o v yj^i, °c P % >lV^ ^O 1 4°* •« • ^ £" •*«*• «y +* "O. *o . ^ * A L^ c°"S "<*> <> 'V^7** <6* <* «£ 0°V'-- °°^ " * * Gbe Scribner jengltsb Classics EDITED BY FREDERICK H. SYKES, Ph.D. TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON ("THE EDINBURGH REVIEW," JULY, 1843) SAMUEL JOHNSON ("THE ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, " EIGHTH ED.) The Scribner English Classics. Published under the General Editorship of Prof. Frederick H. Sykes, Ph.D., of Teachers College, Columbia University, and the special Editorship for each volume of a corps of experienced Univer- sity, College and Secondary School Teachers. NOW READY BURKE, Speech for Conciliation with the Colonies. Edited by Dean Thomas Arkel Clark, University of Illinois. WEBSTER, First Bunker Hill Oration. WASHINGTON, Farewell Address. Edited by Dean Thomas Arkel Clark, University of Illinois. CARLYLE, Essay on Burns. Edited by Prof. Archibald MacMechan, Dalhousie Univer- sity, Halifax. IN PRESS COLERIDGE, The Ancient Mariner, and Select Poems. Edited by Prof. Henry M. Belden, University of Missouri. MACAULAY, Life and Writings of Addison. ) _ „_ . , > One volume. Essay on Johnson. ) Edited by Prof. Cecil Lavell, Trinity College, Hartford. IN PREPARATION MILTON, Minor Poems. Edited by Dean Clarence J. Child, University of Pennsyl- vania. SHAKESPEARE, Julius Caesar. Edited by Prof. F. H. Sykes, Ph.D., of Teachers College, Columbia University. SHAKESPEARE, Macbeth. Edited by Prof. F. H. Sykes, Ph.D., of Teachers College, Co- lumbia University. CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS Educational Department 153-157 Fifth Avenue, New York CHICAGO BOSTON ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO ftbe Scrttmer lEnQlish Classics THOMAS BABIMTON MACAULAY THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON SAMUEL JOHNSON EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES CECIL FAIRFIELD LAVELL, A.M FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, TRINITY COLLEGE, HARTFORD, DEAN OF THE FACULTY OF EDUCATION, QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNEIt'S SONS 1908 UBHARYof OON«KF.SS| J wo Copies rtev>- AUG 22 WWtt 2.\4<3*"1 3 Copyright, 1908, by Charles Scribner's Sons O SN CONTENTS PAGE BIBLIOGRAPHY iv BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE \i INTRODUCTION : I. Thomas Babington Macaulay vii ii. Macaulay's Personality xiv in. Critical Estimates xvi iy. The Periodicals xviii v. The Study of Macaulay's " Addison" and "Johnson" xx Part I TEXT : "The Life and Writings of Addison" ... 3 NOTES to " The Life and Writings of Addison " . . 91 Part II TEXT: "Samuel Johnson" 3 NOTES to " Samuel Johnson " 45 INDEX 65 BIBLIOGRAPHY MACAULAY Text: Collected Works. Edited by Lady Trevelyan. 8 vols. Lon- don, 1866. Essays (including Addison), History of England, and Miscel- laneous Writings and Speeches (including Life of Johnson) in separate volumes, "Popular Edition." Longmans, Green, and Co. " History of England," in "Everyman's Library." London : John Dent and New York : E. P. Dutton. Life and Criticism : Trevelyan, Sir G. O., " Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay."' 2 vols. Longmans, 1876. Morison, J. C, " Macaulay "(" English Men of Letters"). Macmillan. Stephen, Leslie, Article "Macaulay" in "Dictionary of Na- tional Biography.'/ Gladstone, W. E., "Macaulay" in "The Quarterly Review," vol. cxlii, and in "Gleanings of Past Years," II. McGregor, "Lord Macaulay." Cambridge University Press, 1901. Jebb, Sir R. C, "Macaulay, a Lecture." Cambridge Uni- versity Press, 1900. ADDISON Text: Collected Works. Edited by Tickell. London, 1721. Works. In Bohn's " British Classics." 6 vols. 1856. " The Spectator," in "Everyman's Library." London : Dent and New York : Dutton. BIBLIOGRAPHY v " Eighteenth Century Essays.*' Edited by Austin Dobson. London : Kegan Paul, Trench, and Company, 1897. Life and Criticism : Aikin, Lucy, " Life of Addison." London, 1843. Johnson, Samuel, " Addison" in " Lives of the Poets." Edited by Arnold. Macmillan. Courthope, W. J., "Addison" ("English Men of Letters"). Macmillan. Stephen, Leslie, Article "Addison," in " Dictionary w Na- tional Biography." Thackeray, W. M., "English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century." London, 1858. JOHNSON Text: Complete Works. Edited by Walesby. 9 vols. Oxford, 1825. "Letters." Edited by G. Birkbeck Hill. 2 vols. Clarendon Press, 1897. " Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia." Edited by G. B. Hill. Oxford, 1887. "Lives of the Poets" (selected). Edited by Matthew Ar- nold. Macmillan. Life and Criticism : Boswell, James, "Life of Johnson." Edited by G. B. Hill. 6 vols. Oxford, 1887. Stephen, Leslie, "Johnson" ("English Men of Letters"). Macmillan. Hill, G. B., "Dr. Johnson, His Friends and His Critics." Oxford, 1878. Macaulay, "Essay on Boswell' s Life of Johnson" in "Edin- burgh Review," vol. liv, and in "Essays." Carlyle, "Boswell's Life of Johnson" in " Fraser's Maga- zine," 1832, and in "Critical and Miscellaneous Essays." BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE Thomas Babington Macaulay was born at Rothley Temple, Leicestershire, October 25th, 1800; entered the University of Cambridge in 1S18; graduated in 1822; was elected a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge— i.e., one of the sixty masters of the college, with an income of $1,500 a year for seven years— in 1824; called to the bar in 1826; began his long connection with the "Edinburgh Review" in 1825 with the essay on Milton; entered the House of Commons in 1830 in time to take distinguished part in the struggle for parliamentary reform; became Secretary of the Board of Control for India in 1833; went to India in 1834 as legal adviser to the Supreme Council, remained there till 1838, and was the chief author of a new Indian Penal Code; published in 1848 the first two volumes of his "History of England from the Acces- sion of James IP'; Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow in 1849; issued remainder of the "History" in 1855; was raised to the peerage as Baron Macaulay of Rothley in 1857; died at his residence in Kensington. December 28th, 1859; and was buried in Westminster Abbey. INTRODUCTION THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY (1800- 1859) PERHAPS as long- as there has been a political history in this country," says Walter Bagehot, 1 "there have been certain men of a cool, moderate, resolute firmness, not gifted with high imagination, little prone to enthu- siastic sentiment, heedless of large theories and specula- tions, careless of dreamy scepticism, with a clear view of the next step, and a wise intention to take it, a strong- conviction that the elements of knowledge are true, and a steady belief that the present world can, and should, be quietly improved. These are the Whigs." Of this type was Thomas Babington Macaulay. And if we add to these qualities a healthy grip on life, a restless vitality, clear- ness of thought, an enthusiastic love of the world and of humankind as he saw them, and ability to express all these things in vivid, eloquent language, we may see in a measure why Macaulay was during his lifetime the most popular of English writers outside the field of fiction. Even now, fifty years after his death, so much of this popularity remains that we may safely class the "Essays" and the "History of England" among the permanent works of English literature. After the lapse of half a century little remains of mere fashion or accidental value. If people read Macaulay now it is because he gives them something that is worth while. What then, stated briefly, is this "something" that places him with the immortals? 1 One of the keenest and sanest of modern English critics in the fields of Politics and Economics, — author of the best description that we possess of "The English Constitution " as it is. viii INTRODUCTION Perhaps it is not far from the truth to say that Ma- caulay is and will be read largely because of his clearness, his robust sense, and his radiant vitality. He is the sanest, clearest, most interesting of all English historians; and the same general qualities of sanity and clearness, the same attractive gift of seizing the striking, universally in- teresting features of his hero appear even in his literary essays — such as those contained in this little book. Now it will be noted that we say sane, not boldly imaginative or picturesque ; clear, not profound or philosophic ; interest- ing, not deeply sympathetic or gifted with insight into subtle motives. It was doubtless partly temperamental, his love for the tangible, his warm admiration for men who do things, his liking for a practical problem rather than 'for dreamy uncertainties and vague aspirations, his yearning for clear-cut lines and finite ideals. But this matter-of-fact tendency may have been partly due to the age in which he lived. For it was peculiarly a time, when according to his temperament it would be possible for a thoughtful mind to go to either of two extremes. The early nineteenth century was full of the impulse of the French Revolution and Rousseau's gospel of nature. Sensitive, high-strung, imaginative, hopeful natures caught the fever of democracy, nature worship and ro- manticism, and the result was seen in Wordsworth, Shelley, Byron, and Keats. But the time was equally one of severe practical problems, and a practical mind might well turn impatiently from the wild visions of the Revolu- tion to the immediate need for clear thinking and hard work. A descendant of Scotch Presbyterian ministers, son of a stern reformer, Macaulay was not of a sensitive, emotional temperament. Adam Smith's investigations into the laws that govern the production, exchange and in- crease of the wealth of nations were far more apt to inter- est him than the passionate dreams of Rousseau. The vigorous action, the great social changes, the industrial problems, the crying need for reforms, the storms and calms in the practical world of his time,— these are the INTRODUCTION ix things that we must keep in mind when w^ estimate the influence on Macaulay of his education and environment. Men of hard, clear good sense, men of the type of George Canning, Sir Robert Peel, and Macaulay were as truly the product of their age as were Shelley and Byron. Let us briefly summarize Macaulay's life and the forces that affected it. He was born in the last year of the eighteenth century, the year of Marengo, six years after the close of the Reign of Terror. When he was five years old was fought off Cape Trafalgar the battle that saved England from the imminent danger of invasion. Another year, and the two greatest men in English public life — Pitt and Fox— passed almost together from the scene of their triumphs and their rivalries, leaving their country to struggle on against the gigantic power that was rising with no sign of diminishing vitality across the Channel. The world was a stirring one, and it was of no small events and no small men that the boy would hear talk on all hands as his school-days passed and as his outlook on life grew broader. Even the literary products of those years were dynamic,— alive with the interest of human action and passion. In 1812 appeared the first two cantos of "Childe Harold"; in 1819, the first four cantos of "Don Juan." In 1814 "Waverley" was published. In 1820 came Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound." The notes of exultant action, of romantic joy in love and brave deeds, of stormy passion, almost drowned such quieter, deeper, calmer music as that of Wordsworth. The men who were looking eagerly for the latest news of Napoleon, whose souls were filled with the exhilaration of war and patriot- ism or the passion of revolt, might find relief in Scott's romances or inspiration in the wild songs of Byron and Shelley. Few could find response in their hearts to the exquisite peace of the "Solitary Reaper" or the "Excur- sion." Finally, in Macaulay's fifteenth year, came news of the great battle of Waterloo, when the name of Well- ington was on the tongue of every man in England, and when the pride of his country's brilliant and hard-earned x INTRODUCTION victory would fill the boy's soul. Then at last the years of strife were over. By the time that Macaulay was ready to go to Cam- bridge England was feeling the hard times that succeeded the long war, and her best men were trying to decide which of her old laws were helpful and which were hin- drances in the face of the new problems of the 'age. Steam and the invention of new mechanical devices had wholly changed the conditions of the industrial world. The victory of democracy in Europe and America had in- troduced new ideas into politics. And the young, open- minded, quick-witted and clear-headed student had little difficulty in finding living problems of the utmost impor- tance to attack and try to wisely solve. He was an im- mense reader, a ready and eager debater, a fluent and vehement speaker, and his wonderful memory gave him an advantage in argument which he used constantly in the vigorous conflicts of tongue and wit characteristic of uni- versity life. In 1824 he left Cambridge, and two years later he was called to the bar. But although in due time he had to take the leading part in drawing up a Penal Code for India, he never gave much attention to the practice of law in England. For he had already begun to make a name for himself in the domain of letters, and little as the essays contributed in these younger days to "Knight's Quarterly Magazine" are read now, they show most unmistakably the unique characteristics of style which every one now associates with his name. Indeed, this "Macaulay Style" had ap- peared in definite form in a University prize essay on William III. Take this, for example : ' ' Louis was not a great general. He was not a great legis- lator. But he was, in one sense of the words, a great king. He was a perfect master of all the mysteries of the science of royalty— of all the arts which at once extend power and conciliate popularity— which most advantageously display the merits, or most dexterously conceal the deficiencies, of 'a sovereign. He was surrounded by great men, by victorious INTRODUCTION xi commanders, by sagacious statesmen. Yet while he availed himself to the utmost of their services, he never incurred any danger from their rivalry. His was a talisman which extorted the obedience of the proudest and mightiest spirits. The haughty and turbulent warriors whose contests had agitated France during his minority yielded to the irresistible spell, and, like the gigantic slaves of the ring and lamp of Aladdin, labored to decorate and aggrandize a master whom they could have crushed." 1 Compare this, with its rapid movement, its clear-cut antithesis, its crisp concreteness, its luminous and sug- gestive simile from the Arabian Nights, with such a pas- sage as the following from the essay on Milton, dealing with a totally different subject : ' ' His poetry acts like an incantation. Its merit lies less in its obvious meaning than in its occult power. There would seem, at first sight, to be no more in his words than in other words. But they are words of enchantment. No sooner are they pronounced, than the past is present and the distant near. New forms of beauty start at once into existence, and all the burial places of the memory give up their dead. Change the structure of the sentence; substitute one synonym for another,, and the whole effect is destroyed. The spell loses its power; and he who should then hope to conjure with it would find himself as much mistaken as Cassim in the Arabian tale, when he stood crying, ' Open Wheat, ' ' Open Barley,' to the door which obeyed no sound but 'Open Sesame. ' ' ' Here are the same characteristics, with only a slight loss of vivid concretehess resulting from the fact that Ma- caulay is discussing words instead of men. And this rapid, picturesque, clear-cut, almost staccato style— so brilliant, and yet so lacking in the softer tones — may be paralleled on page after page of the essays on Addison and Johnson. It is the product of an active, keen, practical and clear- seeing brain grown to maturity in a time of great deeds, iTrevelyan "Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay," I., 88-9. xii INTRODUCTION strong passions, and acute problems. It was fully formed when Maeaulay left the University, and it never lost the essential characteristics which brought its author such abundant fame. The fascination of both style and point of view then and always was the fascination of daylight. Their defect lay in the inability of a bright, healthy, common-sense, matter-of-fact, keen, and confident mind to see into the softer shades, into the dawns and twilights of life. In August, 1825, the essay on Milton appeared in the "Edinburgh Review," and the young author at once leaped into fame. From that time on article after article to the end of his life continued to appear in the famous peri- odical which is now so definitely associated with his name and genius, and his position in the world of letters was assured. In 1830 he was offered a seat in Parliament. He took part with a distinction equalled by few of his colleagues in the great series of debates on the Reform Bill, and when that bill became law in 1832 he might well feel a peculiar pride in his share of the great achievement which went so far towards removing the abuses of the old regime in England. Yet with all the busy life of a par- liamentary debater, a valued party leader, a conscientious and painstaking official, 1 a reader of inconceivable range, and a constant writer, he contrived to keep in touch with social life and with the movements of the world. He was a brilliant and easy talker, an open-eyed observer of cur- rent events, the possessor of a miraculous memory, 2 and with it all a genial companion, a firm friend, a loving son and brother, and the sunniest and kindest-hearted of men. Such a nature at such a time was not apt to develop either the virtues or the faults of a recluse. The eccen- tricity and the subtle penetration, the extravagance and the prophetic vision of Carlyle alike escaped him. He i As Commissioner of Bankruptcy, Secretary of the Board of Control for India, Member of the Supreme Council of India, and, in 1840, Secretary at War 2 For instance— one of many that could be named— he could repeat half of ' ' Paradise Lost ' ' by heart. INTRODUCTION xiii was a man of the world. And if we appreciate this we may easily see what characteristics would appeal to him in either writer or man of action. Uncertainty, the inter- weaving- and conflict of complex motives, vain rebellion against facts, any tendency to dream and philosophize over things that required direct, alert, practical treatment irritated him in a poet or an historian as in a soldier or a statesman. Yet he did not require the continuous strain of seriousness in either writer or man of action. No man knew better than Macaulay how to enjoy himself and throw care aside when the time came to do so. And in both classical writers and in such an English essayist as Addison he enjoyed the lightness of touch, the dainty mockery, the easy play of mind as much as he did the pure diction, the directness, the lack of vain mysticism, and the clearness of* thought. Dreaming for the enjoy- ment of it he could well appreciate. But in dreams or philosophy when they were in earnest he had little inter- est. Not that this was earned to an extreme. He loved much great poetry, and poetry involves imagination. But the poetry that he cared about was poetry whose merit lay primarily in music, in majestic diction, in daintiness of touch or stateliness of thought, not in mystic visions or in yearnings for the infinite. He admired Virgil, Dante, and Milton. He cared not at all for Wordsworth, and Browning would have been to him a mere cause for astonishment and contemptuous irritation. From the death of Milton to the appearance of Words- worth and Coleridge— that is to say, roughly, during the eighteenth century— English literature possessed in the main precisely the merits that appealed to Maeaulay's mind. Dryden, Pope, Swift, Addison, Steele, Gibbon, all had the qualities of absolute clearness, directness, classic diction, and a certain stately eloquence. King William III. was Macaulay's ideal statesman and man of action, and the men of the age of William III., or those of the succeeding generations who carried on the traditions of that age, had a peculiar charm for him. Among these xiv INTRODUCTION interpreters of the age of William III. and Queen Anne, Addison is the most lovable, the most cheerful, the writer of purest, most faultless style, and it is not hard to ac- count for Macaulay's almost personal love for him. Among the later writers of the same eighteenth century Samuel Johnson, utterly lacking the sunny, well-balanced nature of Addison, was yet the most powerful literary personality of his age,— a man who hated mere dreams as much as did Macaulay, a man of strong affections, of strong, clear brain, whose merits Macaulay could admire intensely and whose defects as writer and thinker he could easily pardon. In these essays on Addison and Johnson, then, w r e see Macaulay— at least in the matter of literary appreciation and criticism — at his best. To judge him by his dislike of Wordsworth would be unjust and merely negative, for it would emphasize nt>t what he was, but what he was not. But in these two studies the great essay- ist sets forth the character and work of two great and kindred spirits with that certainty of touch, that uncom- promising clearness— the luminous clearness of a Mediter- ranean landscape— that exhilarating life, that joyous vigor and sanity which we love and admire in him. These are his permanent gifts to English literature and to the world. Would that we could learn from them the cheeri- ness, the moral health, the goodness and kindness of soul of one of the most admirable and lovable figures in the annals of English literature ! II MACAULAY'S PERSONALITY "Macaulay's outward man was never better described than in two sentences of Praed's Introduction to Knight's "Quarterly Magazine." 'There came up a short, manly figure, marvellously upright, with a bad neckcloth, and INTRODUCTION xv one hand in his waistcoat pocket. Of regular beauty he had little to boast; but in faces where there is an expres- sion of great power, or of great good-humor, or both, you do not regret its absence.' This picture, in which every, touch is correct, tells all that there is to be told. He had a massive head, and features of a powerful and rugged cast; but so constantly lighted up by every joyful and ennobling emotion that it mattered little if, when ab- solutely quiescent, his face was rather homely than hand- some. While conversing at table, no one thought him otherwise than good-looking; but when he rose he was seen to be short and stout in figure. . . . He at all times sat and stood straight, full, and square; . . . He dressed badly, but not cheaply. His clothes, though ill put on, were good." "Whatever fault might be found with Macaulay's ges- tures as an orator, his appearance and bearing in con- versation were singularly effective. Sitting bolt upright, his hands resting on the arms of his chair or folded over the handle of his walking-stick ; knitting " his great eye- brows if the subject was one that had to be thought out as he went along, or brightening from the forehead down- wards when a burst of humor was coming; his massive features and honest glance suited well with the manly, sagacious sentiments which he set forth in his pleasant, sonorous voice, and in his racy and admirably intelligible language." "The main secret of Macaulay's success lay in this, that to extraordinary fluency and facility he united patient, minute, and persistent diligence. . . . He never allowed a sentence to pass muster until it was as good as he could make it. He thought little of recasting a chapter in order to obtain a more lucid arrangement, and nothing what- ever of reconstructing a paragraph for the sense of one happy stroke or apt illustration. Whatever the worth of his labor, at any rate it was a labor of love." — From Trevelyan's u Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay." xvi INTRODUCTION III CRITICAL ESTIMATES "JIe is unequalled in our time in his mastery of the art of letting us know in a precise and unmistakable way exactly what it was that happened."— John Morley. "He has a constant tendency to glaring- colors, to strong effects, and will always be striking violent blows. He is not merely exuberant, but excessive. There is an over- whelming confidence about his tone; he expresses himself in trenchant phrases, which are like challenges to an op- ponent to stand up and deny* them. His propositions have no qualifications. Uninstructed readers like this as- surance, as they like a physician who has no doubt about their case. But a sense of distrust grows upon the more circumspect reader as he follows page after page of Ma- caulay's categorical affirmations about matters which our own experience of life teaches us to be of a contingent nature. We inevitably think of a saying attributed to Lord Melbourne, 'I wish I were as cock-sure of any one thing as Macaulay is of everything.' "—Mark Pattison. "Macaulay's great quality is that of being one of the best story-tellers that ever lived." "He is never vague, shadowy, and incomplete. The reader is never perplexed by ideas imperfectly grasped, by thoughts which the writer cannot fully express. On the other hand, his want of aspiration, of all effort to rise into the higher regions of thought, has lost him in the opinion of many readers. He is one of the most enter- taining, but also one of the least suggestive, of writers." "He never has anything to say on the deeper aspects and relations of life. . . . His learning is confined to book-lore : he is not well read in the human heart, and still INTRODUCTION xvii less in the human spirit. His unspirituality is complete; we never catch 'a glimpse of the far land' through all his brilliant narratives; never, in his numerous portraits, comes a line of moral suggestiveness, showing an eye for the deeper springs of character, the finer shades of motive. His inability to criticise works of poetry and fiction ex- tended to their chief subject— the human heart; and it may be noticed that the remarkable interest which he often awakens in a story which he tells so admirably, is nearly always the interest of adventure, never the interest of psychological analysis. Events and outward actions are told with incomparable clearness and vigor— but a thick curtain hangs before the inward theatre of the mind, which is never revealed on his stage. . . . The impressive- ness of remote suggestive association by which high art touches the deepest chords of feeling Macaulay, ap- parently, did not recognize. He had no ear for the finer harmonies of the inner life." — J. Cotter Morison. "Macaulay never stops to brood over an incident or a character, with an inner eye intent on penetrating to the lowest depth of motive and cause, to the furthest com- plexity of impulse, calculation, and subtle incentive. The spirit of analysis is not in him. His whole mind runs in action and movement; it busies itself with eager interest in all objective particulars. He is seized by the external and the superficial, and revels in every detail that ap- peals to the five senses." — John Morley. "As the serious flaw in Macaulay's mind was lack of depth, so the central defect, with which his productions appear to be chargeable, is a pervading strain of more or less exaggeration. He belonged to that class of minds whose views of single objects are singularly and almost preternaturally luminous. But Nature sows her bounty wide; and those who possess this precious and fascinating gift as to things in themselves are very commonly deficient beyond ordinary men in discerning and measuring their relation to one another. For them all things are either xviii INTRODUCTION absolutely transparent, or else unapproachable from dense and utter darkness. Hence, amid a blaze of glory, there is a want of perspective, of balance, and of breadth." "In Macaulay all history is scenic; and philosophy he scarcely seems to touch, except on the outer side, where it opens into action. . . . He was an enthusiastic admirer of Thucydides; but there can hardly be a sharper contrast than between the history of Thucydides and the history of Macaulay. Ease, brilliancy, pellucid clearness, command- ing fascination, the effective marshalling of all facts be- longing to the external world as if on parade; all these gifts Macaulay has, and Thucydides has not. But weight, breadth, proportion, deep discernment, habitual contem- plation of the springs of character and conduct, and the power to hold the scales of human action with firm and even hand, these must be sought in Thucydides, and are rarely observable in Macaulay."— W. E. Gladstone. IV THE PERIODICALS Addison, Johnson, and Macaulay were each closely asso- ciated with one or more great periodicals. In some re- spects the history of the "essay" in English begins with the first number of the "Tatler," April 12, 1709, edited by Addison's friend Richard Steele under the name of Isaac Bickerstaff. It was designed, as Steele explained in the Preface to the first volume, "to expose the false arts of life; to pull off the disguises of cunning, vanity, and affectation; and to recommend a general simplicity in our dress, our discourse, and our behaviour." Steele was joined in the conduct of the paper by Addison after the eighteenth number, and when the "Tatler" was discon- tinued in January, 1711, the two friends combined to INTRODUCTION xix produce the "Spectator," which ran from March. 1711, to December, 1712, and the "Guardian," from March, 1713, to October of the same year. In 1714 Addison is- sued an eighth volume of the "Spectator" alone, and in 1715 he edited the less famous "Freeholder," all of these having the same general aim and character. Notwith- standing the multitude of periodicals of the same class which appeared during the eighteenth century, these early essays in the periodicals named were never quite equalled. They are most nearly approached by Johnson's "Ram- bler" (1750-2), and "Idler" (1758-60), Fielding's "Co- vent Garden Journal" (1752), and Goldsmith's "Citizen of the World" (1760-1). The "Edinburgh Review," for which Macaulay was for many years by far the most eminent contributor, was founded in 1802 by a group of men of whom Francis Jeffrey and Sydney Smith were the guiding spirits, the former being editor of the "Review" from 1802 to 1829. It was at first politically independent, but before many years it became definitely Whig, and a secession from its management resulted in the founding (1809) of the Tory ■"Quarterly Review." The "Edinburgh" is still one of the best of the great British reviews. In the "Edinburgh" and the "Quarterly" the literary essay known as the "re- view," as distinguished from the "intimate essay" of Addi- son, was developed. The complete volumes of the "Tatler," "Spectator," "'Guardian," "Idler," "Rambler," etc., are published in the series of British Essayists, edited by Chalmers in 38 volumes for Little, Brown & Company, Boston, 1854-7. The little volume of "Eighteenth Century Essays" edited by Austin Dobson (Kegan Paul, Trench, and Co.) con- tains selected types of the great essayists from Steele to Goldsmith, with introduction and notes. xr INTRODUCTION THE STUDY OF MACAULAY'S "ADDISON" AND "JOHNSON" Each teacher will naturally handle his subject in his own way. But all who study and teach these essays should at least recognize that they are engaged primarily with Macaulay's message and art, not simply with illustrations of certain rules in grammar and rhetoric. Rules of rhetoric may help us to make clear to ourselves the merits and the characteristic features of the great essayist's style, just as a knowledge of the rules of music paves the way to a fuller appreciation of Beethoven and Wagner than would be possible to an untrained lover of music. But they are the means to an end,— not the end itself,— and carefully as we should attend to all the formal side of literary study, far as we should be from despising the drudgery and the mastery of detail which are needed in the study of literature as in all other study that is worth while, yet formal analysis should never be allowed to ob- scure or make impossible sympathetic appreciation. The familiar hero who could not see the town because of the houses was no more foolishly blind than those who never really see in its beauty and completeness a poem or an essay, because their minds are full of formal, grammatical, or rhetorical details. So in some way let it be seen to that the vitality and interest which are so large a part of Macaulay's permanent charm are not choked and deadened. Detailed and formal study there must be, but let occasional discussion and criticism of Macaulay's point of view, expansion of some of his illustrations, or reading from some of his other writings— such as the "History" or the brilliant essays on Clive and Hastings— keep the student from thinking that INTRODUCTION xxi the formation of the paragraph is more important than the justice of a literary criticism, or the truth and beauty of an historical portrait. Macaulay's own breadth of information and fondness for varied, concrete illustrations, render necessary for in- telligent reading a mental range as broad as his own, a very full equipment of books of reference, or a fairly complete set of notes. The notes given in this volume are designed to make Macaulay's references speedily and en- tirely intelligible. The facts given are not set down to be memorized, but to assist in giving the author's words meaning and force. Yet many things— notwithstanding the editor's earnest efforts — must remain obscure unless the student has some tolerable knowledge of the literary and national history of England in the eighteenth cen- tury. A good history of England, such as Green's, Gar- diner's, Andrews', or Cheyney's should be accessible, and the teacher ought also to have within his reach Trevelyan's "Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay"; Cotter Morison's "Macaulay," in the "English Men of Letters" series; Arnold's selections from Johnson's "Lives of the Poets"; some good collection of selected essays from "The Spec- tator"; and Boswell's "Life of Dr. Johnson." Of the last named the best edition is that of Birkbeck Hill, but others may sometimes be had more easily, and the cheap, one- volume edition of Routledge is much better than nothing. A convenient edition of Macaulay's complete essays is Longman's Popular Edition. The "Addison" is to be found in the volume entitled "Macaulay's Essays," and the "Johnson," in "Macaulay's Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches." THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON SOME reviewers are of opinion that a lady who dares to publish a book renounces by that act the franchises appertaining to her sex, and can claim no exemption from the utmost rigor of critical procedure. From that opinion we dissent. We admit, indeed, that in a country which 5 boasts of many female writers, eminently qualified by their talents and acquirements to influence the public mind, it would be of most pernicious consequence that inaccurate history or unsound philosophy should be suffered to pass uncensured, merely because the offender chanced to be a 10 lady. But we conceive that, on such occasions, a critic would do well to imitate the courteous Knight who found himself compelled by duty to keep the lists against Brada- mante. He, we are told, defended successfully the cause of which he was the champion ; but, before the fight began, 15 exchanged Balisarda for a less deadly sword, of which he carefully blunted the point' and edge. 1 Nor are the immunities of sex the only immunities which Miss Aikin may rightfully plead. Several of her works, and especially the very pleasing Memoirs of the Reign of 20 James the First, have fully entitled her to the privileges enjoj-ed by good writers. One of those privileges we hold to be this, that such writers, when, either from the unlucky choice of a subject, or from the indolence too often pro- duced by success, they happen to fail, shall not be sub- 25 jected to the severe discipline which it is sometimes neces- 1 " Orlando Furioso." xlv. 68. 3 4 - MACAULAY sary to inflict upon dunces and impostors, but shall merely be reminded by a gentle touch, like that with which the Laputan flapper roused his dreaming lord, that it is high time to wake. 5 Our readers will probably infer from what we have said that Miss Aikin' s book has disappointed us. The truth is, that she is not well acquainted with her subject. No per- son who is not familiar with the political and literary history of England during the reigns of William the 10 Third, of Anne, and of George the First, can possibly write a good life of Addison. Now, we mean no reproach to Miss Aikin, and many will think that we pay her a compliment, when we say that her studies have taken a different direction. She is better acquainted with Shake- 15 speare and Raleigh, than with Congreve and Prior; and is far more at home among the ruffs and peaked beards of Theobald's, than among the Steenkirks and floAving peri- wigs which surrounded Queen Anne's tea-table at Hamp- ton. She seems to have written about the Elizabethan 20 age, because she had read much about it; she seems, on the other hand, to have read a little about the age of Addi- son, because she had determined to write about it. The consequence is that she has had to describe men and things without having either a correct or a vivid idea of them, 25 and that she has often fallen into errors of a very serious kind. The reputation which Miss Aikin has justly earned stands so high, and the charm of Addison's letters is so great, that a second edition of this work may probably be required. If so, we hope that every paragraph will be 30 revised, and that every date and fact about which there can be the smallest doubt will be carefully verified. To Addison himself we are bound by a sentiment as much like affection as any sentiment can be, which is in- spired by one who has been sleeping a hundred and twenty 35 years in Westminster Abbey. We trust, however, that this feeling will not betray us into that abject idolatry which we have often had occasion to reprehend in others, and which seldom fails to make both the idolater and the idol LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 5 ridiculous. A man of genius and virtue is but a man. All his powers cannot be equally developed ; nor can we expect from him perfect self-knowledge. We need not, therefore, hesitate to admit that Addison has left us some composi- tions which do not rise above mediocrity, some heroic 5 poems hardly equal to Parnell's, some criticism as super- ficial as Dr. Blair's, and a tragedy not very much better than Dr. Johnson's. It is praise enough to say of a writer that, in a high department of literature, in which many eminent writers have distinguished themselves, he has had 10 no equal; and this may with strict justice be said of Addison: As a man, he may not have deserved the adoration which he received from those who, bewitched by his fascinating society, and indebted for all the comforts of life to his 15 generous and delicate friendship, worshipped him nightly, in his favorite temple at Button's. But, after full in- quiry and impartial reflection, we have long been con- vinced that he deserved as much love and esteem as can be justly claimed by any of our infirm and erring race. Some 20 blemishes may undoubtedly be detected in his character; but the more carefully it is examined, the ' more will it appear, to use the phrase of the old anatomists, sound in the noble parts, free from all taint of perfidy, of cow- ardice, of cruelty, of ingratitude, of envy. Men may 25 easily be named, in whom some particular good disposition has been more conspicuous than in Addison. But the just harmony of qualities, the exact temper between the stern and the humane virtues, the habitual observance of every law, not only of moral rectitude, but of moral grace and 30 dignity, distinguish him from all men who have been tried by equally strong temptations, and about whose conduct we possess equally full information. His father was the Reverend Lancelot Addison, who, though eclipsed by his more celebrated son, made some fig- 35 ure in the world, and occupies with credit two folio pages in the "Biographia Britannica." Lancelot was sent up, as a poor scholar, from Westmoreland to Queen's College, Ox- 6 MACAULAY ford, in the time of the Commonwealth, made some prog- ress in learning, became, like most of his fellow students, a violent Royalist, lampooned the heads of the University, and was forced to ask pardon on his bended knees. When 5 he had left college, he earned a humble subsistence by reading the liturgy of the fallen Church to the families of those sturdy squires whose manor houses were scattered over the Wild of Sussex. After the Restoration, his loyalty was rewarded with the post of chaplain to the gar- 10 rison of Dunkirk. When Dunkirk was sold to France, he lost his employment. But Tangier had been ceded by Portugal to England as part of the marriage portion of the Infanta Catharine; and to Tangier Lancelot Addison was sent. A more miserable situation can hardly be conceived. 15 It was difficult to say whether the unfortunate settlers were more tormented by the heats or by the rains, by the soldiers within the wall or by the Moors without it. One advantage the chaplain had. He enjoyed an excellent op- portunity of studying the history and manners of Jews 20 and Mahometans; and of this opportunity he appears to have made excellent use. On his return to England, after some years of banishment, he published an interesting vol- ume on the Polity and Religion of Barbary, and another on the Hebrew Customs and the State of Rabbinical 25 Learning. He rose to eminence in his profession, and be- came one of the royal chaplains, a Doctor of Divinity, Archdeacon of Salisbury, and Dean of Lichfield. It is said that he would have been made a bishop after the Revolution, if he had not given offence to the government 30 by strenuously opposing, in the Convocation of 1689, the liberal policy of William and Tillotson. In 1672, not long after Dr. Addison's return from Tangier, his son Joseph was born. Of Joseph's childhood we know little. He learned his rudiments at schools in his 35 father's neighborhood, and was then sent to the Charter House. The anecdotes which are popularly related about his boyish tricks do not harmonize very well with what we know of his riper years. There remains a tradition that THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 7 he was the ringleader in a barring-out, and another tradi- tion that he ran away from school and hid himself in a wood, where he fed on berries and slept in a hollow tree, till after a long search he was discovered and brought home. If these stories be true, it would be curious to 5 know by what moral discipline so mutinous and enter- prising- a lad was transformed into the gentlest and most modest of men. We have abundant proof that, whatever Joseph's pranks may have been, he pursued his studies vigorously and sue- 10 oessfully. At fifteen he was not only fit for the university, but carried thither a classical taste and a stock of learning which would have done honor to a Master of Arts. He was entered at Queen's College, Oxford; but he had not been many months there, when some of his Latin verses 15 fell by accident into the hands of Dr. Lancaster, Dean of Magdalen College. The young- scholar's diction and versification were already such as veteran professors might envy. Dr. Lancaster was desirous to serve a boy of such promise; nor was an opportunity long wanting. 