among
the most remarkable names are those of the Queen of Sweden, of Prince
Eugene, of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, of the Dukes of Parma, Modena,
and Guastalla, of the Doge of Genoa, of the Regent Orleans, and of
Cardinal Dubois. We ought to add that this edition, though eminently
beautiful, is in some important points defective; nor, indeed, do we yet
possess a complete collection of Addison’s writings.
It is strange that neither his opulent and noble widow, nor any of his
powerful and attached friends, should have thought of placing even
a simple tablet, inscribed with his name, on the walls of the Abbey.
{422}It was not till three generations had laughed and wept over his
pages, that the omission was supplied by the public veneration. At
length, in our own time, his image, skilfully graven, appeared in Poet’s
Corner. It represents him, as we can conceive him, clad in his dressing
gown, and freed from his wig, stepping from his parlour at Chelsea into
his trim little garden, with the account of the Everlasting Club, or the
Loves of Hilpa and Shalum, just finished for the next day’s Spectator,
in his hand. Such a mark of national respect was due to the unsullied
statesman, to the accomplished scholar, to the master of pure English
eloquence, to the consummate painter of life and manners.
It was due, above all, to the great satirist, who alone knew how to use
ridicule without abusing it, who, without inflicting a wound, effected a
great social reform, and who reconciled wit and virtue, after a long
and disastrous separation, during which wit had been led astray by
profligacy, and virtue by fanaticism.
BARÈRE (1)
(_Edinburgh Review_, April, 1844.)
THIS {423}book Has more than one title to our serious attention. It is
an appeal, solemnly made to posterity by a man who played a conspicuous
part in great events, and who represents himself as deeply aggrieved by
the rash and malevolent censure of his contemporaries. To such an appeal
we shall always give ready audience. We can perform no duty more useful
to society, or more agreeable to our own feelings, than that of making,
as far as our power extends, reparation to the slandered and
persecuted benefactors of mankind. We therefore promptly took into our
consideration this copious apology for the life of Bertrand Barère. We
have made up our minds; and we now purpose to do him, by the blessing of
God, full and signal justice.
It is to be observed that the appellant in this case does not come
into court alone. He is attended to the bar of public opinion by two
compurgators, who occupy highly honourable stations. One of these is M.
David of Angers, Member of the Institute, an eminent sculptor, and, if
we have been rightly informed, a favourite pupil, though not a kinsman,
of the painter who bore the same name. The other, to whom we owe the
biographical
(1) _Mémoires de Bertrand Barère; publiés par MM. Hiippolyte
Carnot. Membre de lu Chambre des Députés, et David d’Angers,
Membre de l’Institut: précédés d’une Notice Historique par
H. Carnot._ 4 tomes, Paris: 1843.
{424}preface, is M. Hippolyte Carnot, member of the Chamber of Deputies,
and son of the celebrated Director. In the judgment of M. David and of
M. Hippolyte Carnot, Barère was a deserving and an ill-used man, a man
who, though by no means faultless, must yet, when due allowance is made
for the force of circumstances and the infirmity of human nature, be
considered as on the whole entitled to our esteem. It will be for the
public to determine, after a full hearing, whether the editors have, by
thus connecting their names with that of Barère, raised his character or
lowered their own.
We are not conscious that, when we opened this book, we were under the
influence of any feeling likely to pervert our judgment. Undoubtedly, we
had long entertained a most unfavorable opinion of Barère; but to this
opinion we were not tied by any passion or by any interest. Our dislike
was a reasonable dislike, and might have been removed by reason. Indeed
our expectation was, that these Memoirs would in some measure clear
Barère’s fame. That he could vindicate himself from all the charges
which had been brought against him, we knew to be impossible; and his
editors admit that he has not done so. But we thought it highly probable
that some grave accusations would be refuted, and that many offences
to which he would have been forced to plead guilty would be greatly
extenuated. We were not disposed to be severe. We were fully aware that
temptations such as those to which the members of the Convention and
of the Committee of Public Safety were exposed must try severely the
strength of the firmest virtue. Indeed our inclination has always been
to regard with an indulgence, which to some rigid moralists appears
excessive, those faults into {425}which gentle and noble spirits are
sometimes hurried by the excitement of conflict, by the maddening
influence of sympathy, and by ill-regulated zeal for a public cause.
With such feelings we read this hook, and compared it with other
accounts of the events in which Barère bore a part. It is now our duty
to express the opinion to which this investigation has led us.
Our opinion then is this: that Barère approached nearer than any person
mentioned in history or fiction, whether man or devil, to the idea of
consummate and universal depravity. In him the qualities which are the
proper objects of hatred, and the qualities which are the proper objects
of contempt, preserve an exquisite and absolute harmony. In almost every
particular sort of wickedness he has had rivals. His sensuality was
immoderate; but this was a failing common to him with many great and
amiable men. There have been many men as cowardly as he, some as cruel,
a few as mean, a few as impudent. There may also have been as great
liars, though we never met with them or read of them. But when we put
every thing together, sensuality, poltroonery, baseness, effrontery,
mendacity, barbarity, the result is something which in a novel we should
condemn as caricature, and to which, we venture to say, no parallel can
be found in history.
