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 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
JOSEPH ADDISON. 
 
C?catl)'$ dfrtglist) Claries 
 
 MACAULAY'S 
 
 ESSAY ON ADDISON 
 
 EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION, NOTES, ETC. 
 BY 
 
 ALBERT PERRY WALKER, M.A. 
 
 MASTER, AND TEACHER OF ENGLISH AND HISTORY, IN THE 
 ENGLISH HIGH SCHOOL, BOSTON 
 
 BOSTON, U.S.A. 
 
 D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS 
 
 1900 
 
45425 
 
 SEP 10 1900 
 
 J./0/?<H>\ 
 
 StCOKO COPY. 
 
 OROE« WVtSlOK. 
 SEP 
 
 800S8 
 
 Copyright, 1900 
 By D. C. Heath & Co. 
 
 Pkesswork by 
 S. J. Parkhili. & Co., Boston, U.S.A. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 UNLIKE some of Macaulay's earlier productions, the Essay on Addi- 
 son is notably simple in structure and in expression. In it Macaulay 
 allows himself few digressions from the main theme, and he refrains 
 from setting forth brilliant and startling paradoxes in order to exhibit 
 his ingenuity and eloquence in defending them, as he does in the Essay 
 on Milton. In studying this essay, therefore, the efforts of the pupil 
 should be directed primarily toward mastering the subject matter; that 
 is, toward acquiring a knowledge of the careers of the most noted men 
 of letters in the Augustan Age of English Literature. With the names 
 of Addison and Steele, Pope and Swift, should be associated in his 
 mind conceptions of the personalities, the social relations, and the 
 characteristic literary productions of these authors; and this result may 
 best be achieved by devoting as much time as possible to reading in 
 class selections from their works, and applying to them Macaulay's 
 critical judgments. 
 
 In accordance with the plan pursued in other volumes of the series, 
 the Editor has gathered the historical facts necessary to the elucidation 
 of the text into an introductory sketch, to be studied before the reading 
 of the essay is begun, and has relegated all matters of miscellaneous 
 information to an Explanatory Index at the end of the book, where 
 readers who fail to understand any given allusion of Macaulay may 
 find, not merely some facts relative to the matter referred to, but those 
 specific facts which make clear the bearing of the allusion upon Mac- 
 aulay's main topic. Throughout the text the symbol ° indicates that 
 the word or phrase preceding is to be found in the Explanatory Index. 
 
 It has not been thought necessary to repeat in this volume the sug- 
 gestions for the study of the Essay as a typical literary form which are 
 incorporated in the volume of this series containing the Essay on 
 Milton. For such suggestions, and also for a more extended account 
 of English history in the period immediately preceding the Revolution 
 of 1688, the pupil is referred to that volume. 
 
iv PREFACE. 
 
 The text employed in this edition is the revised text prepared by 
 Macaulay for the first collected edition of his essays. The original 
 punctuation and capitalization have been carefully retained, and the 
 pupil may with profit be led to institute a comparison between the 
 elaborate and purely formal punctuation in use in England a half- 
 century ago and the rational system now employed, especially in this 
 country. 
 
 A. P. W. 
 
 Boston, May, 1900. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface iii 
 
 Introduction vi 
 
 Macaulay's Life (Outline) vi 
 
 Macaulay's Ideals and his Achievements ix 
 
 Historical Introduction (A Sketch of the British Consti- 
 tution, and of Events before and after the Revolution 
 
 of 1688) xiii 
 
 Chronological Table of Addison's Life and Contemporary 
 
 Events xxix 
 
 Bibliography (Macaulay and Addison) .... xxx 
 
 THE ESSAY ON ADDISON ...... 1 
 
 Notes — Illustrative and Explanatory 113 
 
 Questions for Review „ 121 
 
 Explanatory Index .126 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL OUTLINE OF MACAULAY'S LIFE AS 
 RELATED TO HIS PRINCIPAL LITERARY WORK.. 
 
 1800 He was born at Rothley Temple, Leicestershire, England. 
 
 25 Oct. His father was a Presbyterian clergyman, his mother a 
 Quaker. In early childhood he was an insatiable reader. 
 After the year 
 
 1 81 2 He began his formal education by attending a private 
 academy. 
 
 1818 He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where he won dis- 
 tinction for brilliant work in all studies except mathe- 
 matics. He was associated with the college for more 
 than seven years (Craven University Scholar, 1821; B.A., 
 1822; Fellow, 1824). (Contributions to KnighVs Quar- 
 terly Magazine, 1822; Essay on Milton, 1825.) Having 
 determined to pursue the profession of law, in 
 
 1826 He was called to the bar, but devoted much of his time to 
 literature, as his Essay on Milton, contributed to the 
 Edinburgh Review, had gained him instant popularity. 
 To that magazine he contributed regularly for several 
 years. (Essays on Afacliiavelli, 1827; Dryden, January, 
 1828; History, May, 1828; Ha Ham's History, September, 
 1828, etc.) 
 
 1830 He entered Parliament as a Whig member for Calne, on the 
 nomination of Lord Lansdowne. He immediately became 
 an ardent advocate of political reforms, and added to his 
 reputation as a writer that of an orator. His literary 
 activity was not diminished by his new duties (Essays on 
 Bunyan, December, 1830; Byron, June, 183 1; Johnson, 
 September, 1831; Mirabeau, July, 1832; Walpole, Octo- 
 ber, 1833, etc.), while his political services to the cause of 
 vi 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL OUTLINE. vii 
 
 reform won him the suffrages of the city of Leeds in the 
 elections of 1832, and the gratitude of the Whig leaders. 
 
 1833 He was made Secretary of the Board of Control. In the 
 
 same year his speech on a Bill for the Government of 
 India proved his exhaustive acquaintance with the condi- 
 tions and needs of that country. Accordingly he was 
 appointed a member of the Supreme Council of India and 
 its legal adviser, at a salary of ,£10,000 a year. 
 