20 The Revolution had just taken place; and nowhere had it been hailed with more delight than at Magdalen College. That great and opulent corporation had been treated by James, and by his Chancellor, with an insolence and in- justice which, even in such a Prince and in such a Min- 25 ister, may justly excite amazement, and which had done more than even the prosecution of the Bishops to alienate the Church of England from the throne. A president, duly elected, had been violently expelled from his dwell- ing; a Papist had been set over the society by a royal 30 mandate ; the Fellows who, in conformity with their oaths, had refused to submit to this usurper, had been driven forth from their quiet cloisters and gardens, to die of want or to live on charity. But the day of redress and retri- bution speedily came. The intruders were ejected; the 35 venerable House was again inhabited by its old inmates: learning flourished under the rule of the wise and virtuous Hough; and with learning was united a mild and liberal 8 MACAULAY spirit too often wanting in the princely colleges of Oxford. In consequence of the troubles through which the society had passed, there had been no valid election of new mem- bers during the year 1688. In 1689, therefore, there- was 5 twice the ordinary number of vacancies; and thus Dr. Lancaster found it easy to procure for his young friend admittance to the advantages of a foundation then gen- erally esteemed the wealthiest in Europe. At Magdalen Addison resided during ten years. He 10 was, at first, one of those scholars who are called Demies, but was subsequently elected a fellow. His college is still proud of his name: his portrait still hangs in the hall; and strangers are still told that his favorite walk was under the elms which fringe the meadow on the banks of 15 the Cherwell. It is said, and is highly probable, that he was distinguished among his fellow students by the deli- cacy of his feelings, by the shyness of his manners, and by the assiduity with which he often prolonged his studies far into the night. It is certain that his reputation for 20 ability and learning stood high. Many years later, the ancient Doctors of Magdalen continued to talk in their common room of his boyish compositions, and expressed their sorrow that no copy of exercises so remarkable had been preserved. 25 It is proper, however, to remark that Miss Aikin has committed the error, very pardonable in a lady, of over- rating Addison's classical attainments. In one depart- ment of learning, indeed, his proficiency was such as it is hardly possible to overrate. His knowledge of the Latin 30 poets, from Lucretius and Catullus down to Claudian and Prudentius, was singularly exact and profound. He un- derstood them thoroughly, entered into their spirit, and had the finest and most discriminating perception of all their peculiarities of style and melody; nay, he copied 35 their manner with admirable skill, and surpassed, we think, all their British imitators who had preceded him, Buchanan and Milton alone excepted. This is high praise ; and beyond this we cannot with justice go. It is clear that THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 9 Addison's serious attention, during his residence at the university, was almost entirely concentrated on Latin poetry, and that, if he did not wholly neglect other provinces of ancient literature, he vouchsafed to them only a cursory glance. He does not appear to have at- 5 tained more than an ordinary acquaintance with the polit- ical and moral writers of Rome; nor was his own Latin prose by any means equal to his Latin verse. His know- ledge of Greek, though doubtless such as was, in his time, thought respectable at Oxford, was evidently less than 10 that which many lads now carry away every year from Eton and Rugby. A minute examination of his works, if we had time to make such an examination, would fully bear out these remarks. We will briefly advert to a few of the facts on which our judgment is grounded. is Great praise is due to the Notes which Addison ap- pended to his version of the second and third books of the Metamorphoses. Yet those notes, while they show him to have been, in his own domain, an accomplished scholar, show also how confined that domain was. They 20 are rich in apposite references to Virgil, Statius, and Claudi%n; but they contain not a single illustration drawn from the Greek poets. Now, if, in the whole compass of Latin literature, there be a passage which stands in need of illustration drawn from the Greek poets, it is the story 25 of Pentheus in the third book of the Metamorphoses. Ovid was indebted for that story to Euripides and Theo- critus, both of whom he has sometimes followed minutely. But neither to Euripides nor to Theocritus does Addison make the faintest allusion; and we, therefore, believe that 30 we do not wrong him by supposing that he had little or no knowledge of their works. His travels in Italy, again, abound with classical quota- tions happily introduced ; but scarcely one of those quota- tions is in prose. He draws more illustrations from 35 Ausonius and Manilius than from Cicero. Even his notions of the political and military affairs of the Romans seem to be derived from poets and poetasters. Spots 10 MACAULAY made memorable by events which have changed the desti- nies of the world, and which have been worthily recorded by great historians, bring to his mind only scraps of some ancient versifier. In the gorge of the Apennines he natu- 5 rally remembers the hardships which Hannibal's army endured, and proceeds to cite, not the authentic narrative of Polybius, not the picturesque narrative of Livy, but the languid hexameters of Silius Italicus. On the banks of the Rubicon he never thinks of Plutarch's lively de- 10 scription, or of the stern conciseness of the Commentaries, or of those letters to Atticus which so forcibly express the alternations of hope and fear in a sensitive mind at a great crisis. His only authority for the events of the civil war is Lucan. 15 All the best ancient works of art at Rome and Florence are Greek. Addison saw them, however, without recalling one single verse of Pindar, of Callimachus, or of the Attic dramatists; but they brought to his recollection innumer- able passages of Horace, Juvenal, Statius, and Ovid. 20 The same may be said of the "Treatise on Medals." Jn that pleasing work we find about three hundred passages extracted with great judgment from the Roman poQts ; but we do not recollect a single passage taken from any Roman orator or historian; and we are confident that not 25 a line is quoted from any Greek writer. No person, who had derived all his information on the subject of medals from Addison, would suspect that the Greek coins were in historical interest equal, and in beauty of execution far superior to those of Rome 30 If it were necessary to find any further proof that Addi- son's classical knowledge was confined within narrow limits, that proof would be furnished by his "Essay on the Evidences of Christianity." The Roman poets throw little or no light on the literary and historical questions 35 which he is under the necessity of examining in that Essay. He is, therefore, left completely in the dark; and it is melancholy to see how helplessly he gropes his way from blunder to blunder. He assigns, as grounds for his THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 11 religious belief, stories as absurd as that of the Cock-Lane ghost, and forgeries as rank as Ireland's "Vortigern," puts faith in the lie about the Thundering Legion, is convinced that Tiberius moved the Senate to admit Jesus among the gods, and pronounces the letter of Abgarus, King of 5 Edessa, to be a record of great authority. Nor were these errors the effects of superstition ; for to superstition Addi- son was by no means prone. The truth is that he was writing about what he did not understand. Miss Aikin has discovered a letter, from which it ap- 10 pears that, while Addison resided at Oxford, he was one of several writers whom the booksellers engaged to make an English version of Herodotus; and she infers that he must have been a good Greek scholar. We can allow very little weight to this argument, when we consider that his 15 fellow-laborers were to have been Boyle and Blackmore. Boyle is remembered chiefly as the nominal author of the worst book on Greek history and philology that ever was printed; and this book, bad as it is, Boyle was unable to produce without help. Of Blackmore's attainments in 20 the ancient tongues, it may be sufficient to say that, in his prose, he has confounded an aphorism with an apophthegm, and that when, in his verse, he treats of classical subjects, his habit is to regale his readers with four false quantities to a page. 25 It is probable that the classical acquirements of Addison were of as much service to him as if they had been more extensive. The world generally gives its admiration, not to the man who does what nobody else even attempts to do, but to the man who does best what multitudes do well. 30 Bentley was so immeasurably superior to all the other scholars of his time that few among them could discover his superiority. But the accomplishment in which Addi- son excelled his contemporaries was then, as it is now, highly valued and assiduously cultivated at all English 35 seats of learning. Everybody who had been at a public school had written Latin verses; many had written such verses with tolerable success, and were quite able to appre- 12 MACAULAY ciate, though by no means able to rival, the skill with which Addison imitated Virgil. His lines on the Barom- eter and the Bowling Green were applauded by hundreds, to whom the "Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris" 5 was as unintelligible as the hieroglyphics on an obelisk. Purity of style, and an easy flow of numbers, are com- mon to all Addison's Latin poems. Our favorite piece is the "Battle of the Cranes and Pygmies"; for in that piece we discern a gleam of the fancy and humor which 10 many years later enlivened thousands of breakfast-tables. Swift boasted that he was never known to steal a hint; and he certainly owed as little to his predecessors as any modern writer. Yet we cannot help suspecting that he borrowed, perhaps unconsciously, one of the happiest 15 touches in his Voyage to Lilliput from Addison's verses. Let our readers judge. "The Emperor," says Gulliver, "is taller by about the breadth of my nail than any of his court, which alone is enough to strike an awe into the beholders." 20 About thirty years before "Gulliver's Travels" ap- peared, Addison wrote these lines : " Jamque aeies inter medias sese arduus infert Pygmeadum ductor, qui, ma j estate verendus, Incessuque. gravis, reliquos supereminet omnes 25 Mole gigantea, mediamque exsurgit in ulnam." The Latin poems of Addison were greatly and justly admired both at Oxford and Cambridge, before his name had ever been heard by the wits who thronged the coffee- houses round Drury-Lane theatre. In his twenty-second 30 year, he ventured to appear before the public as a writer of English verse. He addressed some complimentary lines to Dryden, who, after many triumphs and many reverses, had at length reached a secure and lonely emi- nence among the literary men of that age. Dryden ap- 35 pears to have been much gratified by the young scholar's praise; and an interchange of civilities and good offices followed. Addison was probably introduced by Dryden THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 13 to Congreve, and was certainly presented by Congreve to Charles Montague, who was then Chancellor of the Ex- chequer, and leader of the Whig party in the House of Commons. At this time Addison seemed inclined to devote himself 5 to poetry. He published a translation of part of the fourth Georgic, Lines to King William, and other per- formances of equal value, that is to say, of no value at all. But in those days, the public was in the habit of receiving with applause pieces which would now have little chance 10 of obtaining the Newdigate prize or the Seatonian prize. And the reason is obvious. The heroic couplet was then the favorite measure. The art of arranging words in that measure, so that the lines may flow smoothly, that the accents may fall correctly, that the rhymes may strike the 15 ear strongly, and that there may be a pause at the end of every distich, is an art as mechanical as that of mending a kettle or shoeing a horse, and may be learned by any human being who has sense enough to learn anything. But, like other mechanical arts, it was gradually improved 20 by means of many experiments and many failures. It was reserved for Pope to discover the trick, to make him- self complete master of it, and to teach it to everybody else. From the time when his "Pastorals" appeared, heroic versification became matter of rule and compass; and, be- 25 fore long, all artists were on a level. Hundreds of dunces who never blundered on one happy thought or expression were able to write reams of couplets which, as far as euphony was concerned, could not be distinguished from those of Pope himself, and which very clever writers of 30 the reign of Charles the Second, Rochester, for example, or Marvel, or Oldham, would have contemplated with ad- miring despair. Ben Jonson was a great man, Hoole a very small man. But Hoole, coming after Pope, had learned how to manu- 35 facture decasyllable verses, and poured them forth by thousands and tens of thousands, all as well turned, as smooth, and as like each other as the blocks which have 14 MACAULAY passed through Mr. Brunei's mill, in the dockyard at Portsmouth. Ben's heroic couplets resemble blocks rudely hewn out by an unpractised hand, with a blunt hatchet. Take as a specimen his translation of a celebrated passage 5 in the iEneid : "This child pur parent earth, stirr'd up with spite Of all the gods, brought forth, and, as some write, She was last sister of that giant race That sought to scale Jove's court, right swift of pace, 10 And swifter far of wing, a monster vast And dreadful. Look, how many plumes are placed On her huge corpse, so many waking eyes Stick underneath, and, which may stranger rise In the report, as many tongues she wears. ' ' 15 Compare with these jagged misshapen distichs the neat fabric which Hoole's machine produces in unlimited abun- dance. We take the first lines on which we open in his version of Tasso. They are neither better nor worse than the rest: 20 "O thou, whoe 'er thou art, whose steps are led, By choice or fate, these lonely shores to tread, No greater wonders east or west can boast Than you small island on the pleasing coast. If e'er thy sight would blissful scenes explore, 25 The current pass, and seek the further shore. ' ' Ever since the time of Pope there has been a glut of lines of this sort ; and we are now as little disposed to ad- mire a man for being able to write them, as for being able to write his name. But in the days of William the Third 30 such versification was rare; and a rhymer who had any skill in it passed for a great poet, just as in the dark ages a person who could write his name passed for a great clerk. Accordingly, Duke, Stepney, Granville, Walsh, and others whose only title to fame was that they said in 35 tolerable metre what might have been as well said in prose, or what was not worth saying at all, were honored THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 15 with marks of distinction which ought to be reserved for genius. With these Addison must have ranked, if he had not earned true and lasting glory by performances which very little resembled his juvenile poems. Dryden was now busied with Virgil, and obtained from 5 Addison a critical preface to the Georgics. In return for this service, and for other services of the same kind, the veteran poet, in the postscript to the translation of the iEneid, complimented his young friend with great liber- ality, and indeed w T ith more liberality than sincerity. He 10 affected to be afraid that his own performance would not sustain a comparison with the version of the fourth Georgic, by "the most ingenious Mr. Addison of Oxford." "After his bees," added Dryden, "my latter swarm is scarcely worth the hiving." 15 The time had now arrived when it was necessary for Addison to choose a calling. Everything seemed to point his course towards the clerical profession. His habits were regular, his opinions orthodox. His college had large ecclesiastical preferment in its gift, and boasts. that it has' 20 given at least one bishop to almost every see in England. Dr. Lancelot Addison held an honorable place in the Church, and had set his heart on seeing his son a clergy- man. It is clear, from some expressions in the young man's, rhymes, that his intention was to take orders. But 25 Charles Montague interfered. Montague had first brought himself into notice by verses, well timed and not con- temptibly written, but never, we think, rising above medio- crity. Fortunately for himself and for his country, he early quitted poetry, in which he could never have at- 30 tained a rank as high as that of Dorset or Rochester, and turned his mind to official and parliamentary business. It is written that the ingenious person who undertook to instruct Rasselas, prince of Abyssinia, in the art of flying, ascended an eminence, waved his wings, sprang into the 35 air, and instantly dropped into the lake. But it is added that the wings, which were unable to support him through the sky, bore him up effectually as soon as he was in the 16 MACAULAY water. This is no bad type of the fate of Charles Mon- tague, and of men like him. When he attempted to soar into the regions of poetical invention, he altogether failed ; but, as soon as he had descended from that ethereal eleva- 5 tion into a lower and grosser element, his talents instantly raised him above the mass. He became a distinguished financier, debater, courtier, and party leader. He still retained his fondness for the pursuits of his early days; but he showed that fondness, not by wearying the public 10 with his own feeble performances, but by discovering and encouraging literary excellence in others. A crowd of wits and poets, who would easily have vanquished him as a competitor, revered him as a judge and a patron. In his plans for the encouragement of learning, he was cor- 15 dially supported by the ablest and most virtuous of his colleagues, the Lord Chancellor Somers. Though both these great statesmen had a sincere love of letters, it was not solely from a love of letters that they were desirous to enlist youths of high intellectual qualifications in the 20 public service. The Revolution had altered the whole sys- tem of government. Before that event the press had been controlled by censors, and the Parliament had sat only two months in eight years. Now the press was free, and had begun to exercise unprecedented influence on the 25 public mind. Parliament met annually and sat long. The chief power in the State had passed to the House of Commons. At such a conjuncture, it was natural that literary and oratorical talents should rise in value. There was danger that a Government which neglected such tal- 30 ents might be subverted by them. It was, therefore, a profound and enlightened policy which led Montague and Somers to attach such talents to the Whig party, by the strongest ties both of interest and of gratitude. It is remarkable that in a neighboring country, we have 35 recently seen similar effects follow from similar causes. The Revolution of July, 1830, established representative government in France. The men of letters instantly rose to the highest importance in the state. At the pres- THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 17 ent moment most of the persons whom we see at the head both of the Administration and of the Opposition have been Professors, Historians, Journalists, Poets. The influ- ence of the literary class in England, during the genera- tion which followed the Revolution, was great, but by no 5 means so great as it has lately been in France. For, in England, the aristocracy of intellect had to contend with a powerful and deeply rooted aristocracy of a very dif- ferent kind. France has no Somersets and Shrewsburys to keep down her Addisons and Priors. 10 It was in the year 1699, when Addison had just com- pleted his twenty-seventh year, that the course of his life was finally determined. Both the great chiefs of the Min- istry were kindly disposed towards him. In political opin- ions he already was what he continued to be through life, 15 a firm, though a moderate Whig. He had addressed the most polished and vigorous of his early English lines to Somers, and had dedicated to Montague a Latin poem, truly Virgilian, both in style and rhythm, on the peace of Ryswick. The wish of the young poet's great friends 20 was, it should seem, to employ him in the service of the crown abroad. But an intimate knowledge of the French language was a qualification indispensable to a diplo- matist; and this qualification Addison had not acquired. It was, therefore, thought desirable that he should pass 25 some time on the Continent in preparing himself for offi- cial employment. His own means were not such as would enable him to travel; but a pension of three hundred pounds a year was procured for him by the interest of the Lord Chancellor. It seems to have been apprehended 30 that some difficulty might be started by the rulers of Mag- dalen College. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer wrote in the strongest terms to Hough. The State— such was the purport of Montague's letter— could not, at that time, spare to the Church such a man as Addison. Too 35 many high civil posts were already occupied by adven- turers, who, destitute of every liberal art and sentiment, at once pillaged and disgraced the country which they 18 MACAULAY pretended to serve. It had become necessary to recruit for the public service from a very different class, from that class of which Addison was a representative. The close of the Minister's letter was remarkable. "I am 5 called," he said, "an enemy of the Church. But I will never do it any other injury than keeping Mr. Addison out of it." This interference was successful; and, in the summer of 1699, Addison, made a rich man by his pension, and still 10 retaining his fellowship, quitted his beloved Oxford, and set out on his travels. He crossed from Dover to Calais, proceeded to Paris, and was received there with great kindness and politeness by a kinsman of his friend Mon- tague, Charles, Earl of Manchester, who had just been 15 appointed Ambassador to the Court of France. The Countess, a Whig and a toast, was probably as gracious as her lord ; for Addison long retained an agreeable recol- lection of the impression which she at this time made on him, and, in some lively lines written on the glasses of 20 the Kit Cat Club, described the envy which her cheeks, glowing with the genuine bloom of England, had excited among the painted beauties of Versailles. Louis the Fourteenth was at this time expiating the vices of his youth by a devotion which had no root in 25 reason, and bore no fruit of charity. The servile litera- ture of France had changed its character to suit the changed character of the prince. No book appeared that had not an air of sanctity. Racine, who was just dead, had passed the close of his life in writing sacred dramas; 30 and Dacier was seeking for the Athanasian mysteries in Plato. Addison described this state of things in a short but lively and graceful letter to Montague. Another let- ter, written about the same time to the Lord Chancellor, conveyed the strongest assurances of gratitude and at- 35 tachment. "The only return I can make to your Lord- ship," said Addison, "will be to apply myself entirely to my business." With this view he quitted Paris and re- paired to Blois, a place where it was supposed that the THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 19 French language was spoken in its highest purity, and where not a single Englishman could be found. Here he passed some months pleasantly and prolitably. Of his way of life at Blois, one of his associates, an Abbe named Philippeaux, gave an account to Joseph Spence. If this 5 account is to be trusted, Addison studied much, mused much, talked little, had fits of absence, and either had no love affairs, or was too discreet to confide them to the Abbe. A man who, even when surrounded by fellow countrymen and fellow students, had always been remark- 10 ably shy and silent, was not likely to be loquacious in a foreign tongue, and among foreign companions. But it is clear from Addison's letters, some of which were long after published in the "Guardian," that, while he appeared to be absorbed in his own meditations, he was really ob- 15 serving French society with that keen and sly, yet not ill-natured side glance, which was peculiarly his own. From Blois he returned to Paris; and, having now mas- tered the French language, found great pleasure in the society of French philosophers and poets. He gave an 20 account, in a letter to Bishop Hough, of two highly inter- esting conversations, one with Malbranche, the other with Boileau. Malbranche expressed great partiality for the, English, and extolled the genius of Newton, but shook his head when Hobbes was mentioned, and was indeed so 25 unjust as to call the author of the "Leviathan" a poor, silly creature. Addison's modesty restrained him from fully relating, in his letter, the circumstances of his intro- duction to Boileau. Boileau, having survived the friends and rivals of his youth, old, deaf, and melancholy, lived 30 in retirement, seldom went either to Court or to the Acad- emy, and was almost inaccessible to strangers. Of the English and of English literature he knew nothing. He had hardly heard the name of Dryden. Some of our countrymen, in the warmth of their patriotism, have as- 85 serted that this ignorance must have been affected. We own that we see no ground for such a supposition. Eng- lish literature was to the French of the age of Louis the 20 MACAULAY Fourteenth what German literature was to our own grand- fathers. Very few, we suspect, of the accomplished men who, sixty or seventy years ago, used to dine in Leicester Square with Sir Joshua, or at Streatham with Mrs. Thrale, 5 had the slightest notion that Wieland was one of the first wits and poets, and Lessing, beyond all dispute, the first critic in Europe. Boileau knew just as little about the "Paradise Lost," and about "Absalom and Achitophel" ; but he had read Addison's Latin poems, and admired them 10 greatly. They had given him, he said, quite a new notion of the state of learning and taste among the English. Johnson will have it that these praises were insincere. "Nothing," says he, "is better known of Boileau than that he had an injudicious and peevish contempt of modern 15 Latin ; and therefore his profession of regard was prob- ably the effect of his civility rather than approbation." Now, nothing is better known of Boileau than that he was singularly sparing of compliments. We do not remember that either friendship or fear ever induced him to bestow 20 praise on any composition which he did not approve. On literary questions, his caustic, disdainful, and self-confi- dent spirit rebelled against that authority to which every thing else in France bowed down. He had the spirit to tell Louis the Fourteenth firmly and even rudely, that his 25 Majesty knew nothing about poetry, and admired verses which were detestable. What was there in Addison's posi- tion that could induce the satirist, whose stern and fas- tidious temper had been the dread of two generations, to turn sycophant for the first and last time 1 ? Nor was 30 Boileau's contempt of modern Latin either injudicious or peevish. He thought, indeed, that no poem of the first order would ever be written in a dead language. And did he think amiss? Has not the experience of centuries con- firmed his opinion ? Boileau also thought it probable that, 35 in the best modern Latin, a writer of the Augustan age would have detected ludicrous improprieties. And who can think otherwise? What modern scholar can honestly declare that he sees the smallest impurity in the style of THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 21 Livy? Yet is it not certain that, in the style of Livy, Pollio, whose taste had been formed on the banks of the Tiber, detected the inelegant idiom of the Po? Has any modern scholar understood Latin better than Frederick the Great understood French? Yet is it not notorious 5 that Frederick the Great, after reading, speaking, writing French, and nothing but French, during more than half a century, after unlearning his mother tongue in order to learn French, after living familiarly during many years with French associates, could not, to the last, compose in 10 French, without imminent risk of committing some mis- take which would have moved a smile in the literary circles of Paris'? Do we believe that Erasmus and Fracastorius wrote Latin as well as Dr. Robertson and Sir Walter Scott wrote English? And are there not in the "Disser- 15 tation on India," the last of Dr. Robertson's works, in "Waverley," in "Marmion," Scotticisms at which a Lon- don apprentice would laugh? But does it follow, because we think thus, that we can find nothing to admire in the noble alcaics of Gray, or in the playful elegiacs of Vin- 20 cent Bourne? Surely not. Nor was Boileau so ignorant or tasteless as to be incapable of appreciating good modern Latin. In the very letter to which Johnson al- ludes, Boileau says— "Ne croyez pas pourtant que je veuille par la blamer les vers Latins que vous m'avez en- 25 voyes d'un de vos illustres academiciens. Je les ai trouves fort beaux, et dignes de Vida et de Sannazar, mais non pas d'Horace et de Virgile." Several poems, in modern Latin, have been praised by Boileau quite as liberally as it was his habit to praise anything. He says, for example, 30 of the Pere Fraguier's epigrams, that Catullus seems to have come to life again. But the best proof that Boileau did not feel the undiscerning contempt for modern Latin verses which has been imputed to him, is, that he wrote and published Latin verses in several metres. Indeed it hap- 35 pens, curiously enough, that the most severe censure ever pronounced by him on modern Latin is conveyed in Latin hexameters. We allude to the fragment which begins— 22 MACAULAY "Quid numeris iterum me balbutire Latinis, Longe Alpes citra natum de patre Sicambro, Musa, jubes?" For these reasons we feel assured that the praise which 5 Boileau bestowed on the Machinae Gesticulantes, and the Germio-Pygmaeomachia, was sincere. He certainly opened himself to Addison with a freedom which was a sure indi- cation of esteem. Literature was the chief subject of conversation. The old man talked on his favorite theme 10 much and well; indeed, as his young hearer thought, in- comparably well. Boileau had undoubtedly some of the qualities of a great critic. He wanted imagination; but he had strong sense. His literary code was formed on narrow principles; but in applying it, he showed great 15 judgment and penetration. In mere style, abstracted from the ideas of which style is the garb, his taste was excellent. He was well acquainted with the great Greek writers; and, though unable fully to appreciate their creative genius, admired the majestic simplicity of their manner, 20 and had learned from them to despise bombast and tinsel. It is easy, we think, to discover, in the "Spectator" and the "Guardian," traces of the influence, in part salutary and in part pernicious, which the mind of Boileau had on the mind of Addison. 25 While Addison was at Paris, an event took place which made that capital a disagreeable residence for an English- man and a Whig. Charles, second of the name, King of Spain, died; and bequeathed his dominions to Philip, Duke of Anjou, a younger son of the Dauphin. The King 30 of France, in direct violation of his engagements both with Great Britain and with the States General, accepted the bequest on behalf of his grandson. The house of Bourbon was at the summit of human grandeur. England had been outwitted, and found herself in a situation at once de- 35 grading and perilous. The people of France, not presag- ing the calamities by which they were destined to expiate the perfidy of their sovereign, went mad with pride and THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 23 delight. Every man looked as if a great estate had just been left him. "The French conversation/' said Addison, "begins to grow insupportable; that which was before the vainest nation in the world is now worse than ever." Sick of the arrogant exultation of the Parisians, and probably 5 foreseeing that the peace between France and England could not be of long duration, he set off for Italy. In December, 1700, 1 he embarked at Marseilles. As he glided along the Ligurian coast, he was delighted by the sight of myrtles and olive trees, which retained their 10 verdure under the winter solstice. Soon, however, he en- countered one of the black storms of the Mediterranean. The captain of the ship gave up all for lost, and confessed himself to a capuchin who happened to be on board. The English heretic, in the mean time, fortified himself against 15 the terrors of death with devotions of a very different kind. How strong an impression this perilous voyage made on him, appears from the ode, "How are thy ser- vants blest, Lord!" which was long after published in the "Spectator." After some days of discomfort and 20 danger, Addison was glad to land at Savona, and to make his way, over mountains where no road had yet been hewn out by art, to the city of Genoa. At Genoa, still ruled by her own Doge, and by the nobles whose names were inscribed on her Book of Gold, Addison 25 made a short stay. He admired the narrow streets over- hung by long lines of towering palaces, the walls rich with frescoes, the gorgeous temple of the Annunciation, and the tapestries whereon were recorded the long glories of the house of Doria. Thence he hastened to Milan, where he 30 contemplated the Gothic magnificence of the cathedral with more wonder than pleasure. He passed Lake Benacus while a gale was blowing, and saw the waves raging as they raged when Virgil looked upon them. At Venice, 1 It is strange that Addison should, in the first line of his travels, aave misdated his departure from Marseilles by a whole year, and still more strange that this slip of the pen, which throws the whole narra- tive into inextricable confusion, should have been repeated in a suc- cession of editions and never detected by Tickell or by Hurd. 24 MACAULAY then the gayest spot in Europe, the traveller spent the Carnival, the gayest season of the year, in the midst of masques, dances, and' serenades. Here he was at once diverted and provoked", by the absurd dramatic pieces 5 which then disgraced* the Italian stage. To one of those pieces, however, he was indebted for a valuable hint. He was present when a ridiculous play on the death of Cato was performed. Cato, it seems, was in love with a daugh- ter of Scipio. The lady had given her heart to Caesar. 10 The rejected lover determined to destroy himself. He ap- peared seated in his library, a dagger in his hand, a Plutarch and a Tasso before him; and, in this position, he pronounced a soliloquy before he struck the blow. We are surprised that so remarkable a circumstance as this is should have escaped the notice of all Addison's biog- raphers. There cannot, we conceive, be the smallest doubt that this scene, in spite of its absurdities and anachron- isms, struck the traveller's imagination, and suggested to him the thought of bringing Cato on the English stage. 20 It is well known that about this time he began his tragedy, and that he finished the first four acts before he returned to England. On his way from Venice to Rome, he was drawn some miles out of the beaten road, by a wish to see the smallest 25 independent state in Europe. On a rock where the snow still lay, though the Italian spring was now far advanced, was perched the little fortress of San Marino. The roads which led to the secluded town were so bad that few trav- ellers had ever visited it, and none had ever published an 30 account of it. Addison could not suppress a good-natured smile at the simple manners and institutions of this sin- gular community. But he observed, with the exultation of a Whig, that the rude mountain tract which formed the territory of the republic swarmed with an honest, healthy, 35 and contented peasantry, while the rich plain which sur- rounded the metropolis of civil and spiritual tyranny was scarcely less desolate than the uncleared wilds of America. At Rome Addison remained on his first visit only long THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 25 enough to catch a glimpse of St. Peter's and of the Pan- theon. 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 5 persons of far less taste and sensibility than his. Possi- bly, 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. 10 Many eyes would be upon him; and he might find it diffi- cult 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 15 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 20 of Herculaneum, and rows of vines grew over the streets of Pompeii. The temples of Psestuni 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 25 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. 30 He climbed Vesuvius, explored the tunnel of Posilipo, and wandered among the vines and almond trees of Capreae. 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 35 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 Aragon were sunk in wretched- 20 MACAULAY ness. Yet, compared with the Italian dependencies of the Spanish crown, Castile and Aragon might be called pros- perous. It is clear that all the observations which Addi- son made in Italy tended to confirm him in the political 5 opinions which he had adopted at home. To the last, he always spoke of foreign travel as the best cure for Jacob- itism. In his "Freeholder," the Tory fox-hunter asks what travelling is good for, except to teach a man to jabber French, and to talk against passive obedience. 10 From Naples, Addison returned to Rome by sea, along the coast which his favorite 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 15 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 ^Eneas. From the ruined port of Ostia, the stranger hurried to Rome; and at Rome he remained during those hot and 20 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 Provi- 25 dence 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 30 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 prejudices in favor of classic architecture as he looked on the magnificent cathedral. At Florence he spent some 35 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, THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 27 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 com- panion when he was at his ease ; and the Duke, though he 5 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 10 through a country in which the ravages of the last war were still discernible, and in which all men were looking forward with dread to a still fiercer conflict. Eugene had already descended from the Rhaatian Alps, to dispute with Catinat the rich plain of Lombardy. The faithless ruler 15 of Savoy was still reckoned among the allies of Louis. 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 Bour- bon were in progress. Under such circumstances, it was 20 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 25 passage was, for those times, easy. To this journey Addi- son 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 com- 30 posed his Epistle to his friend Montague, now Lord Hali- fax. 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 35 superior to any English composition which he had pre- viously published. Nay, we think it quite as good as any poem in heroic metre which appeared during the interval 28 MACAULAY 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. 5 But, whatever be the literary merits or defects of the Epistle, it undoubtedly does honor 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, 10 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 mean- ness in the suavity and moderation which distinguished 15 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. Manches- 20 ter exerted himself to serve his young friend. It was thought advisable that an English agent should be near the person of Eugene in Italy; and Addison, whose diplo- matic education was now finished, was the man selected. He was preparing to enter on his honorable functions, 25 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 de- 30 prived 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 35 necessary for him to support himself by his own exer- tions. 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 -THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 29 pleasing treatise on "Medals." It was not published till after his death; bnt 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 quota- tions. 5 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 re- turned about the close of the year 1703 to England. He was there cordially received by his friends, and intro- 10 duced 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 from the Continent, hard pressed by pecuniary difficulties. But 15 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 20 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 as high in the favor of the Sovereign as the Lord Treasurer Godolphin and the Captain General Marl- 25 borough. 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 30 favored 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; 35 and that the Government would avoid close connections with foreign powers, and, above all, with Holland. But the country gentlemen and country clergymen were 30 MACAULAY fated to be deceived, not for the last time. The preju- dices and passions which raged without control in vicar- ages, in cathedral closes, and in the manor-houses of fox- hunting squires, were not shared by the chiefs of the Min- 5 istry. 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 impossible to abstain 10 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 15 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 20 his friends in 1826 corresponded to that which Marl- borough 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 25 stood. In 1704, Somers, Halifax, Sunderland, Cowper, were not in office. There was no avowed coalition be- tween them and the modern 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 30 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 August, 1704. By the Whigs the news was hailed with transports of joy and pride. No fault, no cause of 35 quarrel, could be remembered by them against the Com- mander 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 for- THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 31 eign hostility. The feeling of the Tories was very dif- ferent. They could not indeed, without imprudence, openly express regret at an event so glorious to their country; but their congratulations were so cold and sullen as to give deep disgust to the victorious general and his 5 friends. Grodolphin 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 abso- lutely indifferent to poetry; and he was too intelligent an 10 observer not to perceive that literature was a formidable engine of political warfare, and that the great Whig lead- ers had strengthened their party, and raised their char- acter, by extending a liberal and judicious patronage to good writers. He was mortified, and not without reason, 15 by the exceeding badness of the poems which appeared in honor of the battle of Blenheim. One of these poems has been rescued from oblivion by the exquisite absurdity of three lines. i ' Think of two thousand gentlemen at least, 20 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 25 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 honor to their country. 30 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 him." 35 Godolphin, who was expert at the soft answer which turn- 32 MACAULAY eth away wrath, and who was under the necessity of pay- ing court to the Whigs, gently replied that there was too much ground for Halifax's complaints, but that what was amiss should in time be rectified, and that in the mean- 5 time the services of a man such as Halifax had described should be liberally rewarded. Halifax then mentioned Ad- dison, 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; 10 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 15 visit from no less a person than the Right Honorable 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 20 task, a task which, to so good a Whig, was probably a pleasure. When the poem was little more than half fin- ished, 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 commis- 25 sionership worth about two hundred pounds a year, and was assured that this appointment was only an earnest of greater favors. The "Campaign" came forth, and was as much admired by the public as by the Minister. It pleases us less on 30 the whole than the Epistle to Halifax. Yet it undoubt- edly ranks high among the poems which appeared during the interval between the death of Dryden and the dawn of Pope's genius. The chief merit of the "Campaign," we think, is that which was noticed by Johnson, the manly 35 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 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 33 poured forth its crowd of citizens, ignorant of discipline, and armed with implements of labor rudely turned into weapons. On each side appeared conspicuous a few chiefs, whose wealth had enabled them to procure good armor, horses, and chariots, and whose leisure had enabled 5 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 JO 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 15 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 and most expert combatants of his own age. Achilles, clad in celestial armor, drawn by celestial 20 coursers, grasping the spear which none but himself could raise, driving all Troy and Lycia before him, and choking Scamander 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 2 & best Sidonian fabric, and whirled along by horses 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 Life- guardsman Shaw would be considered as a much greater 30 warrior than the Duke of Wellington. Bonaparte loved to describe the astonishment with which the Mamelukes looked at his diminutive figure. Mourad Bey, distin- guished above all his fellows by his bodily strength, and by the skill with which he managed his horse and his 35 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. 