Lecture The Second. Congreve And Addison
A great number of years ago, before the passing of the Reform Bill, thereexisted at Cambridge a certain debating club, called the "Union"; and Iremember that there was a tradition amongst the undergraduates whofrequented that renowned school of oratory, that the great leaders of theOpposition and Government had their eyes upon the University DebatingClub, and that if a man distinguished himself there he ran some chance ofbeing returned to Parliament as a great nobleman's nominee. So Jones ofJohn's, or Thomson of Trinity, would rise in their might, and drapingthemselves in their gowns, rally round the monarchy, or hurl defiance atpriests and kings, with the majesty of Pitt or the fire of Mirabeau,fancying all the while that the great nobleman's emissary was listening tothe debate from the back benches, where he was sitting with the familyseat in his pocket. Indeed, the legend said that one or two youngCambridge men, orators of the Union, were actually caught up thence, andcarried down to Cornwall or old Sarum, and so into Parliament. And many ayoung fellow deserted the jogtrot University curriculum, to hang on in thedust behind the fervid wheels of the Parliamentary chariot.
Where, I have often wondered, were the sons of peers and Members ofParliament in Anne's and George's time? Were they all in the army, orhunting in the country, or boxing the watch? How was it that the younggentlemen from the University got such a prodigious number of places? Alad composed a neat copy of verses at Christchurch or Trinity, in whichthe death of a great personage was bemoaned, the French king assailed, theDutch or Prince Eugene complimented, or the reverse; and the party inpower was presently to provide for the young poet; and a commissionership,or a post in the Stamps, or the secretaryship of an embassy, or aclerkship in the Treasury, came into the bard's possession. A wonderfulfruit-bearing rod was that of Busby's. What have men of letters got in_our_ time? Think, not only of Swift, a king fit to rule in any time orempire--but Addison, Steele, Prior, Tickell, Congreve, John Gay, JohnDennis, and many others, who got public employment, and pretty littlepickings out of the public purse.(57) The wits of whose names we shalltreat in this lecture and two following, all (save one) touched the king'scoin, and had, at some period of their lives, a happy quarter-day cominground for them.
They all began at school or college in the regular way, producingpanegyrics upon public characters, what were called odes upon publicevents, battles, sieges, court marriages and deaths, in which the gods ofOlympus and the tragic muse were fatigued with invocations, according tothe fashion of the time in France and in England. "Aid us Mars, Bacchus,Apollo," cried Addison, or Congreve, singing of William or Marlborough."_Accourez, chastes nymphes de Parnasse_," says Boileau, celebrating theGrand Monarch. "_Des sons que ma lyre enfante_, marquez-en bien lacadence, _et vous, vents, faites silence! je vais parler de __ Louis!_"Schoolboys' themes and foundation exercises are the only relics left nowof this scholastic fashion. The Olympians are left quite undisturbed intheir mountain. What man of note, what contributor to the poetry of acountry newspaper, would now think of writing a congratulatory ode on thebirth of the heir to a dukedom, or the marriage of a nobleman? In the pastcentury the young gentlemen of the Universities all exercised themselvesat these queer compositions; and some got fame, and some gained patronsand places for life, and many more took nothing by these efforts of whatthey were pleased to call their muses.
William Congreve's(58) Pindaric Odes are still to be found in _Johnson'sPoets_, that now unfrequented poets' corner, in which so many forgottenbigwigs have a niche--but though he was also voted to be one of thegreatest tragic poets of any day, it was Congreve's wit and humour whichfirst recommended him to courtly fortune. And it is recorded, that hisfirst play, the _Old Bachelor_, brought our author to the notice of thatgreat patron of English muses, Charles Montague Lord Halifax, who beingdesirous to place so eminent a wit in a state of ease and tranquillity,instantly made him one of the Commissioners for licensing hackney-coaches,bestowed on him soon after a place in the Pipe-office, and likewise a postin the Custom-house of the value of 600_l._
A commissionership of hackney-coaches--a post in the Custom-house--a placein the Pipe-office, and all for writing a comedy! Doesn't it sound like afable, that place in the Pipe-office?(59) _Ah, l'heureux temps que celuide ces fables!_ Men of letters there still be: but I doubt whether anyPipe-offices are left. The public has smoked them long ago.