 1834 He went to India in this capacity, and devoted his powers to 
 
 solving administrative problems and to formulating a Code 
 of Laws for India, his literary gifts meanwhile finding but 
 little expression. {Essays on Mackintosh 's History, 1835; 
 Bacon, 1837.) Having saved from his ample income a 
 sum sufficient to relieve him from anxiety for the future, in 
 
 1838 He returned to England, and was soon elected to Parlia- 
 
 ment as a member for Edinburgh. 
 
 1839 He became Secretary of War in the ministry of Lord Mel- 
 
 bourne. On the accession to power of the Tories in 
 1 841 He became an active member of the Opposition to Peel. 
 He resumed his frequent contributions to the Edinburgh 
 Review. {Essays on Clive, 1840; Leigh Hunt, Lord 
 Hollatid, Hastings, 1841 ; Frederick the Great, 1842 ; 
 Madame UArblay, Addison, 1843, etc Meanwhile he 
 tempted fortune in a new line of literary activity (Lays of 
 Ancient Rome, 1842), and also prepared the first collected 
 edition of his Essays (1843). 
 1846 He became Paymaster of the Forces in the new Whig 
 ministry of Russell. In the election of the succeeding year, 
 he was rejected by the voters of Edinburgh because of his 
 independent attitude on religious and other questions. 
 This defeat left him free to prosecute the work which he 
 had long designed to make the crowning literary produc- 
 tion of his life, the History of England from the Accession 
 of James L. (Vols. I. and II., 1848). 
 1852 He was reelected Member of Parliament for Edinburgh with- 
 out any canvass on his own behalf, but resigned his seat 
 four j ears later, as the completion of his History was still 
 
viii MACAULAY. 
 
 his foremost consideration (Vols. III. and IV., 1855), and 
 his failing health warned him that he must set a limit 
 to his activities. In recognition of his services to the state 
 in so many fields of labor, in 
 1857 He was elevated to the peerage as "Baron Macaulay of 
 Rothley." Besides his labors upon the History, he now 
 found time to contribute to the Encyclopedia Britannica 
 a series of biographies of eminent men {After bury, 1853; 
 Bunyan, 1854; Goldsmith, Johnson, 1856; William Pitt, 
 1859). His health, although failing, gave no serious 
 cause of alarm until in 
 1859 He died of disease of the heart, and was buried in the 
 Dec. 28 " Poet's Corner " in Westminster Abbey, at the foot of the 
 monument to Addison. 
 
MACAULAY'S LITERARY IDEALS, DEDUCED FROM HIS 
 CRITICAL WRITINGS, AND CRITICAL ESTIMATES 
 OF HIS ACHIEVEMENTS. 
 
 General Type of Work. — It may be laid down as a general 
 rule . . . that history begins in novel and ends in essay. ... By 
 judicious selection, rejection, and rearrangement, (the historian) 
 gives to truth those attractions which have been usurped by hction. 
 (Macaulay, Essay on History?) 
 
 The historical essay, as he conceived it, was as good as 
 unknown before him. To take a bright period or personage 
 of history, ... to conceive it at once in article size, and then 
 to fill in this limited canvas with sparkling anecdote, telling 
 bits of color, and facts all fused together, by a real genius 
 for narrative, was the sort of genre painting which Macaulay 
 applied to history. (J. C. Morrison.) Narrative was his 
 peculiar forte. (H. J. Nicoll.) 
 
 Restrained Imagination, Truth. — A perfect historian must 
 possess an imagination sufficiently powerful to make his narrative 
 affecting and picturesque. Yet he must control it so absolutely as 
 to content himself with the materials which he finds, and to refrain 
 from supplying deficiencies by additions of his own. . . . He must 
 possess sufficient self-command to abstain from casting his facts in 
 the mould of his hypothesis. He never advances a false opinion 
 because it is new or splendid, because he can clothe it in a happy 
 phrase, or defend it by an ingenious sophism. (Macaulay, Essay 
 on History?) 
 
 He is substantially right in his judgments. (Frederic 
 Harrison.) His intellect, bright and broad as it was, was 
 ix 
 
x ADDISON. 
 
 the instrument of his individuality. His sympathies and 
 antipathies colored his statements, and he rarely exhibited 
 anything in a dry light. (E. P. Whipple.) Macaulay's hardy 
 and habitual recourse to strenuous superlative is fundamen- 
 tally unscientific and untrue. (J. Morley). In seeking for 
 paradoxes, Macaulay often stumbles on, but more frequently 
 stumbles over, truth. (G. Gilfillan.) 
 
 Proportion. — History has its foreground and its background : 
 and it is principally in the management of its perspective that one 
 artist differs from another. Some events must be represented on a 
 large scale, others diminished; the great majority will be lost in the 
 dimness of the horizon; and a general idea of their joint effect will 
 be given by a few slight touches. (Macaulay, Essay on History.} 
 Each of his Essays is a unit. The results of analysis are 
 diffused through the veins of narration, and details are strictly 
 subordinated to leading conceptions. (E. P. Whipple.) He 
 is not a genuine artist; when he draws a picture he is 
 always thinking of proving something; he inserts disserta- 
 tions in the most interesting and touching places. (H. A. 
 Taine".) 
 
 Clearness. —The first law of writing, that law to which all other 
 laws are subordinate, is this, that the words employed shall be such 
 as convey to the reader the meaning of the writer. . . . The style 
 (of Bunyan) is delightful to every reader. The vocabulary is the 
 vocabulary of the common people. There is not an expression, if 
 we except a few technical terms of theology, which would puzzle 
 the rudest peasant. Yet no writer has said more exactly what he 
 meant to say. (Macaulay, Life of Bunyan ) 
 
 It is largely due to his influence that the best journals and 
 periodicals of our day are written in a style so clear, so 
 direct, so resonant. (Frederic Harrison.) Nobody can have 
 any excuse for not knowing exactly what it is that Macaulay 
 means. (He) never wrote an obscure sentence in his life. 
 (J. Morley.) The wonderful clearness, point, and vigor of 
 his style send his thoughts right into every brain. (W. Bage- 
 
ADDISON. xi 
 
 hot.) Nobody ever wrote more clearly than Macaulay. 
 (Leslie Stephen.) 
 