34 MACAULAY 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 anything in common with the battles of 5 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 nar- rative is made up of the hideous wounds which these 10 generals inflicted with their own hands. Asdrubal flings a spear which grazes the shoulder of the consul Nero; but Nero sends his spear into AsdrubaPs side. Fabius slays Thuris and Butes and Maris and Arses, and the long-haired Adherbes, and the gigantic Thylis, and Sapha- 15 rus and Monsesus, and the trumpeter Morinus. Hannibal runs Perusinus through the groin with a stake, and breaks the backbone of Telesinus with a huge stone. This de- testable fashion was copied in modern times, and con- tinued to prevail down to the age of Addison. Several 20 versifiers had described William turning thousands to flight by his single prowess, and dyeing the Boyne with Irish blood. Nay, so estimable a writer as John Philips, the author of the "Splendid Shilling," represented Marl- borough as having won the battle of Blenheim merely by 25 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 30 Precipitate he rode, urging his way O'er hills of gasping heroes, and fallen steeds Boiling in death. Destruction, grim with blood, Attends his furious course. Around his head The glowing balls play innocent, while he 35 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?" THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 35 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 ex- tolled the firmness of that mind which, in the midst of 5 confusion, uproar, and slaughter, , examined and disposed every thing with the serene wisdom of a higher intelli- gence. Here it was that he introduced the famous comparison of Marlborough to an Angel guiding the whirlwind. We 10 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 extra- ordinary effect which this simile produced when it first appeared, and which to the following generation seemed 15 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. Addison spoke, not of a storm, but of the storm. The great tempest of November, 1703, the only tempest which 20 in our latitude has equalled the rage of a tropical hurri- cane, had left a dreadful recollection in the minds of all men. No other tempest was ever in this country the occa- sion of a parliamentary address or of a public fast. Whole fleets had been cast away. Large mansions had 25 been blown down. One Prelate had been buried beneath the ruins of his palace. London and Bristol had pre- sented 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 30 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. 35 Soon after the "Campaign," was published Addison's Narrative of his Travels in Italy. The first effect pro- 36 MACAULAY duced 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 5 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 Aus- tria; and that he seemed to have heard no scandal of later date than the gallantries of the Empress Faustina. io In time, however, the judgment of the many was over- ruled by that of the few; and, before the book was re- printed, 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; the classical quotations and allu- 15 sions are numerous and happy; and we are now and then charmed by that singularly humane and delicate humor 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 20 omission. We have already said that, though rich in ex- tracts from the Latin poets, it contains scarcely any refer- ences to the Latin orators and historians. We must add that it contains little, or rather no information, respecting the historjr and literature of modern Italy. To the best 25 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 heard the gondoliers sing verses of Tasso. But for Tasso and 30 Ariosto he cared far less than for Valerius Flaccus and Sidonius Apollinaris. 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 35 Croce; he crosses the wood of Ravenna without recollect- ing 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 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 37 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 re- markable, because Filicaja was the favorite poet of the 5 accomplished Somers, under whose protection Addison travelled, and to whom the account of the Travels is dedi- cated. The truth is, that Addison knew little, and cared less, about the literature of modern Italy. His favorite models were Latin. His favorite critics were French. 10 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 "Rosa- mond." This piece was ill set to music, and therefore failed on the stage, but it completely succeeded in print, 15 and is indeed excellent in its kind. The smoothness with which the verses glide, and the elasticity with which they bound, 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 20 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 com- plete success. Several passages long retained their popu- 25 larity, and were daily sung, during the latter part of George the Second's reign, at all the harpsichords in Eng- land. While Addison thus amused himself, his prospects, and the prospects of his party, were constantly becoming 30 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 favorable to the Whigs. The coalition which had been tacitly and gradually 35 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 38 MACAULAY the decoration of the Order of the Garter to the Elec- toral Prince of Hanover, and was accompanied on this honorable mission by Addison, who had just been made Under Secretary of State. The Secretary of State under 5 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 Sunder- land. In every department of the -state, indeed, the High Churchmen were compelled to give place to their oppo- 10 nents. At the close of 1707, the Tories who still re- mained in office strove to rally, with Harley at their head. But the attempt, though favored by the Queen, who had always been a Tory at heart, and who had now quarrelled with the Duchess of Marlborough, was unsuccessful. The 15 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 20 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 25 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 30 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 35 have had no unfavorable effect on his success as a politi- cian. 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 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 39 that a mere adventurer, a man who, when out of office, must live by his pen, should in a few years become suc- cessively Under Secretary of State, Chief Secretary for Ireland, and Secretary of State, without some oratorical talent. Addison, without high birth, and with little prop- 5 erty, rose to a post which Dukes, the heads of the great houses of Talbot, Russell, and Bentinck, have thought it an honor 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 10 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 15 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 20 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 delib- 25 erations 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 in Antrim and Aber- deenshire. The orator, by the help of the shorthand 30 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 35 of the public without doors could not but be of the highest importance in a country governed by parliaments, and in- deed at that time governed by triennial parliaments. The 40 MACAULAY pen was therefore a more formidable political engine than the tongue. Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox contended only in Par- liament. But Walpole and Pulteney, the Pitt and Fox of an earlier period, had not done half of what was neces- 5 sary, 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 do only by means of the press* Their works are now forgotten. But it is certain that there were in Grub Street few more assiduous 10 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 15 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. 20 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 duly considered, it will not be thought strange that Addison should have climbed higher in the state than any other 25 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 30 been Lord Treasurer. To the influence which Addison derived from his literary talents was added all the influence which arises from char- acter. The world, always ready to think the worst of needy political adventurers, was forced to make one ex- 35 ception. Restlessness, violence, audacity, laxity of prin- ciple, 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 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 41 his early opinions, and to his early friends; that his in- tegrity was without stain ; that his whole deportment indi- cated 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 5 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 bash- fulness. He was undoubtedly one of the most popular men of 10 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 ex- 15 cited by fame so splendid, and by so rapid an elevation. No man is so great a favorite with the public as he who is at once an object of admiration, of respect, and of pity ; and such were the feelings which Addison inspired. Those who enjoyed the privilege of hearing his familiar conver- 20 sation, 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 25 be found nowhere else. Swift, when burning with ani- mosity against the Whigs, could not but confess to Stella that, after all, he had never known any associate so agree- able as Addison. Steele, an excellent judge of lively con- versation, said, that the conversation of Addison was at 30 once the most polite, and the most mirthful, that could be imagined; that it was Terence and Catullus in one, height- ened by an exquisite something which was neither Terence nor Catullus, but Addison alone. Young, an excellent judge of serious conversation, said, that when Addison 35 was at his ease, he went on in a noble strain of thought and language, so as to chain the attention of every hearer. Nor were Addison's great colloquial powers more admir- 42 MACAULAY able than the courtesy and softness of heart which ap- peared 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 5 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 10 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 "Spectatpr's" dialogue with the politician who is so zealous for the honor of Lady Q — p — t — s, are excellent speci- 15 mens 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 20 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 25 four. Yet, even at such a table, he was not seen to the best advantage. To enjoy his conversation in the highest per- fection, 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 30 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 35 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 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 43 to the character of a fine gentleman. But the smallest speck is seen on a white ground; and almost all the biog- raphers of Addison have said something about this fail- ing. Of any other statesman or writer of Queen Anne's reign, we should no more think of saying that he some- 5 times took too much wine, than that he wore a long wig and a sword. 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 10 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 observa- tion ; for, if ever there was an eye which saw through and 15 through men, it was the eye 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 benevo- lence, slightly tinctured with contempt. He was at per- 20 feet ease in their company; he was grateful for their de- voted 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 25 such a head, or deprave such a heart, as Addison's. But it must in candor 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 lit- erary coterie. 30 One member of this little society was Eustace Budgell, a young Templar of some literature, and a distant relation of Addison. There was at this time no stain on the char- acter of Budgell, and it is not improbable that his career would have been prosperous and honorable, if the life of 35 his cousin had been prolonged. But, when the master was laid in the grave, the disciple broke loose from all re- straint, descended rapidly from one degree of vice and 44 MACAULAY misery to another, ruined his fortune by follies, attempted to repair it by crimes, and at length closed a wicked and un- happy life by self-murder. Yet, to the last, the wretched man, gambler, lampooner, cheat, forger, as he was, re- 5 tained 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 favorite companions was Am- brose Phillipps, a good Whig and a middling poet, who 10 had the honor of bringing into fashion a species of com- position which has been called, after his name, Namby Pamby. But the most remarkable members of the little senate, as Pope long afterwards called it, were Richard Steele and Thomas Tickell. 15 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 20 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 impos- sible either to hate or to respect. His temper was sweet, his affections warm, his spirits lively, his passions strong, 25 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 honor ; in practice he was much of the rake and a little of the swindler. He was, however, so good-natured that 30 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 spunging house or drank himself into a fever. Addison regarded Steele with kindness not unmingled with scorn, tried, with little 35 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 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 45 in August, 1708, to have amounted to a thousand pounds. These pecuniary transactions probably led to frequent bickering's. It is said that, on one occasion, Steele's negli- gence, or dishonesty, provoked Addison to repay himself by the help of a bailiff. We cannot join with Miss Aikin 5 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 10 most amiable of mankind may well be moved to indigna- tion, 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 15 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 execu- tion, not only the goods, but the person of his friend Booflh. Dr. Harrison resorts to this strong measure be- 20 cause 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 correspond- ence can doubt that he behaved quite as ill to Addison as 25 Booth was accused of behaving to Dr. Harrison. The real history, we have little doubt, was something like this:— A letter comes to Addison, imploring help in pa- thetic terms, and promising reformation and speedy re- payment. Poor Dick declares that he has not an inch of 30 candle, or a bushel of coals, or eredit 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 Caesars; to put off buying the new edition of Bayle's Dictionary; and to wear his old sword 35 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 46 MACAULAY assembled. The fiddles are playing. The table is groan- ing under Champagne, Burgundy, and pyramids of sweet- meats. Is it strange that a man whose kindness is thus abused, should send sheriff's officers to reclaim what is due 5 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 10 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 15 of Ireland, and appointed Addison Chief Secretary. Ad- dison 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 20 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 Whiggism. The Lord Lieutenant was not only licentious 25 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 deli- cacy. Many parts of the Irish administration at this time appear to have deserved serious blame. But against 30 Addison there was not a murmur. He long afterwards as- serted, what all the evidence which we have ever seen tends to prove, that his diligence and integrity gained the friend- ship of all the most considerable persons in Ireland. The parliamentary career of Addison in Ireland has, 35 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 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 47 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 audi- ence than the English House; and many tongues which were tied by fear in the greater assembly became fluent in 5 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 10 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, 15 on some English verses which occasionally rose above mediocrity, and on a book of travels, agreeably written, but not indicating any extraordinary powers of mind. These works showed him to be a man of taste, sense, and learn- ing. The time had come when he was to prove himself a 20 man of genius, and to enrich our literature with composi- tions 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 conse- quences. Periodical papers had during many years been 25 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. 30 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 35 scheme of publishing a periodical paper on a new plan. It was to appear on the days on which the post left Lon- don for the country, which were, in that generation, the 48 MACAULAY 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 5 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 10 best sources. He knew the town, and had paid dear for his knowledge. He had read much more than the dissi- pated men of that time were in the habit of reading. He was a rake among scholars, and a scholar among rakes. His style was easy and not incorrect; and though his wit 15 and humor were of no high order, his gay animal spirits imparted to his compositions an air of vivacity which or- dinary readers could hardly distinguish from comic genius. His writings have been well compared to those light wines which, though deficient in body and flavor, are yet a pleas- 20 ant small drink, if not kept too long, or carried too far. Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, Astrologer, was an imag- inary person, almost as well known in that age as Mr. Paul Pry or Mr. Samuel Pickwick in ours. Swift had assumed the name of Bickerstaff in a satirical pamphlet 25 against Partridge, the maker of almanacs. Partridge had been fool enough to publish a furious reply. Bickerstaff had rejoined in a second pamphlet still more diverting than the first. All the wits had combined to keep up the joke, and the town was long in convulsions of laughter. 30 Steele determined to employ the name which this con- troversy had made popular; and, in 1709, it was an- nounced that Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, Astrologer, was about to publish a paper called the "Tatler." Addison had not been consulted about this scheme; but 35 as soon as he heard of it, he determined to give his assist- ance. The effect of that assistance cannot be better de- scribed than in Steele's own words. "I fared," he said, "like a distressed prince who calls in a powerful neighbor THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 49 to his aid. I was undone by my auxiliary. When I had once called him in, I could not subsist without dependence on him." "The paper," he says elsewhere, "was advanced indeed. It was raised to a greater thing than I intended it." 5 It is probable that Addison, when he sent across St. George's Channel his first contributions to the "Tatler," had no notion of the extent and variety of his own powers. He was the possessor of a vast mine, rich with a hundred ores. But he had been acquainted only with 10 the least precious part of his treasures, and had hitherto contented himself with producing sometimes copper and sometimes lead, intermingled with a little silver. All at once, and by mere accident, he had lighted on an inex- haustible vein of the finest gold. 15 The mere choice and arrangement of his words would have sufficed to make his essays classical. For never, not even by Dryden, not even by Temple, had the English language been written with such sweetness, grace, and facility. But this was the smallest part of Addison's 20 praise. Had he clothed his thoughts in the half French style of Horace Walpole, or in the half Latin style of Dr. Johnson, or in the half German jargon of the present day, his genius would have triumphed over all faults of man- ner. As a moral satirist he stands unrivalled. If ever 25 the best "Tatlers" and "Spectators" were equalled in their own kind, we should be inclined to guess that it must have been by the lost comedies of Menander. In wit, properly so called, Addison was not inferior to Cowley or Butler. No single ode of Cowley contains so 30 many happy analogies as are crowded into the lines to Sir Godfrey Kneller; and we would undertake to collect from the "Spectators" as great a number of ingenious illustra- tions as can be found in "Hudibras." The still higher faculty of invention Addison possessed in still larger 35 measure. The numerous fictions, generally original, often wild and grotesque, but always singularly graceful and happy, which are found in his essays, fully entitle him to 50 MACAULAY the rank of a great poet, a rank to which his metrical compositions give him no claim. As an observer of life, of manners, of all the shades of human character, he stands in the first class. And what he observed he had 5 the art of communicating in two widely different ways. He could describe virtues, vices, habits, whims, as well as Clarendon. But he could do something better. He could call human beings into existence, and make them exhibit themselves. If we wish to find anything more vivid than 10 Addison's best portraits, we must go either to Shakespeare or to Cervantes. But what shall we say of Addison's humor, of his sense of the ludicrous, of his power of awakening that sense in others, and of drawing mirth from incidents which occur 15 every day, and from little peculiarities of temper and manner, such as may be found in every man? We feel the charm; we give ourselves up to it; but we strive in vain to analyze it. Perhaps the best way of describing Addison's peculiar 20 pleasantry is to compare it with the pleasantry of some other great satirists. The three most emhient masters of the art of ridicule, during the eighteenth century, were, we conceive, Addison, Swift, and Voltaire. Which of the three had the greatest power of moving laughter may be 25 questioned. But each of them, within his own domain, was supreme. Voltaire is the prince of buffoons. His merriment is without disguise or restraint. He gambols; he grins; he shakes his sides; he points the finger; he turns up the 30 nose; he shoots out the tongue. The manner of Swift is the very opposite to this. He moves laughter, but never joins in it. He appears in his works such as he ap- peared in society. All the company are convulsed with merriment, while the Dean, the author of all the mirth, 35 preserves an invincible gravity, and even sourness of as- pect, and gives utterance to the most eccentric and ludi- crous fancies, with the air of a man reading the com- mination service. THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 51 The manner of Addison is as remote from that of Swift as from that of Voltaire. He neither laughs out like the French wit, nor, like the Irish wit, throws a double portion of severity into his countenance while laughing inwardly; but preserves a look peculiarly his own, a look of demure 5 serenity, disturbed only by an arch sparkle of the eye, an almost imperceptible elevation of the brow, an almost imperceptible curl of the lip. His tone is never that either of a Jack Pudding or of a Cynic. It is that of a gentleman, in whom the quickest sense of the ridiculous 10 is constantly tempered by good nature and good breeding. We own that the humor of Addison is, in our opinion, of a more delicious flavor than the humor of either Swift or Voltaire. Thus much, at least, is certain, that both Swift and Voltaire have been successfully mimicked, and 15 that no man has yet been able to mimic Addison. The letter of the Abbe Coyer to Pansophe is Voltaire all over, and imposed, during a long time, on the Academicians of Paris. There are passages in Arbuthnot's satirical works which we, at least, cannot distinguish from Swift's best 20 writing. But of the many eminent men who have made Addison their model, though several have copied his mere diction with happy effect, none has been able to catch the tone of his pleasantry. In the "World," in the "Con- noisseur," in the "Mirror," in the "Lounger," there are 25 numerous papers written in obvious imitation of his "Tatlers" and "Spectators." Most of those papers have some merit; many are very lively and amusing; but there is not a single one which could be passed off as Addison's on a critic of the smallest perspicacity. 30 But that which chiefly distinguishes Addison from Swift, from Voltaire, from almost all the other great masters of ridicule, is the grace, the nobleness, the moral purity, which we find even in his merriment. Severity, gradually hardening and darkening into misanthropy, 35 characterizes the works of Swift. The nature of Voltaire was, indeed, not inhuman; but he venerated nothing. Neither in the masterpieces of art nor in the purest ex- 52 MACAULAY amples of virtue, neither in the Great First Cause nor in the awful enigma of the grave, could he see anything but subjects for drollery. The more solemn and august the theme, the more monkey-like was his grimacing and chat- 5 taring. The mirth of Swift is the mirth of Mephis- topheles; the mirth of Voltaire is the mirth of Puck. If, as Soame Jenyns oddly imagined, a portion of the happi- ness of Seraphim and just men made perfect be derived from an exquisite perception of the ludicrous, their mirth 10 must surely be none other than the mirth of Addison; a mirth consistent with tender compassion for all that is frail, and with profound reverence for all that is sub- lime. Nothing great, nothing amiable, no moral duty, no doctrine of natural or revealed religion, has ever been 15 associated by Addison with any degrading idea. His humanity is without a parallel in literary history. The highest proof of virtue is to possess boundless power without abusing it. No kind of power is more formidable than the power of making men ridiculous ; and that power 20 Addison possessed in boundless measure. How grossly that power was abused by Swift and by Voltaire is well known. But of Addison it may be confidently affirmed that he has blackened no man's character, nay, that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find in all the 25 volumes which he has left us a single taunt which can be called ungenerous or unkind. Yet he had detractors, whose malignity might have seemed to justify as terrible a revenge as that which men, not superior to him in genius, wreaked on Bettesworth and on Franc de Pom- 30 pignan. He was a politician; he was the best writer of his party; he lived in times of fierce excitement, in times when persons erf high character and station stooped to scurrility such as is now practised only by the basest of mankind. Yet no provocation and no example could in- 35 duce him to return railing for railing. Of the service which his Essays rendered to morality it is difficult to speak too highly. It is true that, when the "Tatler" appeared, that age of outrageous profaneness THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 53 and licentiousness which followed the Restoration had passed away. Jeremy Collier had shamed the theatres into something which, compared with the excesses of Etherege and Wycherley, might be called decency. Yet there still lingered in the public mind a pernicious notion 5 that there was some connection between genius and prof- ligacy, between the domestic virtues and the sullen formal- ity of the Puritans. That error it is the glory of Addison to have dispelled. He taught the nation that the faith and the morality of Hale and Tillotson might be found in 10 company with wit more sparkling than the wit of Con- greve, and with humor richer than the humor of Van- brugh. So effectually, indeed, did he retort on vice the mockery which had recently been directed against virtue, that, since his time, the open violation of decency has 15 always been considered among us as the mark of a fool. And this revolution, the greatest and most salutary ever effected by any satirist, he accomplished, be it remem- bered, without writing one personal lampoon. In the early contributions of Addison to the "Tatler" 20 his peculiar powers were not fully exhibited. Yet from the first, his superiority to all his coadjutors was evident. Some of his later "Tatlers" are fully equal to anything that he ever wrote. Among the portraits, we most admire Tom Folio, Ned Softly, and the Political Upholsterer. 25 The proceedings of the Court of Honour, the Thermom- eter of Zeal, the story of the Frozen Words, the Memoirs of the Shilling, are excellent specimens of that ingenious and lively species of fiction in which Addison excelled all men. There is one still better paper of the same class. 30 But though that paper, a hundred and thirty-three years ago, was probably thought as edifying as one of Smal- ridge's sermons, we dare not indicate it to the squeamish readers of the nineteenth century. During the session of Parliament which commenced in 35 November, 1709, and which the impeachment of Sachev- erell has made memorable, Addison appears to have re- sided in London. The "Tatler" was now more popular 54 MACAULAY than any periodical paper had ever been; and his con- nection with it was generally known. It was not known, however, that almost everything good in the "Tatler" was his. The truth is, that the fifty or sixty numbers which 5 we owe to him were not merely the best, but so decidedly the best that any five of them are more valuable than all the two hundred numbers in which he had no share. He required, at this time, all the solace which he could derive from literary success. The Queen had always dis- 10 liked the Whigs. She had during some years disliked the Marlborough family. But, reigning by a disputed title, she could not venture directly to oppose herself to a majority of both Houses of Parliament; and, engaged as she was in a war on the event of which her own Crown 15 was staked, she could not venture to disgrace a great and successful general. But at length, in the year 1710, the causes which had restrained her from showing her aver- sion to the Low Church party ceased to operate. The trial of Sacheverell produced an outbreak of public feel- 20 ing scarcely less violent than the outbreaks which we can ourselves remember in 1820, and in 1831. The country gentlemen, the country clergymen, the rabble of the towns, were all, for once, on the same side. It was clear that, if a general election took place before the excitement 25 abated, the Tories would have a majority. The services of Marlborough had been so splendid that they were no longer necessary. The Queen's throne was secure from all attack on the part of Louis. Indeed, it seemed much more likely that the English and German armies would 30 divide the spoils of Versailles and Marli than that a Marshal of France would bring back the Pretender to St. James's. The Queen, acting by the advice of Harley, de- termined to dismiss her servants. In June the change commenced. Sunderland was the first who fell. The Tories 35 exulted over his fall. The Whigs tried, during a few weeks, to persuade themselves that her Majesty had acted only from personal dislike to the Secretary, and that she meditated no further alteration. But, early in August, THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 55 Godolphin was surprised by a letter from Anne, which directed him to break his white staff. Even after this event, the irresolution or dissimulation of Harley kept up the hopes of the Whigs during another month; and then the ruin became rapid and violent. The Parliament was 5 dissolved. The Ministers were turned out. The Tories were called to office. The tide of popularity ran violently in favor of the High Church party. That party, feeble in the late House of Commons, was now irresistible. The power which the Tories had thus suddenly acquired, they 10 used with blind and stupid ferocity. The howl which the whole pack set up for prey and for blood appalled even him who had roused and unchained them. When, at this distance of time, we calmly review the conduct of the dis- carded ministers, we cannot but feel a movement of indig- 15 nation at the injustice with which they were treated. No body of men had ever administered the government with more energy, ability, and moderation; and their success had been proportioned to their wisdom. They had saved Holland and Germany. They had humbled France. They 20 had, as it seemed, all but torn Spain from the House of Bourbon. They had made England the first power in Europe. At home they had united England and Scotland. They had respected the rights of conscience and the lib- erty of the subject. They retired, leaving their country 25 at the height of prosperity and glory. And yet they were pursued to their retreat by such a roar of obloquy as was never raised against the government which threw away thirteen colonies, or against the government which sent a gallant army to perish in the ditches of Walcheren. 30 None of the Whigs suffered more in the general wreck than Addison. He had just sustained some heavy pecu- niary losses, of the nature of which we are imperfectly informed, when his Secretaryship was taken from him. He had reason to believe that he should also be deprived 35 of the small Irish office which he held by patent. He had just resigned his Fellowship. It seems probable that he had already ventured to raise his eyes to a great lady, and 56 MACAULAY that, while his political friends were in power, and while his own fortunes were rising, he had been, in the phrase of the romances which were then fashionable, permitted to hope. But Mr. Addison the ingenious writer, and Mr. 5 Addison the chief Secretary, were, in her ladyship's opin- ion, two very different persons. All these calamities united, however, could not disturb the serene cheerfulness of a mind conscious of innocence, and rich in its own wealth. He told his friends, with smiling resignation, 10 that they ought to admire his philosophy, that he had lost at once his fortune, his place, his fellowship, and his mistress, that he must think of turning tutor again, and yet that his spirits were as good as ever. He had one consolation. Of the unpopularity which his is friends had incurred, he had no share. Such was the es- teem with which he was regarded that, while the most violent measures were taken for the purpose of forcing Tory members on Whig corporations, he was returned to Parliament without even a contest. Swift, who was now 20 in London, and who had already determined on quitting the Whigs, wrote to Stella in these remarkable words: "The Tories carry it among the new members six to one. Mr. Addison's election has passed easy and undisputed; and I believe if he had a mind to be king, he would hardly 25 be refused." The good will with which the Tories regarded Addison is the more honorable to him, because it had not been purchased by any concession on his part. During the general election he published a political journal, entitled 30 the "Whig Examiner." Of that journal it may be suffi- cient to say that Johnson, in spite of his strong political prejudices, pronounced it to be superior in wit to any of Swift's writings on the other side. When it ceased to ap- pear, Swift, in a letter to Stella, expressed his exultation 35 at the death of so formidable an antagonist. "He might well rejoice," says Johnson, "at the death of that which he could not have killed." "On no occasion," he adds, "was the genius of Addison more vigorously exerted, and on THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 57 none did the superiority of his powers more evidently appear." The only use which Addison appears to have made of the favor with which he was regarded by the Tories was to save some of his friends from the general ruin of the 5 Whig party. He felt himself to be in a situation which made it his duty to take a decided part in politics. But the case of Steele and of Ambrose Phillipps was different. For Phillipps, Addison even condescended to solicit, with what success we have not ascertained. Steele held two 10 places. He was Gazetteer, and he was also a Commissioner of Stamps. The Gazette was taken from him. But he was suffered to retain his place in the Stamp Office, on an im- plied understanding that he should not be active against the new government; and he was, during more than two 15 years, induced by Addison to observe this armistice with tolerable fidelity. Isaac Bickerstaff accordingly became silent upon poli- tics, and the article of news, which had once formed about one third of his paper, altogether disappeared. The "Tat- 20 ler" had completely changed its character. It was now nothing but a series of essays on books, morals, and man- ners. Steele therefore resolved to bring it to a close, and to commence a new work on an improved plan. It was announced that this new work would be published daily. 25 The undertaking was generally regarded as bold, or rather rash; but the event amply justified, the confidence with which Steele relied on the fertility of Addison's genius. On the second of January, 1711, appeared the last "Tat- ler." At the beginning of March following appeared 3a. the first of an incomparable series of papers, containing observations on life and literature by an imaginary Spec- tator. The Spectator himself was conceived and drawn by Addison ; and it is not easy to doubt that the portrait was 3& meant to be in some features a likeness of the painter. The Spectator is a gentleman who, after passing a stu- dious youth at the university, has travelled on classic 58 MACAULAY ground, and has bestowed much attention on curious points of antiquity. He has, on his return, fixed his resi- dence in London, and has observed all the forms of life which are to be found in that great city, has daily listened 5 to the wits of Will's, has smoked with the philosophers of the Grecian, and has mingled with the parsons at Child's, and with the politicians at the St. James's. In the morn- ing, he often listens to the hum of the Exchange; in the evening, his face is constantly to be seen in the pit of 10 Drury Lane theatre. But an insurmountable bashfulness prevents him from opening his mouth, except in a small circle of intimate friends. These friends were first sketched by Steele. Four of the club, the templar, the clergyman, the soldier, and the 15 merchant, were uninteresting figures, fit only for a back- ground. But the other two, an old country baronet and an old town rake, though not delineated with a very deli- cate pencil, had some good strokes. Addison took the rude outlines into his own hands, retouched them, colored 20 them, and is in truth the creator of the Sir Roger de Cov- erley and the Will Honeycomb with whom we are all familiar. The plan of the "Spectator" must be allowed to be both original and eminently happy. Every valuable essay in 25 the series may be read with pleasure separately; yet the five or six hundred essays form a whole, and a whole which has the interest of a novel. It must be remem- bered, too, that at that time no novel, giving a lively and powerful picture of the common life and manners of Eng- 30 land, had appeared. Richardson was working as a com- positor. Fielding was robbing birds' nests. Smollett was not yet born. The narrative, therefore, which connects together the Spectator's Essays, gave to our ancestors their first taste of an exquisite and untried pleasure. 35 That narrative was indeed constructed with no art or labor. The events were such events as occur every day. Sir Roger comes up to town to see Eugenio, as the worthy baronet always calls Prince Eugene, goes with the Spec- THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 59 tator on the water to Spring Gardens, walks among the tombs in the Abbey, and is frightened by the Mohawks, but conquers his apprehensions so far as to go to the theatre when the "Distressed Mother" is acted. The Spec- tator pays a visit in the summer to Coverley Hall, is 5 charmed with the old house, the old butler, and the old chaplain, eats a jack caught by Will Wimble, rides to the assizes, and hears a point of law discussed by Tom Touchy. At last a letter from the honest butler brings to the club the news that Sir Roger is dead. Will Honey- 10 comb marries and reforms at sixty. The club breaks up; and the Spectator resigns his functions. Such events can hardly be said to form a plot; yet they are related with such truth, such grace, such wit, such humor, such pathos, such knowledge of the human heart, such knowledge of 15 the ways of the world, that they charm us on the hun- dredth perusal. We have not the least doubt that if Addi- son had written a novel, on an extensive plan, it would have been superior to any that we possess. As it is, he is entitled to be considered not only as the greatest of the 20 English essayists, but as the forerunner of the great Eng- lish novelists. We say this of Addison alone; for Addison is the Spectator. About three-sevenths of the work are his; and it is no exaggeration to say, that his worst essay is 25 as good as the best essay of any of his coadjutors. His best essays approach near to absolute perfection; nor is their excellence more wonderful than their variety. His iuvention never seems to flag; nor is he ever under the necessity of repeating himself, or of wearing out a subject. 30 There are no dregs in his wine. He regales us after the fashion of that prodigal nabob who held that there was only one good glass in a bottle. As soon as we have tasted the first sparkling foam of a jest, it is withdrawn, and a fresh draught of nectar is at our lips. On the 35 Monday we have an allegory as lively and ingenious as Lucian's Auction of Lives; on the Tuesday an Eastern apologue, as richly colored as the Tales of Scherezade; 60 MACAULAY on the Wednesday, a character described with the skill of La Bruyere; on the Thursday, a scene from common life, equal to the best chapters in the "Vicar of Wakefield"; on the Friday, some sly Horatian pleasantry on fashion- 5 able follies, on hoops, patches, or puppet-shows; and on the Saturday a religious meditation, which will bear a comparison with the finest passages in Massillon. It is dangerous to select where there is so much that de- serves the highest praise. We will venture, however, to 10 say, that any person who wishes to form a just notion of the extent and variety of Addison's powers, will do well to read at one sitting the following papers;— the two Visits to the Abbey, the Visit to the Exchange, the Journal of the Retired Citizen, the Vision of Mirza, the Trans- 15 migrations of Pug the Monkey, and the Death of Sir Roger de Coverley. 