Words, like men, pass current for a while with the public, and being knowneverywhere abroad, at length take their places in society; so even themost secluded and refined ladies here present will have heard the phrasefrom their sons or brothers at school, and will permit me to call WilliamCongreve, Esquire, the most eminent literary "swell" of his age. In mycopy of _Johnson's Lives_ Congreve's wig is the tallest, and put on withthe jauntiest air of all the laurelled worthies. "I am the great Mr.Congreve," he seems to say, looking out from his voluminous curls. Peoplecalled him the great Mr. Congreve.(60) From the beginning of his careeruntil the end everybody admired him. Having got his education in Ireland,at the same school and college with Swift, he came to live in the MiddleTemple, London, where he luckily bestowed no attention to the law; butsplendidly frequented the coffee-houses and theatres, and appeared in theside-box, the tavern, the Piazza, and the Mall, brilliant, beautiful, andvictorious from the first. Everybody acknowledged the young chieftain. Thegreat Mr. Dryden(61) declared that he was equal to Shakespeare, andbequeathed to him his own undisputed poetical crown, and writes of him,"Mr. Congreve has done me the favour to review the _Aeneis_, and comparemy version with the original. I shall never be ashamed to own that thisexcellent young man has showed me many faults which I have endeavoured tocorrect."
The "excellent young man" was but three- or four-and-twenty when the greatDryden thus spoke of him: the greatest literary chief in England, theveteran field-marshal of letters, himself the marked man of all Europe,and the centre of a school of wits, who daily gathered round his chair andtobacco-pipe at Will's. Pope dedicated his _Iliad_ to him;(62) Swift,Addison, Steele, all acknowledge Congreve's rank, and lavish complimentsupon him. Voltaire went to wait upon him as on one of the Representativesof Literature--and the man who scarce praises any other living person, whoflung abuse at Pope, and Swift, and Steele, and Addison--the Grub StreetTimon, old John Dennis,(63) was hat in hand to Mr. Congreve; and said,that when he retired from the stage, Comedy went with him.
Nor was he less victorious elsewhere. He was admired in the drawing-roomsas well as the coffee-houses; as much beloved in the side-box as on thestage. He loved, and conquered, and jilted the beautiful Bracegirdle,(64)the heroine of all his plays, the favourite of all the town of her day--andthe Duchess of Marlborough, Marlborough's daughter, had such an admirationof him, that when he died she had an ivory figure made to imitate him,(65)and a large wax doll with gouty feet to be dressed just as the greatCongreve's gouty feet were dressed in his great lifetime. He saved somemoney by his Pipe-office, and his Custom-house office, and hisHackney-coach office, and nobly left it, not to Bracegirdle, who wantedit,(66) but to the Duchess of Marlborough, who didn't.(67)
How can I introduce to you that merry and shameless Comic Muse who won himsuch a reputation? Nell Gwynn's servant fought the other footman forhaving called his mistress a bad name; and in like manner, and with prettylike epithets, Jeremy Collier attacked that godless, reckless Jezebel, theEnglish comedy of his time, and called her what Nell Gwynn's man'sfellow-servants called Nell Gwynn's man's mistress. The servants of thetheatre, Dryden, Congreve,(68) and others, defended themselves with thesame success, and for the same cause which set Nell's lackey fighting. Shewas a disreputable, daring, laughing, painted French baggage, that ComicMuse. She came over from the Continent with Charles (who chose many moreof his female friends there) at the Restoration--a wild, dishevelled Lais,with eyes bright with wit and wine--a saucy court-favourite that sat at theking's knees, and laughed in his face, and when she showed her bold cheeksat her chariot-window, had some of the noblest and most famous people ofthe land bow
ing round her wheel. She was kind and popular enough, thatdaring Comedy, that audacious poor Nell--she was gay and generous, kind,frank, as such people can afford to be: and the men who lived with her andlaughed with her, took her pay and drank her wine, turned out when thePuritans hooted her, to fight and defend her. But the jade wasindefensible, and it is pretty certain her servants knew it.
There is life and death going on in everything: truth and lies always atbattle. Pleasure is always warring against self-restraint. Doubt is alwayscrying Psha, and sneering. A man in life, a humourist in writing aboutlife, sways over to one principle or the other, and laughs with thereverence for right and the love of truth in his heart, or laughs at thesefrom the other side. Didn't I tell you that dancing was a serious businessto Harlequin? I have read two or three of Congreve's plays over beforespeaking of him; and my feelings were rather like those, which I daresaymost of us here have had, at Pompeii, looking at Sallust's house and therelics of an orgy, a dried wine-jar or two, a charred supper-table, thebreast of a dancing girl pressed against the ashes, the laughing skull ofa jester, a perfect stillness round about, as the cicerone twangs hismoral, and the blue sky shines calmly over the ruin. The Congreve muse isdead, and her song choked in Time's ashes. We gaze at the skeleton, andwonder at the life which once revelled in its mad veins. We take the skullup, and muse over the frolic and daring, the wit, scorn, passion, hope,desire, with which that empty bowl once fermented. We think of the glancesthat allured, the tears that melted, of the bright eyes that shone inthose vacant sockets; and of lips whispering love, and cheeks dimplingwith smiles, that once covered yon ghastly yellow framework. They used tocall those teeth pearls once. See! there's the cup she drank from, thegold chain she wore on her neck, the vase which held the rouge for hercheeks, her looking-glass, and the harp she used to dance to. Instead of afeast we find a gravestone, and in place of a mistress, a few bones!