 Vigor. — His (Goldsmith's) style was always pure and easy, and, 
 on proper occasions, pointed and energetic. His narratives were 
 always amusing, his descriptions always picturesque. (Macaulay, 
 Life of Goldsmith.} 
 
 Common historical events he narrates with all the brilliancy 
 of epigram. (W. Bagehot.) By clothing his historical judg- 
 ments and his critical reflections in these cutting and sonorous 
 periods, he has forced them on the attention of a vast body 
 of readers wherever English is read at all, and on millions 
 who have neither time nor attainments for any regular 
 studies of their own. (Frederic Harrison.) 
 
 Condensation. — The style (of Dante) is, if not his highest, 
 perhaps his most peculiar excellence. His words are the fewest 
 and the best which it is possible to use. The first expression in 
 which he clothes his thoughts is always so energetic and compre- 
 hensive that amplification would only injure the effect. (Macaulay, 
 Criticisms on the Principal Italian Writers?) 
 
 He delights to cram tomes of diluted facts into one short, 
 sharp, antithetical sentence, and to condense general prin- 
 ciples into epigrams. (E. P. Whipple.) 
 
 Structure. — Dryden's arguments are often worthless. But the 
 manner in which they are stated is beyond all praise. The style is 
 transparent. The topics follow each other in the happiest order. 
 The objections are drawn up in such a manner that the whole fire 
 of the reply may be brought to bear upon them. (Macaulay, Essay 
 on Dry den.} 
 
 Occasionally he uses the long oratorical, climactic period. 
 In every paragraph we are conscious of being led on to a 
 crowning demonstration. He is careful to reserve the most 
 telling for the end, and artfully prepares the way for a final 
 resolution. (Minto.) His Essays are not merely the best of 
 their kind in existence, but they are put together with so 
 
xii ADDISON. 
 
 much skill that they are permanent types of a certain species 
 ofliterary architecture. (Edmund Gosse.) 
 
 Ornament. — The illustrations at once adorn and eluci- 
 date the reasoning. His powers of brilliant illustration 
 have never been denied, and it would not be easy to name 
 their equal. (J. C. Morrison.) 
 
 Use of Detail. — The perfect historian is he in whose work the 
 character and spirit of an age is exhibited in miniature. He con- 
 siders no anecdote, no peculiarity of manner, no familiar saying, as 
 too insignificant to illustrate the operation of laws, of religion, and 
 of education, and to mark the progress of the human mind. Men 
 will not merely be described, but will be made intimately known to 
 us. (Macaulay, Essay on History.') 
 
 He excelled all Englishmen of his time in his knowledge 
 of English history. There was no drudgery he would not 
 endure in order to obtain the most trivial fact which illus- 
 trated the opinions or the manners of any particular age, 
 and this information was not a mere assemblage of dead 
 facts. It was vitalized by his passions and imagination. 
 (E. P. Whipple.) 
 
 MACAULAY'S JUDGMENT OF HIS OWN WORK. 
 
 " The author of these Essays is so sensible of their defects 
 that he has repeatedly refused to let them appear in a form 
 which might seem to indicate that he thought them worthy 
 Of a permanent place in English literature; nor would he 
 now give his consent to the republication of pieces so 
 imperfect, if, by withholding his consent, he could make 
 republication impossible. . . . The criticism on Milton, 
 which was written when the author was fresh from college, 
 and which contains scarcely a paragraph such as his matured 
 judgment approves, still remains overloaded with gaudy and 
 ungraceful ornament." — (Preface to the first collected edition 
 of his Essays, 1849.) 
 
SKETCH OF ENGLISH HISTORY AFTER 1603. 
 
 1. The English Government. 
 
 Elizabeth, the last of the Tudor monarchs of England, died in 
 
 1603. The fabric of government which she bequeathed to her 
 
 successors, the Stuart monarchs, was essentially feudal in 
 
 form. The principle of heredity governed the descent of 
 
 . . . . . govern- 
 
 the crown, and the nation was divided into three social ment 
 
 classes, on lines determined by feudal conditions : the nobil- 
 ity (or peerage), the lesser aristocracy (or knighthood), and the 
 commons. 
 
 The nobility consists of peers created by the sovereign, or the 
 lineal descendants of peers so created. At that time, on raising a 
 
 commoner to the peerage, the monarch generally bestowed 
 
 Peers, 
 upon him a landed estate from which he might draw a rev- 
 enue to support his new dignity, and conferred upon him a title 
 either drawn from the estate or commemorating the achievement 
 which had won for him the honor of ennoblement. There were 
 five grades or orders of nobility, baron, viscount, earl, marquis, 
 and duke, — represented in our own study by John Somers, Baron 
 Somers; Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke; Sidney Godol- 
 phin, Earl of Godolphin; Thomas Wharton, Marquis of Wharton; 
 and John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough. Perhaps the most 
 important advantage of nobility lay in the fact that every peer was 
 an hereditary legislator in his own right, having a claim to be sum- 
 moned by the monarch to every successive national legislative 
 assembly, or " Parliament," where the peers by themselves formed 
 an "upper house." 
 