1 The least valuable of Addison's contributions to the "Spectator" are, in the judgment of our age, his critical ►apers. Yet his critical papers are always luminous, and 20 often ingenious. The very worst of them must be re- garded as creditable to him, when the character of the school in which he had been trained is fairly considered. The best of them were much too good for his readers. In truth, he was not so far behind our generation as he was 25 before his own. No essays in the "Spectator" were more censured and derided than those in which he raised his voice against the contempt with which our fine old ballads were regarded, and showed the scoffers that the same gold which, burnished and polished, gives lustre to the JEneid 30 and the Odes of Horace, is mingled with the rude dross of "Chevy Chace." It is not strange that the success of the "Spectator" should have been such as no similar work has ever ob- tained. The number of copies daily distributed was at 35 first three thousand. It subsequently increased, and had risen to near four thousand when the stamp tax was im- iNos. 26, 329, 69, 317, 159, 343, 517. These papers are all in the first seven volumes. The eighth must be considered as a separate work.' THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 61 posed. That tax was fatal to a crowd of journals. The "Spectator," however, stood its ground, doubled its price, and, though its circulation fell off, still yielded a large revenue both to the state and to the authors. For particu- lar papers, the demand was immense; of some, it is said, 5 twenty thousand copies were required. But this was not all. To have the "Spectator" served up every morning with the bohea and rolls, was a luxury for the few. The majority were content to wait till essays enough had ap- peared to form a volume. Ten thousand copies of each 10 volume were immediately taken off, and new editions were called for. It must be remembered, that the population of England was then hardly a third of what it now is. The number of Englishmen who were in the habit of reading was probably not a sixth of what it now is. A 15 shopkeeper or a farmer who found any pleasure in litera- ture was a rarity. Nay, there was doubtless more than one knight of the shire whose country-seat did not contain ten books, receipt-books and books on farriery included. In these circumstances, the sale of the "Spectator" must 20 be considered as indicating a popularity quite as great as that of the most successful works of Sir Walter Scott and Mr. Dickens in our own time. At the close of 1712 the "Spectator" ceased to appear. It was probably felt that the short-faced gentleman and 25 his club had been long enough before the town; and that it was time to withdraw them, and to replace them by a new set of characters. In a few weeks the first number of the "Guardian" was published. But the "Guardian" was unfortunate both, in its birth and in its death. It 30 began in dulness, and disappeared in a tempest of faction. The original plan was bad. Addison contributed nothing till sixty-six numbers had appeared; and it was then im- possible to make the "Guardian" what the "Spectator" had been. Nestor Ironside and the Miss Lizards were 35 people to whom even he could impart no interest. He could only furnish some exce^ent little essays, both serious and comic ; and this he did. 62 MACAULAY Why Addison gave no assistance to the "Guardian/* during the first two months of its existence, is a question which has puzzled the editors and biographers, but which seems to us to admit of a very easy solution. He was 5 then engaged in bringing his "Cato" on the stage. The first four acts Of this drama had been lying in his desk since his return from Italy. His modest and sensi- tive nature shrank from the risk of a public and shameful failure ; and, though all who saw the manuscript were loud 10 in praise, some thought it possible that an audience might become impatient even of very good rhetoric, and advised Addison to print the play without hazarding a repre- sentation. At length, after many fits of apprehension, the poet yielded to the urgency of his political friends, 15 who hoped that the public would discover some analogy between the followers of Caesar and the Tories, between Sempronius and the apostate Whigs, between Cato, strug-' gling to the last for the liberties of Rome, and the band of patriots who still stood firm round Halifax and Whar- 20 ton. Addison gave the play to the managers of Drury Lane theatre, without stipulating for any advantage to himself. They, therefore, thought themselves bound to spare no cost in scenery and dresses. The decorations, it is true, 25 Avould not have pleased the skilful eye of Mr. Macready. Juba's waistcoat blazed with gold lace ; Marcia's hoop was worthy of a Duchess on the birthday; and Cato wore a wig worth fifty guineas. The prologue was written by Pope, and is undoubtedly a dignified and spirited compo- 30 sition. The part of the hero was excellently played by Booth. Steele undertook to pack a house. The boxes were in a blaze with the stars of the Peers in Opposition. The pit was crowded with attentive and friendly listeners from the Inns of Court and the literary coffee-houses. Sir 35 Gilbert Heatheote, Governor of the Bank of England, was at the head of a powerful body of auxiliaries from the city, warm men and true Whigs, but better known at Jonathan's and Garraway's than in the haunts of wits and critics. THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OE ADDISON 63 These precautions were quite superfluous. The Tories, as a body, regarded Addison with no unkind feelings. Nor was it for their interest, professing, as they did, profound reverence for law and prescription, and abhor- rence both of popular insurrections and of standing 5 armies, to appropriate to themselves reflections thrown on the great military chief and demagogue, who, with the support of the legions and of the common people, sub- verted all the ancient institutions of his country. Ac- cordingly, every shout that was raised by the members of 1Q the Kit Cat was echoed by the High Churchmen of the October; and the curtain at length fell amidst thunders of unanimous applause. The delight and admiration of the town were described by the "Guardian" in terms which we might attribute to 15 partiality, were it not that the "Examiner," the organ of the Ministry, held similar language. The Tories, indeed, found much to sneer at in the conduct of their opponents. Steele had on this, as on other occasions, shown more zeal than taste or judgment. The honest citizens who marched 20 under the orders of Sir Gibby, as he was facetiously called, probably knew better when to buy and when to sell stock than when to clap and when to hiss at a play, and incurred some ridicule by making the hypocritical Sempronius their favorite, and by giving to his insincere rants louder 25 plaudits than they bestowed on the temperate eloquence of Cato. Wharton, too, who had the incredible effrontery to applaud the lines about flying from prosperous vice and from the power of impious men to a private station, did not escape the sarcasms of those who justly thought 30 that he could fly from nothing more vicious or impious than himself. The epilogue, which was written by Garth, a zealous Whig, was severely and not unreasonably cen- sured as ignoble and out of place. But Addison was de- scribed, even by the bitterest Tory writers, as a gentleman 35 of wit and virtue, in whose friendship many persons of both parties were happy, and whose name ought not to be mixed up with factious squabbles. 64 MACAULAY Of the jests by which the triumph of the Whig party was disturbed, the most severe and happy was Boling- broke's. Between two acts, he sent for Booth to his box, and presented him, before the whole theatre, with a purse 5 of fifty guineas for defending the cause of liberty so well against a perpetual dictator. This was a pungent allusion to the attempt which Marlborough had made, not long be- fore his fall, to obtain a patent creating him Captain General for life. !o It was April; and in April, a hundred and thirty years ago, the London season was thought to be far advanced. During a whole month, however, "Cato" was performed to overflowing houses, and brought into the treasury of the theatre twice the gains of an ordinary spring. In the 15 summer the Drury Lane company went down to the Act at, Oxford, and there, before an audience which retained an affectionate remembrance of Addison's accomplish- ments and virtues, his tragedy was acted during several days. The gownsmen began to besiege the theatre in the 20 forenoon, and by one in the afternoon all the seats were filled. About the merits of the piece which had so extra- ordinary an effect, the public, we suppose, has made up its mind. To compare it with the masterpieces of the 25 Attic stage, with the great English dramas of the time of Elizabeth, or even with the productions of Schiller's manhood, would be absurd indeed. Yet it contains excel- lent dialogue and declamation, and, among plays fash- ioned on the French model, must be allowed to rank high ; 30 not indeed with "Athalie," or "Saul"; but, we think, not below "China," and certainly above any other English tragedy of the same school, above many of the plays of Corneille, above many of the plays of Voltaire and Al- fieri, and above some plays of Racine. Be this as it may, 35 we have little doubt that "Cato" did as much as the "Tat- ters," "Spectators," and "Freeholders" united, to raise Addison's fame among his contemporaries. The modestv and good nature of the successful drama- THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 65 tist had tamed even the malignity of faction. But literary envy, it should seem, is a fiercer passion than party spirit. It was by a zealous Whig that the fiercest attack on the Whig tragedy was made. John Dennis published "Re- marks on Cato," which were written with some acuteness 5 and with much coarseness and asperity. Addison neither defended himself nor retaliated. On many points he had an excellent defence; and nothing would have been easier than to retaliate; for Dennis had written bad odes, bad tragedies, bad comedies : he had, moreover, a larger share 10 than most men of those infirmities and eccentricities which excite laughter; and Addison's power of turning either an absurd book or an absurd man into ridicule was unri- valled. Addison, however, serenely conscious of his supe- riority, looked with pity on his assailant, whose temper, r5 naturally irritable and gloomy, had been soured by want, by controversy, and by literary failures. But among the young candidates for Addison's favor there was one distinguished by talents from the rest, and distinguished, we fear, not less by malignity and insin- 20 cerity. Pope was only twenty-five. But his powers had expanded to their full maturity; and his best poem, the "Rape of the Lock," had recently been published. Of his genius, Addison had always expressed high admira- tion. But Addison had early discerned, what might in- 25 deed have been discerned by an eye less penetrating than his, that the diminutive, crooked, sickly boy was eager to revenge himself on society for the unkindness of nature. In the "Spectator," the "Essay on Criticism" had been praised with cordial warmth; but a gentle hint had been 30 added, that the writer of so excellent a poem would have done well to avoid ill-natured personalities. Pope, though evidently more galled by the censure than gratified by the praise, returned thanks for the admonition, and promised to profit by it. The two writers continued to exchange 35 civilities, counsel, and small good offices. Addison pub- licly extolled Pope's miscellaneous pieces; and Pope fur- nished Addison with a prologue. This did not last long. 66 MACAULAY Pope hated Dennis, whom he had injured without provo- cation. The appearance of the "Remarks on Cato" gave the irritable poet an opportunity of venting his malice under the show of friendship; and such an opportunity 5 could not but be welcome to a nature which was implaca- ble in enmity, and which always preferred the tortuous to the straight path. He published, accordingly, the "Narra- tive of the Frenzy of John Dennis." But Pope had mis- taken his powers. He was a great master of invective 10 and sarcasm: he could dissect a character in terse and sonorous couplets, brilliant with antithesis: but of dra- matic talent he was altogether destitute. If he had written a lampoon on Dennis, such as that on Atticus, or that on Sporus, the old grumbler would have been crushed. But 15 Pope writing dialogue resembled— to borrow Horace's im- agery and his own — a wolf, which, instead of biting, should take to kicking, or a monkey which should try to sting. The "Narrative" is utterly contemptible. Of argu- ment there is not even the show; and the jests are such as, 20 if they were introduced into a farce, would call forth the hisses of the shilling gallery. Dennis raves about the drama; and the nurse thinks that he is calling for a dram. "There is," he cries, "no peripetia in the tragedy, no change of fortune, no change at all." "Pray, good 25 Sir, be not angry," says the old woman; "I '11 fetch change." This is not exactly the pleasantry of Addison. There can be no doubt that Addison saw through this officious zeal, and felt himself deeply aggrieved by it. So foolish and spiteful a pamphlet could do him no good, 30 and, if he were thought to have any hand in it, must do him harm. Gifted with incomparable powers of ridicule, he had never, even in self-defence, used those powers in- humanly or uncourteously; and he was not disposed to let others make his fame and his interests a pretext under 35 which they might commit outrages from which he had himself constantly abstained. He accordingly declared that he had no concern in the "Narrative," that he disap- proved of it, and that if he answered the "Remarks," he THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 67 would answer them like a gentleman; and he took care to communicate this to Dennis. Pope was bitterly mortified; and to this transaction we are inclined to ascribe the hatred with which he ever after regarded Addison. In September, 1713, the "Guardian" ceased to appear. 5 Steele had gone mad about politics. A general election had just taken place: he had been chosen member for Stockbridge; and he fully expected to play a first part in Parliament. The immense success of the "Tatler" and "Spectator" had turned his head. He had been the editor of 10 both those papers, and was not aware how entirely they owed their influence and popularity to the genius of his friend. His spirits, always violent, were now excited by vanity, ambition, and faction, to such a pitch that he every day committed some offence against good sense and good 15 taste. All the discreet and moderate members of his own party regretted and condemned his folly. "I am in a thousand troubles," Addison wrote, "about poor Dick, and wish that his zeal for the public may not be ruinous to himself. But he has sent me word that he is deter- 20 mined to go on, and that any advice I may give him in this particular will have no weight with him." Steele set up a political paper called the "Englishman," which, as it was not supported by contributions from Ad- dison, completely failed. By this work, by some other 25 writings of the same kind, and by the airs which he gave himself at the first meeting of the new Parliament, he made the Tories so angry that they determined to expel him. The Whigs stood by him gallantly, but were unable to save him. The vote of expulsion was regarded by all 30 dispassionate men as a tyrannical exercise of the power of the majority. But Steele's violence and folly, though they by no means justified the steps which his enemies took, had completely disgusted his friends; nor did he ever regain the place which he had held in the public 35 estimation. Addison about this time conceived the design of adding an eighth volume to the "Spectator." In June, 1714, the 68 MACAULAY first number of the new series appeared, and during about six months three papers were published weekly. Nothing can be more striking than the contrast between the "Eng- lishman" and the eighth volume of the "Spectator," be- 5 tween Steele without Addison and Addison without Steele. The "Englishman" is forgotten; the eighth volume of the "Spectator" contains, perhaps, the finest essays, both serious and playful, in the English language. Before this volume was completed, the death of Anne 10 produced an entire change in the administration of public affairs. The blow fell suddenly. It found the Tory party distracted by internal feuds, and unprepared for any great effort. Harley had just been disgraced. Bo- lingbroke, it was supposed, would be the chief minister. 15 But the Queen was on her death-bed before the white staff had been given, and her last public act was to deliver it with a feeble hand to the Duke of Shrewsbury. The emergency produced a coalition between all sections of public men who were attached to the Protestant succes- 20 sion. George the First was proclaimed without opposi- tion. A Council, in which the leading Whigs had seats, took the direction of affairs till the new King should ar- rive. The first act of the Lords Justices was to appoint Addison their secretary. 25 There is an idle tradition that he was directed to pre- pare a letter to the King, that he could not satisfy him- self as to the style of this composition, and that the Lords Justices called in a clerk who at once did what was wanted. It is not strange that a story so flattering to mediocrity 30 should be popular; and we are sorry to deprive dunces of their consolation. But the truth must be told. It was well observed by Sir James Mackintosh, whose knowledge of these times was unequalled, that Addison never, in any official document, affected wit or eloquence, and .that his 35 dispatches are, without exception, remarkable for unpre- tending simplicity. Everybody who knows with what ease Addison's finest essays were produced must be con- vinced that, if well turned phrases had been wanted, he THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 69 would have had no difficulty in finding them. We are, however, inclined to believe, that the story is not abso- lutely without a foundation. It may well be that Addison did not know, till he had consulted experienced clerks who remembered the times when William the Third was 5 absent on the Continent, in what form a letter from the Council of Regency to the King ought to be drawn. We think it very likely that the ablest statesmen of our time, Lord John Russell, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Palmerston, for example, would, in similar circumstances, be found 10 quite as ignorant. Every office has some little mysteries which the dullest man may learn with a little attention, and which the greatest man cannot possibly know by in- tuition. One paper must be signed by the chief of the department; another by his deputy: to a third the royal 15 sign manual is necessary. One communication is to be regis- tered, and another is not. One sentence must be in black ink, and another in red ink. If the ablest Secretary for Ireland were moved to the India Board, if the ablest President of the India Board were moved to the War 20 Office, he would require instruction on points like these; and we do not doubt that Addison required such instruc- tion when he became, for the first time, Secretary to the Lords Justices. George the First took possession of his kingdom without 25 opposition. A new Ministry was formed, and a new Par- liament favorable to the Whigs chosen. Sunderland was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland ; and Addison again went to Dublin as Chief Secretary. At Dublin Swift resided; and there was much specula- 30 tion about the way in which the Dean and the Secretary would behave towards each other. The relations which ex- isted between these remarkable men form an interesting and pleasing portion of literary history. They had early attached themselves to the same political party and to the 35 same patrons. While Anne's Whig Ministry was in power, the visits of Swift to London and the official residence of Addison in Ireland had given them oppor- 70 MACAULAY tunities of knowing each other. They were the two shrewdest observers of their age. But their observations on each other had led them to favorable conclusions. Swift did full justice to the rare powers of conversation 5 which were latent under the bashful deportment of Addi- son. Addison, on the other hand, discerned much good nature under the severe look and manner of Swift; and, indeed, the Swift of 1708 and the Swift of 1738 were two very different men. io But the paths of the two friends diverged widely. The Whig statesmen loaded Addison with solid benefits. They praised Swift, asked him to dinner, and did nothing more for him. His profession laid them under a difficulty. In the State they could not promote him; and they had rea- 15 son to fear that, by bestowing preferment in the Church on the author of the "Tale of a Tub," they might give scandal to the public, which had no high opinion of their orthodoxy. He did not make fair allowance for the diffi- culties which prevented Halifax and Somers from serving 20 him, thought himself an ill-usep! man, sacrificed honor and consistency to revenge, joined the Tories, and became their most formidable champion. He soon found, however, that his old friends were less to blame than he had supposed. The dislike with which the Queen and the heads of the 25 Church regarded him was insurmountable; and it was with the greatest difficulty that he obtained an ecclesias- tical dignity of no great value, on condition of fixing his residence in a country which he detested. Difference of political opinion had produced, not indeed 30 a quarrel, but a coolness between Swift and Addison. They at length ceased altogether to see each other. Yet there was between them a tacit compact like that between the hereditary guests in the Iliad. " '~Eyxsa (P aXkr^Mtv ake6)fieda ml St' ofiihov 35 HoXkoi [lev yap kfiol Tpwef Kkeiroi r' emKovpot, Kreiveiv, bv ice 6e6g ye 7r6pr) ml iroffol kixe'iu, Ho2,?iol (T av aol 'A^atot, ivaipe/J,ev t bv /ce dvvrjai." THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 71 It is not strange that Addison, who calumniated and in- sulted nobody, should not have calumniated or insulted Swift. But it is remarkable that Swift, to whom neither genius nor virtue was sacred, and who generally seemed to find, like most other renegades, a peculiar pleasure in 5 attacking old friends, should have shown so much respect and tenderness to Addison. Fortune had now changed. The accession of the House of Hanover had secured in England the liberties of the people, and in Ireland the dominion of the Protestant 10 caste. To that caste Swift was more odious than any other man. He was hooted and even pelted in the streets of Dublin; and could not venture to ride along the strand for his health without the attendance of armed servants. Many whom he had formerly served now libelled and in- 15 suited him. At this time Addison arrived. He had been advised not to show the smallest civility to the Dean of St. Patrick's. He had answered, with admirable spirit, that it might be necessary for men whose fidelity to their party was suspected, to hold no intercourse with political oppo- 20 nents; but that one who had been a steady Whig in the worst times might venture, when the good cause was tri- umphant, to shake hands with an old friend who was one of the vanquished Tories. His kindness was soothing to the proud and cruelly wounded spirit of Swift; and the 25 two great satirists resumed their habits of friendly inter- course. Those associates of Addison whose political opinions agreed with his shared his good fortune. He took Tickell with him to Ireland. He procured for Budgell a lucrative 30 place in the same kingdom. Ambrose Phillipps was pro- vided for in England. Steele had injured himself so much by his eccentricity and perverseness that he obtained but a very small part of what he thought his due. He was, however, knighted; he had a place in the household; and 35 he subsequently received other marks of favor from the court. Addison did not remain long in Ireland. In 1715 he 72 MACAULAY quitted his secretaryship for a seat at the Board of Trade. In the same year his comedy of the "Drummer" was brought on the stage. The name of the author was not announced; the piece was coldly received; and some critics 5 have expressed a doubt whether it were really Addison's. To us the evidence, both external and internal, seems de- cisive. It is not in Addison's best manner ; but it contains numerous passages which no other writer known to us could have produced. It was again performed after Ad- 10 dison's death, and, being known to be his, was loudly applauded. Towards the close of the year 1715, while the Rebellion was still raging in Scotland, Addison published the first number of a paper called the "Freeholder." Among his 15 political works the "Freeholder" is entitled to the first place. Even in the "Spectator" there are few serious papers nobler than the character of his friend Lord Somers, and certainly no satirical papers superior to those in which the Tory fox-hunter is introduced. This char- 20 acter is the original of Squire Western, and is drawn with all Fielding's force, and with a delicacy of which Fielding was altogether destitute. As none of Addison's works exhibit stronger marks of his genius than the "Free- holder," so none does more honor to his moral character. 25 It is difficult to extol too highly the candor and humanity of a political writer whom even the excitement of civil war cannot- hurry into unseemly violence. Oxford, it is well known, was then the stronghold of Toryism. The High Street had been repeatedly lined with bayonets in 30 order to keep down the disaffected gownsmen ; and traitors pursued by the messengers of the Government had been concealed in the garrets of several colleges. Yet the ad- monition which, even under such circumstances, Addison addressed to the University, is singularly gentle, respectful, 35 and even affectionate. Indeed, he could not find it in his heart to deal harshly even with imaginary persons. His fox-hunter, though ignorant, stupid, and violent, is at heart a good fellow, and is at last reclaimed by the THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 73 clemency of the King. Steele was dissatisfied with his friend's moderation, and, though he acknowledged that the "Freeholder" was excellently written, complained that the Ministry played on a lute when it was necessary to blow the trumpet. He accordingly determined to execute 5 a flourish after his own fashion, and tried to rouse the public spirit of the nation by means of a paper called the "Town Talk," which is now as utterly forgotten as his "Englishman," as his "Crisis," as his "Letter to the Bailiff of Stockbridge," as his "Reader," in short, as everything 10 that he wrote without the help of Addison. In the same year in which the "Drummer" was acted, and in which the first numbers of the "Freeholder" ap- peared, the estrangement of Pope and Addison became complete. Addison had from the first seen that Pope 15 was false and malevolent. Pope had discovered that Ad- dison was jealous. The discovery was made in a strange manner. Pope had written the "Rape of the Lock," in two cantos, without supernatural machinery. These two cantos had been loudly applauded, and by none more loudly 20 than by Addison. Then Pope thought of the Sylphs and Gnomes, Ariel, Momentilla, Crispissa, and Umbriel, and resolved to interweave the Rosicrucian mythology with the original fabric. He asked Addison's advice. Addison said that the poem as it stood was a delicious little thing, 25 and entreated Pope not to run the risk of marring what was so excellent in trying to mend it.' Pope afterwards de- clared that this insidious counsel first opened his eyes to the baseness of him who gave it Now there can be no doubt that Pope's plan was most 30 ingenious, and that he afterwards executed it with great skill and success. But does it necessarily follow that Ad- dison's advice was bad? And if Addison's advice was bad, does it necessarily follow that it was given from bad motives? If a friend were to ask us whether we would 35 advise him to risk his all in a lottery of which the chances were ten to one against him, we should do our best to dissuade him from running such a risk. Even if he were 74 MACAULAY so lucky as to get the thirty thousand pound prize, we should not admit that we had counselled him ill; and we should certainly think it the height of injustice in him to accuse us of having been actuated by malice. We think 5 Addison's advice good advice. It rested on a sound prin- ciple, the result of long and wide experience. The general rule undoubtedly is that, when a successful work of imag- ination has been produced, it should not be recast. We cannot at this moment call to mind a single instance in 10 which this rule has been transgressed with happy effect, except the instance of the "Rape of the Lock." Tasso recast his "Jerusalem," Akenside recast his "Pleasures of the Imagination," and his "Epistle to Curio." Pope himself, emboldened no doubt by the success 15 with which he had expanded and remodelled the "Rape of the Lock," made the same experiment on the "Dunciad." All these attempts failed. Who was to foresee that Pope would, once in his life, be able to do what he could not himself do twiee, and what nobody else has ever done ? 20 Addison's advice was good. But had it been bad, why should we pronounce it dishonest 1 ? Scott tells us that one of his best friends predicted the failure of "Waverley." Herder adjured Goethe not to take so unpromising a sub- ject as "Faust." Hume tried to dissuade Robertson from 25 writing the "History of Charles the Fifth." Nay, Pope himself was one of those who prophesied that "Cato" would never succeed on the stage, and advised Addison to print it without risking a representation. But Scott, Goethe, Robertson, Addison, had the good sense and gen- 30 erosity to give their advisers credit for the best inten- tions. Pope's heart was not of the same kind with theirs. In 1715, while he was engaged in translating the Iliad, he met Addison at a coffee-house. Phillipps and Budgell were there; but their sovereign got rid of them, and asked 35 Pope to dine with him alone. After dinner, Addison said that he lay under a difficulty which he wished to explain. "Tickell," he said, "translated some time ago the first book of the Iliad. I have promised to look it over and correct THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 75 it. I cannot therefore ask to see yours ; for that would be double dealing." Pope made a civil reply, and begged that his second book might have the advantage of Addison's revision. Addison readily agreed, looked over the second book, and sent it back with warm commendations. 5 Tickell's version of the first book appeared soon after this conversation. In the preface, all rivalry was ear- nestly disclaimed. Tickell declared that he should not go on with the Iliad. That enterprise he should leave to powers which he admitted to be superior to his own. His 10 only view, he said, in publishing this specimen was to bespeak the favor of the public to a translation of the Odyssey, in which he had made some progress. Addison, and Addison's devoted followers, pronounced both the versions good, but maintained that Tickell's had 15 more of the original. The town gave a decided preference to Pope's. We do not think it worth while to settle such a question of precedence. Neither of the rivals can be said to have translated the Iliad, unless, indeed, the word translation be used in the sense which it bears in the 20 "Midsummer Night's Dream." When Bottom makes his appearance with an ass's head instead of his own, Peter Quince exclaims, "Bless thee ! Bottom, bless thee ! thou art translated." In this sense, undoubtedly, the readers of either Pope or Tickell may very properly exclaim, "Bless 25 thee ! Homer ; thou art translated indeed." Our readers will, we hope, agree with us in thinking that no man in Addison's situation could have acted more fairly and kindly, both towards Pope, and towards Tickell, than he appears to have done. But an odious suspicion had 30 sprang up in the mind of Pope. He fancied, and he soon firmly believed, that there was a deep conspiracy against his fame and his fortunes. The work on which he had staked his reputation was to be depreciated. The sub- scription, on which rested his hopes of a competence, was 35 to be defeated. With this view Addison had made a rival translation: Tickell had consented to father it; and the wits of Button's had united to puff it. 76 MACAULAY Is there any external evidence to support this grave accusation? The answer is short. There is absolutely none. Was there any internal evidence which proved Addison 5 to be the author of this version? Was it a work which Tickell was incapable of producing? Surely not. Tickell was a Fellow of a College at Oxford, and must be sup- posed to have been able to construe the Iliad; and he was a better versifier than his friend. We are not aware 10 that Pope pretended to have discovered any turns of ex- pression peculiar to Addison. Had such turns of expres- sion been discovered, they would be sufficiently accounted for by supposing Addison to have corrected his friend's lines, as he owned that he had done. 15 Is there anything in the character of the accused per- sons which makes the accusation probable? We answer confidently— nothing. Tickell was long after this time described by Pope himself as a very fair and worthy man. Addison had been, during many years, before the public. 20 Literary rivals, political opponents, had kept their eyes on him. But neither envy nor faction, in their utmost rage, had ever imputed to him a single deviation from the laws of honor and of social morality. Had he been indeed a man meanly jealous of fame, and capable of stooping to 25 base and wicked arts for the purpose of injuring his com- petitors, would his vices have remained latent so long? He was a writer of tragedy: had he ever injured Rowe? He was a writer of comedy: had he not done ample jus- tice to Congreve, and given valuable help to Steele? He 30 was a pamphleteer: have not his good nature and gener- osity been acknowledged by Swift, his rival in fame and his adversary in politics? That Tickell should have been guilty of a villany seems to us highly improbable. That Addison should have been 35 guilty of a villany seems to us highly improbable. But that these two men should have conspired together to commit a villany seems to us improbable in a tenfold degree. All that is known to us of their intercourse tends to prove, that it THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 77 was not the intercourse of two accomplices in crime. These are some of the lines in which Tickell poured forth his sorrow over the coffin of Addison : " Or dost thou warn poor mortals left behind, A task well suited to thy gentle mind? 5 Oh, if sometimes thy spotless form descend, To me thine aid, thou guardian genius, lend. When rage misguides me, or when fear alarms, When pain distresses, or when pleasure charms, In silent whisperings purer thoughts impart, 10 And turn from ill a frail and feeble heart; Lead through the paths thy virtue trod before, Till bliss shall join, nor death can part us more.' In what words, we should like to know, did this guardian genius invite his pupil to join in a plan such as the editor 15 of the "Satirist" would hardly dare to propose to the editor of the "Age" ? We do not accuse Pope of bringing an accusation which he knew to be false. We have not the smallest doubt that he believed it to be true; and the evidence on which he 20 believed it he found in his own bad heart. His own life was one long series of tricks, as mean and as malicious as that of which he suspected Addison and Tickell. He was all stiletto and mask. To injure, to insult, and to save himself from the consequences of injury and insult by 25 lying and equivocating, was the habit of his life. He published a lampoon on the Duke of Chandos; he was taxed with it; and he lied and equivocated. He published a lampoon on Aaron Hill; he was taxed with it; and he lied and equivocated. He published a still fouler lampoon 30 on Lady Mary Wortley Montague; he was taxed with it; and he lied with more than usual effrontery and vehe- mence. He puffed himself and abused his enemies under feigned names. He robbed himself of his own letters, and then raised the hue and cry after them. Besides his frauds 35 of malignity, of fear, of interest, and of vanity, there were frauds which he seems to have committed from love 78 MACAULAY of fraud alone. He had a habit of strategern, a pleasure in outwitting all who came near him. Whatever his object might be, the indirect road to it was that which he pre- ferred. For Bolingbroke, Pope undoubtedly felt as much 5 love and veneration as it was in his nature to feel for any human being. Yet Pope was scarcely dead when it was discovered that, from no motive except the mere love of artifice, he had been guilty of an act of gross perfidy to Bolingbroke. 10 Nothing was more natural than that such a man as this should attribute to others that which he felt within him- self. A plain, probable, coherent explanation is frankly given to him. He is certain that it is all a romance. A line of conduct scrupulously fair, and even friendly, is 15 pursued towards him. He is convinced that it is merely a cover for a vile intrigue by which he is to be disgraced and ruined. It is vain to ask him for proofs. He has none, w 7 ants none, except those which he carries in his own bosom. 20 Whether Pope's malignity at length provoked Addison to retaliate for the first and last time, cannot now be known with certainty. We have only Pope's story, which runs thus. A pamphlet appeared containing some reflec- tions which stung Pope to the quick. What those reflec- 25 tions were, and whether they were reflections of which he had a right to complain, Ave have now no means of decid- ing. The Earl of Warwick, a foolish and vicious lad, who regarded Addison w T ith the feelings with which such lads generally regard their best friends, told Pope, truly or 30 falsely, that this pamphlet had been written by Addison's direction. When we consider what a tendency stories have to grow, in passing even from one honest man to another honest man, and when we consider that to the name of honest man neither Pope nor the Earl of W T ar- 35 wick had a claim, we are not disposed to attach much importance to this anecdote. It is certain, however, that Pope was furious. He had already sketched the character of Atticus in prose. In THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 79 his anger he turned this prose into the brilliant and ener- getic lines which everybody knows by heart, or ought to know by heart, and sent them to Ad- dison. One charge which Pope has enforced with great skill is probably not without foundation. Addison 5 was, we are inclined to believe, too fond of presiding over . a circle of humble friends. Of the other imputations which these famous lines are intended to convey, scarcely one has ever been proved to be just, and some are cer- tainly false. That Addison was not in the habit of 10 "damning with faint praise" appears from innumerable passages in his writings, and from none more than from those in which he mentions Pope. And it is not merely unjust, but ridiculous, to describe a man who made the fortune of almost every one of his intimate friends, as 15 "so obliging that he ne'er obliged." That Addison felt the sting of Pope's satire keenly, we cannot doubt. That he was conscious of one of the weak- nesses with which he was reproached, is highly probable. But his heart, we firmly believe, acquitted him of the 20 gravest part of the accusation. He acted like himself. As a satirist he was, at his own weapons, more than Pope's match : and he would have been at no loss for topics. A dis- torted and diseased body, tenanted by a yet more distorted and diseased mind; spite and envy thinly disguised by sen- 25 timents as benevolent and noble as those which Sir Peter Teazle admired in Mr. Joseph Surface; a feeble, sickly licentiousness ; an odious love of filthy and noisome images ; these were things which a genius less powerful than that to which we owe the " Spectator " could easily have held up 30 to the mirth and hatred of mankind. Addison had, more- over, at his command other means of vengeance which a bad man would not have scrupled to use. He was power- ful in the State. Pope was a Catholic ; and, in those times, a minister would have found it easy to harass the most 35 innocent Catholic by innumerable petty vexations. Pope, near twenty years later, said that "through the lenity of the government alone he could live with comfort." 80 MACAULAY "Consider," he exclaimed, "the injury that a man of high rank and credit may do to a private person, under penal laws and many other disadvantages." It is pleasing to reflect that the only revenge which Addison took was to 5 insert in the "Freeholder" a warm encomium on the • translation of the Iliad, and to exhort all lovers of learning to put down their names as subscribers. There could be no doubt, he said, from the specimens already published, that the masterly hand of Pope would do as 10 much for Homer as Dryden had done for Virgil. From that time to the end of his life, he always treated Pope, by Pope's own acknowledgment, with justice. Friend- ship was, of course, at an end. One reason which induced the Earl of Warwick to play 15 the ignominious part of talebearer on this occasion, may have been his dislike of the marriage which was about to take place between his mother and Addison. The Countess Dowager, a daughter of the old and honorable family of the Myddletons of Chirk, a family which, in any country 20 but ours, would be called noble, resided at Holland House. Addison had, during some years, occupied at Chelsea a small dwelling, once the abode of Nell Gwynn. Chelsea is now a district of London, and Holland House may be called a town residence. But, in the days of Anne and 25 George the First, milkmaids and sportsmen wandered be- tween green hedges and over fields bright with daisies, from Kensington almost to the shore of the Thames. Addison and Lady Warwick were country neighbors, and became intimate friends. The great wit and scholar tried 30 to allure the young Lord from the fashionable amuse- ments of beating watchmen, breaking windows, and roll- ing women in hogsheads down Holborn Hill, to the study of letters and the practice of virtue. These well meant exertions did little good, however, either to the disciple or 35 to the master. Lord Warwick grew up a rake ; and Addi- son fell in love. The mature beauty of the Countess has been celebrated by poets in language which, after a very large allowance has been made for flattery, would lead us THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 81 to believe that she was a fine woman; and her rank doubt- less heightened her attractions. The courtship was long. The hopes of the lover appear to have risen and fallen with the fortunes of his party.. His attachment was at length matter of such notoriety that, when he visited Ire- 5 land for the last time, Rowe addressed some consolatory verses to the Chloe of Holland House. It strikes us as a little strange that, in these verses, Addison should be called Lycidas, a name of singularly evil omen for a swain just about to cross St. George's Channel. 