Reading in these plays now, is like shutting your ears and looking atpeople dancing. What does it mean? the measures, the grimaces, the bowing,shuffling and retreating, the _cavalier seul_ advancing upon thoseladies--those ladies and men twirling round at the end in a mad galop,after which everybody bows and the quaint rite is celebrated. Without themusic we can't understand that comic dance of the last century--its strangegravity and gaiety, its decorum or its indecorum. It has a jargon of itsown quite unlike life; a sort of moral of its own quite unlike life too.I'm afraid it's a heathen mystery, symbolizing a Pagan doctrine;protesting, as the Pompeians very likely were, assembled at their theatreand laughing at their games--as Sallust and his friends, and theirmistresses protested--crowned with flowers, with cups in their hands,against the new, hard, ascetic, pleasure-hating doctrine, whose gauntdisciples, lately passed over from the Asian shores of the Mediterranean,were for breaking the fair images of Venus, and flinging the altars ofBacchus down.
I fancy poor Congreve's theatre is a temple of Pagan delights, andmysteries not permitted except among heathens. I fear the theatre carriesdown that ancient tradition and worship, as masons have carried theirsecret signs and rites from temple to temple. When the libertine herocarries off the beauty in the play, and the dotard is laughed to scorn forhaving the young wife: in the ballad, when the poet bid his mistress togather roses while she may, and warns her that old Time is still a-flying:in the ballet, when honest Corydon courts Phillis under the treillage ofthe pasteboard cottage, and leers at her over the head of grandpapa in redstockings, who is opportunely asleep; and when seduced by the invitationsof the rosy youth she comes forward to the footlights, and they perform oneach other's tiptoes that _pas_ which you all know, and which is onlyinterrupted by old grandpapa awaking from his doze at the pasteboardchalet (whither he returns to take another nap in case the young peopleget an encore): when Harlequin, splendid in youth, strength, and agility,arrayed in gold and a thousand colours, springs over the heads ofcountless perils, leaps down the throat of bewildered giants, and,dauntless and splendid, dances danger down: when Mr. Punch, that godlessold rebel, breaks every law and laughs at it with odious triumph, outwitshis lawyer, bullies the beadle, knocks his wife about the head, and hangsthe hangman--don't you see in the comedy, in the song, in the dance, in theragged little Punch's puppet-show--the Pagan protest? Doesn't it seem as ifLife puts in its plea and sings its comment? Look how the lovers walk andhold each other's hands and whisper! Sings the chorus--"There is nothinglike love, there is nothing like youth, there is nothing like beauty ofyour spring-time. Look! how old age tries to meddle with merry sport! Beathim with his own crutch, the wrinkled old dotard! There is nothing likeyouth, there is nothing like beauty, there is nothing like strength.Strength and valour win beauty and youth. Be brave and conquer. Be youngand happy. Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy! Would you know the _segreto per esserfelice_? Here it is, in a smiling mistress and a cup of Falernian." As theboy tosses the cup and sings his song--hark! what is that chaunt comingnearer and nearer? What is that dirge which _will_ disturb us? The lightsof the festival burn dim--the cheeks turn pale--the voice quavers--and thecup drops on the floor. Who's there? Death and Fate are at the gate, andthey _will_ come in.
Congreve's comic feast flares with lights, and round the table, emptyingtheir flaming bowls of drink, and exchanging the wildest jests andribaldry, sit men and women, waited on by rascally valets and attendantsas dissolute as their mistresses--perhaps the very worst company in theworld. There doesn't seem to be a pretence of morals. At the head of thetable sits Mirabel or Belmour (dressed in the French fashion and waited onby English imitators of Scapin and Frontin). Their calling is to beirresistible, and to conquer everywhere. Like the heroes of the chivalrystory, whose long-winded loves and combats they were sending out offashion, they are always splendid and triumphant--overcome all dangers,vanquish all enemies, and win the beauty at the end. Fathers, husbands,usurers are the foes these champions contend with. They are merciless inold age, invariably, and an old man plays the part in the dramas, whichthe wicked enchanter or the great blundering giant performs in thechivalry tales, who threatens and grumbles and resists--a huge stupidobstacle always overcome by the knight. It is an old man with a money-box:Sir Belmour his son or nephew spends his money and laughs at him. It is anold man with a young wife whom he locks up: Sir Mirabel robs him of hiswife, trips up his gouty old heels and leaves the old hunx--the old fool,what business has he to hoard his money, or to lock up blushing eighteen?Money is for youth, love is for youth; away with the old people. WhenMillamant is sixty, having of course divorced the first Lady Millamant,and married his friend Doricourt's granddaughter out of the nursery--itwill be his turn; and young Belmour will make a fool of him. All thispretty morality you have in the comedies of William Congreve, Esq. Theyare full of wit. Such manners as he observes, he observes with greathumour; but ah! it's a weary feast that banquet of wit where no love is.It palls very soon; sad indigestions follow it and lonely blank headachesin the morning.