 The lesser aristocracy consisted of those persons whom the mon- 
 arch had raised above the rank of commoners by conferring upon 
 them the order of knighthood. In early times, all persons 
 who possessed a certain amount of land were raised to that Knl § nts « 
 
xiv ADDISON. 
 
 dignity, and only persons of this rank were eligible to represent 
 the several counties in the lower House of Parliament. County 
 representatives were therefore called " Knights of the Shire." In 
 later days the distinction was conferred upon artists, learned men, 
 and public benefactors in any line of activity. In our study, ex- 
 amples are Sir Joshua Reynolds (for distinguished skill in paint- 
 ing) ; Sir Richard Steele (for political services). 
 
 The legislative power resided in Parliament, the upper house of 
 
 which contained all hereditary nobles (" Lords Temporal ") and all 
 
 archbishops and bishops of the, national church (" Lords 
 
 Parlia- Spiritual "), while the lower house contained representatives 
 
 from each county (" Knights of the Shire ") and from each 
 
 lesser political unit or borough ("burgesses"). 
 
 The executive work of the government was entrusted by the mon- 
 arch to officials appointed by him on the ground of their ability, or 
 of their subservience to his wishes, or too often of their per- 
 
 The king s sona i acceptability alone. Of these officers the following 
 ministers. c ... 
 
 are of especial importance : — 
 
 1. The Lord High Treasurer, who was generally acknowledged 
 to be the chief officer of the Crown, or Prime Minister. 
 
 2. The Secretaries of State, who conducted all foreign negotia- 
 tions and formulated the general public policy of the State. 
 
 3. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, who shaped the financial 
 measures of the government. 
 
 4. The Lord High Chancellor, who presided over the sessions of 
 the House of Lords. 
 
 5. The Lord Chief Justice, who presided over the court of high- 
 est jurisdiction in the State. 
 
 The Privy Council had been originally a small body of the most 
 eminent nobles, who were summoned by the monarch to give him 
 special advice upon matters of State policy. Included in it 
 The Privy were the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Lord Chief Jus- 
 Council. t . ce ^ the Loj . d Treasurerj the two Archbishops of the State 
 Church (see p. xv), the Lord Steward, the Lord Chamberlain, the 
 Earl Marshal, etc. Thus it contained elements from the depart- 
 ments of Einance, Justice, etc., and a permanent group of high 
 executive officers, mostly appointive, but some {e.g. Archbishops) 
 
ADDISON. xv 
 
 members by virtue of their office. It modified the king's arbitrary- 
 power by refusing the seal (see Index) to royal orders of which it 
 disapproved, but as its members were almost all subject to removal 
 from their offices, it presented no insurmountable obstacle to the 
 king's will. 
 
 The Privy Council had risen to great importance under the 
 Tudors, first by gaining control of certain territory, and later by 
 assuming the right to issue proclamations, to create courts, 
 and to exercise judicial powers in cases of supreme impor- ° vveis 
 tance in the State. 1 Thus the Stuart monarchs found in the r; ounc {i 
 Privy Council a strong weapon of tyranny when it was sub- 
 servient to the Crown, and a powerful barrier to tyranny when 
 it was ranged in defence of the established rights of the nation. 
 
 Among the political changes which had been brought about dur- 
 ing the reign of the Tudors had been a revolt from the government 
 of the Church of Rome, resulting in the establishment of a 
 new ecclesiastical organization (the Church of England) as State 
 
 a department of the State. Parliament had enacted laws to 
 the effect ( i ) that the creed of this Church should consist of " thirty- 
 nine articles" (or statements of religious dogma), then first formu- 
 lated; (2) that its supreme government should reside in the 
 monarch, as chief executive; (3) that its worship should conform 
 to a prescribed ritual, then first composed; (4) that its member- 
 ship should include all the citizens of the State; and (5") that its 
 property and revenues should be administered through the 
 agency of the State. Adherence to this Church and conform- * ° ^ni- 
 ity with its practice had been made universally compulsory. 
 
 But this revolt under the Tudors had been merely one expression 
 of a general spirit of independence that prevailed throughout the 
 nation. Many Englishmen still adhered to the authority 
 of the Roman Church, many disagreed with some of the ^ e 
 religious theories contained in the Thirty-nine Articles. senters •■ 
 Thus there arose a large body of disaffected people, who 
 strove in one way or another against the State Church. One body 
 (the Puritans) developed within the pale of the Church, through 
 the action of clergymen who, while accepting in the main the 
 
 1 While thus engaged it was called the Court of High Commission. 
 
xvi ADDISON. 
 
 results of the recent revolt, wished to " purify " the doctrines of the 
 Church of what they considered to be errors, and to "purify" its 
 worship of many rites and practices inherited from the Roman 
 Catholic regime. These Puritans, the Catholics, and clivers other 
 persons of independent views, constituted a body of rebels against 
 the authority of the State in religious matters; thus a group of sects 
 ("Dissenters") appears in England, suffering greatly from the 
 persecutions of State officials, but recruiting their numbers steadily, 
 especially from the ranks of the commoners. 
 
 2. The Early Stuart Monarchs, 1603-1649. 
 
 The reign of the Tudors in England having come to an end by 
 
 the death of Elizabeth, the " Virgin Queen," last of the direct line, the 
 
 succession devolved upon James Stuart (James I. of Eng- 
 
 James I. land), the great-grandson of her father's sister Margaret, 
 
 who had married the king of Scotland. Thus, between 
 
 160; and 1707, the same monarchs reigned over the king- 
 union of J ' ' 
 England doms of England and of Scotland, although the kingdoms 
 
 and were wholly distinct, each being governed according to its 
 
 Scotland. own fundamental constitution through its own Parliament. 
 
 A peculiarity of the early Stuart monarchs of England was their 
 adherence to the doctrine of "the divine right of kings." This 
 doctrine, in brief, was that an hereditary monarchy is a 
 . , V ,! ne f divinely instituted form of government; that a monarch is, 
 , • therefore, responsible to God alone for the way in which he 
 
 governs his realm; and that, while he should aim to rule 
 solely for the good of his subjects, they have no right to bid defi- 
 ance to his edicts or to reject him when his government becomes 
 obnoxious to them. 
 