10 At length Chloe capitulated. Addison was indeed able to treat with her on equal terms. He had reason to ex- pect preferment even higher than that which he had at- tained. He had inherited the fortune of a brother who died Governor of Madras. He had purchased an estate 15 in Warwickshire, and had been welcomed to his domain in very tolerable verse by one of the neighboring squires, the poetical fox-hunter, William Somervile. In August, 1716, the newspapers announced that Joseph Addison, Esquire, famous for many excellent works both in verse 20 and prose, had espoused the Countess Dowager of War- wick. He now fixed his abode at Holland House, a house which can boast of a greater number of inmates distin- guished in political and literary history than any other 25 private dwelling in England. His portrait still hangs there. The features are pleasing; the complexion is re- markably fair; but, in the expression, we trace rather the gentleness of his disposition than the force and keenness of his intellect. ' 30 Not long after his marriage he reached the height of civil greatness. The Whig Government had, during some time, been torn by internal dissensions. Lord Town- shend led one section of the Cabinet, Lord Sunder- land the other. At length, in the spring of 1717, 35 Sunderland triumphed. Townshend retired from office, and was accompanied by Walpole and Cowper. Sun- derland proceeded to, reconstruct the Ministry; and Ad- 82 MACAULAY dison was appointed Secretary of State. It is certain that the Seals were pressed upon him, and were at first de- clined by him. Men equally versed in official business might easily have been found; and his colleagues knew 5 rhat they could not expect assistance from him in debate. He owed his elevation to his popularity, to his stainless probity, and to his literary fame. But scarcely had Addison entered the Cabinet when his health began to fail. From one serious attack he recovered 10 in the autumn; and his recovery was celebrated in Latin verses, worthy of his own pen, by Vincent Bourne, who was then at Trinity College, Cambridge. A relapse soon took place; and, in the following spring, Addison was prevented by a severe asthma from discharging the duties 15 of his post. He resigned it, and was succeeded by his friend Craggs, a young man whose natural parts, though little improved by cultivation, were quick and showy, whose graceful person and winning manners had made him generally acceptable in society, and who, if he had 20 lived, would probably have been the most formidable of all the rivals of Walpole. As yet there was no Joseph Hume. The Ministers, therefore, were able to bestow on Addison a retiring pen- sion of fifteen hundred pounds a year. In what form this 25 pension was given we are not told by the biographers, and have not time to inquire. But it is certain that Addison did not vacate his seat in the House of Commons. Rest of mind and body seemed to have re-established his health; and he thanked God, with cheerful piety, for 30 having set him free both from his office and from his asthma. Many years seemed to be before him, and he meditated many works, a tragedy on the death of Socrates, a translation of the Psalms, a treatise on the evidences of Christianity. Of this last performance, a part, which we 35 could well spare, has come down to us. But the fatal complaint soon returned, and gradually prevailed against all the resources of medicine. It is melancholy to think that the last months o£ such a life THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 83 should have been overclouded both by domestic and by political vexations. A tradition which began early, which lias been generally received, and to which we have nothing to oppose, has represented his wife as an arrogant and imperious woman. It is said that, till his health failed 5 him, he was glad to escape from the Countess Dowager and her magnificent dining-room, blazing with the gilded devices of the House of Rich, to some ■ tavern where he could enjoy a laugh, a talk about Virgil and Boileau, and a bottle of claret, with the friends of his happier days. 10 All those friends, however, were not left to him. Sir Richard Steele had been gradually estranged by various causes. He considered himself as one who, in evil times, had braved martyrdom for his political principles, and demanded, when the Whig party was triumphant, a large 15 compensation for what he had suffered when it was mili- tant. The Whig leaders took a very different view of his claims. They thought that he had, by his own petulance and folly, brought them as well as himself into trouble, and though they did not absolutely neglect him, doled 20 out favors to him with a sparing hand. It was natural that he should be angry with them, and especially angry with Addison. But what above all seems to have dis- turbed Sir Richard was the elevation of Tickell, who, at thirty, was made by Addison Under Secretary of State; 25 while the editor of the "Tatler" and "Spectator," the author of the "Crisis," the member for Stockbridge who had been persecuted for firm adherence to the House of Hanover, was, at near fifty, forced, after many solicita- tions and complaints, to content himself with a share in 30 the patent of Drury Lane theatre. Steele himself says, in his celebrated letter to Congreve, that Addison, by his preference of Tickell, "incurred the warmest resentment of other gentlemen;" and everything seemed to indicate that, of those resentful gentlemen, Steele was himself one. 35 While poor Sir Richard was brooding over what he considered as Addison's unkindness, a new cause of quarrel arose. The Whig party, already divided against itself, 84 MACAULAY was rent by a new schism. The celebrated Bill for limit- ing the number ef Peers had been brought in. The proud Duke of Somerset, first in rank of all the nobles whose religion permitted them to sit in Parliament, was the 5 ostensible author of the measure. But it was supported, and, in truth, devised by the Prime Minister. We are satisfied that the Bill was most pernicious; and we fear that the motives which induced Sunderland to frame it were not honorable to him. But we cannot deny 10 that it was supported by many of the best and wisest men of that age. Nor was this strange. The royal prerogative had, within the memory of the generation then in the vigor of life, been so grossly abused, that it was still re- garded with a jealousy which, when the peculiar situation 15 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 20 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 25 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 30 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," vehe- ■ mently attacked the bill. Sunderland called for help on 35 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, THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 85 Addison reasoned well and Steele ill, and that consequently Addison brought out a false conclusion while Steele blun- dered upon the truth. In style, in wit, and in politeness, Addison maintained his superiority, though the "Old Whig" is by no means one of his happiest performances. 5 At. first, both the anonymous opponents observed the laws of propriety. But at length Steele so far forgot him- self 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 10 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 15 Britannica," that Addison designated Steele as "little Dicky." This assertion was repeated by Johnson, who had never seen the "Old Whig," and was therefore excus- able. It has also been repeated by Miss Aikin, who has seen the "Old Whig," and for whom therefore there is less 20 excuse. Now, it is true that the words "little Dicky" oc- cur 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 25 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 remark- 30 ably small stature, but of great humor, 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 iinintelligible 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 86 MACAULAY The merited reproof which Steele had received, though softened by some kjnd and courteous expressions, galled him bitterly. He replied with little force and great acri- mony; but no rejoinder appeared. Addison was fast 5 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, dis- missed his physicians, and calmly prepared himself to die. 10 His works he intrusted to the care of Tickell, and dedi- cated 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 composi- tion, he alluded to his approaching end in words so 15 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 Avhich this dedication was written, Addison sent to beg Gay, who was then living 20 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 by the dying man. Poor Gay, the most good-natured and simple of mankind, could not imagine what he had to forgive. 25 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 30 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 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 basti- nado, arid 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 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 87 Queen's days he had been the eulogist of Bolingbroke, 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 prefer- ment of one whom he might regard as a political enemy. 5 Neither is it strange that, when reviewing his whole life, and earnestly scrutinizing 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. 10 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 15 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 for- tunes of a rival, he would have expressed some remorse for so serious a crime? But it is unnecessary to multiply 20 arguments and evidence for the defence, when there is neither argument nor evidence for the accusation. 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 25 of Addison was, in truth, of a singularly cheerful char- acter. The feeling which predominates in all his devo- tional writings is gratitude. God was to him the all-wise and all-powerful friend who had watched over his cradle with more than maternal tenderness; who had listened to 30 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 dear friends to par- 35 take 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 88 MACAULAY Psalms, his favorite 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 5 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 seven- teenth of June, 1719. He had just entered on his forty- eighth year. 10 His body lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, and was borne thence to the Abbey at dead of night. The choir sung a funeral hymn. Bishop Atterbury, one of those Tories who had loved and honored the most accom- plished of the Whigs, met the corpse, and led the pro- 15 cession 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 that Chapel, in the vault of the House of Albemarle, the coffin of Addi- son lies next to the coffin of Montague. Yet a few 20 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. Man}' tributes were paid to the memory of Addison; 25 but one alone is now remembered. Tickell bewailed his friend in an elegy which would do honor 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 30 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 35 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 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 89 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 5 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. It was not till three 10 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, ap- peared in Poets' Corner. It represents him as we can conceive him, clad in his dressing gown, and freed from 15 his wig, stepping from his parlor 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 accom- 20 plished 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 25 wit and virtue, after a long and disastrous separation, during which wit had been led astray by profligacy and virtue by fanaticism. NOTES Text. — The essay on the Life and Writings of Addison was a review of Miss Lucy Aikin 's ' ' Life of Joseph Addi- son, ' ' and was published in ' ' The Edinburgh Review, ' ' July, 1843. The present edition is prepared from the original article and the reprint in the collected works of Macaulay edited by Lady Trevelyan— Vol. vn, pp. 52-122 (Longmans, Green and Co., 1879). Page 3, line 12 — Knight . . . Balisarda. A reference to Ariosto 's romantic poem, ' ' Orlando Furioso, ' ' xlv, 68, where the knight and the lady (Ruggiero and Bradamante), who are the central figures of the poem, engage in battle for a whole day. 4, 3 — Laputan. Gulliver's third voyage was to the island of Laputa. Here the people tended to be lost in profound speculation. Accordingly those who could afford it kept in their family a flapper whose business it was to carry a bladder filled with dried peas, wherewith to flap their mas- ter gently when his attention needed to be aroused. 4, 14— She is better . . . Hampton. A good instance of Macaulay 's love of concrete illustration. This deluge of names, bewildering as it is to one of more limited reading than his, is characteristic. Shakespeare and Sir Walter Ealeigh need no comment. Congreve (1670-1729), one of the greatest writers of English comedy, and Prior (1664- ]721), a well-known but less-important poet and politician, were two of the most familiar literary figures of the England of William III and Queen Anne. 4, 17— Theobald's. The residence of Queen Elizabeth's great minister, Lord Burleigh. — Steenkirks. A name ap- plied to several articles of dress that came into fashion after the battle of Steenkirk in 1692, but especially to a loose neckcloth of fine lace.— periwigs. Another form of the word peruke, meaning a large wig covering the sides of the head as well as the crown. In Addison 's time they were worn 91 92 NOTES frequently with ample curls falling on the shoulders. The custom has survived to our own time in the great wigs offi- cially worn by English judges. 4, 18 — Hampton. Hampton Court, a royal palace on the Thames a few miles from London, built by Cardinal Wolsey and much used by James II, William III, and Anne. 5, 6 — Parnell. Thomas Parnell, an Irish poet contempo- rary with Addison. 5, 7 — Blair. A Scotch divine, lecturer on rhetoric at Edin- burgh, ,1672-83.— tragedy . . . Dr. Johnson's. Johnson's only tragedy, "Irene," was produced by Garrick in 1749 at Drury-Lane Theatre, and was a failure. 5, 17 — Button's. A coffee-house near Covent Garden, established by an old servant of Addison's about 1712. As to the company who worshipped here, see pages 43-46. 6, 3 — a violent Royalist. Oxford, always conservative, was loyal in the great conflict of the seventeenth century to the Stuart kings and the Church of England. She was only alienated at last from James II by his attacks on the English Church, and by his interference with the liberties of the University. 6, 8 — The Wild of Sussex. More usually called the Weald, (Anglo-Saxon weald, forest, wilds) — an area which takes its name from the time when it covered the wildest parts of Kent, Surrey, and Sussex. 6, 10 — Dunkirk. A strong French fortress and seaport on the Straits of Dover, ceded to Cromwell in 1658 and sold back to France by Charles II four years later. 6, 30 — Convocation. The clergy of the Church of England in formal assembly. 6, 35 — Charter House. An endowed almshouse and school for boys in London. The name is a corruption of Chartreuse (Latin, Cartusia), a village in France where the Carthusian order of monks was founded. In 1371 a Carthusian monas- tery was founded in London. After the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII the building passed through various hands until 1611, when it became an almshouse and school. The building is still standing, though the school has been transferred to Godalming in Surrey. 8, 30— Lucretius . . . Prudentius. That is to say, from the NOTES 93 time of Caesar to the early fifth century. Lucretius (98-55 B.C.), Prudentius (348- after 405 a.d.)— Latin poets. 9, 25 — story of Pentheus. Pentheus, grandson of Cadmus and his successor as king of Thebes, angered the god Diony- sus. His mother and other women were thereupon smitten with frenzy by the god, and mistaking the unfortunate king for a wild beast they tore him to pieces on Mount Cithaeron. The story is told in the Bacchanals of Euripides and the twenty-sixth Idyll of Theocritus, the two sources used by Ovid in the third book of the ' ' Metamorphoses. ' ' 9, 36 — Ausonius . . . Manilius. Macaulay is using his favorite device, antithesis, to obtain a striking effect. Two quite un- important names are balanced against the greatest in Latin literature. Ausonius was a fourth century poet, interesting because of some signs of an un-Eoman sympathy with nature, but on the whole of little value. The Astronomica of Manilius (a poet and astronomer of uncertain date), from which Addison quotes once, is read now even less than Auso- nius or Claudian, though an English translation was pub- lished in Addison's own time (1697). 10, 4— In the gorge . . . Silius Italicus. Addison would doubtless answer here fairly enough that the lines quoted from Silius Italicus are far briefer and more to the point than anything in the historians. ' ' The way from Florence to Bologna, ' ' he says, ' ' runs over several ranges of moun- tains, and is the worst road, I believe, of any over the Ap- ennines; for this was my third time of crossing them. It gave me a lively idea of Silius Italicus 's description of Hannibal 's march. "Prom steep to steep the troops advanced with pain, In hopes at last the topmost cliff to gain ; But still by new ascents the mountain grew, And a fresh toil presented to their view." Silius Italicus was an eminent Roman of the first century, author of a long and not particularly interesting epic of the Second Punic war, from which the above lines are taken. 10, 14— Lucan. A poet of the first century. His only extant work is the Pharsalia, an heroic poem based on the wars of Caesar and Pompey. 11, 1 — Cock-Lane ghost. A famous imposture with ghostly knockings and a ll white lady" by which a man named Par- 94 NOTES sons thrilled London for a time in 1762. Dr. Johnson was among the deceived. See Macanlay 's essay on Dr. Johnson. 11, 2 — Ireland's " Vortigern. " "Vortigern and Eowena" was the title of a play published by William Henry Ireland in 1796 and attributed by him — with other forged manu- scripts of various kinds — to Shakespeare. They imposed on everyone for a time, but the fraud was soon exposed. 11, 3 — Thundering Legion. The story ran that during a battle between the Roman army under Marcus Aurelius and the Germans a thunder-storm came and struck panic into the German host in answer to the prayers of a legion composed of Christians, — thereafter called the Thundering Legion. On the triumphal column of Marcus Aurelius still standing in Rome is a relief showing Jupiter hurling thunderbolts at the dismayed barbarian army and sending refreshing rain to the Romans. This Addison took as proof of the story. But as a friendly critic pointed out in Addison 's own time the relief only proves the battle and the thunder-storm, not the legion of Christians or its prayers. 11, 5— Abgarus. Eusebius (bishop of Caesarea, early fourth century) in the first book of his ''Ecclesiastical History" tells how Abgarus, king of the nations beyond the Euphrates, wrote to Jesus begging for relief from an incurable disease. Eusebius gives the letter with Christ's answer, and tells how at last the king was healed by a disciple. The story, interesting as it is, has long been regarded as a myth. 11, 22 — aphorism . . . apophthegm. A very excusable con- fusion. ''Art is long and time is fleeting," expressing a principle or truth of a philosophic nature, is an aphorism; " Heaven helps those who help themselves" being, in a sense, a less lofty and more practical maxim, is an apophthegm. 12, 22— "Jamque acies," etc. "And now appeared in the midst of his warriors the stately form of the Pygmy leader, who, dreadful in majesty, mighty in his advance, surpassed all in the vastness of his stature, towering abo-ve them half an arm 's length. ' ' 13, 11 — Newdigate prize. A prize offered annually at Oxford for English verse. — Seatonian prize. A similar prize given at Cambridge. 13, 34— Hoole. Hoole's translation of Tasso's epic of the first Crusade, ' ' Jerusalem Delivered, ' ' was published in 1763. NOTES 95 15, 34— Rasselas. In Dr. Johnson's novel, "Prince Kasse- las, ' ' written to defray the expenses of his mother 's funeral. 16, 20— The Revolution. In 1688, nearly forty years after the execution of Charles I, thirty years after the death of Cromwell, and twenty-eight after England had decided to try a Stuart king again, the long uncertainty of the country as to her government was ended, and James II was deposed, to be succeeded by an elected monarch, William III. This was the English Kevolution. It naturally resulted in the rise of the power of the people, and the decline of the power of the crown. 18, 16— Countess . . . Versailles. The Kit Kat Club was, in Miss Aikin 's own words, ' ' that distinguished assemblage in which the great nobility and landed gentry composing the strength of the Whig party, mingled with the more cele- brated of the wits and men of letters who supported the same principles with their pens. ' ' By the rules of the Club each member, on admission, named some lady of his choice as his ' ' toast. ' ' Her name was then entered on the minutes and engraved, with lines in her honor, on a glass. These were the lines to Lady Manchester which will explain Macau- lay 's reference: — "While haughty Gallia's dames, that spread O'er their pale cheeks an artful red, Beheld this beauteous stranger there, In native charms divinely fair, Confusion in their looks they show'd, And with unborrow'd blushes glow'd." 18, 28 — Racine. A great tragic poet of the age of Louis XIV. Within the last decade of his life, at the request of the king's wife, Madame de Maintenon, he wrote two sacred dramas, "Esther" (1689), and "Athalie" (1691). 18, 30 — Dacier. A French classical scholar twelve years younger .than Eacine.— Athanasian. Athanasius was an or- thodox theologian of the fourth century. The Athanasian creed is concerned chiefly with the mystery of the Trinity. 19, 22— Malbranche . . . Boileau. Malbranche was the foremost French philosopher of the age of Louis XIV, and Boileau the foremost satirist and critic. 19, 26— " Leviathan." ''The Leviathan" of Thomas Hobbes (published in 1651) is a description of the origin and nature of the State. Incidentally it is a defence of absolute monarchy. 96 NOTES 21, 1— Livy . . . Pollio. Livy was a native of Padua, though he lived during the greater part of his life in Eome and wrote there. Pollio was a noble Roman soldier, author, and patron of literature, only fragments of whose works sur- vive. 21, 13— Erasmus. A Dutch scholar, by far the greatest of his time (1465-1536). His writings are all in Latin, at that time the universal language of scholars.— Fracastorius. An Italian physician (1483-1553) who wrote several poems in Latin on medical subjects. 21, 24— " Ne croyez pas, ' ' etc. * ' You must not think that I mean to condemn the Latin verses that you have sent me, written by one of your eminent University men. I have found them to be excellent, quite worthy of Vida and of Sannazar, but not of Horace and of Virgil." Vida was an Italian Latin poet of the age of the Renaissance (1480-1566) and Sannazaro a contemporary of his who wrote both Latin and Italian poems. 22, 1— "Quid numeris," etc. Balbutire,— to stammer; patre Sicambro, — born of a Sicambrian father. The Sicambri were properly a German tribe east of the Rhine, but Boileau here doubtless uses the word in the sense of northern, non-Italisn, even — from the Roman point of view — barbarian. 22, 5— Machinae Gesticulantes. "Dancing figures," or, in plain English, a puppet show. 22, 6— Gerano-Pygmaeomachia. "Battle of the cranes and pygmies." These were the two best known of Addison's Latin poems. 23, 14 — capuchin. The Capuchin friars are a branch of the order of Franciscan friars (St. Francis of Assisi, early thirteenth century), so-called from the capuce (or capuchon, a hood or cowl) which is their head-dress. 23, 30 — Doria. A noble family of Genoa. Perhaps the greatest member of the house of Doria was Andrea Doria (1468-1560), for many years High Admiral in the service of France, and one of the greatest sea-fighters of his time. 23, 31— Gothic. Speaking generally Gothic architecture, developed and perfected by the northern nations of Europe, is. characterized by vertical lines, the pointed arch, and wealth of decoration; in classical, architecture, which Addison greatly preferred, are found rather horizontal lines, the NOTES 97 round arch, and simplicity. Cologne Cathedral and the Church of Notre Dame at Paris are Gothic. St. Peter's at Rome is classical. This cathedral at Milan is not pure Gothic, but it has the essential characteristics of long vertical lines rising to great height, pointed arches, and infinite adorn- ment in carving. 25, 1 — St. Peter's . . . Pantheon. St. Peter's, built a little less than two hundred years before Addison saw it by Bramante and Michelangelo, was then and still is the largest church in the world. The Pantheon, built by Agrippa, the friend of Augustus, but greatly altered in later centuries, is probably the best preserved of all Roman temples. 25, 21— Herculaneum . . . Pompeii. The excavation of the cities buried by the eruption of a.d. 79 was begun in 1755. More than half of Pompeii has yet to be uncovered. 25, 22— Paestum. There are three Greek temples at Paestum, one of which, the Temple of Poseidon, is one of the finest surviving examples of pure Doric architecture, — second only, indeed, to the Parthenon at Athens. 25, 26 — Salvator. Salvator Rosa, a great Italian painter of wild, savage landscapes, was born near Naples in 1615, and died at Rome in 1673. Little of his work was done at Naples. 25, 27 — Vico. Another great Neapolitan, ranked as one of the foremost pioneers of historical criticism and one of the most original thinkers of modern times. His reputation in Addison 's time was by no means so high, however. 25, 31 — Posilipo. The west end of Naples lies partly at the base and partly on the slope of the high ridge of Posilipo, which terminates in the cape of that name and sepa- rates the Bay of Naples from the famous Bay of Baiae. Through this ridge is cut a great tunnel of unrecorded age. ' ' The common people of Naples believe it to have been wrought by magic, and that Virgil was the magician; who is in greater repute among the Neapolitans for having made the grotto, than the iEneid. ' ' So commented Addison him- self. The tunnel is nearly half a mile long and is used con- stantly as a highway for vehicles of all kinds. 25, 32— Capreae. Macaulay uses the Roman name of the island called Capri on modern maps. It lies just at the entrance to the Bay of Naples. 98 NOTES 25, 36 — the great kingdom. For two centuries, i.e., since the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, Naples had belonged to the kingdom of Spain. It was transferred from the crown of Spain to that of Austria by the treaty of Utrecht in 1713, twelve years after Addison's visit. 26, 10— From Naples, etc. In the JEneid, Books VI and VII, Virgil tells of the journey of iEneas along the coast, and Addison quotes his descriptions of Cumse, the promontory of Circe (Homer's "isle iEsean, where dwelt Circe of the braided tresses," in Odyssey, Book X), and the mouth of the Tiber itself. Near Cumae, where Misenum stood in Virgil's time, JEneas found the body of his drowned com- panion Misenus and duly performed the funeral rites. Then "good iEneas ordered on the shore A stately tomb, whose top a trumpet bore, A soldier's falchion and a seaman's oar. Thus was his friend interred, and deathless fame Still to the lofty cape consigns his name." 26, 24 — poured forth . . . tainted air. Macaulay refers to the poem published in the "Spectator" as a "Divine Ode, made by a gentleman on the conclusion of his travels. ' ' It begins: — "How are thy servants blest, O Lord! How sure is their defence! Eternal wisdom is their guide, Their help Omnipotence." 27, 11 — ravages of the last war. The "last war" was that of the Grand Alliance — England, Holland, Austria, Spain, Savoy— undertaken in 1689 to check the ambition of Louis XIV. Catinat commanded the French forces in Italy against the Duke of Savoy, and compelled Savoy to make a separate peace in 1796, a year before a general peace was arranged by the Treaty of Eyswick. By the year 1700 a new danger had arisen. The king of Spain was dying, and was planning to bequeath his kingdom to the grandson of Louis. While Addison was in Paris this plan was realized and the bequest accepted by the king of France on behalf of his grand- son (see page 22). England's share in the renewal of the war for the balance of power was not certain until the following spring, when on the death of the exiled king James II Louis acknowledged his son as king of England. This insult deter- mined the English to war, and the war of the Spanish Sue- NOTES 99 cession was begun under these conditions in 1701. Prince Eugene, in the service of Austria, and the Duke of Marl- borough were the greatest generals possessed by the allies, and far outshone any of the generals of France. 27, 18— Manchester. See page 18. 27, 22 — Mont Cenis. The old road used by Addison in 1701 and by part of Napoleon's army in 1800 ran about 17 miles east of the railroad which now takes travellers to Italy by the great Mont Cenis tunnel. But it is the pass over the Great St. Bernard, the route taken by Napoleon himself in the famous crossing of 1800, or the Simplon, by which he built his great military road as a thoroughfare into Italy, that would remind us of the "power and genius of Napo- leon ' ' rather than the Mont Cenis. Perhaps for once Macau- lay 's usually infallible memory played him false. 32, 23 — similitude of the Angel. The simile follows a de- scription of Marlborough guiding and controlling the storm of battle. "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 pleas'd the Almighty's orders to perform, Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm." 33, 26— Sidonian. The Phoenicians, whose two greatest cities were Tyre and Sidon, were not merely the foremost sailors and merchants of their time, but were also supreme as craftsmen. See n Chronicles, II. 33. 27— Thessalian breed. The best horses of Greece were bred in the plain of Thessaly. 33, 32— Mamelukes. The Mamelukes were originally brought into Egypt as slaves in the thirteenth century. Of good fighting stock, chiefly Turk and Tartar, they came to be used as soldiers, and finally, discovering their superiority to the Egyptians, they became the rulers of the country. Even after the conquest of Egypt by the Turks in 1517 the Mamelukes regained their power, but were almost destroyed by Napoleon in the battle of the Pyramids, 1798, and at last completely annihilated by the great Pasha of Egypt, Mehemet Ali, in 1811. 34, 10— Asdrubal . . . Nero. Hasdrubal, while hastening to the relief of his great brother Hannibal, was defeated and 100 NOTES killed by Claudius Nero at the river Metaurus, 207 B.C. This battle is of course an important incident in the epic re- ferred to in note, 10, 4. 36, 3— Victor Amadeus. Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy since 1685, King of Sardinia in 1720, and ancestor of the present king of Italy. 36, 6— Trojans and Rutulians. The war between JEneas and Turnus, king of the Rutuli, is narrated in the iEneid, books 7-12. 36, 9— Faustina. Wife of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. 36, 29— Tasso . . . Apollinaris. Tasso ("Jerusalem De- livered") and Ariosto ("Orlando Furioso") were the two greatest epic poets of the Italian Eenaissance. Valerius Flaccus was a fifth-rate Koman poet of the time of Ves- pasian, and Sidonius Apollinaris a man of letters and poet of the fifth century. 36, 31 — Ticin. The Ticino, where Hannibal fought his first important battle after crossing the Alps. 36, 33— Albula . . . Martial. On his way (14 miles) from Kome to Tivoli Addison passed the "rivulet of Salforata, formerly called Albula, and smelt the stench that arises from its waters some time before I saw them. ' ' He mentions no arrangements for sulphur baths, but . such arrangements ex- isted in Roman times and do now. Martial was a Spanish Roman poet of the first century. 36, 34 — Santa Croce. A famous church of Florence. Michelangelo is one of the "illustrious dead" who are buried there. 36, 35 — Ravenna. A favorite residence of some of the last of the Roman emperors who reigned in Italy. Here Dante died and was buried in 1321. Dante himself loved to walk in the pine wood near the city, where a little later, as Boccaccio tells, the Spectre Huntsman in black armor and on a black horse was wont to pursue with hounds a lady who had in life driven him to suicide by her cruelty. 36, 37 — Rimini . . . Francesca. Francesca da Rimini, who loved her husband's brother and was killed by her angry lord (about 1288), is immortalized in some of the most exquisite lines in Dante. See the Inferno, Canto V. 37, 36— the Great Seal. The office of Lord Chancellor. 38, 1— the Order of the Garter. The Order of the Garter is NOTES 101 England's most distinguished order of knighthood, founded by Edward III about 1344-50. It consists of the sovereign, the Prince of Wales, and less than fifty knights companions. 39, 29— Antrim and Aberdeenshire. Ireland and Scot- land. It must be remembered that Macaulay wrote before the advent of the telegraph. This statement could be made even more impressive now. 40, 28— cassock and . . . pudding sleeves. These signify his connection with the Church. Swift, who is best known now as the author of il Gulliver's Travels," was in Addi- son's time the fiercest and immeasurably the ablest of the Tory pamphleteers. 41, 14 — Nemesis. The goddess of justice, who especially punished human pride. Excessive good fortune might en- courage arrogance and so provoke Nemesis. Thus, thought the Greeks, a more moderate share of blessings is on the whole safer. 41, 27 — Stella. Stella was Swift's name for his constant friend and correspondent, Miss Hester Johnson, to whom he possibly was married in 1716. Swift's letters to Stella form a storehouse of the literary and personal gossip of the age. 42, 12 — Mr. Softly' s sonnet. Only a reading of these two papers entire will give point to Macaulay 's illustration. They may be found respectively in the ' ' Tatler, ' ' No. 163, and the " Spectator, " No. 568. 42, 24— St. Paul's in Covent Garden. Not the Cathedral, but a smaller church dating from the early seventeenth century. Covent Garden, now in the heart of London, is the old Con- vent Garden of the monks of Westminster. Its name is perpetuated in Covent Garden Market, probably the largest vegetable market in the world. 43, 24— Warburton . . . Hurd. Two eminent bishops of the eighteenth century. Warburton was the older, and at a time when he was regarded as the foremost theologian of the country he aided Hurd to his first important advancement. Hurd never forgot the favor, and though he finally equalled his patron in reputation he retained his veneration for the older divine, and published his works in 1788. 44, 11— Namby Pamby. A nickname conferred on Phil- lipps by Henry Carey and adopted by Pope in ridicule of his " infantile style." 102 NOTES 45, 6 — Johnson . . . Savage. For Johnson's connection with Savage see Macaulay's essay on Johnson. 45, 35 — Bayle's Dictionary. Bayle was a noted French philosopher and skeptic whose Dictionnaire Mstorique et critique (1696) was a forerunner of the great encyclopaedia of the next century. 46, 6— Tickell. Tickell and Steele were by all odds the most eminent of this group of Addison's worshippers. Tickell edited Addison's works in 1721, and his finest work was an elegy to his friend prefixed to that edition. 46, 13 — rival bulls in Virgil. Their fight is described in the Georgics m, 209-241. 48, 3 — Will's . . . Grecian. Two famous coffee-houses. Will's — so named from William Urwin, its proprietor — was in Covent Garden, and was a favorite resort of wits and poets, its reputation being due first to the patronage of Dryden. The Grecian, a favorite rendezvous for lawyers and men of learning, derived its name from a Greek proprietor named Constantine. 48, 23 — Paul Pry . . . Pickwick. Pickwick of Dickens's 1 ' Pickwick Papers. ' ' Paul Pry was the hero of a popular comedy by John Poole which was produced in 1825. 49, 23— half German jargon. A little hit doubtless at Carlyle and the even more rugged style of his imitators. 49, 28— Menander. An Athenian writer of comedy (about 342-291 B.C.), only fragments of whose plays have survived. 49, 30— Cowley. An English poet (1618-1667) of great reputation in his own day, but whose fame declined after his death.— Butler. The author of the satiric poem ' ' Hudibras ' ' (1663-78) directed against the Puritans. 49, 32— Sir Godfrey Kneller. A German artist (1646- 1723) who made his home in England after 1675 and was one of the best portrait painters in England in Addison's time. 49, 36— numerous fictions . . . poet. A curious instance of Macaulay's limitations as a critic. Discuss in class, note the points which attract Macaulay, and compare Introduction. 50, 37— commination service. The service in the Church of England used after the Litany on Ash Wednesday, con- sisting of a denunciation (comminari, to threaten) of sinners and an exhortation to repentance. The aptness of the illus- NOTES 103 tration lies in the peculiar solemnity of the eommination service. 51, 9 — Jack Pudding. A grotesque clown in English folk- stories.— Cynic. The Cynics were a school of philosophers who taught that virtue lay in self-control, and that pleasure sought for pleasure's sake was an evil. Hence the modern meaning — one who looks sourly at the pleasure of others. 51, 17 — Abbe Coyer. A contemporary of Voltaire who died in 1782. This letter is contained in a vivacious collection of half -mocking essays entitled Bagatelles Morales. 52, 5 — Mephistopheles. The spirit of evil in the story of Faust. He jests, but his jests have always a hint of terror or evil. 52, 6 — Puck. The merry sprite of English folk lore, often called Robin Goodf ellow. See ' ' A Midsummer Night 's Dream. ' ' 52, 7— Soame Jenyns. An English prose writer of the eighteenth century, much respected in his time. 52, 29 — Bettesworth. A member of the Irish bar who was referred to with savage contempt by Swift in some party verses. —Franc de Pompignan. A French writer who at his admis- sion to the French Academy pronounced a discourse in favor of Christianity. This drew on him the attacks of the fore- most wits of his time, including Voltaire, and their fierce ridicule finally drove him from Paris. 53, 2 — Jeremy Collier. An older contemporary of Addison, and a well-known divine. His • ' Short View of the Immo- rality and Prof aneness of the English Stage ' ' was published in 1698. 53, 10— Hale . . . Vanbrugh. Two of the greatest divines of Addison's time set against two of the greatest and most immoral of contemporary comedy writers. 53, 25— Tom Folio, etc. These may all be found by running through the volumes of the ' ' Tatler, ' ' Nqs. 158, 163, 155, 220, 249, 250, and 254. 53, 36 — Sacheverell. An old Magdalen friend of Addi- son's. His impeachment by the Whig government was on account of a violent Divine Eight sermon. The government was at that time intensely unpopular, and the prosecution of Sacheverell made him for the moment a popular idol. 54, 30 — Versailles and Marli. At Versailles and Marly, 104 NOTES a few miles out of Paris, Louis XIV built two splendid palaces. That at Marly was destroyed during the Revolution, but the palace of Versailles still stands as one of the most interesting and magnificent monuments of the French mon- archy. 55, 1 — Godolphin . . . staff. The white staff is the symbol of the Treasurer's office. The Prime Minister of England usually holds the office of First Lord of the Treasury. 55, 30 — Walcheren. The expedition sent to Walcheren with the purpose of destroying the docks and shipping of Antwerp (1808) was perhaps the most disastrous and resultless episode of the long war with Napoleon. 58, 6— Child's ... St. James's. Two of the London coffee- houses, — the former, in St. Paul's Churchyard, especially patronized by clergymen, and the latter a great rallying place of Whig politicians in Pall Mall. 59, 1 — Spring Gardens. Now Vauxhall, a famous public resort on the Thames near Westminster, used as a place of amusement from the time of Charles II almost to our own day, — about two centuries. Addison uses both names in his account of the visit to Spring Garden with Sir Roger, for which see No. 383 of the ' ' Spectator. ' ' 59, 2— Mohawks. Riotous youths who made the streets of London a terror to all night wanderers. They are frequently referred to in the ' ' Spectator. ' ' See Nos. 324, 335, 347. 59, 4 — "Distressed Mother." A play by Addison's friend Ambrose Phillipps ("Namby Pamby"), published in 1711. 59, 37— Lucian's Auction of Lives. One of the dialogues of Lucian of Samosata (second century a.d.) in which the gods sell the philosophers by auction. 59, 38 — Scherezade. The princess whose tales to her hus- band constitute the ' ' Arabian Nights Entertainments. ' ' 60, 2— La Bruyere. A French moralist of the age of Louis XIV. 60, 7— Massillon. A famous French preacher of the age of Louis XIV. 60, 31 — "Chevy Chace." One of the most famous of old English ballads, dealing with the battle of Otterburn. It is most easily accessible, perhaps, in Percy's "Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. ' ' 61, 8 — bohea. (bo-hee). The name given in the beginning NOTES 105 of the eighteenth century to the finest kinds of black tea. It derives its name from the district in China from which such teas were imported. 61, 35— Nestor Ironside. The name assumed by Steele when he started the ' ' Guardian. ' ' Miss Lizards. The daugh- ters of Lady Lizard; see the "Guardian," No. 155. 62, 17— Sempronius . . . liberties of Rome. During the last five years of Julius Caesar's life (49-44 B.C.), he prac- tically overthrew the rule of the Senate and ended the re- public. Of his opponents Cato was the most obstinate, and after Caesar's decisive victory at Thapsus (46 B.C.), he com- mitted suicide. In Addison 's play Sempronius is a hypo- critical Senator who is false to his republican associates. 62, 25— Macready. Wm. Charles Macready (1793-1873), a noted English tragedian, a fine impressive player and a conscientious student of his art. 62, 27— birthday. The birthday of the reigning sovereign, kept as a national holiday. 62, 38 — Jonathan's and Garraway's. Two more of the London coffee-houses, — Jonathan's being the special resort of stockjobbers, the precursor indeed of the present stock ex- change, and Garraway's of financiers and merchants. 63, 11— Kit Cat. See Note to 18, 16. 63, 12— October. "The October Club was of a hundred and fifty Tory squires, Parliament men, who met at the Bell Tavern, in King Street, Westminster, and there nourished patriotism with October ale. "— H. Morley. Note to the "Spectator," No. 9. 64, 2— Bolingbroke. Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751). A leader of the Tories and the most brilliant figure in the politics of Queen Anne's reign. On the acces- sion of George I he was implicated in Jacobite schemes and became an exile. The point of the action alluded to lies in the fact that the war of the Spanish Succession was a Whig war, and Marlborough a Whig general. When the Tories came into office the war was closed and Marlborough's career ended. 64, 15— Act at Oxford. In the Universities a thesis pub- licly maintained by a candidate for a degree or to show a student's proficiency. At Oxford the Act took place early in July ("The New English Dictionary"). 106 NOTES 64, 30— "Atharie." A French tragedy by Racine. See 18, 28. — "Saul." An Italian tragedy by Alfieri. 64, 31 — "Cinna." A French tragedy by Corneille. 65, 4— Dennis. John Dennis (1657-1734). An English writer and critic. He was a spendthrift with a bad temper and made many enemies by his attacks on authors and public men. 66, 15— Horace's imagery and his own. "Dente lupus, cornu taurus petit; . . . neque calce lupus quenquam, neque dente petit bos, ' ' in the ' ' Satires, ' ' Book n, Sat. i. In Pope's translation of this satire the same idea is expressed thus: — "Its proper power to hurt each creature feels; Bulls aim their horns, and asses lift their heels ; 'Tis a bear's talent not to kick, but hug; And no man wonders he's not stung by Pug." 66, 21— the shilling gallery. The cheapest seats in the theatre, where one might expect to find the least exacting critics. 66, 23— peripetia. Gr. Trepinereia, — the sudden reverse of the situation in a tragedy on which the outcome depends. 68, 15— the white staff. Symbol of the Lord High Treas- urer's office, carrying with it in this case the Premiership. The incident mentioned was the critical stroke in a tangled and momentous political game. Bolingbroke had believed himself strong enough not only to keep the Whigs out of power but to dominate his own Tory colleagues, including his rival and associate, Harley, Earl of Oxford, and Shrewsbury, Avho though a Tory was no Jacobite. But the overthrow of Harley, while it cleared the way for Bolingbroke, was a tem- porary shock to the party, and Anne's sudden prostration by apoplexy gave the Whigs — still powerful and watchful — a chance to ally themselves with those Tory lords who were hos- tile to their amb/tious leader and favorable to the Protestant succession. The Queen's own distrust of Bolingbroke made possible the result stated in the text, and his plans were per- manently frustrated. 69, 30— Swift. Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), a celebrated humorist and satirist, born in Dublin, where in after years he was Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral. Macaulay spoke of him in his early days as a "poor scholar under whose plain garb NOTES 107" and ungainly deportment was concealed some of the choicest gifts that have ever been bestowed on any of the children of men. ' ' 70, 33— hereditary guests in the Iliad. The Greek Dio- medes and the Trojan Glaucus in the Iliad vi, 11. 226-30. 71, 35— household. The royal household. 72, 20— Squire Western. A jovial fox-hunting gentleman in Fielding 's ' ' Tom Jones. ' ' 73, 21— Sylphs and Gnomes, etc. The sprites that flutter about Belinda, the heroine of the poem* 73, 23— Rosicrucian mythology. The Rosicrucians were believed to be a philosophic secret society in Germany of the fifteenth century. The machinery of ' ■ The Rape of the Lock" — the part played by deities, angels, demons — Pope said he founded on * ' the Rosicrucian doctrine of spirits. ' ' 74, 12— Tasso. Torquato Tasso (1544-1595), a celebrated Italian poet. The work by which he is best known is the epic "Jerusalem Delivered." Akenside. Mark Akenside (1721- 1770). An eighteenth century poet, who is almost forgotten now, but whose best known work is doubtless ' ' The Pleasures of the Imagination. ' ' 76, 27— Rowe. Nicholas Rowe (1674-1718). Poet-laureate under George I. 76, 29— Congreve. William Congreve (1670-1729). An English dramatic poet. "The peculiar excellence of Con- greve is his wit, incessantly sparkling from the lips of al- most every character." — Hallam. 