I can't pretend to quote scenes from the splendid Congreve'splays(69)--which are undeniably bright, witty, and daring--any more than Icould ask you to hear the dialogue of a witty bargeman and a brilliantfishwoman exchanging compliments at Billingsgate; but some of hisverses--they were amongst the most famous lyrics of the time, andpronounced equal to Horace by his contemporaries--may give an idea of hispower, of his grace, of his daring manner, his magnificence in compliment,and his polished sarcasm. He writes as if he was so accustomed to conquer,that he has a poor opinion of his victims. Nothing's new except theirfaces, says he: "every woman is the same." He says this in his firstcomedy, which he wrote languidly(70) in illness, when he was an "excellentyoung man". Richelieu at eighty could have hardly said a more excellentthing.
When he advances to make one of his conquests it is with a splendidgallantry, in full uniform and with the fiddles playing, like Grammont'sFrench dandies attacking the breach of Lerida.
"Cease, cease to ask her name," he writes of a young lady at the Wells atTunbridge, whom he salutes with a magnificent compliment-- r />
Cease, cease to ask her name, The crowned Muse's noblest theme, Whose glory by immortal fame Shall only sounded be. But if you long to know, Then look round yonder dazzling row, Who most does like an angel show You may be sure 'tis she.
Here are lines about another beauty, who perhaps was not so well pleasedat the poet's manner of celebrating her--
When Lesbia first I saw, so heavenly fair, With eyes so bright and with that awful air, I thought my heart would durst so high aspire As bold as his who snatched celestial fire. But soon as e'er the beauteous idiot spoke, Forth from her coral lips such folly broke; Like balm the trickling nonsense heal'd my wound, And what her eyes enthralled, her tongue unbound.
Amoret is a cleverer woman than the lovely Lesbia, but the poet does notseem to respect one much more than the other; and describes both withexquisite satirical humour--
Fair Amoret is gone astray, Pursue and seek her every lover; I'll tell the signs by which you may The wandering shepherdess discover.
Coquet and coy at once her air, Both studied, though both seem neglected; Careless she is with artful care, Affecting to be unaffected.
With skill her eyes dart every glance, Yet change so soon you'd ne'er suspect them; For she'd persuade they wound by chance, Though certain aim and art direct them.
She likes herself, yet others hates For that which in herself she prizes; And, while she laughs at them, forgets She is the thing which she despises.
What could Amoret have done to bring down such shafts of ridicule uponher? Could she have resisted the irresistible Mr. Congreve? Could anybody?Could Sabina, when she woke and heard such a bard singing under herwindow. See, he writes--
See! see, she wakes--Sabina wakes! And now the sun begins to rise: Less glorious is the morn, that breaks From his bright beams, than her fair eyes. With light united day they give; But different fates ere night fulfil: How many by his warmth will live! How many will her coldness kill!
Are you melted? Don't you think him a divine man? If not touched by thebrilliant Sabina, hear the devout Selinda:--
Pious Selinda goes to prayers, If I but ask her favour; And yet the silly fool's in tears, If she believes I'll leave her: Would I were free from this restraint, Or else had hopes to win her: Would she could make of me a saint, Or I of her a sinner!