 Very early in his reign James showed his arbitrary temper by his 
 
 determination, in spite of strong popular disapproval, to enforce the 
 
 Act of Uniformity upon all Puritans and Catholics. To his 
 
 yranny o dogged insistence upon the theory of divine right the see- 
 the Stuarts. ° r .r- 
 
 ond Stuart monarch, Charles I., ultimately saenhced his 
 
 life, for he quarrelled continuously with his Parliament in re- 
 gard to the revenues and expenditures of the nation. And his 
 
ADDISON. xvii 
 
 repeated acts of tyranny finally provoked a civil war, which 
 resulted in the defeat and execution of the king, in January, 1649. 
 There followed eleven years of Puritan rule, in which Oliver 
 Cromwell exerted a dominating influence; but his death was fol- 
 lowed by the restoration of the Stuarts in the person of Charles II., 
 son of the former monarch. His reign was marked by a fresh 
 struggle between king and Parliament, for supremacy in the gov- 
 ernment and for the control of religion within the kingdom, and it 
 was only by making repeated concessions to popular feeling that 
 Charles retained the throne until his death in 1685. 
 
 The religious excitement continued unabated during the reign of 
 James II. Indeed, the king's open adherence to Catholicism, and 
 his uncompromising obstinacy, made him more unacceptable 
 to Parliament than his brother had been. In illustration of James II. 
 this may be cited his treatment of Oxford and Cambridge. a Mag- 
 The Universities (see Index) being the nurseries of the .-, ., 
 State church (see p. xv), James proceeded to remove the 
 leading officials in the colleges from their positions, and to replace 
 them with Catholics. On the death of the president of Magdalene 
 College, Oxford, the king outraged public sentiment by ordering 
 the Fellows to elect to the presidency a Catholic, Anthony Farmer, 
 a man of notoriously bad character. On their refusal, he created a 
 special commission, which visited the college and expelled all the 
 Fellows (and later all the Demies, or scholars) for their contumacy. 
 As Farmer's unfitness for the presidency had been clearly demon- 
 strated, the commission raised a churchman, the Bishop of Oxford, 
 to the position; but, on his early death, James again appointed a 
 Roman Catholic to the office. 
 
 Matters reached a climax in 1688, three years after James's 
 
 accession to the throne. He attempted by an edict to abrogate 
 
 laws against Catholicism which had been passed to secure „ , A . 
 
 l Revolution 
 
 beyond all question the dominance of the Protestant reli- f l688> 
 
 gion. This edict, illegal in itself, was made more obnoxious 
 
 to the clergy by an order directing them to read it in their " Declara- 
 
 several churches on a certain date. Thus they were com- T ., . 
 
 ' Liberty of 
 
 pelled, as it seemed to them, to share in the overthrow of Q on . 
 
 their own church. Seven of the bishops of the State Church science." 
 
xviii ADDISON. 
 
 ventured to petition the king not to enforce his order, and he, in 
 
 a passion at this questioning of the royal prerogative, threw them 
 
 into prison. The courts did not sustain him in his tyranny, 
 
 ria o le ^ pu j D jj c sen timent was so outraged by his act that a group 
 
 bishops. r r .. , , . , , 
 
 of seven ministers and statesmen determined to put an end 
 
 to the struggle with the Stuarts by inviting the husband of James's 
 elder daughter (who was Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic) to 
 interfere for the protection of the liberties of England. This man, 
 William, Prince of Orange, landed in the west of England with a 
 military expedition on November 5, 1688, and marched upon Lon- 
 don, meeting with only a formal and faint-hearted resistance from 
 the people, who were alienated from James by repeated acts of 
 tyranny. James fled to France, and William, since he could not 
 legally summon a Parliament, issued writs for the election of a 
 "Convention." This body declared that by virtue of recent events 
 "the throne had thereby become vacant "; and by its authority, in 
 February, 1689, the Prince of Orange was crowned as King William 
 III., after having given his formal assent to a statement of the 
 
 fundamental principles of the English monarchy, presented 
 " Declara- tQ ^j m ^ ^ c onve ntion under the guidance of the body of 
 Rights " ministers who had assumed the direction of affairs. These 
 
 statesmen were determined not only to endure no longer the 
 tyranny of James Stuart, but also to secure such recognition of the 
 fundamental rights which the Stuarts had persistently denied them 
 as should leave no ground for further dispute with any monarch. 
 The principles enunciated in this statement were afterward incor- 
 porated into the series of laws which were enacted by Parliament 
 under the name of the " Bill of Rights." The statement itself, 
 called the " Declaration of Rights," is, next to " Magna Charta," the 
 
 most important document in English history. The succes- 
 
 S ttlement s ' on to t ^ ie tnrone was now fi xe d by act of Parliament upon 
 James's younger daughter, Anne, and her heirs; these fail- 
 ing, it was to pass to the descendants of his cousin Sophia, who 
 had married the Prince of the German state of Hanover. 
 
ADDISON. xix 
 
 3. The Later Stuarts, 1688-1714. 
 
 The " Glorious Revolution of 1688 " divides the England of 
 Milton from the England of Addison. Before that date English 
 history is primarily concerned with local affairs, — the de- 
 velopment of enduring institutions (political and religious) . n ^ ai \ R o 
 essentially democratic in character, because expressive of the 
 will of the nation. Thereafter its scope widens to include the 
 interests of Europe and of the world at large. A link between 
 these two phases of English history may be perceived in the rela- 
 tion of the middle and later English monarchs to Louis XIV., King 
 of France from 1643 to 1 715. 
 