77, 16— "Satirist." . . . "Age." Party sheets of Macau- lay's time long since dead. 79, 26— Sir Peter Teazle . . . Surface. Characters in Sheridan 's ' - School for Scandal. ' ' 80, 22— Nell G-wynn. A favorite of Charles II. 80, 23— Holland House. On the western edge of Kensing- ton, London. It was built in 1607 by John Thorpe for Sir Walter Cope, and it has been enlarged since. Though now in a populous part of London it retains its large and beautiful gardens. Under the third Lord Holland (1705-1774) the house became an intellectual centre not only for England but for the world. Sheridan, Byron, Sir Humphrey Davy, Wash- ington Irving, Talleyrand, Madame de Stael and Macaulay were among those entertained there. 108 NOTES 81, 7 — Chloe. A country maiden in love with Daphnis in the Greek romance of ' ' Daphnis and Chloe ' ' by Longus, writ- ten in the fifth century. Adopted by Sidney as the name of a shepherdess in ' ' Arcadia, ' ' hence poetically any shepherdess, 81, 9— Lycidas. In 1637 Milton's friend Edward King, on his way to Ireland was wrecked and drowned off the Welsh coast. Under the name of Lycidas he was mourned by Milton in one of the three most beautiful and most famous elegies in English poetry. 82, 11— Bourne. Vincent Bourne (1698-1747), an English scholar and writer whose Latin poems are among the most elegant of modern times. 82, 22— Joseph Hume. Hume (1777-1835) was a states- man who made it the chief business of his public life to guard the financial interests of the country against extravagance and peculation. He made it his custom to challenge every item of government expenditure and if possible bring it to a vote. 85, 21— "Duenna." A comic opera by Sheridan produced in 1775 at Co vent Garden Theatre. 86, 19— Gay. John Gay (1685-1732), an English poet best known as the author of "Fables" and "The Beggars ' Opera. ' ' 88, 10— Jerusalem Chamber. A room on the southwest corner of Westminster Abbey, built originally as a guest chamber for the Abbot 's House. It probably derived its name from tapestry pictures of the History of Jerusalem with which it was hung. Sir Isaac Newton and Congreve lay in state here as well as Addison. Cf. Shakespeare, 2. ' ' Henry IV,' ' iv, iv. 89, 14— Poets' Corner. The southern end of the south transept of Westminster Abbey. The name is first mentioned by Goldsmith. Chaucer, Spenser, Ben Jonson, Tennyson and Browning are buried there, and there are monuments to many other poets. SAMUEL JOHNSON SAMUEL JOHNSON SAMUEL JOHNSON, one of the most eminent English writers of the eighteenth century, was the son of Michael Johnson, who was, at the beginning of that century, a magistrate of Lichfield, and a bookseller of great note in the midland counties. Michael's 5 abilities and attainments seem to have been considerable. He was so well acquainted with the contents of the volumes which he exposed to sale, that the country rectors of Staffordshire and Worcestershire thought him an oracle on points of learning. Between him and the clergy, 10 indeed, there was a strong religious and political sym- pathy. He was a zealous churchman, and, though he had qualified himself for municipal office by taking the oaths to the sovereigns in possession, was to the last a Jacobite in heart. At his house, a house which is still is pointed out to every traveller who visits Lichfield, Samuel was born on the 18th of September, 1709. In the child, the physical, intellectual, and moral peculiarities which afterwards distinguished the man were plainly discern- ible; great muscular strength accompanied by much 20 awkwardness and many infirmities; great quickness of parts, with a morbid propensity to sloth and procrasti- nation; a kind and generous heart, with a gloomy and irritable temper. He had inherited from his ancestors a scrofulous taint, which it was beyond the power of 25 medicine to remove. His parents were weak enough to believe that the royal touch was a specific for this malady. In his third year he was taken up to London, inspected by the court surgeon, prayed over by the court 3 4 MACAULAY chaplains, and stroked and presented with a piece of gold by Queen Anne. One of his earliest recollections was that of a stately lady in a diamond stomacher and a long black hood. Her hand was applied in vain. The 5 boy's features, which were originally noble and not irregular, were distorted by his malady. His cheeks were deeply scarred. He lost for a time the sight of one eye; and he saw but very imperfectly with the other. But the force of his mind overcame every impediment. 10 Indolent as he was, he acquired knowledge with such ease and rapidity that at every school to which he was sent he was soon the best scholar. From sixteen to eighteen he resided at home, and was left to his own de- vices. He learned much at this time, though his studies 15 were without guidance and without plan. He ransacked his father's shelves, dipped into a multitude of books, read what was interesting, and passed over what was dull. An ordinary lad would have acquired little or no useful knowledge in such a way : but much that 20 was dull to ordinary lads was interesting to Samuel. He read little Greek; for his proficiency In that lan- guage was not such that he could take much pleasure in the masters of Attic poetry and eloquence. But he had left school a good Latinist, and he soon ac- 25 quired, in the large and miscellaneous library of which he now had the command, an extensive know- ledge of Latin literature. That Augustan delicacy of taste which is the boast of the great public schools of England he never possessed. But he was early 30 familiar with some classical writers who were quite unknown to the best scholars in the sixth form at Eton. He was peculiarly attracted by the works of the great restorers of learning. Once, while search- ing for some apples, he found a huge folio volume of 35 Petrarch's works. The name excited his curiosity; and he eagerly devoured hundreds of pages. Indeed, the diction and versification of his own Latin compo- sitions show that he had paid at least as much atten- SAMUEL JOHNSON 5 tion to modern copies from the antique as to the original models. While he was thus irregularly educating himself, his family was sinking into hopeless poverty. Old Michael Johnson was much better qualified to pore upon books, 5 and to talk about them, than to trade in them. His business declined; his debts increased; it was with difficulty that the daily expenses of his household were defrayed. It was out of his power to support his son at either university: but a wealthy neighbor 10 offered assistance; and, in reliance on promises which proved to be of very little value, Samuel was entered at Pembroke College, Oxford. When the young scholar presented himself to the rulers of that society, they were amazed not more by his ungainly figure and 15 eccentric manners than by the quantity of extensive and curious information which he had picked up dur- ing many months of desultory but not unprofitable study. On the first day of his residence he surprised his teachers by quoting Macrobius; and one of the 20 most learned among them declared, that he had never known a freshman of equal attainments. At Oxford, Johnson resided during about three years. He was poor, even to raggedness; and his appearance excited a mirth and a pity, which were 25 equally intolerable to his haughty spirit. He was driven from the quadrangle of Christ Church by the sneering looks which the members of that aristocrati- cal society cast at the holes in his shoes. Some chari- table person placed a new pair at his door; but he 30 spurned them away in a fury. Distress made him, not servile, but reckless and ungovernable. No opu- lent gentleman commoner, panting for one-and-twenty, could have treated the academical authorities with more gross disrespect. The needy scholar was generally to 35 be seen under the gate of Pembroke, a gate now adorned with his effigy, haranguing a circle of lads, over whom, in spite of his tattered gown and dirty 6 MACAULAY linen, his wit and audacity gave him an undisputed ascendency. In every mutiny against the discipline of the college he was the ringleader. Much was pardoned, however, to a youth so highly distinguished 5 by abilities and acquirements. He had early made himself known by turning Pope's "Messiah" into Latin verse. The style and rhythm, indeed, were not ex- actly Virgilian; but the translation found many ad- mirers, and was read with pleasure by Pope himself. 10 The time drew near at which Johnson would, in the ordinary course of things, have become a Bachelor of Arts; but he was at the end of his resources. Those promises of support on which he had relied had not been kept. His family could do nothing for him. 15 His debts to Oxford tradesmen were small indeed, yet larger than he could pay. In the autumn of 1731, he was under the necessity of quitting the university without a degree. In the following winter his father died. The old man left but a pittance; and of that 20 pittance almost the whole was appropriated to the support of his widow. The property to which Samuel succeeded amounted to no more than twenty pounds. His life, during the thirty years which followed, was one hard struggle with poverty. The misery of that 25 struggle needed no aggravation, but was aggravated by the sufferings of an unsound body and an unsound mind. Before the young man left the university, his hereditary malady had broken forth in a singularly cruel form. He had become an incurable hypochon- 30 driac. He said long after that he had been mad all his life, or at least not perfectly sane; and, in truth, eccentricities less strange than his have often been thought grounds sufficient for absolving felons, and for setting aside wills. His grimaces, his gestures, 35 his mutterings, sometimes diverted and sometimes terrified people who did not know him. At a dinner- table he would, in a fit of absence, stoop down and twitch off a lady's shoe. He would amaze a drawing- SAMUEL JOHNSON 7 room by suddenly ejaculating a clause of the Lord's Prayer. He would conceive an unintelligible aversion to a particular alley, and perform a great circuit rather than see the hateful place. He would set his heart on touching every post on the streets through which 5 he walked. If by any chance he missed a post, he would go back a hundred yards and repair the omis- sion. Under the influence of his disease, his senses became morbidly torpid, and his imagination mor- bidly active. At one time he would stand poring on 10 the town clock without being able to tell the hour. At another, he would distinctly hear his mother, who was many miles off, calling him by his name. But this was not the worst. A deep melancholy took possession of him, and gave a dark tinge to all his 15 views of human nature and of human destiny. Such wretchedness as he endured has driven many men to shoot themselves or drown themselves. But he was under no temptation to commit suicide. He was sick of life; but he was afraid of death; and he shud- 20 dered at every sight or sound which reminded him of the inevitable hour. In religion he found but little com- fort during his long and frequent fits of dejection; for his religion partook of his own character. The light from heaven shone on him indeed, but not in a 25 direct line, or with its own pure splendor. The rays had to struggle through a disturbing medium; they reached him refracted, dulled and discolored by the thick gloom which had settled on his soul; and, though they might be sufficiently clear to guide him, were too 30 dim to cheer him. With such infirmities of body and of mind, this celebrated man was left, at two-and-twenty, to fight his way through the world. He remained during about five years in the midland counties. At Lich- 35 field, his birth-place and his early home, he had inherited some, friends and acquired others. He was kindly noticed by Henry Hervey, a gay officer of 8 MACAULAY noble family, who happened to be quartered there. Gilbert Walmesley, registrar of the ecclesiastical court of the diocese, a man of distinguished parts, learning, and knowledge of the world, did himself 5 honor by patronizing the young adventurer, whose repulsive person, unpolished manners, and squalid garb, moved many of the petty aristocracy of the neighborhood to laughter or to disgust. At Lich- field, however, Johnson could find no way of earning 10 a livelihood. He became usher of a grammar school in Leicestershire; he resided as a humble companion in the house of a country gentleman; but a life of dependence was insupportable to his haughty spirit. He repaired to Birmingham, and there earned a few 15 guineas by literary drudgery. In that town he printed a translation, little noticed at the time, and long forgotten, of a Latin book about Abyssinia. He then put forth proposals for publishing by subscription the poems of Politian, with notes containing a history 20 of modern Latin verse; but subscriptions did not come in; and the volume never appeared. While leading this vagrant and miserable life, John- son fell in love. The object of his passion was Mrs. Elizabeth Porter, a widow who had children as old as 25 himself. To ordinary spectators, the lady appeared to be a short, fat, coarse woman, painted half an inch thick, dressed in gaudy colors, and fond of exhibit- ing provincial airs and graces which were not exactly those of the Queensberrys and Lepels. To Johnson, 30 however, whose passions were strong, whose eyesight was too weak to distinguish ceruse from natural bloom, and who had seldom or never been in the same room with a woman of real fashion, his Titty, as he called her, was the most beautiful, graceful, and accomplished 35 of her sex. That his admiration was unfeigned can- not be doubted; for she was as poor as himself. She accepted, with a readiness which did her little honor, the addresses of a suitor who might have been SAMUEL JOHNSON 9 her son. The marriage, however, in spite of occasional wranglings, proved happier than might have been expected. The lover continued to be under the illusions of the wedding-day till the lady died in her sixty-fourth year. On her monument he placed an 5 inscription extolling the charms of her person and of her manners; and when, long after her decease, he had occasion to mention her, he exclaimed, with a tenderness half ludicrous, half pathetic, "Pretty creature !" 10 His marriage made it necessary for him to exert himself more strenuously than he had hitherto done. He took a house in the neighborhood of his native town, and advertised for pupils. But eighteen months passed away; and only three pupils came to his 15 academy. Indeed, his appearance was so strange, and his temper so violent, that his schoolroom must have resembled an ogre's den. Nor was the tawdry painted grandmother whom he called his Titty well qualified to make provision for the comfort of young gentlemen. 20 David Garrick, who was one of the pupils, used, many years later, to throw the best company of London into convulsions of laughter by mimicking the endearments of this extraordinary pair. At length Johnson, in the twenty-eighth year of his 25 age, determined to seek his fortune in the capital as a literary adventurer. He set out with a few- guineas, three acts of the tragedy of "Irene" in manuscript, and two or three letters of introduction from his friend Walmesley. 30 Never, since literature became a calling in England, had it been a less gainful calling than at the time when Johnson took up his residence in London. In the preceding generation a writer of eminent merit was sure to be munineently rewarded by the govern- 35 ment. The least that he could expect was a pension or a sinecure place; and, if he showed any aptitude for politics, he might hope to be a member of Parlia- 10 MACAULAY ment, a Lord of the Treasury, an Ambassador, a Secretary of State. It would be easy, on the other hand, to name several writers of the nineteenth century of whom the least successful has received 5 forty thousand pounds from the booksellers. But Johnson entered on his vocation in the most dreary part of the dreary interval which separated two ages of prosperity. Literature had ceased to flourish un- der the patronage of the great, and had not begun 10 to flourish under the patronage of the public. One man of letters, indeed, Pope, had acquired by his pen what was then considered as a handsome fortune, and lived on a footing of equality with nobles and minis- ters of state. But this was a solitary exception. 15 Even an author whose reputation was established, and whose works were popular, such an author as Thom- son, whose "Seasons" were in every library, such an author as Fielding, whose "Pasquin" had had a greater run than any drama since "The Beggar's Opera," was 20 sometimes glad to obtain, by pawning his best coat, the means of dining on tripe at a cookshop underground, where he could wipe his hands, after his greasy meal, on the back of a Newfoundland dog. It is easy, there- fore, to imagine what humiliations and privations 25 must have awaited the novice who had still to earn a name. One of the publishers to whom Johnson applied for eniplojnnent measured with a scornful eye that athletic though uncouth frame, and exclaimed, "You had better get a porter's knot, and cany 30 trunks." Nor was the advice bad, for a porter was likely to be as plentifully fed and as comfortably lodged, as a poet. Some time appears to have elapsed before Johnson was able to form any literary connection from which 35 he could expect more than bread for the day which was passing over him. He never forgot the generosity' with which Hervey, who was now residing in London, relieved his wants during this time of trial. "Harry SAMUEL JOHNSON 11 Hervey," said the old philosopher many years later, "was a vicious man; but he was very kind to me. If you call a dog Hervey I shall love him." At Hervey's table Johnson sometimes enjoyed feasts which were made more agreeable by contrast. But in general he 5 dined, and thought that he dined well, on sixpenny worth of meat, and a pennyworth of bread, at an alehouse near Drury Lane. The effect of the privations and sufferings which he endured at this time was discernible to the last in his 10 temper and his deportment. His manners had never been courtly. They now became almost savage. Being frequently under the necessity of wearing shabby coats and dirty shirts, he became a confirmed sloven. Being often very hungry when he sate down 15 to his meals, he contracted a habit of eating with ravenous greediness. Even to the end of his life, and even at the tables of the great, the sight of food affected him as it affects wild beasts and birds of prey. His taste in cookery, formed in subterranean ordi- 20 naries and alamode beefshops, was -far from delicate. Whenever he was so fortunate as to have near him a hare that had been kept too long, or a meat pie made with rancid butter, he gorged himself with such vio- lence that his veins swelled, and the moisture broke 25 out on his forehead. The affronts which his poverty emboldened stupid and low-minded men to offer to him would have broken a mean spirit into sycophancy, but made him rude even to ferocity. Unhappily the insolence which, while it was defensive, was pardon- 30 able, and in some sense respectable, accompanied him into societies where he was treated with courtesy and kindness. He was repeatedly provoked into striking those who had taken liberties with him. All the suf- ferers, however, were wise enough to abstain from 35 talking about their beatings, except Osborne, the most rapacious and brutal of booksellers, who pro- claimed everywhere that he had been knocked down by 12 MACAULAY the huge fellow whom he had hired to puff the Har- leian Library. About a year after Johnson had begun to reside in London, he was fortunate enough to obtain regular em- 5 ployment from Cave, an enterprising and intelligent book- seller, who was proprietor and editor of the "Gentleman's Magazine." That journal, just entering on the ninth year of its long existence, was the only periodical work in the kingdom which then had what would now be called 10 a large circulation. It was, indeed, the chief source of parliamentary intelligence. It was not then safe, even during a recess, to publish an account of the proceedings of either House without some disguise. Cave, however, ventured to entertain his readers with what he called 15 "Reports of the Debates of the Senate of Lilliput." France was Blef uscu ; London was Mildendo ; pounds were sprugs: the Duke of Newcastle was the Nardac Secre- tary of State: Lord Hardwicke was the Hurgo Hickrad; and William Pulteney was Wingul Pulnub. To write 20 the speeches was, during several years, the business of Johnson. He was generally furnished with notes, meagre indeed, and inaccurate, of what had been said; but some- times he had to find arguments and eloquence both for the ministry and for the opposition. He was himself a 25 Tory, not from rational conviction — for his serious opinion was that one form of government was just as good or as bad as another— but from mere passion, such as inflamed the Capulets against the Montagues, or the Blues of the Roman circus against the Greens. In 30 his infancy he had heard so much talk about the villanies of the Whigs, and the dangers of the Church, that he had become a furious partisan when he could scarcely speak. Before he was three he had insisted on being taken to hear Sacheverell preach at Lichfield Cathedral, 35 and had listened to the sermon with as much respect, and probably with as much intelligence, as any Stafford- shire squire in the congregation. The work which had been begun in the nursery had been completed by the SAMUEL JOHNSON 13 university. Oxford, when Johnson resided there, was the most Jacobitical place in England; and Pembroke was one of the most Jacobitical colleges in Oxford. The prejudices which he brought up to London were scarcely less absurd than those of his own Tom Tempest. 5 Charles II and James II were two of the best kings that ever reigned. Laud, a poor creature who never did, said, or wrote anything indicating more than the ordinary capacity of an old woman, was a prodigy of parts and learning over whose tomb Art and Genius still continued 10 to weep. Hampden deserved no more honorable name than that of "the zealot of rebellion." Even the ship money, condemned not less decidedly by Falkland and Clarendon than by the bitterest Roundheads, Johnson would not pronounce to have been an unconstitutional 15 impost. Under a government, the mildest that had ever been known in the world, under a government which allowed to the people an unprecedented liberty of speech and action, he fancied that he was a slave ; he assailed the ministry with obloquy which refuted itself, and regretted 20 the lost freedom and happiness of those golden days in which a writer who had taken but one-tenth part of the license allowed to him would have been pilloried, mangled with the shears, whipped at the cart's tail, and flung into a noisome dungeon to die. He hated dissenters and stock- 25 jobbers, the excise and the army, septennial parliaments, and continental connections. He long had an aversion to the Scotch, an aversion of which he could not remember the commencement, but which, he owned, had probably originated in his abhorrence of the conduct of the nation 30 during the Great Rebellion. It is easy to guess in what manner debates on great party questions were likely to be reported by a man whose judgment was so much dis- ordered by party spirit. A show of fairness was indeed necessary to the prosperity of the "Magazine." But 35 Johnson long afterwards owned that, though he had saved appearances, he had taken care that the Whig dogs should not have the best of it; and, in fact, every passage which 14 MACAULAY has lived, every passage which bears the marks of his higher faculties, is put into the mouth of some member of the opposition. A few weeks after Johnson had entered on these 5 obscure labors, he published a work which at once placed him high among the writers of his age. It is probable that what he had suffered during his first year in London had often reminded him of some parts of that noble poem in which Juvenal has described the misery and degrada- 10 tion of a needy man of letters, lodged among the pigeons' nests in the tottering garrets which overhung the streets of Rome. Pope's admirable imitations of Horace's "Satires and Epistles" had recently appeared, were in every hand, and were by many readers thought superior 15 to the originals. What Pope had done for Horace, Johnson aspired to do for Juvenal. The enterprise was bold, and yet judicious. For between Johnson and Juvenal there was much in common, much more cer- tainly than between Pope and Horace. 20 Johnson's "London" appeared without his name in May, 1738. He received only ten guineas for this stately and vigorous poem : but the sale was rapid, and the success complete. A second edition was required within a week. Those small critics who are always 25 desirous to lower established reputations ran about pro- claiming that the anonymous satirist was superior to Pope in Pope's own peculiar department of literature. It ought to be remembered, to the honor of Pope, that he joined heartily in the applause with which the appear- 30 ance of a rival genius was welcomed. He made inquiries about the author of "London." Such a man, he said, could not long be concealed. The name was soon dis- covered; and Pope, with great kindness, exerted himself to obtain an academical degree and the mastership of a 35 grammar school for the poor young poet. The attempt failed; and Johnson remained a bookseller's hack. I ^a It does not appear that these two men, the most eminent writer of the generation which was going out, and the SAMUEL JOHNSON 15 most eminent writer of the generation which was coming in, ever saw each other. They lived in very different circles, one surrounded by dukes and earls, the other by starving pamphleteers and indexmakers. Among John- son's associates at this time may be mentioned Boyse, 5 who, when his shirts were pledged, scrawled Latin verses sitting up in bed with his arms through two holes in his blanket, who composed very respectable sacred poetry when he was sober, and who was at last run over by a hackney coach when he was drunk; Hoole, surnamed the 10 metaphysical tailor, who, instead of attending to his measures, used to trace geometrical diagrams on the board where he sate cross-legged; and the penitent impostor, George Psalmanazar, who, after poring all day, in a humble lodging, on the folios of Jewish rabbis and 15 Christian fathers, indulged himself at night with literary and theological conversation at an alehouse in the city. But the most remarkable of the persons with whom at this time Johnson consorted was Richard Savage, an earl's son, a shoemaker's apprentice, who had seen life 20 in all its forms, who had feasted among blue ribands in Saint James's Square, and had lain with fifty pounds' weight of irons on his legs in the condemned ward of Newgate. This man had, after many vicissitudes of for- tune, sunk at last into abject and hopeless poverty. His 25 pen had failed him. His patrons had been taken away by death, or estranged by the riotous profusion with which he squandered their bounty, and the ungrateful in- solence with which he rejected their advice. He now lived by begging. He dined on venison and champagne 30 whenever he had been so fortunate as to borrow a guinea. If his questing had been unsuccessful, he appeased the rage of hunger with some scraps of broken meat, and lay down to rest under the Piazza of Covent Garden in warm weather, and, in cold weather, as near as he could 35 get to the furnace of a glass house. Yet, in his misery ; he was still an agreeable companion. He had an inex- haustible store of anecdotes about that gay and brilliant 16 MACAULAY world from which he was now an outcast. He had observed the great men of both parties ^n hours of care- less relaxation, had seen the leaders of opposition without the mask of patriotism, and had heard the Prime 5 Minister roar with laughter and tell stories not over decent. During some months Savage lived in the closest familiarity with Johnson; and then the friends parted, not without tears. Johnson remained in London to drudge for Cave. Savage went to the West of England, 10 lived there as he had lived everywhere, and, in 1743, died, penniless and heart-broken, in Bristol gaol. /y Soon after his death, while the public curiosity was (strongly excited about his extraordinary character, and his not less extraordinary adventures, a life of him 15 appeared widely different from the catchpenny lives of eminent men which were then a staple article of manu- facture in Grub Street. The style was indeed deficient in ease and variety; and the writer was evidently too partial to the Latin element of our language. But the 20 little work, with all its faults, was a masterpiece. No finer specimen of literary biography existed in any language, living or dead; and a discerning critic might have confidently predicted that the author was destined to be the founder of a new school of English eloquence. 25 The "Life of Savage" was anonymous; but it was well known in literary circles that Johnson was the writer. During the three years which followed, he produced no important work; but he was not, and indeed could not be, idle. The fame of his abilities and learning continued 30 to grow. Warburton pronounced him a man of parts and genius; and the praise of Warburton was then no light thing. Such was Johnson's reputation that, in 1747, several eminent booksellers combined to employ him in the arduous work of preparing a "Dictionary of the 35 English Language," in two folio volumes. The sum which they agreed to pay him was only fifteen hundred guineas; and out of this sum he had to pay several poor men of letters who assisted him in the humbler parts of his task. SAMUEL JOHNSON 17 The prospectus of the "Dictionary" he addressed to the Earl of Chesterfield. Chesterfield had long been celebrated for the politeness of his manners, the brilliancy of his wit, and the delicacy of his taste. He was acknow- ledged to be the finest speaker in the House of Lords. 5 He had recently governed Ireland, at a momentous con- juncture, with eminent firmness, wisdom, and humanity; and he had since become Secretary of State. He received Johnson's homage with the most winning affability, and requited it with a few guineas, bestowed doubtless in 10 a very graceful manner, but was by no means desirous to see all his carpets blackened with the London mud, and his soups and wines thrown to right and left over the gowns of fine ladies and the waistcoats of fine gentle- men, by an absent, awkward scholar, who gave strange 15 starts and uttered strange growls, who dressed like a scarecrow, and ate like a cormorant. During some time Johnson continued to call on his patron, but, after being repeatedly told by the porter that his lordship was not at home, took the hint, and ceased to present himself 20 at the inhospitable door. Johnson had flattered himself that he should have completed his "Dictionary" by the end of 1750; but it was not till 1755 that he at length gave his huge volumes to the world. During the seven years which he passed 25 in the drudgery of penning definitions and marking quota- tions for transcription, he sought for relaxation in literary labor of a more agreeable kind. In 1749 he published the "Va^ty_o£.,lIuman- Wishes," an excellent imitation of the Tenth Satire of Juvenal. It is in truth 30 not easy to say whether the palm belongs to the ancient or to the modern poet. The couplets in which the fall of Wolsey is described, though lofty and sonorous, are feeble when compared with the wonderful lines which bring before us all Rome in tumult on the day of the 35 fall of Sejanus, the laurels on the doorposts, the white bull stalking towards the Capitol, the statues rolling down from their pedestals, the flatterers of the disgraced min- 18 MACAULAY ister running to see him dragged with a hook through the streets, and to have a kick at his carcase before it is hurled into the Tiber. It must be owned too that in the concluding passage the Christian moralist has not 5 made the most of his advantages, and has fallen decidedly short of the sublimity of his Pagan model. On the other hand, Juvenal's Hannibal must yield to Johnson's Charles; and Johnson's vigorous and pathetic enumera- tion of the miseries of a literary life must be allowed to 10 be superior to Juvenal's lamentation over the fate of Demosthenes and Cicero. For the copyright of the "Vanity of Human Wishes" Johnson received only fifteen guineas. A few days after the publication of this poem, his 15 tragedy, begun many years before, was brought on the stage. His pupil, David Garrick, had, in 1741, made his appearance on a humble stage in Goodman's Fields, had at once risen to the first place among actors, and was now, after several years of almost uninterrupted success, man- 20 ager of Drury Lane Theatre. The relation between him and his old preceptor was of a very singular kind. They repelled each other strongly, and yet attracted each other strongly. Nature had made them of very different clay; and circumstances had fully brought out the natural 25 peculiarities of both. Sudden prosperity had turned Gar- rick's head. Continued adversity had soured Johnson's temper. Johnson saw with more envy than became so great a man the villa, the plate, the china, the Brussels carpet, which the little mimic had got by repeating, with 30 grimaces and gesticulations, what wiser men had written; and the exquisitely sensitive vanity of Garrick was galled by the thought that, while all the rest of the world was applauding him, he could obtain from one morose cynic, whose opinion it was impossible to despise, scarcely 35 any compliment not acidulated with scorn. Yet the two Lichfield men had so many early recollections in common, and sympathized with each other on so many points on which they sympathized with nobody else in the vast SAMUEL JOHNSON 19 population of the capital, that, though the master was often provoked by the monkey-like impertinence of the pupil, and the pupil by the bearish rudeness of the master, they remained friends till they were parted by death. Garrick now brought "Irene" out, with altera- 5 tions sufficient to displease the author, yet not sufficient to make the piece pleasing to the audience. The public, however, listened, with little emotion, but with much civility, to five acts of monotonous declamation. After nine representations the play was withdrawn. It is, indeed, 10 altogether unsuited to the stage, and, even when perused in the closet, will be found hardly worthy of the author. He had not the slightest notion what blank verse should be. A change in the last syllable of every other line would make the versification of the "Vanity of Human Wishes" 15 closely resemble the versification of "Irene." The poet, however, cleared, by his benefit nights, and by the sale of the copyright of his tragedy, about three hundred pounds, then a great sum in his estimation. About a year after the representation of "Irene," he 20 began to publish a series of short essays on morals, manners, and literature. This species of composition had been brought into fashion by the success of the "Tatler," and by the still more brilliant success of the "Spectator." A crowd of small writers had vainly attempted to rival 25 Addison. The "Lay Monastery," the "Censor," the "Free- thinker," the "Plain Dealer," the "Champion," and other works of the same kind, had had their short day. None of them had obtained a permanent place in our literature; and they are now to be found only in the libraries of the 30 curious. At length Johnson undertook the adventure in which so many aspirants had failed. In the thirty-sixth year after the appearance of the last number of the "Spectator" appeared the first number of the "Rambler." From March, 1750, to March, 1752, this paper continued 35 to come out every Tuesday and Saturday. From the first the "Rambler" was enthusiastically ad- mired by a few eminent men. Richardson, when only I 20 MACAULAY five numbers had appeared, pronounced it equal, if not superior to the "Spectator." Young and Hartley ex- pressed their approbation not less warmly. Bubb Doding- ton, among whose many faults indifference to the claims 5 of genius and learning cannot be reckoned, solicited the acquaintance of the writer. In consequence probably of the good offices of Dodington, who was then the confiden- tial adviser of Prince Frederick, two of his Royal High- ness's gentlemen carried a gracious message to the 10 printing office, and ordered seven copies for Leicester House. But these overtures seem to have been very coldly received. Johnson had had enough of the patronage of the great to last him all his life, and was not disposed to haunt any other door as he had haunted the door of 15 Chesterfield. By the public the "Rambler" was at first very coldly received. Though the price of a number was only two- pence, the sale did not amount to five hundred. The profits were therefore very small. But as soon as the 20 flying leaves were collected and reprinted they became popular. The author lived to see thirteen thousand copies spread over England alone. Separate editions were pub- lished for the Scotch and Irish markets. A large party pronounced the style perfect, so absolutely perfect that 25 in some essays it would be impossible for the writer himself to alter a single word for the better. Another party, not less numerous,- vehemently accused him of having corrupted the purity of the English tongue. The best critics admitted that his diction was too monotonous, 30 too obviously artificial, and now and then turgid even to absurdity. But they did justice to the acuteness of his observations on morals and manners, to the constant precision and frequent brilliancy of his language, to the weighty and magnificent eloquence of many serious 35 passages, and to the solemn yet pleasing humor of some of the lighter papers. On the question of precedence between Addison and Johnson, a question which, seventy years ago, was much disputed, posterity has pronounced SAMUEL JOHNSON 21 a decision from which there is no appeal. Sir Roger, his chaplain and his butler, Will Wimble and Will Honey- comb, the Vision of Mirza, the Journal of the Retired Citizen, the Everlasting Club, the Dunmow Flitch, the Loves of Hilpah and Shalum, the Visit to the Exchange, 5 and the Visit to the Abbey, are known to everybody. But many men and women, even of highly cultivated minds, are unacquainted with Squire Bluster and Mrs. Busy, Quisquilius and Venustulus, the Allegory of Wit and Learning, the Chronicle of the Revolutions of a 10 Garret, and the sad fate of Aningait and Ajut. The last "Rambler" was written in a sad and gloomy hour. Mrs. Johnson had been given over by the physi- cians. Three days later she died. She left her husband almost broken-hearted. Many people had been surprised 15 to see a man of his genius and learning stooping to every drudgery, and denying himself almost every comfort, for the purpose of supplying a silly affected old woman with superfluities, which she accepted with but little gratitude. But all his affection had been concentrated on her. He 20 had neither brother nor sister, neither son nor daughter. To him she was beautiful as the Gunnings, and witty as Lady Mary. Her opinion of his writings was more im- portant to him than the voice of the pit of Drury Lane Theatre, or the judgment of the "Monthly Review." The 25 chief support which had sustained him through the most arduous labor of his life was the hope that she would enjoy the fame and the profit which he anticipated from his Dictionary. She was gone; and in that vast labyrinth of streets, peopled by eight hundred thousand human 30 beings, he was alone. Yet it was necessary for him to set himself, as he expressed it, doggedly to work. After three more laborious years, the Dictionary was at length complete. It had been generally supposed that this great work 35 would be dedicated to the eloquent and accomplished nobleman to whom the prospectus had been addressed. He well knew the value of such a compliment; and there- 22 MACAULAY fore, when the day of publication drew near, he exerted himself to soothe, by a show of zealous and at the same time of delicate and judicious kindness, the pride which he had so cruelly wounded. Since the "Ramblers" had 5 ceased to appear the town had been entertained by a journal called "The World," to which many men of high rank and fashion contributed. In two successive numbers of "The World," the Dictionary was, to use the modern phrase, puffed with wonderful skill. The writings 10 of Johnson were warmly praised. It was proposed that he should be invested with the authority of a Dictator, nay, of a Pope, over our language, and that his decisions about the meaning and the spelling of words should be received as final. His two folios, it was said, would 15 of course be bought by everybody who could afford to buy them. It was soon known that these papers were written by Chesterfield. But the just resentment of John- son was not to be so appeased. In a letter written with singular energy and dignity of thought and language, he 20 repelled the tardy advances of his patron. VThe Diction- ary came, forth without a dedication. In the preface the author truly declared that he owed nothing to the great, and described the difficulties with which he had been left to struggle so forcibly and pathetically that the ablest and 25 most malevolent of all the enemies of his fame, Home Tooke, never could read that passage without tears. The public, on this occasion, did Johnson full justice, and something more than justice. The best lexicographer may well be content if his productions are received by 30 the world with cold esteem. But Johnson's Dictionary was hailed with an enthusiasm such as no similar work has ever excited. It was indeed the first dictionary which could be read with pleasure. The definitions show so much acuteness of thought and command of language, 35 and the passages quoted from poets, divines, and philoso- phers are so skilfully selected, that a leisure hour may always be very agreeably spent in turning over the pages. The faults of the book resolve themselves, for the most SAMUEL JOHNSON 23 part, into one great fault. Johnson was a wretched etymologist. He knew little or nothing of any Teutonic language except English, which indeed, as he wrote it, was scarcely a Teutonic language; and thus he was abso- lutely at the mercy of Junius and Skinner. 5 The Dictionary, though it raised Johnson's fame, added nothing to his pecuniary means. The fifteen hundred guineas which the booksellers had agreed to pay him had been advanced and spent before the last sheets issued from the press. It is painful to relate that, twice in the 10 course of the year which followed the publication of this great work, he was arrested and carried to spunging- houses, and that he was twice indebted for his liberty to his excellent friend Richardson. It was still necessary for the man who had been formally saluted by the high- 15 est authority as Dictator of the English language to supply his wants by constant toil. He abridged his Dictionary. He proposed to bring out an edition of Shakespeare by subscription; and many subscribers sent in their names and laid down their money; but he soon 20 found the task so little to his taste that he turned to more attractive employments. He contributed many papers to a new monthly journal, which, was called the "Literary Magazine." Few of these papers have much interest; but among them was the very best thing that 25 he ever wrote, a masterpiece both of reasoning and of satirical pleasantry, the review of Jenyns's "Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil." In the spring of 1758 Johnson put forth the first of a series of essays, entitled the "Idler." During two 30 years these essays continued to appear weekly. They were eagerly read, widely circulated, and, indeed, impudently pirated, while they were still in the original form, and had a large sale when collected into volumes. The "Idler" may be described as a second part of the "Rambler," some- 35 what livelier and somewhat weaker than the first part. • While Johnson was busy with his "Idlers," his mother, who had accomplished her ninetieth year, died at Lich- 24 MACAULAY field. It was long since he had seen her; but he had not failed to contribute largely, out of his small means, to her comfort. In order to defray the charges of her funeral, and to pay some debts which she had left, he 5 wrote a little book in a single week, and sent off the sheets to the press without reading them over. A hundred pounds were paid him for the copyright; and the pur- chasers had great cause to be pleased with their bargain; for the book was "Rasselas." 