What a conquering air there is about these! What an irresistible Mr.Congreve it is! Sinner! of course he will be a sinner, the delightfulrascal! Win her; of course he will win her, the victorious rogue! He knowshe will: he must--with such a grace, with such a fashion, with such asplendid embroidered suit--you see him with red-heeled shoes deliciouslyturned out, passing a fair jewelled hand through his dishevelled periwig,and delivering a killing ogle along with his scented billet. And Sabina?What a comparison that is between the nymph and the sun! The sun givesSabina the _pas_, and does not venture to rise before her ladyship: themorn's _bright beams_ are less glorious than her _fair eyes_: but beforenight everybody will be frozen by her glances: everybody but one luckyrogue who shall be nameless: Louis Quatorze in all his glory is hardlymore splendid than our Phoebus Apollo of the Mall and Spring Garden.(71)
When Voltaire came to visit the great Congreve, the latter rather affectedto despise his literary reputation, and in this perhaps the great Congrevewas not far wrong.(72) A touch of Steele's tenderness is worth all hisfinery--a flash of Swift's lightning--a beam of Addison's pure sunshine, andhis tawdry play-house taper is invisible. But the ladies loved him, and hewas undoubtedly a pretty fellow.(73)
We have seen in Swift a humorous philosopher, whose truth frightens one,and whose laughter makes one melancholy. We have had in Congreve ahumorous observer of another school, to whom the world seems to have nomoral at all, and whose ghastly doctrine seems to be that we should eat,drink, and be merry when we can, and go to the deuce (if there be a deuce)when the time comes. We come now to a humour that flows from quite adifferent heart and spirit--a wit that makes us laugh and leaves us goodand happy; to one of the kindest benefactors that society has ever had,and I believe you have divined already that I am about to mentionAddison's honoured name.
From reading over his writings, and the biographies which we have of him,amongst which the famous article in the _Edinburgh Review_(74) may becited as a magnificent statue of the great writer and moralist of the lastage, raised by the love and the marvellous skill and genius of one of themost illustrious artists of our own; looking at that calm, fair face, andclear countenance--those chiselled features pure and cold, I can't butfancy that this great man, in this respect, like him of whom we spoke inthe last lecture, was also one of the lonely ones of the world. Such menhave very few equals, and they don't herd with those. It is in the natureof such lords of intellect to be solitary--they are in the world but not ofit; and our minor struggles, brawls, successes, pass under them.
Kind, just, serene, impartial, his fortitude not tried beyond easyendurance, his affections not much used, for his books were his family,and his society was in public; admirably wiser, wittier, calmer, and moreinstructed than almost every man with whom he met, how could Addisonsuffer, desire, admire, feel much? I may expect a child to admire me forbeing taller or writing more cleverly than she; but how can I ask mysuperior to say that I am a wonder when he knows better than I? InAddison's days you could scarcely show him a literary performance, asermon, or a poem, or a piece of literary criticism, but he felt he coulddo better. His justice must have made him indifferent. He didn't praise,because he measured his compeers by a higher standard than common peoplehave.(75) How was he who was so tall to look up to any but the loftiestgenius? He must have stooped to put himself on a level with most men. Bythat profusion of graciousness and smiles, with which Goethe or Scott, forinstance, greeted almost every literary beginner, every small literaryadventurer who came to his court and went away charmed from the greatking's audience, and cuddling to his heart the compliment which hisliterary majesty had paid him--each of the two good-natured potentates ofletters brought their star and ribbon into discredit. Everybody had hismajesty's orders. Everybody had his Majesty's cheap portrait, on a boxsurrounded with diamonds worth twopence a-piece. A very great and just andwise man ought not to praise indiscriminately, but give his idea of thetruth. Addison praises the ingenious Mr. Pinkethman: Addison praises theingenious Mr. Doggett the actor, whose benefit is coming off that night:Addison praises Don Saltero: Addison praises Milton with all his heart,bends his knee and frankly pays homage to that imperial genius.(76) Butbetween those degrees of his men his praise is very scanty. I don't thinkthe great Mr. Addison liked young Mr. Pope, the Papist, much; I don'tthink he abused him. But when Mr. Addison's men abused Mr. Pope, I don'tthink Addison took his pipe out of his mouth to contradict them.(77)
Addison's father was a clergyman of good repute in Wiltshire, and rose inthe Church.(78) His famous son never lost his clerical training andscholastic gravity, and was called "a parson in a tye-wig"(79) in Londonafterwards at a time when tye-wigs were only worn by the laity, and thefathers of theology did not think it decent to appear except in a fullbottom. Having been at school at Salisbury, and the Charterhouse, in 1687,when he was fifteen years old he went to Queen's College, Oxford, where hespeedily began to distinguish himself by the making of Latin verses. Thebeautiful and fanciful poem of _The Pigmies and the Cranes_ is still readby lovers of that sort of exercise; and verses are extant in honour ofKing William, by which it appears that it was the loyal youth's custom totoast that sovereign in bumpers of purple Lyaeus; and many more works arein the collection, including one on the Peace of Ryswick, in 1697, whichwas so good that Montague got him a pension of 300_l._ a year, on whichAddison set out on his travels.
During his ten years at Oxford, Addison had deeply imbued himself with theLatin poetical literature, and had these poets at his fingers' ends whenhe travelle
d in Italy.(80) His patron went out of office, and his pensionwas unpaid: and hearing that this great scholar, now eminent and known tothe _literati_ of Europe (the great Boileau,(81) upon perusal of Mr.Addison's elegant hexameters, was first made aware that England was notaltogether a barbarous nation)--hearing that the celebrated Mr. Addison, ofOxford, proposed to travel as governor to a young gentleman on the grandtour, the great Duke of Somerset proposed to Mr. Addison to accompany hisson, Lord Hartford.