 In all the struggles of the English people to establish satisfactory 
 relations between themselves and their monarch, the influence of 
 Louis had had a large share in shaping the course of events. 
 An extreme absolutist, Louis had given a refuge to the family Louls XI v - 
 of Charles I. An ardent Catholic, he had bribed Charles II., e. 
 after the Restoration, to attempt to restore Catholicism in 
 England, paying him enormous subsidies that enabled him to dis- 
 miss his Parliaments at will, and to carry on the government without 
 grants of money from the recalcitrant Commons. An ambitious 
 conqueror, he had bought from Charles the service of English troops 
 in his aggressions upon the Flemish and Dutch states upon his 
 northern boundary, until the astute Stadtholder of Holland, by dip- 
 lomatic arrangements with other countries, had succeeded in mak- 
 ing Charles's position in the matter untenable. In the cause of both 
 religion and absolutism he had supported James in his tyranny, and 
 had received him in his flight and given him the succor due to a 
 king, even sending French troops in his service to Ireland, when 
 the final attempt of James to recover his lost rights ended in g ovne 
 disastrous failure at the battle of the Boyne, where his army 1690. 
 was defeated by his supplanter, William III. 
 
 William of Orange was the ablest statesman of his age. While 
 merely Stadtholder of the small republic of Holland, he had con- 
 centrated all his energies upon the task of thwarting the William 
 ambitious designs of Louis XIV., by forming a defensive III. and 
 union of the states whose interests were threatened by Louis's Louis XIV. 
 
xx ADDISON. 
 
 aggressions, and he had succeeded in drawing England into this 
 union, for certain specific purposes. Immediately upon his ac- 
 cession to the English throne he threw the nation into the War 
 
 of the Palatinate, a struggle to thwart Louis's attempts to seize 
 Pa.atinate ^ Q erman s t a tes upon the middle Rhine. In this struggle 
 Steen'kirk William took the field in person, and was defeated by the 
 
 French General Luxembourg in the battle of Steenkirk. In 
 this war the faithless Victor Amadeus of Savoy first proved his 
 instability by his desertion of the cause of the allies a year before 
 the end of the war. The struggle proving too exhausting to Louis, 
 
 he consented to the ratification of the Peace of Ryswick in 
 . , 1697, by the terms of which Louis agreed to relinquish his 
 
 championship of the claims of the exiled branch of the 
 Stuarts, and to recognize William as the legitimate sovereign of 
 England. 
 
 Meanwhile the reign of William had witnessed the development 
 of a distinctive form of government in England. The divided 
 
 sentiment of the nation in regard to the respective rights of 
 
 the monarch and the people had resulted in the creation of 
 parties. . . * r . ... . 
 
 two distinct parties. The Tones, maintaining the doctrine 
 
 of divine right (see p. xvi), and therefore holding the Revolution 
 to have been indefensible in law, were weak supporters of William's 
 policy, and looked forward with eagerness to the time when circum- 
 stances should favor the restoration of the exiled Stuarts. Especially 
 active in Jacobite J intrigues were the landed proprietors of the 
 country districts, and the extremists among the clergy (the " High 
 Church party"). On the other hand, the champions of liberty in 
 Church and State, who had risked a traitor's death in summoning 
 William to England, were bound from self-interest to support his 
 policy, and as this coincided with the interests of the commercial 
 classes, the Whig party found its chief support in the cities, and 
 among the members of dissenting sects (see p. xv). 
 
 At the beginning of his reign William had followed the tradi- 
 tional custom of the English monarchs in appointing as ministers 
 able statesmen from both parties ; but in carrying out his policy 
 
 1 Adherents of the Stuart family after the Revolution were called 
 "Jacobites," as champions of James (Lat. = Jacobus) III. 
 
ADDISON. xxi 
 
 (which included an attempt to retain within the State Church 
 as many liberal clergymen as possible and an attempt to involve 
 England in his far-reaching plans for thwarting the baneful 
 influence of France in European politics) he was driven to System of 
 rely more and more upon the support of the Whigs, and £ overn ~ 
 
 , , , , r ■ ment b y 
 
 thus through the pressure of circumstances party govern- part j es 
 ment {i.e. government through a ministry acting as a unit 
 in support of a given line of policy) was inaugurated. The first 
 distinctively Whig ministry, formed in 1696, was dominated by 
 the so-called " Junto," consisting of Somers, Montague, Russell, and 
 Wharton. Its measures included a liberal expenditure of money, — 
 the Bank of England being created to furnish loans to the govern- 
 ment, — a bill limiting the duration of Parliament to three years, 
 and the triumphant conclusion of the Palatinate War. A Tory 
 reaction set in in 1701, but this was immediately checked by an act 
 of folly on the part of Louis XIV. For when the exiled James II. 
 died in France on September 16, 1 701, his son, James Edward, was 
 formally recognized by Louis as legitimate king of England, 
 in violation of the Treaty of Ryswick (see p. xx). The . f 
 public sentiment of the English people, thus outraged, Tames III 
 turned loyally to the support of William and his Whig ad- 
 visers, but by his death in February, 1702, the task of punishing 
 Louis for his folly and of consummating William's political schemes 
 devolved upon his successor, Queen Anne. 
 
 The principal feature of these schemes had been measures in- 
 tended to prevent the threatened union of the Spanish and French 
 monarchies under the sovereignty of Philip of Anjou, 
 grandson of Louis XIV. of France, and great-grandson of ^ ar of the 
 Philip IV. of Spain. Louis had been for years engaged in „ p % 
 aggressive wars, endeavoring to secure increase of territory s i on . 
 at the expense of his Spanish, Dutch, and German neighbors. 
 At the end of the seventeenth century the king of Spain was child- 
 less, and in feeble health, and four states, Austria, France, Bavaria, 
 and Savoy, had some ground for hoping to inherit at least a share 
 of his vast domains. The statesmanlike William of Orange, hoping 
 to forestall a possible European rupture, and especially to avoid the 
 union of the vast territory of France and Spain, had secured a 
 
xxii ADDISON. 
 
 treaty agreement for the partitioning of the Spanish territory among 
 
 the several claimants at Charles's death. Through the intrigues 
 
 of France, however, Charles was induced to bequeath his 
 
 , domains entire to a French prince, Philip of Aniou, and at 
 
 the war. r r J 
 
 Charles's death Louis abjured his treaty agreement and 
 
 announced his intention to support Philip's claims under the will. 
 Thus was precipitated the Spanish Succession War, in which 
 England, Holland, Austria, and Prussia, under the name of the 
 " Grand Alliance," were combined against France, Spain, and 
 some minor German states. 
 