10 The success of "Rasselas" was great, though such ladies as Miss Lydia Languish must have been grievously dis- appointed when they found that the new volume from the circulating library was little more than a disserta- tion on the author's favorite theme, the Vanity of Human 15 Wishes; that the Prince of Abyssinia was without a mistress, and the Princess without a lover; and that the story set the hero and the heroine down exactly where it had taken them up. The style was the subject of much eager controversy. The "Monthly Review" and the 20 "Critical Review" took different sides. Many readers pronounced the writer a pompous pedant, who would never use a word of two syllables where it was possible to use a word of six, and who could not make a waiting- woman relate her adventures without balancing every 25 noun with another noun, and every epithet with another epithet. Another party, not less zealous, cited with de- light numerous passages in which weighty meaning was expressed with accuracy and illustrated with splendor. And both the censure and the praise were merited. 30 About the plan of "Rasselas" little was said by the critics; and yet the faults of the plan might seem to invite severe criticism. Johnson has frequently blamed Shakes- peare for neglecting the proprieties of time and place, and for ascribing to one age or nation the manners and 35 opinions of another. Yet Shakespeare has not sinned in this way more grievously than Johnson. Rasselas and Imlac, Nekayah and Pekuah, are evidently meant to be Abyssinians of the eighteenth century: for the Europe SAMUEL JOHNSON 25 which Imlae describes is the Europe of the eighteenth century; and the inmates of the Happy Valley talk familiarly of that law of gravitation which Newton dis- covered, and which was not fully received even at Cambridge till the eighteenth century. What a real com- 5 pany of Abyssinians would have been may be learned from Bruce's "Travels." But Johnson, not content with turning filthy savages, ignorant of their letters, and gorged with raw steaks cut from living cows, into philosophers as eloquent and enlightened as himself or his friend Burke, 10 and into ladies as highly accomplished as Mrs. Lennox or Mrs. Sheridan, transferred the whole domestic system of England to Egypt. Into a land of harems, a land of polygamy, a land where women are married without ever being seen, he introduced the flirtations and jealousies of 15 our ball-rooms. In a land where there is boundless liberty of divorce, wedlock is described as the indissoluble compact. "A youth and maiden meeting by chance, or brought together by artifice, exchange glances, recipro- cate civilities, go home, and dream of each other. Such," 20 says Rasselas, "is the common process of marriage." Such it may have been, and may still be, in London, but assuredly not at Cairo. A writer who was guilty of such improprieties had little right to blame the poet who made Hector quote Aristotle, and represented Julio Romano as 25 flourishing in the days of the oracle of Delphi. By such exertions as have been described, Johnson supported himself till the year 1762. In that year a great change in his circumstances took place. He had from a child been an enemy of the reigning dynasty. His 30 Jacobite prejudice* had been exhibited with little disguise both in his works and in his conversation. Even in his massy and elaborate Dictionary he had, with a strange want of taste and judgment, inserted bitter and con- tumelious reflections on the Whig party. The excise, 35 which was a favorite resource of Whig financiers, he had designated as a hateful tax. He had railed against the commissioners of excise in language so coarse that they 26 MACAULAY had seriously thought of prosecuting him. He had with difficulty been prevented from holding up the Lord Privy Seal by name as an example of the meaning of the word "renegade." A pension he had defined as pay given to 5 a state hireling to betray his country; a pensioner as a slave of state hired by a stipend to obey a master. It seemed unlikely that the author of these definitions would himself be pensioned. But that was a time of wonders. George the Third had ascended the throne; and had, in 10 the course of a few months, disgusted many of the old friends and conciliated many of the old enemies of his house. The city was becoming mutinous. Oxford was becoming loyal. Cavendishes and Bentincks were mur- muring. Somersets and Wyndhams were hastening to 15 kiss hands. The head of the treasury was now Lord Bute, who was a Tory, and could have no objection to John- son's Toryism. Bute wished to be thought a patron of men of letters; and Johnson was one of the most eminent and one of the most needy men of letters in Europe. 20 A pension of three hundred a year was graciously offered, and with very little hesitation accepted. This event produced a change in Johnson's whole way of life. For the first time since his boyhood he no longer felt the daily goad urging him to the daily toil. He 25 was at liberty, after thirty years of anxiety and drudgery, to indulge his constitutional indolence, to lie in bed till two in the afternoon, and to sit up talking till four in the morning, without fearing either the printer's devil or the sheriff's officer. 30 One laborious task indeed he had bound himself to perform. He had received large subscriptions for his promised edition of Shakespeare; he had lived on those subscriptions during some years; and he could not with- out disgrace omit to perform his part of the contract. 35 His friends repeatedly exhorted him to make an effort; and he repeatedly resolved to do so. But, notwithstanding their exhortations and his resolutions, month followed month, year followed year, and nothing was done. He / u SAMUEL JOHNSON 27 prayed fervently against his idleness; he determined, as often as he received the sacrament, that he would no longer doze away and trifle away his time; but the spell under which he lay resisted prayer and sacrament. His private notes at this time are made up of self-reproaches. 5 "My indolence," he wrote on Easter eve in 1764, "has sunk into grosser sluggishness. A kind of strange oblivion has overspread me, so that I know not what has become of the last year." Easter, 1765, came, and found him still in the same state. "My time," he wrote, "has been unprofit- 10 ably spent, and seems as a dream that has left nothing behind. My memory grows confused, and I know not how the days pass over me." Happily for his honor, the charm which held him captive was at length broken by no gentle or friendly hand. He had been weak enough to 15 pay serious attention to a story about a ghost which haunted a house in Cock Lane, and had actually gone himself, with some of his friends, at one in the morn- ing, to St. John's Church, Clerkenwell, in the hope of receiving a communication from the perturbed spirit. But 20 the spirit, though adjured with all solemnity, remained obstinately silent; and it soon appeared that a naughty girl of eleven had been amusing herself by making fools of so many philosophers. Churchill, who, confident in his powers, drunk with popularity, and burning with party 25 spirit, was looking for some man of established fame and Tory politics to insult, celebrated the Cock Lane Ghost in three cantos, nicknamed Johnson Pomposo, asked where the book was which had been so long promised and so liberally paid for, and directly accused the great 30 moralist of cheating. This terrible word proved effectual; and in October, 1765, appeared, after a delay of nine years, the new edition of Shakespeare. This publication saved Johnson's character for honesty, but added nothing to the fame of his abilities and learn- 35 ing. The preface, though it contains some good passages, is not in his best manner. The most valuable notes are those in which he had an opportunity of showing how 28 MACAULAY attentively he had during many years observed human life and human nature. The best specimen is the note on the character of Polonius. Nothing so good is to be found even in Wilhelm Meister's admirable examination of 5 Hamlet. But here praise must end. It would be difficult to name a more slovenly, a more worthless, edition of any great classic. The reader may turn over play after play without finding one happy conjectural emendation, or one ingenious and satisfactory explanation of a passage 10 which had baffled preceding commentators. Johnson had, in his Prospectus, told the world that he was peculiarly fitted for the task which he had undertaken, because he had, as a lexicographer, been under the necessity of taking a wider view of the English language than any of his 15 predecessors. That his knowledge of our literature was extensive is indisputable. But, unfortunately, he had alto- gether neglected that very part of our literature with which it is especially desirable that an editor of Shakes- peare should be conversant. It is dangerous to assert a 20 negative. Yet little will be risked by the assertion, that in the two folio volumes of the "English Dictionary" there is not a single passage quoted from any dramatist of the Elizabethan age, except Shakespeare and Ben. Even from Ben the quotations are few. Johnson might 25 easily, in a few months, have made himself well ac- quainted with every old play that was extant. But it never seems to have occurred to him that this was a necessary preparation for the work which he had under- taken. He would doubtless have admitted that it would 30 be the height of absurdity in a man who was not familiar with the works of x-Eschylus and Euripides to publish an edition of Sophocles. Yet he ventured to publish an edition of Shakespeare, without having ever in his life, as far as can be discovered, read a single scene of 35 Massinger, Ford, Decker, Webster, Marlowe, Beaumont, or Fletcher. His detractors were noisy and scurrilous. Those who most loved and honored him had little to say in praise of the manner in which he had discharged SAMUEL JOHNSON 29 the duty of a commentator. He had, however, acquitted himself of a debt which had long lain heavy on his con- science, and he sank back into the repose from which the sting of satire had roused him. He long continued to live upon the fame which he had already won. He was 5 honored by the University of Oxford with a Doctor's degree, by the Royal Academy with a professorship, and by the King with an interview, in which his Majesty most graciously expressed a hope that so excellent a writer would not cease to write. In the interval, however, be- 10 tween 1765 and 1775, Johnson published only two or three political tracts, the longest of which he could have pro- duced in forty-eight hours, if he had worked as he worked on the "Life of Savage" and on "Rasselas." But, though his pen was now idle, his tongue was active. 15 The influence exercised by his conversation, directly upon those with whom he lived, and indirectly on the whole literary world, was altogether without a parallel. His colloquial talents were indeed of the highest order. He had strong sense, quick discernment, wit, humor, immense 20 knowledge of literature and of life, and an infinite store of curious anecdotes. As respected style, he spoke far better than he wrote. Every sentence which dropped from his lips was as correct in structure as the most nicely balanced period of the "Rambler." But in his talk there 25 were no pompous triads, and little more than a fair pro- portion of words in -osity and -ation. All was simplicity, ease, and vigor. He uttered his short, weighty, and pointed sentences with a power of voice, and a justness and energy of emphasis, of which the effect was rather 30 increased than diminished by the rollings of his huge form, and by the asthmatic gaspings and puffings in which the peals of his eloquence generally ended. Nor did the laziness which made ] im unwilling to sit down to his desk prevent him from giving instruction or enter- 35 tainment orally. To discuss questions of taste, of learn- ing, of casuistry, in language so exact and so forcible that it might have been printed without the alteration of 30 MACAULAY a word, was to him no exertion, but a pleasure. He loved, as he said, to fold his legs and have his talk out. He was ready to bestow the overflowings of his full mind on anybody who would start a subject, on a fellow- 5 passenger in a stage-coach, or on the person who sate at the same table with him in an eating-house. But his conversation was nowhere so brilliant and striking as when he was surrounded by a few friends, whose abilities and knowledge enabled them, as he once expressed it, to 10 send him back every ball that he threw. Some of these, in 1764, formed themselves into a club, which gradually became a formidable power in the commonwealth of let- ters. The verdicts pronounced by this conclave on new books were speedily known over all London, and were 15 sufficient to sell off a whole edition in a day, or to condemn the sheets to the service of the trunk-maker and the pastry-cook. Nor shall we think this strange when we consider what great and various talents and acquirements met in the little fraternity. Goldsmith was the repre- 20 sentative of poetry and light literature, Reynolds of the arts, Burke of political eloquence and political philosophy. There, too, were Gibbon, the greatest historian, and Jones, the greatest linguist, of the age. Garrick brought to the meetings his inexhaustible pleasantry, his incomparable 25 mimicry, and his consummate knowledge of stage effect. Among the most constant attendants were two high-born and high-bred gentlemen, closely bound together by friendship, but of widely different characters and habits; Bennet Langton, distinguished by his skill in Greek 30 literature, by the orthodoxy of his opinions, and by the sanctity of his life ; and Topham Beauclerk, renowned for his amours, his knowledge of the gay world, his fastidious taste, and his sarcastic wit. To predominate over such a society was not easy. Yet even over such a society John- 35 son predominated. Burke might indeed have disputed the supremacy to which others were under the necessity of submitting. But Burke, though not generally a very patient listener, was content to take the second part when SAMUEL JOHNSON 31 Johnson was present; and the club itself, consisting of so many eminent men, is to this day popularly designated as Johnson's Club. Among the members of this celebrated body was one to whom it has owed the greater part of its celebrity, 5 yet who was regarded with little respect by his breth- ren, and had not without difficulty obtained a seat among them. This was James Boswell, a young Scotch lawyer, heir to an honorable name and a fair estate. That he was a coxcomb and a bore, weak, vain, pushing, curious, 10 garrulous, was obvious to all who were acquainted with him. That he could not reason, that he had no wit, no humor, no eloquence, is apparent from his writings. And yet his writings are read beyond the Mississippi, and under the Southern Cross, and are likely to be read as 15 long as the English exists, either as a living or as a dead language. Nature had made him a slave and an idolater. His mind resembled those creepers which the botanists call parasites, and which can subsist only by clinging round the steins and imbibing the juices of stronger 20 plants. He must have fastened himself on somebody. He might have fastened himself on Wilkes, and have become the fiercest patriot in the Bill of Rights Society. He might have fastened himself on Whitfield, and have be- come the loudest field preacher among the Calvinistic 25 Methodists. In a happy hour he fastened himself on Johnson. The pair might seem ill matched. For Johnson had early been prejudiced against Boswell's country. To a man of Johnson's strong understanding and irritable temper, the silly egotism and adulation of Boswell must 30 have been as teasing as the constant buzz of a fly. John- son hated to be questioned; and Boswell was eternally catechising him on all kinds of subjects, and sometimes propounded such questions as, "What would you do, sir, if you were locked up in a tower with a baby?" Johnson 35 was a water-drinker and Boswell was a wine-bibber, and indeed little better than a habitual sot. It was impossible that there should be perfect harmony between two such 32 MACAULAY companions. Indeed, the great man was sometimes pro- voked into fits of passion, in which he said things which the small man, during a few hours, seriously resented. Every quarrel, however, was soon made up. During 5 twenty years the disciple continued to worship the mas- ter : the master continued to scold the disciple, to sneer at him, and to love him. The two friends ordinarily re- sided at a great distance from each other. Boswell practised in the Parliament House of Edinburgh, and 10 could pay only occasional visits to London. During these visits his chief business was to watch Johnson, to discover all Johnson's habits, to turn the conversation to subjects about which Johnson was likely to say something re- markable, and to fill quarto note-books with minutes of 15 what Johnson had said. In this way were gathered the materials out of which was afterwards constructed the most interesting biographical work in the world. Soon after the club began to exist, Johnson formed a connection less important indeed to his fame, but much 20 more important to his happiness, than his connection with Boswell. Henry Thrale, one of the most opulent brewers in the kingdom, a man of sound and cultivated under- standing, rigid principles, and liberal spirit, was married to one of those clever, kind-hearted, engaging, vain, pert, 25 young women, who are perpetually doing or saying what is not exactly right, but who, do or say what they may, are always agreeable. In 1765 the Thrales became acquainted with Johnson, and the acquaintance ripened fast into friendship. They were astonished and delighted by the 30 brilliancy of his conversation. They were flattered by finding that a man so widely celebrated preferred their house to any other in London. Even the peculiarities which seemed to unfit him for civilized society, his gesticu- lations, his rollings, his puffings, his mutterings, the 35 strange way in which he put on his clothes, the ravenous eagerness with which he devoured his dinner, his fits of melancholy, his fits of anger, his frequent rudeness, his occasional ferocity, increased the interest which his new SAMUEL JOHNSON 33 associates took in him. For these things were the cruel marks left behind by a life which had been one long con- flict with disease and with adversity. In a vulgar hack writer such oddities would have excited only disgust. But in a man of genius, learning, and virtue, their effect was 5 to add pity to admiration and esteem. Johnson soon had an apartment at the brewery in Southwark, and a still more pleasant apartment at the villa of his friends on Streatham Common. A large part of every year he passed in those abodes, abodes which must have seemed 10 magnificent and luxurious indeed, when compared with the dens in which he had generally been lodged. But his chief pleasures were derived from what the astronomer of his Abyssinian tale called "the endearing elegance of female friendship." Mrs. Thrale rallied him, soothed him, 15 coaxed him, and, if she sometimes provoked him by her flippancy, made ample amends by listening to his reproofs with angelic sweetness of temper. When he was dis- eased in body and mind, she was the most tender of nurses. No comfort that wealth could purchase, no contrivance 20 that womanly ingenuity, set to work by womanly com- passion, could devise was wanting to his sick-room. He requited her kindness by an affection pure as the affection of a father, yet delicately tinged with a gallantry, which, though awkward, must have been more flattering than 25 the attentions of a crowd of the fools who gloried in the names, now obsolete, of Buck and Maccaroni. It should seem that a full half of Johnson's life, during about sixteen years, was passed under the roof of the Thrales. He accompanied the family sometimes to Bath, and some- 30 times to Brighton, once to Wales, and once to Paris. But he had at the same time a house in one of the narrow and gloomy courts on the north of Fleet Street. In the garrets was his library, a large and miscellaneous collection of books, falling to pieces and begrimed with dust. On a 35 lower floor he sometimes, but very rarely, regaled a friend with a plain dinner, a veal pie, or a leg of lamb and spinage, and a rice pudding. Nor was the dwelling unin- 34 MACAULAY habited during his long absences. It was the home of the most extraordinary assemblage of inmates that ever was brought together. At the head of the establishment John- son had placed an old lady named Williams, whose chief 5 recommendations were her blindness and her poverty. But, in spite of her murmurs and reproaches, he gave an asylum to another lady who was as poor as herself, Mrs. Desmoulins, whose family he had known many years before in Staffordshire. Room was found for the daugh- 10 ter of Mrs. Desmoulins, and for another destitute damsel, who was generally addressed as Miss Carmichael, but whom her generous host called Polly. An old quack doctor named Levett, who bled and dosed coal-heavers and hackney coachmen, and received for fees crusts of bread, 15 bits of bacon, glasses of gin, and sometimes a little copper, completed this strange menagerie. All . these poor creatures were at constant war with each other, and with Johnson's negro servant Frank. Sometimes, indeed, they transferred their hostilities from the servant to the 20 master, complained that a better table was not kept for them, and railed or maundered till their benefactor was glad to make his escape to Streatham, or to the Mitre Tavern. And yet he, who was generally the haughtiest and most irritable of mankind, who was but too prompt to 25 resent anything which looked like a slight on the part of a purse-proud bookseller, or of a noble and powerful patron, bore patiently from mendicants, who, but for his bounty, must have gone to the workhouse, insults more provoking than those for which he had knocked down 30 Osborne and bidden defiance to Chesterfield. Year after year Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Desmoulins, Polly and Levett continued to torment him and to live upon him. The course of life which has been described was inter- rupted in Johnson's sixty-fourth year by an important 35 event. He had early read an account of the Hebrides, and had been much interested by learning that there was so near him a land peopled by a race which was still as rude and simple as in the Middle Ages. A wish to be- SAMUEL JOHNSON 35 come intimately acquainted with a state of society so utterly unlike all that he had ever seen frequently crossed his mind. But it is not probable that his curiosity would have overcome his habitual sluggishness, and his love of the smoke, the mud, and the cries of London, had not 5 Boswell importuned him to attempt the adventure, and offered to be his squire. At length, in August, 1773, John- son crossed the Highland line, and plunged courageously into what was then considered, by most Englishmen, as a dreary and perilous wilderness. After wandering about 10 two months through the Celtic region, sometimes in rude boats which did not protect him from the rain, and some- times on small shaggy ponies which could hardly bear his weight, he returned to his old haunts with a mind full of new images and new theories. During the following 15 year he employed himself in recording his adventures. About the beginning of 1775, his "Journey to the Hebrides" was published, and was, during some weeks, the chief subject of conversation in all circles in which any attention was paid to literature. The book is still read 20 with pleasure. The narrative is entertaining; the specu- lations, whether sound or unsound, are always ingenious; and the style, though too stiff and pompous, is somewhat easier and more graceful than that of his early writings. His prejudice against the Scotch had at length become 25 little more than matter of jest; and whatever remained of the old feeling had been effectually removed by the kind and respectful hospitality with which he had been received in every part of Scotland. It was, of course, not to be expected that an Oxonian Tory should praise the 30 Presbyterian polity and ritual, or that an eye accustomed to the hedgerows and parks of England should not be struck by the bareness of Berwickshire and East Lothian. But even in censure Johnson's tone is not' unfriendly. The most enlightened Scotchmen, with Lord Mansfield at their 35 head, were well pleased. But some foolish and ignorant Scotchmen were moved to anger by a little unpalatable truth which was mingled with much eulogy, and assailed 36 MACAULAY him whom they chose to consider as the enemy of their country with libels much more dishonorable to their coun- try than anything that he had ever said or written. They published paragraphs in the newspapers, articles in the 5 magazines, sixpenny pamphlets, five-shilling books. One scribbler abused Johnson for being blear-eyed ; another for being a pensioner; a third informed the world that one of the Doctor's uncles had been convicted of felony in Scotland, and had found that there was in that country 10 one tree capable of supporting the weight of an Eng- lishman. Macpherson, whose "Fingal" had been proved in the "Journey" to be an impudent forgery, threatened to take vengeance with a cane. The only effect of this threat was that Johnson reiterated the charge of forgery 15 in the most contemptuous terms, and walked about, during some time, with a cudgel, which, if the impostor had not been too wise to encounter it, would assuredly have de- scended upon him, to borrow the sublime language of his own epic poem, "like a hammer on the red son of the 20 furnace." Of other assailants Johnson took no notice whatever. He had early resolved never to be drawn into controversy ; and he adhered to his resolution with a steadfastness which is the more extraordinary, because he was, both intel- 25 lectually and morally, of the stuff of which controversial- ists are made. In conversation, he was a singularly eager, acute, and pertinacious disputant. When at a loss for good reasons he had recourse to sophistry; and, when heated by altercation, he made unsparing use of sarcasm 30 and invective. But, when he took his pen in his hand, his whole character seemed to be changed. A hundred bad writers misrepresented him and reviled him; but not one of the hundred could boast of having been thought by him worthy of a refutation, or even of a retort. The 35 Kenricks, Campbells, MacNicols, and Hendersons did their best to annoy him, in the hope that he would give them importance by answering them. But the reader will in vain search his works for any allusion to Kenrick or SAMUEL JOHNSON 37 Campbell, to MacNicol or Henderson. One Scotchman, bent on vindicating the fame of Scotch learning, defied him to the combat in a detestable Latin hexameter. "Maxime, si tu vis, cupio contendere tecum." But Johnson took no notice of the challenge. He had 5 learned, both from his own observation and from literary history, in which he was deeply read, that the place of books in the public estimation is fixed, not by what is written about them, but by what is written in them; and that an author whose works are likely to live is very un- 10 wise if he stoops to wrangle with detractors whose works are certain to die. He always maintained that fame was a shuttlecock which could be kept up only by being beaten back, as well as beaten forward, and which would soon fall if there were only one battledore. No saying was is oftener in his mouth than that fine apophthegm of Bent- ley, that no man was ever written down but by himself. Unhappily, a few months after the appearance of the "Journey to the Hebrides," Johnson did what none of his envious assailants could have done, and to a certain extent 20 succeeded in writing himself down. The disputes between England and her American Colonies had reached a point at which no amicable adjustment was possible. Civil war was evidently impending; and the ministers seem to have thought that the eloquence of Johnson might with 25 advantage be employed to inflame the nation against the opposition here, and against the rebels beyond the Atlan- tic. He had already written two or three tracts in defence of the foreign and domestic policy of the Government; and those tracts, though hardly worthy of him, were much 30 superior to the crowd of pamphlets which lay on the coun- ters of Almon and Stockdale. But his "Taxation no Tyranny" was a pitiable failure. The very title was a silly phrase, which can have been recommended to his choice by nothing but a jingling alliteration which he ought to 35 have despised. The arguments were such as boys use in 38 MACAULAY debating societies. The pleasantry was as awkward as the gambols of a hippopotamus. Even Boswell was forced to own that, in this unfortunate piece, he could detect no trace of his master's powers. The general opin- 5 ion was that the strong faculties which had produced the Dictionary and the "Rambler" were beginning to feel the effect of time and of disease, and that the old man would best consult his credit by writing no more. But this was a great mistake. Johnson had failed, 10 not because his mind was less vigorous than when he wrote "Rasselas" in the evenings of a week, but because he had foolishly chosen, or suffered others to choose for him, a subject such as he would at no time have been competent to treat. He was in no sense a statesman. 15 He never willingly read or thought or talked about affairs of state. He loved biography, literary history, the history of manners; but political history was positively dis- tasteful to him. The question at issue between the Colonies and the mother country was a question about 20 which he had really nothing to say. He failed, therefore, as the greatest men must fail when they attempt to do that for which they are unfit; as Burke would have failed if Burke had tried to write comedies like those of Sheridan; as Reynolds would have failed if Reynolds had 25 tried to paint landscapes like those of Wilson. Happily, Johnson soon had an opportunity of proving most sig- nally that his failure was not to be ascribed to intellectual decay. On Easter eve, 1777, some persons, deputed by a meet- 30 ing which consisted of forty of the first booksellers in London, called upon him. Though he had some scruples about doing business at that season, he received his visitors with much civility. They came to inform him that a new edition of the English poets, from Cowley 35 downwards, was in contemplation, and to ask him to fur- nish short biographical prefaces. He readily undertook the task, a task for which he was pre-eminently qualified. His knowledge of the literary history of England since SAMUEL JOHNSON 39 the Restoration was unrivalled. That knowledge he had derived partly from books, and partly from sources which had long been closed; from old Grub Street traditions; from the talk of forgotten poetasters and pamphleteers who had long been lying in parish vaults; from the recol- lections of such men as Gilbert Walmesley, who had conversed with the wits of Button; Cibber, who had mutilated the plays of two generations of dramatists; Orrery, who had been admitted to the society of Swift; and Savage, who had rendered services of no very hon- orable kind to Pope. The biographer therefore sate down to his task with a mind full of matter. He had at first intended to give only a paragraph to every minor poet, and only four or five pages to the greatest name. But the flood of anecdote and criticism overflowed the narrow channel. The work, which was originally meant to consist only of a few sheets, swelled into ten volumes, ;small volumes, it is true, and not closely printed. The first four appeared in 1779, the remaining six in 1781. The "Lives of the Poets" are, on the whole, the best of Johnson's works. The narratives are as entertaining as any novel. The remarks on life and on human nature are eminently shrewd and profound. The criticisms are often excellent, and, even when grossly and provokingly unjust, well deserve to be studied. For, however erroneous they ma3 r be, they are never silly. They are the judg- ments of a mind trammelled by prejudice and deficient in sensibility, but vigorous and acute. They therefore generally contain a portion of valuable truth which de- serves to be separated from the alloy; and, at the very worst, they mean something, a praise to which much of what is called criticism in our times has no pretensions. Savage's "Life" Johnson reprinted nearly as it had appeared in 1744. Whoever, after reading that life, will turn to the other lives will be struck by the difference of style. Since Johnson had been at ease in his circum- stances he had written little and had talked much. When, therefore, he, after the lapse of years, resumed his pen, 40 MACAULAY the mannerism which he had contracted while he was in the constant habit of elaborate composition was less per- ceptible than formerly; and his diction frequently had a colloquial ease which it had formerly wanted. The im- 5 provement may be discerned by a skilful critic in the "Journey to the Hebrides," and in the "Lives of the Poets" is so obvious that it cannot escape the notice of the most careless reader. Among the "Lives" the best are perhaps those of Cow- 10 ley, Dryden, and Pope. The very worst is, beyond all doubt, that of Gray. This great work at once became popular. There was, indeed, much just and much unjust censure: but even those who were loudest in blame were attracted by the 15 book in spite of themselves. Malone computed the gains of the publishers at five or six thousand pounds. But the writer was very poorly remunerated. Intending at first to write very short prefaces, he had stipulated for only two hundred guineas. The booksellers, when they 20 saw how far his performance had surpassed his promise, added only another hundred. Indeed, Johnson, though he did not despise, or affect to despise money, and though his strong sense and long experience ought to have quali- fied him to protect his own interests, seems to have been 25 singularly unskilful and unlucky in his literary bargains. He was generally reputed the first English writer of his time. Yet several writers of his time sold their copy- rights for sums such as he never ventured to ask. To give a single instance, Robertson received four thousand 30 five hundred pounds for the "History of Charles V"; and it is no disrespect to the memory of Robertson to say that the "History of Charles V" is both a less valuable and a less amusing book than the "Lives of the Poets." Johnson was now in his seventy-second year. The 35 infirmities of age were coming fast upon him. That in- evitable event of which he never thought without horror was brought near to him ; and his whole life was darkened by the shadow of death. He had often to pay the cruel SAMUEL JOHNSON 41 price of longevity. Every year he lost what could never be replaced. The strange dependents to whom he had given shelter, and to whom, in spite of their faults, he was strongly attached by habit, dropped off one by one; and, in the silence of his home, he regretted even the 5 noise of their scolding matches. The kind and generous Thrale was no more; and it would have been well if his wife had been laid beside him. But she survived to be the laughing-stock of those who had envied her, and to draw from the eyes of the old man who had loved her 10 beyond anything in the world, tears far more bitter than he would have shed over her grave. With some estimable, and many agreeable qualities, she was not made to be independent. The control of a mind more steadfast than her own was necessary to her respectability. While she 15 was restrained by her husband, a man of sense and firm- ness, indulgent to her taste in trifles, but always the undis- puted master of his house, her worst offences had been impertinent jokes, white lies, and short fits of pettishness ending in sunny good humor. But he was gone; and she 20 was left an opulent widow of forty, with strong sensi- bility, volatile fancy, and slender judgment. She "soon fell in love with a music-master from Brescia, in whom nobody but herself could discover anything to admire. Her pride, and perhaps some better feelings, struggled hard against 25 this degrading passion. But the struggle irritated her nerves, soured her temper, and at length endangered her health. Conscious that her choice was one which John- son could not approve, she became desirous to escape from his inspection. Her manner towards him changed. She 30 was sometimes cold and sometimes petulant. She did not conceal her joy when he left Streatham; she never pressed him to return; and, if he came unbidden, she re- ceived him in a manner which convinced him that he was no longer a welcome guest. He took the very intelligible 35 hints which she gave. He read, for the last time, a chapter of the Greek Testament in the library which had been formed by himself. In a solemn and tender prayer he 42 MACAULAY commended the house and its inmates to the Divine pro- tection, and, with emotions which choked his voice and "convulsed his powerful frame, left for ever that beloved home for the gloomy and desolate house behind Fleet 5 Street, where the few and evil days which still remained to> him were to run out. Here, in June, 1783, he had a paralytic stroke, from which, however, he recovered, and which does not appear to have at all impaired his intellectual faculties. But other maladies came thick upon io him. His asthma tormented him day and night. Drop- sical sjmaptoms made their appearance. While sinking under a complication of diseases, he heard that the woman, whose friendship had been the chief happiness of sixteen years of his life, had married an Italian fiddler; that all 15 London was crying shame upon her; and that the news- papers and magazines were filled with allusions to the Ephesian matron, and the two pictures in "Hamlet." He vehemently said that he would try to forget her existence. He never uttered her name. Every memorial of her which 20 met his eye he flung into the fire. She meanwhile fled from the laughter and the hisses of her countrymen and countrywomen to a land where she was unknown, hastened across Mont Cenis, and learned, while passing a merry Christmas of concerts and lemonade parties at Milan, that 25 the great man with whose name hers is inseparably asso- ciated had ceased to exist. He had, in spite of much mental and much bodily affliction, clung vehemently to life. The feeling de- scribed in that fine but gloomy paper which closes the 30 series of his "Idlers" seemed to grow stronger in him as his last hour drew near. He fancied that he should be able to draw his breath more easily in a southern climate, and would probably have set out for Rome and Naples, but for his fear of the expense of the journey. That 35 expense, indeed, he had the means of defraying; for he had laid up about two thousand pounds, the fruit of labors which had made the fortune of several publishers. But he was unwilling to break in upon this hoard, and SAMUEL JOHNSON 43 he seems to have wished even to keep its existence a secret. Some of his friends hoped that the government might be induced to increase his pension to six hundred pounds a year; but this hope was disappointed, and he resolved to stand one English winter more. That winter 5 was his last. His legs grew weaker; his breath grew shorter ; the fatal water gathered fast, in spite of incisions which he, courageous against pain, but timid against death, urged his surgeons to make deeper and deeper. Though the tender care which had mitigated his sufferings 10 during months of sickness at Streatham was withdrawn, he was not left desolate. The ablest physicians and surgeons attended him, and refused to accept fees from him. Burke parted from him with deep emotion. Wind- ham sate much in the sick-room, arranged the pillows, and 15 sent his own servant to watch at night by the bed. Frances Burney, whom the old man had cherished with fatherly kindness, stood weeping at the door; while Langton, whose piety eminently qualified him to be an adviser and com- forter at such a time, received the last pressure of his 20 friend's hand within. When at length the moment, dreaded through so many years, came close, the dark cloud passed away from Johnson's mind. His temper be- came unusually patient and gentle ; he ceased to think with terror of death, and of that which lies beyond death; and 25 he spoke much of the mercy of God, and of the propitia- tion of Christ. In this serene frame of mind he died on the 13th of December, 1784. He was laid, a week later, in Westminster Abbey, among the eminent men of whom he had been the historian,— Cowley and Denham, Dry den 30 and Congreve, Gay, Prior, and Addison. Since his death the popularity of his works— the "Lives of the Poets," and, perhaps, the "Vanity of Human Wishes," excepted— has greatly diminished. His Diction- ary has been altered by editors till it can scarcely be 35 called his. An allusion to his "Rambler" or his "Idler" is not readily apprehended in literary circles. The fame even of "Rasselas" has grown somewhat dim. But, though 44 MACAULAY the celebrity of the writings may have declined, the celebrity of the writer, strange to say, is as great as ever. Boswell's book has done for him more than the best of his own books could do. The memory of other authors is 5 kept alive by their works. But the memory of Johnson keeps many of his works alive. The old philosopher is still among us in the brown coat with the metal buttons and the shirt which ought to be at wash, blinking, puffing, rolling his head, drumming with his fingers, tearing his 10 meat like a tiger, and swallowing his tea in oceans. No human being who has been more than seventy years in the grave is so well known to us. And it is but just to say that our intimate acquaintance with what he would himself have called the anfractuosities of his intellect and 15 of his temper, serves only to strengthen our conviction that he was both a great and a good man. NOTES Text.— Macaulay wrote two essays on Samuel Johnson, and the views expressed in them should be carefully compared. One was written in 1831 for the "Edinburgh Review" as a review of Croker's edition of Boswell's "Life of Samuel Johnson. ' ' The other was written in 1856 as a bio- graphical article for the eighth edition of the "Encyclopaedia Britanniea. ' ' The earlier essay is an example of Macaulay 's harshest style of criticism, permeated throughout by his ex- treme personal dislike of Croker, but the passage of twenty- five years brought a milder spirit, more mature and more broadly tolerant. The later piece of work is by far the finer. It is a work, says Matthew Arnold, "which shows Macaulay at his very best; a work written when his style was matured, and when his resources were in all their fullness. The sub- ject, too, was one which he knew thoroughly, and for which he felt cordial sympathy; indeed by his mental habit Macau- lay himself belonged, in many respects, to the eighteenth century rather than to our own. " It is this ' ' Life ' ' that is here reprinted. The text is taken from the collected works of Macaulay edited by Lady Trevelyan— Vol. vn (Longmans, Green, and Co., 1879). Page 3, Line 14— sovereigns in possession. Those who had been placed on the throne of England after the deposi- tion and exile of King James II in 1688, viz., William and Mary (1688-1702) and Anne (1702-1714). 3, 15— Jacobite. An adherent of James II of England after his abdication, or of his son, the Pretender; a partisan or supporter of the Stuarts after the Revolution of 1688. 3, 16— Lichfield. A city of Staffordshire. It has a fine cathedral with three spires, and in the marketplace a statue of Dr. Johnson faces the house in which he was born. 3, 27— The royal touch. An almost universal belief, which 45 46 NOTES made the name " king's evil" a popular synonym for scrof- ula. Charles II touched some 100,000 persons for the disease. William III on the other hand would have nothing to do with it. "God give you better health and more sense," he said to one patient whom he was induced to touch. Macaulay de- votes two or three interesting pages to this subject in his ' ' History of England, ' ' chapter xiv. 4, 23— Attic poetry. I.e., Athenian. Athens dominated the district of Attica in ancient Greece as Sparta did Laconia. 