It would be grossly unjust, we acknowledge, to try a man situated as
Barère was by a severe standard. Nor have we done so. We have formed
our opinion of him by comparing him, not with politicians of stainless
character, not with Chancellor D’Aguesseau, or General Washington,
or Mr. Wilberforce, or Earl Grey, but with his own colleagues of the
Mountain. That party included a considerable number of the worst men
that {426}ever lived; but we see in it nothing like Barère. Compared
with him, Fouché seems honest; Billaud seems humane; Hébert seems to
rise into dignity. Every other chief of a party, says M. Hippolyte
Carnot, has found apologists: one set of men exalts the Girondists;
another set justifies Danton; a third deifies Robespierre: but Barère
has remained without a defender. We venture to suggest a very simple
solution of this phenomenon. All the other chiefs of parties had some
good qualities; and Barère had none. The genius, courage, patriotism,
and humanity of the Girondist statesmen more than atoned for what was
culpable in their conduct, and should have protected them from the
insult of being compared with such a thing as Barère. Danton and
Robespierre were indeed bad men; but in both of them some important
parts of the mind remained sound. Danton was brave and resolute, fond of
pleasure, of power, and of distinction, with vehement passions, with
lax principles, but with some kind and manly feelings, capable of great
crimes, but capable also of friendship and of compassion. He,
therefore, naturally finds admirers among persons of bold and sanguine
dispositions. Robespierre was a vain, envious, and suspicious man, with
a hard heart, weak nerves, and a gloomy temper. But we cannot with truth
deny that he was, in the vulgar sense of the word, disinterested, that
his private life was correct, or that he was sincerely zealous for
his own system of politics and morals. He, therefore, naturally finds
admirers among honest but moody and bitter democrats. If no class has
taken the reputation of Barère under its patronage, the reason is plain:
Barère had not a single virtue, nor even the semblance of one.
It is true that he was not, as far as we are able to {427}judge,
originally of a savage disposition; but this circumstance seems to ns
only to aggravate his guilt. There are some unhappy men constitutionally
prone to the darker passions, men all whose blood is gall, and to whom
bitter words and harsh actions are as natural as snarling: and biting;
to a ferocious dog. To come into the world with this wretched mental
disease is a greater calamity than to be born blind or deaf. A man who,
having such a temper, keeps it in subjection, and constrains himself to
behave habitually with justice and humanity towards those who are in
his power, seems to us worthy of the highest admiration. There have
been instances of this self-command; and they are among the most signal
triumphs of philosophy and religion. On the other hand, a man who,
having been blessed by nature with a bland disposition, gradually brings
himself to inflict misery on his fellow-creatures with indifference,
with satisfaction, and at length with a hideous rapture, deserves to
be regarded as a portent of wickedness; and such a man was Barère.
The history of his downward progress is full of instruction. Weakness,
cowardice, and fickleness were born with him; the best quality which he
received from nature was a good temper. These, it is true, are not
very promising materials; yet, out of materials as unpromising, high
sentiments of piety and of honour have sometimes made martyrs and
heroes. Rigid principles often do for feeble minds what stays do for
feeble bodies. But Barère had no principles at all. His character was
equally destitute of natural and of acquired strength. Neither in the
commerce of life, nor in books, did we ever become acquainted with
any mind so unstable, so utterly destitute of tone, so incapable of
independent thought and earnest preference, so ready to take impressions
{428}and so ready to lose them. He resembled those creepers which must
lean on something, and which, as soon as their prop is removed, fall
down in utter helplessness. He could no more stand up, erect and
self-supported, in any cause, than the ivy can rear itself like the oak,
or the wild vine shoot to heaven like the cedar of Lebanon. It is barely
possible that, under good guidance and in favourable circumstances,
such a man might have slipped through life without, discredit. But the
unseaworthy craft, which even in still water would have been in danger
of going down from its own rottenness, was launched on a raging ocean,
amidst a storm in which a whole armada of gallant ships was cast away.
The weakest and most servile of human beings found himself on a sudden
an actor in a Revolution which convulsed the whole civilised world. At
first he fell under the influence of humane and moderate men, and talked
the language of humanity and moderation. But he soon found himself
surrounded by fierce and resolute spirits, scared by no danger and
restrained by no scruple. He had to choose whether he would be their
victim or their accomplice. His choice was soon made. He tasted blood,
and felt no loathing: he tasted it again, and liked it well. Cruelty
became with him, first a habit, then a passion, at last a madness. So
complete and rapid was the degeneracy of his nature, that, within a very
few months after the time when he had passed for a good-natured man,
he had brought himself to look on the despair and misery of his
fellow-creatures with a glee resembling that of the fiends whom Dante
saw watching the pool of seething pitch in Malebolge. He had many
associates in guilt: but he distinguished himself from them all by the
Bacchanalian exultation {429}which he seemed to feel in the work of
death. He was drunk with innocent and noble blood, laughed and shouted
as he butchered, and howled strange songs and reeled in strange dances
amidst the carnage. Then came a sudden and violent turn of fortune. The
miserable man was hurled down from the height of power to hopeless ruin
and infamy. The shock sobered him at once. The fumes of his horrible
intoxication passed away. But he was now so irrecoverably depraved that
the discipline of adversity only drove him further into wickedness.
Ferocious vices, of which he had never been suspected, had been
developed in him by power. Another class of vices, less hateful perhaps,
but more despicable, was now developed in him by poverty and disgrace.
Having appalled the whole world by great crimes perpetrated under the
pretence of zeal for liberty, he became the meanest of all the tools of
despotism. It is not easy to settle the order of precedence among his
vices; but we are inclined to think that his baseness was, on the whole,
a rarer and more marvellous thing than his cruelty.