 By the death of William III. the burden of carrying on the war 
 was laid upon Anne, and she entrusted the conduct of the cam- 
 paigns to John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough. This 
 gifted though unscrupulous man, by a most brilliant series 
 of campaigns, carried disaster to the French arms and com- 
 pelled Louis XIV. to appeal for a cessation of hostilities under 
 the most humiliating conditions. Although these terms were 
 afterward modified in favor of France, yet the English succeeded 
 in their chief object of preventing the union of France and Spain 
 into a single European power, and at the close of the war the 
 dismemberment of the Spanish territories was secured by the provi- 
 sions of the treaty of peace signed at Utrecht in 1 7 1 3. By this treaty 
 Philip of Anjou succeeded to the Spanish throne, but re- 
 
 ., nounced for himself and his heirs all claims upon the French 
 
 tni : \\ ar. 
 
 crown ; possessions of Spain in Italy and the Netherlands 
 were ceded to the other claimants to secure their withdrawal, Sicily 
 passing to the Duke of Savoy, and the territory of Flanders to the 
 Archduke of Austria. 
 
 The political sympathies of Anne lay wholly on the side of the 
 Tories, but as this party was hostile to the influence of Marlbor- 
 ough and to the Spanish Succession War, she was com- 
 h W ^ r • pelled, during the most of her reign, to rely upon the body 
 cal parties °^ WfcuS advisers bequeathed to her by William. By 1 710, 
 however, a change in public sentiment had become clearly 
 manifest. The opinion had become prevalent that the war was 
 being protracted that Marlborough might retain power and win 
 glory for himself. At the same time the determination of the 
 
ADDISON. xxiii 
 
 Whigs to suppress completely the High Church movement ulti- 
 mately crushed the party, for in 1710 a High Church clergyman, 
 named Dr. Sacheverell, preached, and subsequently pub- 
 lished, two sermons in which he proclaimed that the Church Sacheverell 
 r . , r . .... . lmpeach- 
 
 was in danger of a betrayal ot its principles, interests, and ment I7IO 
 
 constitution at the hands of the Whig party, inculcated the 
 doctrine of non-resistance to monarchs, and denounced the tolera- 
 tion of Dissenters. Godolphin (the Whig leader), who had been 
 attacked, urged the impeachment of Sacheverell by the House of 
 Commons; the Whigs acquiesced in this course because they saw 
 in the conduct of the case an opportunity to enunciate and defend 
 before the whole country the Whig doctrine that " Resistance to 
 the sovereign is admissible only when he has violated the funda- 
 mental law of the country (to the support of which he is pledged 
 by the virtual compact implied in his holding the office), but is then 
 a duty" Sacheverell was declared guilty by a vote of sixty-nine to 
 fifty-two, but popular sympathy had rallied about him as a martyr 
 to Whig tyranny. The queen seized the opportunity to place 
 Tories in her ministry, and the next election sustained her govern- 
 ment by sending a large Tory majority to the lower House. The 
 Tory leaders, Harley and St. John, triumphant but insecure, 
 now determined to weaken their opponents by a blow at e lor ^ 
 Marlborough. He was charged with dishonesty in the 
 management of war funds, and dismissed from all his offices, 
 although he proved that all his acts could be justified, either by 
 precedent or by the direct sanction of the monarch. At the same 
 time Harley persuaded the queen to create twelve new Tory peers 
 in order to secure a Tory majority in the upper House correspond- 
 ing to that in the lower. 
 
 Before the end of the Spanish Succession War the failing health 
 of Anne had foreshadowed her early death, and the Tories under 
 Bolingbroke, Ormonde, and Harcourt, having little to hope from 
 the succession of the Hanoverians (who would owe their throne to 
 Whig legislation, see p. xviii), began a series of intrigues for 
 
 making void the Act of Settlement, and seating the Pre- . , 
 
 ' & intrigues, 
 
 tender, son of James II., upon the English throne. In this 
 
 scheme Harley evinced but a lukewarm interest, so Bolingbroke, 
 
xxiv ADDISON. 
 
 taking advantage of the fact that Harley was a Dissenter, forced a 
 quarrel over a bill intended to place education entirely in the 
 hands of the Church, and forced him out of the Cabinet. Thus the 
 control of affairs seemed to lie wholly in the hands of the Jacobite 
 conspirators, at the time when a sudden illness (which attacked 
 the queen on the day after Harley's fall) made her death hourly 
 expected; but meanwhile the Whigs, under the leadership of Gen- 
 eral Stanhope, had been not less active than the Tories; and at a 
 critical moment their spokesmen, the Dukes of Argyle and Somer- 
 set, had pressed upon the Council the desirability of inducing Anne 
 to make the Duke of Shrewsbury Lord High Treasurer in Harley's 
 place. As Shrewsbury, although he favored the Hanoverian suc- 
 cession, had acted with the Tories since 1708, the plotters could 
 not protest against his appointment without exposing their 
 Death of scheme. After three days of stupor Anne recovered con- 
 ' nne ' sciousness, and her last act was to entrust Shrewsbury with 
 
 1714 ^he w hi te sta ff °f omce - Immediately upon his appoint- 
 
 ment, Prince George of Hanover was summoned to England, 
 troops were collected to ensure his succession, and thus the 
 schemes of Bolingbroke were thwarted. In the interim the gov- 
 ernment devolved by law upon a Council of Regency, composed of 
 eighteen peers (almost all of them Whigs who had been 
 
 Council of a pp i n ted by Sophia of Hanover, in accordance with the 
 Regency 
 
 provisions of the Regency Bill of 1705), and seven great 
 
 officers of State, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chamber- 
 lain, the Lord Keeper, the Lord High Treasurer, the Lord Presi- 
 dent of the Council, the Lord Privy Seal, and the Lord Chief 
 fustice of the Queen's Bench. This Council carried on the govern- 
 ment until the arrival of King George, in September. 
 