Mr. Addison was delighted to be of use to his grace and his lordship, hisgrace's son, and expressed himself ready to set forth.
His grace the Duke of Somerset now announced to one of the most famousscholars of Oxford and Europe that it was his gracious intention to allowmy Lord Hartford's tutor one hundred guineas per annum. Mr. Addison wroteback that his services were his grace's, but he by no means found hisaccount in the recompense for them. The negotiation was broken off. Theyparted with a profusion of _congees_ on one side and the other.
Addison remained abroad for some time, living in the best society ofEurope. How could he do otherwise? He must have been one of the finestgentlemen the world ever saw: at all moments of life serene and courteous,cheerful and calm.(82) He could scarcely ever have had a degradingthought. He might have omitted a virtue or two, or many, but could nothave had many faults committed for which he need blush or turn pale. Whenwarmed into confidence, his conversation appears to have been sodelightful that the greatest wits sat wrapt and charmed to listen to him.No man bore poverty and narrow fortune with a more lofty cheerfulness. Hisletters to his friends at this period of his life, when he had lost hisGovernment pension and given up his college chances, are full of courageand a gay confidence and philosophy: and they are none the worse in myeyes, and I hope not in those of his last and greatest biographer (thoughMr. Macaulay is bound to own and lament a certain weakness for wine, whichthe great and good Joseph Addison notoriously possessed, in common withcountless gentlemen of his time), because some of the letters are writtenwhen his honest hand was shaking a little in the morning after libationsto purple Lyaeus overnight. He was fond of drinking the healths of hisfriends: he writes to Wyche,(83) of Hamburgh, gratefully rememberingWyche's "hoc". "I have been drinking your health to-day with Sir RichardShirley," he writes to Bathurst. "I have lately had the honour to meet myLord Effingham at Amsterdam, where we have drunk Mr. Wood's health ahundred times in excellent champagne," he writes again. Swift(84)describes him over his cups, when Joseph yielded to a temptation whichJonathan resisted. Joseph was of a cold nature, and needed perhaps thefire of wine to warm his blood. If he was a parson, he wore a tye-wig,recollect. A better and more Christian man scarcely ever breathed thanJoseph Addison. If he had not that little weakness for wine--why, we couldscarcely have found a fault with him, and could not have liked him as wedo.(85)
At thirty-three years of age, this most distinguished wit, scholar, andgentleman was without a profession and an income. His book of _Travels_had failed: his _Dialogues on Medals_ had had no particular success: hisLatin verses, even though reported the best since Virgil, or Statius atany rate, had not brought him a Government place, and Addison was livingup two shabby pair of stairs in the Haymarket (in a poverty over which oldSamuel Johnson rather chuckles), when in these shabby rooms an emissaryfrom Government and Fortune came and found him.(86)
A poem was wanted about the Duke of Marlborough's victory of Blenheim.Would Mr. Addison write one? Mr. Boyle, afterwards Lord Carleton, tookback the reply to the Lord Treasurer Godolphin, that Mr. Addison would.When the poem had reached a certain stage, it was carried to Godolphin;and the last lines which he read were these:
But O my muse! what numbers wilt thou find To sing the furious troops in battle join'd? Methinks I hear the drum's tumultuous sound, The victors' shouts and dying groans confound; The dreadful burst of cannon rend the skies, And all the thunders of the battle rise. 'Twas then great Marlborough's mighty soul was proved, That, in the shock of charging hosts unmoved, Amidst confusion, horror, and despair, Examined all the dreadful scenes of war: In peaceful thought the field of death surveyed, To fainting squadrons lent the timely aid, Inspired repulsed battalions to engage, And taught the doubtful battle where to rage. So when an angel by divine command, With rising tempests shakes a guilty land (Such as of late o'er pale Britannia passed), Calm and serene he drives the furious blast; And, pleased the Almighty's orders to perform, Rides on the whirlwind and directs the storm.
Addison left off at a good moment. That simile was pronounced to be of thegreatest ever produced in poetry. That angel, that good angel, flew offwith Mr. Addison, and landed him in the place of Commissioner ofAppeals--vice Mr. Locke providentially promoted. In the following year, Mr.Addison went to Hanover with Lord Halifax, and the year after was madeUnder-Secretary of State. O angel visits! you come "few and far between"to literary gentlemen's lodgings! Your wings seldom quiver at second-floorwindows now!