4, 27— Augustan delicacy of taste. The age of Augustus (31 b.c-14 a.d.) was the age of Virgil and Horace, when Koman literature reached its height of artistic perfection. 4, 28— public schools. The English public schools, such as Eton, Rugby, and Harrow, are not public schools in the American sense. They are more like wealthy, exclusive col- leges for secondary education, supported by heavy endow- ments and large tuition fees. 4, 33— great restorers of learning. Those who revived the study of the Greek and Latin classics in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Of these Petrarch (1304-1374) was by far the greatest. Petrarch is best known now as the writer of exquisite lyrics and the father of the sonnet, but he himself prized far more his Latin works — now scarcely read even by scholars— and his services to learning. 5, 1— modern copies from the antique. This is scarcely a compliment. See the Essay on Addison, pages 20-21. 5, 10— either University. Oxford and Cambridge are the two implied. 5, 13— Pembroke College. Founded in 1624, and named after the then Chancellor of the University, the Earl of Pem- broke. The college still possesses Johnson's tea-pot and the desk on which he wrote his dictionary, and his portrait by Eeynolds hangs in the common room. 5, 20 — Macrobius. A Roman grammarian of the fifth cen- tury. 5, 27— Christ Church. One of the finest and wealthiest of the Oxford colleges,— founded by Cardinal Wolsey, 1524. King Edward VII is a graduate of Christ Church, as were also the Duke of Wellington, John Ruskin, and Gladstone. 5, 33— gentleman commoner. One who was not dependent NOTES 47 on any scholarship or charitable foundation, but paid for his ' ' commons ' ' and had college privileges. The word ' ' commons ' ' is familiar in many American colleges as applied to the col- lege dining-room. 6, 6— Pope's Messiah. A sacred eclogue in imitation of Virgil's "Pollio" (Eclogue iv). It was published in the 1 ' Spectator ' ' of May 12, 1712. 8, 10— usher of a grammar school. Assistant in a school in which Latin and Greek are taught. 8, 19— Politian. Angelq Poliziano (1454-1494), the most intimate friend of the great Florentine, Lorenzo the Mag- nificent. He had the double distinction of being the greatest Italian lyric poet of the fifteenth century, and the first scholar of his age. 8, 29— Queensberrys and Lepels. Two families of rank and fashion, known less to the historian than to readers of the letters and gossip of Swift and Pope. 8, 31— ceruse. Derivation unknown, possibly connected with the Gr. Kepog, wax. A name for white lead, formerly used in the making of ointments; hence used vaguely for pain or cosmetic for the skin. 9, 21— Garrick. David Garrick (1717-1779), one of the most famous of English actors. He and his brother were Johnson's first pupils, and rode up with him to London. He was a bright and vivacious talker. Many stories of his dimin- utive stature and of his avarice were circulated, for the most part by rival actors. He had no enduring hostility, and was devoid of lasting bitterness. See the "Dictionary of Na- tional Biography. ' ' 9, 28— tragedy of "Irene." Johnson's only dramatic poem, brought out later by Garrick. See "Addison," 5, 7. The plot is based on the love of Mohammed II, the Turkish conqueror of Constantinople, for the Greek princess Irene. Some will be reminded of the same episode in Lew Wallace's ' ' Prince of India. ' ' 10, 16— Thomson. James Thomson (1700-1748). A Scotch poet, author of ' ' The Seasons. ' ' 10, 18— Fielding. Henry Fielding (1707-1754), better known as the greatest English novelist of the eighteenth century than as a dramatist. His most famous novel is 48 NOTES "Tom Jones. " "Pasquin," a dramatic satire, was pub- lished 1736. 10, 19— Beggar's Opera. A famous play by John Gay (1685-1732), produced 1728. It took the town by storm, but excited great hostility on the part of the forces of law and order, and sermons were preached against its demoraliz- ing influence. It won for its author the title of the ' ' Orpheus of Highwaymen. ' ' 10, 29— a porter's knot. A pad and rope for carrying burdens. 11, 8— Drury Lane. A famous street in London near the Strand about midway between Charing Cross and St. Paul's. 11, 21— alamode. Usually now written a la mode. "Beef larded and stewed or braised with spices, vegetables, etc." ("Century Dictionary"). 12, 1— Harleian Library. The great library collected by Eobert Harley, Earl of Oxford, the famous Tory minister of Queen Anne. Osborne purchased it and hired Johnson to write an account of it, which was afterwards prefixed to the first volume of the catalogue. A selection of the pamphlets from the library, published in 1744-6 under the title of the "Harleian Miscellany," is to be found in many American libraries. 12, 11— parliamentary intelligence. In 1641 the Long Parliament for the first time prohibited the printing of speeches without leave of the House. This prohibition was frequently renewed, and Parliament both before and after the Eevolution of 1688 looked with severe disfavor on any at- tempt to report debates. Towards the middle of the eighteenth century the House of Commons became more stringent than ever, and it was to evade these restrictions on publicity that the "Gentleman's Magazine" resorted to the device men- tioned. Similarly the "London Magazine" reported the proceedings of a fictitious Political Club, in which speeches .were made by Mark Antony, Brutus, and other orators of ancient Eome, each name having a perfectly wei understood reference to some member of Parliament. In 1771 the battle between the printers and Parliament came to a head, and the printers, backed by the best men in both Houses and the overwhelming force of public opinion, carried the day. There- after the system of reporting and printing the debates and NOTES 49 proceedings of Parliament gradually attained its present won- derful rapidity and completeness. 12, 15— Senate of Lilliput. The name of Lilliput and the strange names that follow are borrowed from "Gulliver's Travels. ' > 12, 28— Capulets and Montagues. The famous rival fami- lies of Verona. See ' ' Eomeo and Juliet. ' ' 12, 29— Blues of the Roman circus. The chariot race at Rome was at first a simple contest of two chariots whose drivers were distinguished by white and red liveries. Two additional colors, green and blue, were afterwards added; the four factions became clearly marked; and fierce street fights were common, especially between the Blues and Greens. The war of the colors was even worse in Constantinople and the East. 12, 34— Sacheverell. Henry Sacheverell (1672-1724), clergyman and Tory politician. Suspended from his ministry for criticising the Whig government, and reinstated on the return of the Tories to power. 13, 1— Oxford. During the Civil War Oxford became sud- denly prominent as the headquarters of the Royalist party: the king fell back on Oxford after Edgehill, Newbury, and Naseby. The final investment of the city, when the king had lost every other stronghold and had himself escaped in dis- guise, was in May, 1646, and it surrendered to Fairfax the next month. The sympathies of the townsfolk inclined to the Parliament, but the colleges were intensely loyal to the king. Only fifty students a year were graduated during the war, and most of the colleges sacrificed their plate to the needs of the royal treasury in 1643. 13, 5— Tom Tempest. An absurdly extreme Jacobite in the "Idler," No. 10. "Tom Tempest is a steady friend to the house of Stuart. He can recount the prodigies that have appeared in the sky, and the calamities that have afflicted the nation every year from the Revolution ; and is of opinion that if the exiled family had continued to reign, there would have neither been worms in our ships, nor caterpillars in our trees. ' ' 13, 7— Laud. Archbishop Laud and the Earl of Strafford were the two ablest and most unscrupulous advisers of King Charles I during his period of personal government, 1629- 50 NOTES 1640, when he endeavored to rule without Parliament. Mac- aulay's contemptuous comment is scarcely more just than Johnson's. Laud was an enemy to English liberty, but he was far from being the poor creature that Macaulay describes. 13, 11— Hampden. Charles I, seeking almost desperately for some device that would give him money without a meet- ing of Parliament during the period referred to in the pre- ceding note, found an ancient tax, ' ' ship-money, ' ' which an obsolete law empowered the king to levy at his own discretion for the defense of the realm. This he proceeded to do. In 1636 John Hampden, a gentleman of Buckinghamshire, re- fused to pay the tax, and his refusal began the national re- sistance to the king which culminated in the great Civil War (1642-1648). 13, 13, 14— Falkland and Clarendon. Lucius Cary, Vis- count Falkland (1610? -1643) and Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon (1608-1674). Two moderate and noble-minded members of the Long Parliament who were opposed to the arbitrary designs of Charles, but who refused to go as far as the extreme Puritans, and fought on the king's side in the Civil War. Falkland was killed in the battle of Newbury. Clarendon lived to be for seven years Prime Minister of Charles II after the Kestoration (1660-1667).— Roundheads. The term applied in contempt by the Royalists to the Puritans because of their short hair. The more worldly Cavaliers wore wigs or long natural ringlets. 13, 25— stock-jobbers. The Bank of England was estab- lished in 1694 in the face of much opposition, especially in the House of Lords. The stock was subscribed for in eleven days, largely by members of the House of Commons, and the commercial classes were thereby bound over to the new dy- nasty. The real objections to the scheme were that the directors were all Whigs, Nonconformists, and city men. The shares rose quickly to a premium, but were subject to fluctua- tions. 13, 26— Septennial Parliaments. The duration of a Par- liament was extended from three \ears to seven by the Sep- tennial Bill (1716). It was a Whig measure, increasing the stability and power of Parliament, and was accordingly hated by the Tories. NOTES 51 13, 27— continental connections. The kings who suc- ceeded Queen Anne were Electors of Hanover, and of course retained this "continental connection" after they became kings of England. The Jacobites, regarding George I and George II as usurpers, hated this German connection (broken in 1837 at the accession of Victoria) as they did everything else about the House of Hanover. 13, 31— Great Rebellion. This is, of course, the Jacobite term for the Puritan Eevolution. 13, 37— Whig. After the Restoration of the Stuarts there was a country party and a court party in Parliament, and to these the names of Whig and Tory were applied in 1679. They were nicknames given by the opponents of each party. The persistency of the names of the old parties was in large part due to their lack of meaning, for as new questions arose the names of the parties did not need to be altered though the objects of contention had changed. After 1830 the name of Whig gave place to that of Liberal, and that of Tory to Con- servative. 14, 9— Juvenal. A great Roman satirist of the first and second centuries of our era. Dryden translated five of his extant satires. 15, 5— Boyse. Samuel Boyse (1708-1749), an Irishman and a poet, chronically impecunious and a great trial to the patience of his patrons. 15, 10— Hoole. John Hoole (1727-1803), not Johnson's later friend, the translator of Tasso. "Mr. Hoole told him he had received part of his education in Grub-street. . . . Having asked who was his instructor, and Mr. Hoole having answered, 'My uncle, Sir, who was a tailor'; Johnson, recollecting himself, said, 'Sir, I knew him; we called him the metaphysical tailor. He was of a club in Old Street, with me and George Psalmanazar and some others; but pray, .Sir, was he a good tailor?' Mr. Hoole having answered that he believed he was too mathematical, and used to draw squares and triangles on his shop-board, so that he did not excel in the cut of a coat; — 'I am sorry for it,' said Johnson; 'for I would have every man to be master of his own business. ' ' ' — Boswell, under 1783. 15, 14— Psalmanazar. George Psalmanazar, a remarkable 52 NOTES impostor (born about 1680 in Switzerland or southern France) who after an adventurous career in all parts of the world im- posed himself on Europe and England as a noble Japanese convert, a native of Formosa. For a time he was the lion of society, honored by the noble and the learned, and he was only deposed from his popularity by his own repentance and retirement. 15, 21, 22— blue ribands in St. James's Square. The blue ribbon is worn by members of the Order of the Garter. St. James's Square was then and is still the very heart of aristocratic London. 15, 24— Newgate. London's most famous prison, at the corner of Newgate Street and Old Bailey. The building in which Savage was confined was no longer standing when Macaulay wrote. The Newgate that he knew was begun in 1770 and it is now being replaced by still another. 15, 34— Piazza of Covent Garden. An open arcade or covered walk, of a kind familiar enough in Italy, but quite unique in London. It was planned by Inigo Jones, and it was intended that it should run completely around the square of Covent Garden. But part of it was burned down, and it re- mains only on the north and east sides> 16, 4— the Prime Minister. Sir Robert Walpole (1676- 1745), Prime Minister of England, 1721-1742. 16, 17— Grub Street. Now Milton Street. Johnson thus characterized it: "Grub Street, the name of a street in Lon- don, much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems; whence any mean production is called Grub-street. ' ' 17, 30— the tenth satire of Juvenal. In this satire Juve- nal, passing in review the illustrious of all ages, shows how vain are the ordinary objects of human desire. Hence it is wise to accept cheerfully the dispensations of Heaven, and simply entreat the gods for a sound mind in a sound body, for strength of soul— shrinking from neither toil nor death— and for a contented heart. 17, 33— Wolsey. Thomas Wolsey (1471-1530), Cardinal and chief minister of Henry VIII; arrested for high treason, 1530. 17, 36— Sejanus. Minister, and favorite of the Emperor NOTES 53 Tiberius. He plotted with Livia, the wife of Tiberius, and was suspected by his master, disgraced, and killed, a.d. 31. Ben Jonson wrote a tragedy on the subject. 19, 13— blank verse. What should be the characteristics of blank verse? See Gummere's " Handbook" or Lanier's ' ' Science of English Verse. ' ' 19, 23, 24— Tatler . . . Spectator. See the Essay on Ad- dison, pp. 47, 48, and 57 ff. 19, 38— Richardson. Samuel Eichardson (1689-1761), one of the great eighteenth century novelists. The best known of his works are ' ' Clarissa Harlowe, ' ' " Pamela, ' ' and * ' Sir Charles Grandison. " 20, 2— Young. Edward Young (1681-1765), a writer of some eminence in his day, but now only remembered as the author of "Night Thoughts. ' '—Hartley. David Hartley, M.D. (1705-1757), author of "Observations on Man." 20, 7— Bubb Dodington. George Bubb Dodington (1691- 1762), a politician more eminent for skill in the baser arts of political life than for statesmanship, but worthy of re- membrance nevertheless as a patron of literature. He was later made Baron Melcombe, and left a diary (published in 1784) covering the period from 1749 to 1761. 20, 8— Prince Frederick. Frederick Louis, Prince of Wales (1707-1751), eldest son of George II. He courted popularity in opposition to his father, by whom he was sup- posed to be ill-used. He posed as a patron of the arts and literature. "His best quality was generosity, his worst in- sincerity and indifference to truth" (Horace Walpole). 21, 1— Sir Roger, etc. Famous characters and episodes of the "Spectator." 21, 8— Squire Bluster, etc. Characters and episodes in the ' ' Rambler. ' f The most interesting, perhaps, is the last one named, a delightful tale which the curious may find in Nos. 186-7 of the "Eambler." 21, 22— Gunnings. Maria and Elizabeth Gunning, after- wards Countess of Coventry and Duchess of Hamilton, re- spectively, were two daughters of an Irish gentleman (born 1733-4), who became, when they went to London in 1751, perhaps the most famous beauties of their time in Europe. 21, 23— Lady Mary. Lady Mary Wortley Montague 54 NOTES (1689-1762), chiefly famous now for her literary friendships and for what is said of her brilliant and witty personality. Her admirable "Letters" were written from Constantinople when her husband was British Ambassador there (1716). 21, 24— pit. That part of the auditorium of a theatre which is on the floor of the house, now usually restricted to the part of this behind the stalls. Also transferred to the people occupying this ("Oxford English Dictionary"). The seats in the pit are cheap and the judgment thence emanating is the vox populi of the drama. 21, 25— Monthly Review. A Whig and non-conformist journal of which Johnson entirely disapproved. Its rival was the orthodox and Tory ' ' Critical Eeview. ' ' Johnson thus estimated the merits of the two papers in a conversa- tion with the king: — "The King then asked him if there were any other literary journals published in this kingdom, except the ' Monthly' and' 'Critical' RevieAvs, and on being answered that there was no other, his Majesty asked which of them was the best; Johnson answered that the 'Monthly Review' was done with most care, the 'Critical' upon the best principles; adding, that the authors of the 'Monthly Eeview' were enemies of the Church" (Boswell, under 1767). 22, 18— a letter written with, etc. Boswell gives us a ■copy of this letter, which runs as follows: To the Right Honorable the Earl of Chesterfield. February 7, 1755. My Lord, I have been lately informed, by the proprietor of the 'World," that two papers in which my dictionary is recom- mended to the public, were written by your lordship. To be so distinguished, is an honor, which, being very little accus- tomed to favors from the great, I know not well how to re- ceive, or in what terms to acknowledge. When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment of your address, and could not forbear to wish that I might boast myself Le vainqueur du vainqueur de la terre;— that I might obtain that regard for which I saw the world contending; but I found my attendance so little en- NOTES 55 couraged, that neither pride nor modesty would suffer me to continue it. When I had once addressed your lordship in public, I had exhausted all the art of pleasing which a retired and uncourtly scholar can possess. I had done all that I could; and no man is well-pleased to have his all neglected, be it never so little. Seven years, my lord, have now passed, since I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; dur- ing which time I have been pushing on my work through diffi- culties, of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it at last, to the verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favor. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a patron before. The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love, and found him a native of the rocks. Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indif- ferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity, not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the public should consider me as owing that to a patron, which Providence has enabled me to do for myself. Having carried on my work thus far with so little obliga- tion to any favorer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I shall conclude it, if less be possible, with less; for I have been long wakened from that dream of hope, in which I once boasted myself with so much exultation, My Lord, Your lordship *s most humble, Most obedient servant, Sam. Johnson. ,22, 21— In the preface, etc. The passage referred to is so admirable an example, of Johnson ? s style at its best that it is worth quoting at length, even apart from its value in illus- 56 NOTES trating the lines in the text. It lies in the two last para- graphs of the preface to the dictionary. "There never can be wanting some . . . who will consider that no dictionary of a living tongue can be perfect, since while it is hastening to publication, some words are budding, and some falling away; that a whole life cannot be spent upon syntax and etymology, and that even a whole life would not be sufficient; that he, whose design includes whatever language can express, must often speak of what he does not understand; that a writer will sometimes be hurried by eager- ness to the end, and sometimes faint with weariness under a task which Scaliger compares to the labors of the anvil and the mine; that what is obvious is not always known, and what is known is not always present; that sudden fits of inad- vertency will surprise vigilance, slight avocations will seduce attention, and casual eclipses of the mind will darken learn- ing; and that the writer shall often in vain trace his memory at the moment of need, for that which yesterday he knew with instinctive readiness, and which will come uncalled into his thoughts to-morrow. . . . Though no book was ever spared out of tenderness to the author, and the world is little solicitous to know whence proceeded the faults of that which it condemns; yet it may gratify curiosity to inform it that the English Dictionary was written with little assistance of the learned, and without any patronage of the great; not in the soft obscurities of retirement, or under the shelter of academic bowers, but amidst inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sor- row: and it may repress the triumph of malignant criticism to observe, that if our language is not here fully displayed, I have only failed in an attempt which no human powers have hitherto completed. If the lexicons of ancient tongues, now immutably fixed, and comprised in a few volumes, be yet, after the toil of successive ages, inadequate and delusive; if the aggregated knowledge, and co-operating diligence of the Italian academicians, did not secure them from the censure of Beni; if the embodied critics of France, when fifty years had been spent upon their work, were obliged to change its economy, and give their second edition another form, I may surely be contented without the praise of perfection, which, if I could obtain, in this gloom of solitude, what could it avail me? I have protracted my work until most of those whom I wished to please have sunk into the grave, and success NOTES 57 and miscarriage are empty sounds; I therefore dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise. ' ' 22, 25— Home Tooke. The assumed name of the Eev. John Home (1736-1812), an able and active politician and philologist who in his time measured strength with Junius and Wilkes, opposed the American war, and wrote tracts on both politics and philology. 23, 5— Junius and Skinner. Franziscus Junius (1589- 1677), a German student who died in England, leaving as the chief monument of his labors an ' ' Etymologicum Angli- canum." Stephen Skinner (1623-1667), a graduate of Christ Church, Oxford, published an etymological dictionary of the English language in 1671. 23, 12— spunging houses. Or sponging houses. Johnson's own definition will be sufficient, — "Spunging house, a house to which debtors are taken before commitment to prison, where the bailiffs sponge upon them, or riot at their cost. " 24, 11— Miss Lydia Languish. A fantastically senti- mental girl in Sheridan's comedy "The Rivals." 25, 7— Bruce's "Travels." James Bruce (1730-1794), a native of Kinnaird, Scotland, and probably the most cele- brated African traveler before Livingstone, published his "Travels to discover the sources of the Nile" in 1790. The incident of the "raw steak cut from living cows" is related by him in good faith. 25, 11— Mrs. Lennox. Charlotte Lennox (1720-1804), an English novelist and poet, who was a respected friend of Johnson 's. She was born in New York, where her father, Colonel James Eamsay, was lieutenant governor. 25, 12— Mrs. Sheridan. Frances Chamberlaine Sheridan (1724-1766), the accomplished mother of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, herself a novelist and dramatist. 25, 25— Hector . . . Aristotle. See "Troilus and Cres- sida, ' ' Act n, Sc. ii. The period traditionally assigned to the Trojan War, in which Hector was the chief bulwark of the besieged city of Troy, is the early part of the twelfth cen- tury B.C. Aristotle flourished in the fourth century,— making 58 NOTES Hector's reference to him an anachronism of about eight centuries.— Julio Romano . . . Delphi. Julio Romano was an Italian painter (1492-1546), pupil of Raphael. . The oracle of Apollo at Delphi was definitely closed by the emperor Theodosius at the end of the fourth century of our era. Yet in "A Winter's Tale" the oracle's judgment is sought (Act II, Sc. i), and the pretended statue of Hermione (Act v,. Sc. ii) is the work of that "rare Italian master, Julio Romano. ' ' 25, 33— massy. Formerly in common use; now rhetorical or archaic: in ordinary prose use superseded by "massive"' ("Oxford English Dictionary"). 26, 2— Lord Privy Seal. The minister who has the cus- tody of the seal affixed to documents of minor importance,, not requiring the Great Seal. Lord Gower is referred to in the text. ' ' You know, Sir, ' ' said Johnson once to Boswell,. "Lord Gower forsook the old Jacobite interest. When I came to the word renegado, after telling that it meant 'one who deserts to the enemy, a revolter, ' I added, Sometimes we say a GOWER. Thus it went to the press; but the printer had more wit than I, and struck it out. ' ' 26, 9— George the Third. George III became king in 1760. James II had been deposed seventy-two years before. Many still thought that deposition wrongful. But the two Jacobite revolts of 1715 and 1745 had both met with utter failure. England was evidently committed to the principles of the Revolution and to the rule of the House of Hanover. George I and George II had been more German than English; George III was English by birth, education, and tempera- ment. On all these counts the Tories wisely decided to for- get their Jacobite principles and to renew their traditional support of the crown and its prerogatives. George himself was a Tory at heart, suspicious of Parliament and hostile to the great Whig leaders, who might be proud and undemo- cratic, but who nevertheless represented the principle of Par- liamentary supremacy. Accordingly "(Tory) Oxford be- came loyal. Cavendishes and Bentincks (two of the greatest of the Whig families) were murmuring. (Tory) Somersets and Wyndhams hastened to kiss hands. ' ' And Johnson, a Tory man of letters, could accept from friends what he NOTES 59 would have despised coming from a Whig government. His action was inconsistent, but very human. 26, 15— Lord Bute. John Stuart, third Earl of Bute (1713- 1792), Secretary of State and Prime Minister. He was on the whole unpopular. 27, 27— Cock Lane Ghost. See note on 11, 1 of the Essay on Addison.— Churchill (1731-1764). A dissipated and worthless but keen-minded wit, whose most notable piece of work was ' ' The Eosciad, ' ' a biting satire on the actors of his day, in which Garrick alone escaped ridicule. 28, 4— Wilhelm Meister. "Wilhelm Meister's Apprentice- ship" was a novel published by Goethe 1795-6. 28, 23— Ben. Ben Jonson (1574-1637), after Shakespeare the greatest dramatist of the Elizabethan age. 28, 31, 32— .ffischylus, Euripides, Sophocles. The three great tragic poets of ancient Greece. In order of time ^Eschylus was the eldest (born about 525 B.C.), and Euri- pides the youngest (born 485 B.C.). To edit the works of Sophocles (born about 495 B.C.) without a knowledge of iEschylus or Euripides would be to neglect the setting of the poet studied, and the evolution of his genius and method. The parallel is not perfect, but it is sufficiently so. The greatest of Shakespeare's older contemporaries was Christo- pher Marlowe; of those who were younger or who followed him Ben Jonson was easily first, and then would come, proba- bly, Webster, Beaumont, and Fletcher. Of the other great dramatists mentioned in 1. 35, Dekker began to write in 1598 and died about 1637— twenty-one years after Shakespeare,— while Ford and Massinger were three or four years younger. 30, 19— Goldsmith. Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774), the lovable Irishman who, perhaps, of the whole group is most read to-day. His best known works are ' ' The Deserted Vil- lage, " " The Traveller, ' ' and the exquisite novel, ' ' The Vicar of Wakefield. ' ' 30, 20— Reynolds. Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), first president of the Royal' Academy, is the chief of the three great English painters of his age,— Reynolds, Romney, and Gainsborough. 30, 21— Burke. Edmund Burke (1729-1797), the greatest orator of the philosophic type that the British races (he was 60 NOTES an Irishman) have yet produced, and one of the greatest masters of political philosophy. The works by which he is best known are his "Reflections on the Revolution in France, ' ' " Thoughts on the Present Discontents, ' ' and his speeches on America. 30, 22— Gibbon. Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), author of "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. "—Jones. Sir William Jones (1746-1794), a distinguished English Orientalist. He was the first English scholar to recognize the value of Sanskrit. 30, 29— Bennet Langton (1737-1801). Fellow student at Trinity College, Oxford, with Topham Beauclerk (see below). He was famous for his Greek scholarship, but is best known by his friendship with Dr. Johnson, whom he attended in his last illness. 30, 31— Topham Beauclerk (1737-1780). A country gen- tleman of catholic taste in science and literature, whose friendship for Dr. Johnson has preserved his memory. 31, 8— Boswell. James Boswell (1740-1795). Compare the estimates of Boswell in this essay and in Macaulay's essay on Boswell 's "Life of Johnson" with that of Carlyle in his essay on Johnson. 31, 22— Wilkes. John Wilkes (1727-1797), the great English agitator who, though himself unprincipled and quite lacking in constructive statesmanship, stood out successfully against Parliament for liberty of the press and freedom of election. 31, 24— Whitfield . . . Calvinistic Methodists. George Whitfield (1714-1770), one of Wesley's associates in the founding of Methodism at Oxford (between 1729 and 1735), and the greatest pulpit orator of the movement. He was a rigid Calvinist, and on this ground separated from Wesley in 1741. 33, 1— Southwark . . . Streatham. Southwark is a district on the "Surrey side" of the Thames in London. Its largest industrial establishment is still the great brewery once owned by Mr. Thrale. Streatham is a suburb on the south side of London. 33, 27— Buck . . . Maccaroni. "Buck" was a half -slang eighteenth-century term for a fashionable dandy,— equivalent NOTES 61 to ' ' beau. ' ' Macearoni, really the name of an Italian dish, was still another term for ' ' dandy, ' ' perhaps because the Italian tour was the fashion among young men of wealth, and the use of a word of this kind would carry with it an affecta- tion of familiarity with things Italian. 33, 33— Fleet St. The street which leads from Temple Bar eastward, and which has always been considered the chief approach to the City of London. It took its name from the Fleet river, arched over and turned into a sewer in 1765. 34, 22— Mitre Tavern. In Mitre Court, off Fleet Street. While it stood it was noted as Dr. Johnson's favorite resort, but it has now been torn down. 35, 33 — Lothian. A name whose origin is unknown, now preserved in the three Scotch counties of East, West, and Mid Lothian — Haddington, Linlithgow, and Edinburgh. 35, 35— Mansfield. William Murray, Lord Mansfield (1705-1793), the most distinguished lawyer of his time, and chief justice of the Court of King's Bench, 1756-88. 36, 11— Macpherson. James Macpherson (1736-1796) published in 1760 some fragments of ancient Gaelic verse with translations. These were received with so much interest that he followed them with "Fingal" — supposedly by the third century bard Ossian,— in 1762. Its authenticity was soon questioned but the forgery was never completely proved, and some still maintain the genuineness of the poem. Mac- pherson never produced the originals as evidence. 36, 28 — sophistry. Gr. ooQiott/s , a master of one's craft. The method of teaching, doctrine, or practice of the Greek sophists, who attached great virtue to quibbles; hence rea- soning sound in appearance only ("Century Dictionary"). 37, 4— Maxime, etc. "If thou wilt, greatly do I desire to contend with thee. ' ' 37, 16— Bentley. Kichard Bentley (1662-1742), the great- est English scholar, and one of the greatest European scholars, of his time. 37, 32— Almon and Stockdale. John Almon (1737-1805), bookseller and journalist. He had a shop in Piccadilly and afterwards in Fleet Street. John Stockdale (1749?-1814) began life as a porter to Almon, but on his retirement set up a book-shop in opposition to his successor. — ' 'Taxation no 62 NOTES Tyranny." An answer to the Eesolutions and Address of the American Congress. Even Boswell could not admire this production. ' ' The extreme violence which it breathed ap- peared to me so unsuitable to the mildness of a Christian philosopher . . . that I was sorry to see him appear in so unfavorable a light. Besides, I could not perceive in it that ability of argument, or that felicity of expression, for which he was, upon other occasions, so eminent. Positive assertion, sarcastical assertion, and extravagant ridicule, which he him- self reprobated as a test of truth, were united .in this rhap- sody. ' ' 38, 25— Wilson. Richard Wilson (1714-1782), a great English painter of landscapes, — a pupil of Claude. 39, 7— wits of Button. See the Essay on Addison, pages 43-46. Button 's coffee house, kept by an old servant of Addi- son 's, was the favorite meeting place of Addison, Steele, Tick- ell, and their friends. Cibber. Colley Gibber (1671-1757). An English actor and dramatist, poet-laureate in 1730. 39, 9 — Orrery. Charles Boyle, fourth earl of Orrery (1676-1731), whose famous dispute with Bentley over the authenticity of the "Epistles of Phalaris" led to Swift's production of the ' ' Battle of the Books. ' ' 39, 10, 11 — Savage . . . services to Pope. Savage (see pages 15-16) was said to have hunted up and supplied to Pope small personal details that would add point to his sa- tires. Johnson accuses him ' ' of supplying Pope with private intelligence and secret incidents, so that the ignominy of an informer was added to the terror of a satirist." 40, 15— Malone. Edward Malone (1741-1812), an Irish literary critic and Shakespearian scholar. 41, 23— music master from Brescia. Gabriel Piozzi, an Italian music master of much talent. Mrs. Thrale was mar- ried to him in 1784, and he died in 1809, leaving the modest fortune which he had accumulated to his wife. Her affection for him was warm and permanent, and is her most amiable trait. 41, 38— solemn and tender prayer. This is thus reported by Boswell: — NOTES 63 "Almighty God, Father of all mercy, help me by thy grace, that I ma} r , with humble and sincere thankfulness, remember the comforts and conveniences which I have enjoyed at this place; and that I may resign them with holy submission, equally, trusting in thy protection when thou givest and when thou takest away. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, have mercy upon me. ' ' To thy fatherly protection, O Lord, I commend this family. Bless, guide, and defend them, that they may so pass through this world, as finally to enjoy in thy presence everlasting happiness, for Jesus Christ 's sake. Amen. ' ' 42, 18— Ephesian matron. An allusion to a story told in the third satire of Petronius and summarized by Jeremy Tay- lor in ' ' Holy Dying, ' ' chapter v. The woman in the tale was so overcome with grief at the death of her husband that she insisted on going to the vault with his body, intending to die there. A soldier on guard near-by came in, offered her sympathy and wine, and before long, her exhausted frame and lonely heart finding solace in his company, she fell in love and married him before a single day had passed since her first husband's funeral. — Two pictures in Hamlet. See ' ' Hamlet, ' ' Act ill, Sc. iv. 43, 14— Windham. William Windham (1750-1810), Sec- retary for War in Grenville 's ministry. 43, 16— Frances Burney. Afterwards Madame D'Arblay (1752-1840), author of two well-known novels of that day, "Evelina" and "Cecilia." See Macaulay's essay on Madame D 'Arblay. INDEX TO NOTES References are to pages of the notes: notes to "Addison" are indicated by i, those to "Johnson"' by II. Abgarus, I, 94 yEneid, I, 98, 100 /Eschylus, II, 59 Aikin, Lucy, I, 91, 95 Akenside, Mark, i, 107 Alfieri, Vittorio, i, 106 Almon, John, II, (51 Anne, Queen, n, 45 Ariosto, I, 91 Aristotle, II, 57 Arnold, Matthew, II, 45 Asdrubal, I, 99 Athanasius, I, 95 Attic poetry, H. 46 Augustan age, II, 46 Ausonius, I, 93 Balisarda, I, 91 Beaumont, Francis, n, 59 "Beggars' Opera," n, 48 Bentlev, Richard, II, 61 Bettesworth, I, 103 Blues of the circus, II, 4 9 Bluster, Squire, II, 53 Boccaccio, I, 100 bohea, I, 104 Boileau, I, 95, 96 Bolingbroke, Viscount, I, 105 Boswell, James, n, 45, 51, 54, 60, 62 Bourne, Vincent, I, 108 Boyse, Samuel, n, 51 Bramante, I, 97 Browning, Robert, I, 108 Bruce, James, n, 57 "Buck," II, 60 Burke, Edmund, II, 59 Burnev, Prances, II, 63 Bute, Earl of, II, 59 Butler, Samuel, I, 102 Button's, I, 92; II, 62 Byron, Lord, I, 107 Cambridge, T, 94 ; II, 46 Capreae, I, 9 7 Capuchin friars, I, 96 Capulets, II, 49 Carev, Henry, I, 101 Carlyle, Thomas, i, 102 ; n, 60 Charles I, I, 95 ; II, 49, 50 Charles II, I, 92 ; II, 46, 50 Charter House, I, 92 Chaucer, Geoffrey, I, 108 Chesterfield, Lord, n, 54 "Chevy Chace," I, 104 Child's coffee-house, I, 104 Christ Church College, II, 46 Gibber, Colley, II, 62 Clarendon, Earl of, II, 50 Claudian, I, 93 Cock Lane ghost, n, 59 ; I, 93 Collier, Jeremy, I, 103 commination service, I, 102 Congreve, William, I, 107, 108 Convocation, I, 92 Corneille, Pierre, I, 106 Covent Garden, I, 101; II, 52 Cowley, Abraham, I, 102 Coyer, Abbe, I, 103 "Critical Review," n, 54 Cromwell, Oliver, I, 92, 95 Cynics, I, 103 Dacier, I, 95 Dante Alighieri, I, 100 Davy, Sir Humphrey, I, 107 Dekker, Thomas, ir, 59 Dickens, Charles, I. 102 Dodington, Bubb, II, 53 Doria, I, 96 Dunkirk, I, 92 "Edinburgh Review," I, 91 Edward III, I, 101 Ephesian matron, n, 63 Erasmus, I, 96 Euripides, II, 59: t, 9.T Eusebius, I, 94 Ferdinand and Isabella, T, 98 Fleet Street, II, 61 Fletcher, John, II, 59 Ford, John, n, 59 Francis, St., of Assisi, I, 96 Fracastorius, I, 96 Gainsborough, Thomas, II, 59 Garrick, David, II, 47 66 INDEX TO NOTES Gay, John, I, 108; II, 48 "Gentleman's Magazine," ir, 48 George I, I, 107 ; II, 51 George II, II, 51 George III, II, 58 "Gerano-Pygniaeornachia," I, 96 Gibbon, Edward, II, 60 Gladstone, Wm. Ewart, II, 46 Godolphin, Earl of, I, 104 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, II, 59 Goldsmith, Oliver, I, 108; II, 59 Gothic architecture, I, 96 Gowei", Lord, II, 58 Grand Alliance, I, 98 Grecian coffee-house, I, 102 Grenville, George, II, 63 Gummere, Francis B., II, 53 Gunnings. The, II, 53 Gwynn, Nell, I, 107 Hale, I, 103 Hallam, Henry, i, 107 Hampden, .John, II, 50 Hampton Court, I, 92 Hannibal, I, 100 Harleian Library, II, 48 Harlev, Robert, Earl of Oxford, I, 106; II, 48 Hartley, David, II, 53 Hector, II, 57 Henry VIII, I, 92 Herculaneum, I, 97 Hobbes, Thomas, I, 95 Homer, I, 98 Hoole, John, i. 94: ir, 51 Horace, II, 46 Hurd, Richard, I, 101 Ireland, Wm. Henry, I, 94 Irving, Washington, I, 107 Jacobite, II, 45 James II, i, 95, 98; II, 45 Jenyns, Soame, I, 103 Jerusalem Chamber, I, 108 "Johnson," Boswell's, II, 45 Jonson, Ben, I, 108; II, 59 Julio Romano, II, 58 Junius, Franziscus, II, 57 Juvenal, II, 51, 52 King, Edward, I, 108 King's evil, II, 46 Kit-Kat Club, I, 95 Kneller, Sir Godfrey, I, 102 Langton, Bennett, II, 60 Languish, Lydia. n, 57 Lanier. Sidney, II, 53 Laud, Archbishop, II, 49 Lennox, Charlotte, II, 57 Lepels, II, 47 "Leviathan," I, 95 Lichfield, II, 45 Lilliput, II, 49 Livingstone, David, II, 57 Livy, I, 96 Lizards, Miss, I, 105 "London Magazine," II, 48 Longus, I, 108 Lord Privy Seal, II, 58 Lorenzo the Magnificent, ir, 47 Lothian, II, 61 Louis XIV, I, 95, 98 Lucan, I, 93 Lucian of Samosata, T, 104 Lucretius, I, 92 Lycidas, I, 108 "Maccaroni," II, 60 Machinae Gesticulantes, I, 96 Macpherson, James, II, 61 Macrobius, II, 46 Malbranche, Nicholas de, I, 95 Malone, Edmund, II, 62 Mamelukes, I, 99 Manchester, Lady, I, 95 Manilius, I, 93 Mansfield, Lord, II, 61 Marcus Aurelius, I, 100 Marlborough, Duke of, I, 99, 105 Marlowe, Christopher, n, 59 Martial, I, 100 Massingei-, Philip, II, 59 Menander, I, 102 Mephistopheles, I, 103 "Messiah," II, 47 Michelangelo, I, 97, 100 Milton, John, I. 108 Misenum, I, 98 Mitre Tavern, II, 61 Mohawks, I, 104 Montague, Lady Mary, II, 53, 54 Montagues, II, 49 Mont Cenis, I, 99 "Monthly Review," II, 54 Morley, H., I. 105 Nambv Pamby, I, 101 Naples, I, 97, 98 Napoleon, I, 99 Nemesis, I, 101 Nero, I, 99 Newgate, II, 52 Newton, Sir Isaac, I, 108 "Orlando Furioso," I, 91 Orrery, Earl of, II, 62 Ovid, I, 93 Oxford, I, 92. 94, 105; II, 46, 49, 60 Paestum, I, 97 Pantheon, I, 97 INDEX TO NOTES 67 Parliamentary reporting, ir, 48 Pembroke College, II, 46 Pentheus, I, 93 Percy, Bishop, I, 104 Peripetia, I, 106 Petrarch, II, 46 Phillipps, Ambrose, r, 104 Piozzi, Gabriel, II, 62 Politian, II, 47 Pollio, I, 96 Pompeii, I, 97 Pompignan, Franc de, I, 103 Poole, John, I, 102 Pope, Alexander, ir, 47, 62 Posilipo, I, 97 Prince Frederick, II, 53 Prndentius, I, 92 Psalmanazar, ir, 51 Puck, I, 103 Queensberrys, II, 47 Racine, Jean, I, 95, 106 Ramsay, Colonel James, II, 57 "Rasselas," I, 95 Ravenna, I, 100 Revolution, English, I, 95 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, II, 59 Rimini, Francesca da, I, 100 Romney, George, II, 59 Rosicrucian, I, 107 Rowe, Nicholas, I, 107 royal touch, n, 45, 46 Riiskin, John, II, 46 St. James's Square, n, 52 St. Peter's, I, 97 Sacheverell, Henry, I, 103 ; II, 49 Salvator Rosa, i, 97 Sannazaro, Jacopo, I, 96 Santa Croce, I, 100 Savage, Richard, I, 102 ; II, 62 Scherezade, I, 104 scrofula, II, 46 Sejanus, II, 52 Sempronius, I, 105 Septennial Parliaments, II, 50 Shakespeare, William, i, 108; II, 59, 62 Sheridan, Mrs., II, 57 Sheridan, Richard B., I, 107, 108: II, 57 Sidney, Sir Philip, i, 108 Sidowius Apollinaris, I, 100 Skinner, Stephen, ir, 57 Softly, Tom, I, 101 Sophocles, il, 59 Southwark, n, 60 "Spectator," n, 53 Spring Gardens, I, 104 spunging houses, II, 57 de Stael, Madame, I, 10 7 Steele, Richard, I, 102; n, 62 Steenkirk, i, 91 Stella, i, 101 stock-jobbers, II, 50 Stockdale, John, II, 61 Strafford, Earl of, II, 49 Streatham, n, 60 Surface, i, 107 Swift, Jonathan, I, 101, 106 Talleyrand, I, 107 Tasso, Torquato, I, 94, 100, 107 II, 51 "Tatler, The," ir, 53 Taylor, Jeremy, II, 63 "Taxation no Tyranny," n, 61 Teazle, Sir Peter, i, i07 Tempest, Tom, II, 49 Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, I, 108 Theobald's, I, 91 Theocritus, I, 93 Thomson, James, n, 47 Thrale, n, 60 Thrale, Mrs. Hester, II, 62 Ticino, I, 100 Tickell, Thomas, I, 102; n, 62 Tooke, Home, II, 57 Treaty of Ryswick, I, 98 Trevelyan, Lady, n, 45 Valerius Flaccus, l, 100 Vanbrugh, Sir John, I, 103 Versailles, I, 103, 104 Vico, I, 97 Victor Amadeus, I, 100 Vida, I, 96 Virgil, i, 102: II, 46, 47 Voltaire, i, 103 "Vortigern," Ireland's, I, 94 Walcheren. i, 104 Wallace, Lew, n, 47 Walpole, Sir Robert, II, 52 Warburton, William, I, 101 Webster, John, II, 59 Wellington, Duke of, II, 46 Wesley, John, II, 60 Western, Squire, I, 107 Whitfield, George, II, 60 Wild of Sussex, I, 92 Wilkes, John, II, 60 William III. I, 95; II, 46 William and Marv, II, 45 Will's coffee-house, I, 102 Wilson, Richard, II, 62 Windham, William, II, 63 Wolsey, Cardinal, II, 52 Young, Edward, II, 53 * N * A U V"-. 4> 3 $ :j ,4° ^d 1 a^;**" V*» A *^ . C * J^W/Z&'r? *. **•-> Sr ° '''^a Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. **o W I ""^a Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. ,. x$° Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide o Xr ^& *■ < Treatment Date: March 2009 °o *^ M ?S" 0# a? ^ * PreservationTechnologies •d* Q> fr < *°' ^ A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION * S Vh»f* v#i x^ *" ^^^A,* ev ^ 111 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 16066 (724)779-2111 * \S> " V '«?. ?•' A ' " <. % ^T*' A G* ^ ays" ^cP *^S^^70!? V-^ v> A <*. <^T* o* ^ %# *bV T WERT ■ v % * S ^L''* <^ < 9 BOOKBINDING H < ,*^^:^ ^ Sep. -Oct 198? " " QulUn Sou"*