You laugh? You think it is in the power of few writers nowadays to call upsuch an angel? Well, perhaps not; but permit us to comfort ourselves bypointing out that there are in the poem of the _Campaign_ some as badlines as heart can desire: and to hint that Mr. Addison did very wisely innot going further with my Lord Godolphin than that angelical simile. Doallow me, just for a little harmless mischief, to read you some of thelines which follow. Here is the interview between the Duke and the King ofthe Romans after the battle:--
Austria's young monarch, whose imperial sway Sceptres and thrones are destined to obey, Whose boasted ancestry so high extends That in the pagan gods his lineage ends, Comes from afar, in gratitude to own The great supporter of his father's throne. What tides of glory to his bosom ran Clasped in th' embraces of the godlike man! How were his eyes with pleasing wonder fixt, To see such fire with so much sweetness mixt! Such easy greatness, such a graceful port, So learned and finished for the camp or court!
How many fourth-form boys at Mr. Addison's school of Charterhouse couldwrite as well as that now? The _Campaign_ has blunders, triumphant as itwas; and weak points like all campaigns.(87)
In the year 1718 _Cato_ came out. Swift has left a description of thefirst night of the performance. All the laurels of Europe were scarcelysufficient for the author of this prodigious poem.(88) Laudations of Whigand Tory chiefs, popular ovations, complimentary garlands from literarymen, translations in all languages, delight and homage from all--save fromJohn Dennis in a minority of one--Mr. Addison was called the "great Mr.Addison" after this. The Coffee-house Senate saluted him Divus: it washeresy to question that decree.
Meanwhile he was writing political papers and advancing in the politicalprofession. He went Secretary to Ireland. He was appointed Secretary ofState in 1717. And letters of his are extant, bearing date some year ortwo before, and written to young Lord Warwick, in which he addresses himas "my dearest lord", and asks affectionately about his studies, andwrites very prettily about nightingales, and birds'-nests, which he hasfound at Fulham for his lordship. Those nightingales were intended towarble in the ear of Lord Warwick's mamma. Addison married her ladyship in1716; and died at Holland House three years after that splendid but dismalunion.(89)
But it is not for his reputation as the great author of _Cato_ and the_Campaign_, or for his merits as Secretary of State, or for his rank andhigh distinction as my Lady Warwick's husband, or for his eminence as anExaminer of political questions on the Whig side, or a Guardian of Britishliberties, that we admire Joseph Addison. It is as a Tatler of small talkand a Spectator of mankind, that we cherish and love him, and owe as muchpleasure to him as to any human being that ever wrote. He came in thatartificial age, and began to speak with his noble, natural voice. He came,the gentle satirist, who hit no unfair blow; the kind judge who castigatedonly in smiling. While Swift went about, hanging and ruthless--a literaryJeffries--in Addison's kind court only minor cases were tried: onlypeccadilloes and small sins against society:
only a dangerous libertinismin tuckers and hoops;(90) or a nuisance in the abuse of beaux' canes andsnuff-boxes. It may be a lady is tried for breaking the peace of oursovereign lady Queen Anne, and ogling too dangerously from the side-box:or a Templar for beating the watch, or breaking Priscian's head: or acitizen's wife for caring too much for the puppet-show, and too little forher husband and children: every one of the little sinners brought beforehim is amusing, and he dismisses each with the pleasantest penalties andthe most charming words of admonition.
Addison wrote his papers as gaily as if he was going out for a holiday.When Steele's _Tatler_ first began his prattle, Addison, then in Ireland,caught at his friend's notion, poured in paper after paper, andcontributed the stores of his mind, the sweet fruits of his reading, thedelightful gleanings of his daily observation, with a wonderful profusion,and as it seemed an almost endless fecundity. He was six-and-thirty yearsold: full and ripe. He had not worked crop after crop from his brain,manuring hastily, subsoiling indifferently, cutting and sowing and cuttingagain, like other luckless cultivators of letters. He had not done much asyet; a few Latin poems--graceful prolusions; a polite book of travels; adissertation on medals, not very deep; four acts of a tragedy, a greatclassical exercise; and the _Campaign_, a large prize poem that won anenormous prize. But with his friend's discovery of the _Tatler_, Addison'scalling was found, and the most delightful talker in the world began tospeak. He does not go very deep: let gentlemen of a profound genius,critics accustomed to the plunge of the bathos, console themselves bythinking that he _couldn't_ go very deep. There are no traces of sufferingin his writing. He was so good, so honest, so healthy, so cheerfullyselfish, if I must use the word. There is no deep sentiment. I doubt,until after his marriage, perhaps, whether he ever lost his night's restor his day's tranquillity about any woman in his life:(91) whereas poorDick Steele had capacity enough to melt, and to languish, and to sigh, andto cry his honest old eyes out, for a dozen. His writings do not showinsight into or reverence for the love of women, which I take to be, onethe consequence of the other. He walks about the world watching theirpretty humours, fashions, follies, flirtations, rivalries; and noting themwith the most charming archness. He sees them in public, in the theatre,or the assembly, or the puppet-show; or at the toy-shop higgling forgloves and lace; or at the auction, battling together over a blueporcelain dragon, or a darling monster in japan; or at church, eyeing thewidth of their rivals' hoops, or the breadth of their laces, as they sweepdown the aisles. Or he looks out of his window at the "Garter" in St.James's Street, at Ardelia's coach, as she blazes to the Drawing-room withher coronet and six footmen; and remembering that her father was a Turkeymerchant in the City, calculates how many sponges went to purchase herear-ring, and how many drums of figs to build her coach-box; or hedemurely watches behind a tree in Spring Garden as Saccharissa (whom heknows under her mask) trips out of her chair to the alley where SirFopling is waiting. He sees only the public life of women. Addison was oneof the most resolute club-men of his day. He passed many hours daily inthose haunts. Besides drinking, which, alas! is past praying for; you mustknow it, he owned, too, ladies that he indulged in that odious practice ofsmoking. Poor fellow! He was a man's man, remember. The only woman he_did_ know, he didn't write about. I take it there would not have beenmuch humour in that story.
He likes to go and sit in the smoking-room at the Grecian, or the Devil;to pace "Change and the Mall"(92)--to mingle in that great club of theworld--sitting alone in it somehow: having goodwill and kindness for everysingle man and woman in it--having need of some habit and custom bindinghim to some few; never doing any man a wrong (unless it be a wrong to hinta little doubt about a man's parts, and to damn him with faint praise);and so he looks on the world and plays with the ceaseless humours of allof us--laughs the kindest laugh--points our neighbour's foible oreccentricity out to us with the most good-natured, smiling confidence; andthen, turning over his shoulder, whispers _our_ foibles to our neighbour.What would Sir Roger de Coverley be without his follies and his charminglittle brain-cracks?(93) If the good knight did not call out to the peoplesleeping in church, and say "Amen" with such a delightful pomposity: if hedid not make a speech in the assize-court _a propos de bottes_, and merelyto show his dignity to Mr. Spectator:(94) if he did not mistake Madam DollTearsheet for a lady of quality in Temple Garden: if he were wiser than heis: if he had not his humour to salt his life, and were but a mere Englishgentleman and game-preserver--of what worth were he to us? We love him forhis vanities as much as his virtues. What is ridiculous is delightful inhim: we are so fond of him because we laugh at him so. And out of thatlaughter, and out of that sweet weakness, and out of those harmlesseccentricities and follies, and out of that touched brain, and out of thathonest manhood and simplicity--we get a result of happiness, goodness,tenderness, pity, piety; such as, if my audience will think their readingand hearing over, doctors and divines but seldom have the fortune toinspire. And why not? Is the glory of Heaven to be sung only by gentlemenin black coats? Must the truth be only expounded in gown and surplice, andout of those two vestments can nobody preach it? Commend me to this dearpreacher without orders--this parson in the tye-wig. When this man looksfrom the world, whose weaknesses he describes so benevolently, up to theHeaven which shines over us all, I can hardly fancy a human face lightedup with a more serene rapture: a human intellect thrilling with a purerlove and adoration than Joseph Addison's. Listen to him: from yourchildhood you have known the verses: but who can hear their sacred musicwithout love and awe?
Soon as the evening shades prevail, The moon takes up the wondrous tale, And nightly to the listening earth, Repeats the story of her birth; And all the stars that round her burn, And all the planets in their turn, Confirm the tidings as they roll, And spread the truth from pole to pole. What though, in solemn silence, all Move round this dark terrestrial ball; What though no real voice nor sound, Among their radiant orbs be found; In reason's ear they all rejoice, And utter forth a glorious voice, For ever singing as they shine, The hand that made us is divine.
It seems to me those verses shine like the stars. They shine out of agreat deep calm. When he turns to Heaven, a Sabbath comes over that man'smind: and his face lights up from it with a glory of thanks and prayer.His sense of religion stirs through his whole being. In the fields, in thetown: looking at the birds in the trees: at the children in the streets:in the morning or in the moonlight: over his books in his own room: in ahappy party at a country merry-making or a town assembly, goodwill andpeace to God's creatures, and love and awe of Him who made them, fill hispure heart and shine from his kind face. If Swift's life was the mostwretched, I think Addison's was one of the most enviable. A lifeprosperous and beautiful--a calm death--an immense fame and affectionafterwards for his happy and spotless name.(95)