 4. The Hanoverians, 1715 + . 
 
 The accession of the Hanoverians brought fresh disaster to the 
 
 Tories and renewed triumph to their Whig opponents. With the 
 
 older Whigs of the Revolution, Sunderland, Shrewsbury, 
 
 Govern- and Halifax, were associated some younger men of rising 
 
 Geo t reputation, Townshend being made Secretary of State, and 
 
 Walpole a little later becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 
ADDISON. xxv 
 
 and first Lord of the Treasury (the title of Lord High Treasurer 
 now falling into disuse). 
 
 In their anxiety lest the Jacobites should succeed in breaking the 
 insecure hold of the Hanoverians on the English throne, the 
 Whigs passed several measures designed to secure their position in 
 the State as conservers of the new dynasty. Taking advantage of 
 the excitement caused by Jacobite uprisings, they secured the 
 passage of a bill extending the duration of the existing Par- 
 liament from three to seven years, in order to avoid the ^ e P^n- 
 . . . . , . . . , . , nial Bill," 
 
 tumults and riots incident to an election in the then excited 
 
 state of public feelings. Thus the Whig ministry became 
 assured of a long term of power, but internal dissensions in the 
 party soon weakened its strength. A coolness having sprung up 
 between the king and the Prince of Wales, Sunderland championed 
 the cause of the king (especially in regard to his foreign policy), 
 while Townshend and Walpole, inclining to the side of the prince, 
 were forced out of office. It was during this reconstruction of the 
 ministry, that Addison and his friend Craggs entered the 
 ministry as Secretary of State and Secretary of War respec- s 
 tively. Fearing that the prince on his accession would f state. 
 create a large number of peers from among his own sup- 
 porters, the section of the Whigs now in power introduced a bill by 
 which the crown was prohibited from creating more than six new 
 peerages in addition to the one hundred and seventy-eight 
 then existing. The strength of that section of the Whigs R .., „ ° 
 that were in opposition is shown by the fact that under the 
 leadership of Walpole they were enabled to defeat the bill in the 
 House of Commons by a large majority. 
 
 The Townshend Whig ministry was shaken by the collapse of 
 the South Sea Bubble. The seeds of this disaster had been sown 
 by the Tory, Harley, in a scheme for restoring the national 
 
 credit. Its features in brief were as follows: To a newly _ .I*, 1 ,, 6 
 
 Bubble, 
 chartered " South Sea Company " of merchants were given 
 
 exclusive privileges of trading between the South Seas Its 
 
 and England, on condition that they bought all of the ince P tlon « 
 
 floating debts of the government, fifty million dollars, from its 
 
 various creditors (and later all the permanent debt amounting to 
 
xxvi ADDISON. 
 
 one hundred and fifty million dollars), and carried the whole as a 
 loan from the Company to the government at moderate rates of 
 interest. This arrangement was very advantageous to the govern- 
 ment, while the certainty of a moderate interest on a permanent 
 investment made it not disadvantageous to the Company, even if 
 the monopoly of trade in the South Seas had not promised to add 
 to this normal source of income speculative profits for the stock- 
 holders limited only by the imagination of the speculators. Under 
 this latter incentive the price of shares of the stock rose 
 . fl t - steadily in value, until in nine years they had become worth 
 
 three hundred and thirty per cent of their par value : the 
 directors, dazzled by their unexpected success, now used artificial 
 means to advance the price, and in five months more had forced it 
 to one thousand per cent, when they began to dispose of their 
 holdings. A panic ensued ; in one month the stock fell to one 
 hundred and seventy five, and in six months the collapse of 
 colla ^ e sc ^ eme was complete, to the ruin of innumerable in- 
 
 vestors. As Aislabie, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Stan- 
 hope, Secretary of State, Sunderland, the Prime Minister, and 
 Cr.aggs had been involved in the dishonest proceedings of the 
 Company, their reputations were so smirched in the investigation 
 that followed the collapse of the Company that they withdrew from 
 office, leaving Walpole and Townshend in complete control of the 
 Whig party. 
 
 Using the power of the Lords and the landed Commoners to 
 
 control elections, and that of the Crown to bribe members with 
 
 pensions and offices of emolument, Walpole retained his 
 
 poe ascendency for many years without serious diminution, but 
 
 ocr«pr»_ J J J 
 
 dency at tne cost °f tne friendship of some of the leading lights of 
 
 his party, for his jealous temper would brook no possible 
 rival in the ministry. Thus the brilliant Carteret was forced out of 
 the secretaryship in 1723. Pulteney too, a former clerk of Wal- 
 pole's, was discarded, and revenged himself by lending his aid to 
 Eolingbroke, who was making strenuous efforts to reinstate himself 
 in English politics. In 1727 Pulteney took charge of the opposi- 
 tion periodical, The Craftsman, a paper designed to weaken 
 Walpole's influence. In 1730 Townshend, too loyal to join the 
 
ADDISON. xxvii 
 
 opposition, was forced into obscurity, and in 1733 Lord Chester- 
 field was also alienated. This group of leaders, believing them- 
 selves to be the true conservers of old Whig principles, 
 adopted the appellation of " Patriots," and vigorously at- p . ,, 
 tacked the inordinate power of the Crown in the control 
 of elections, and the consequent dominance of the legislature. 
 
 This struggle continued throughout the term of Walpole's minis- 
 try. The short ministry of the Pelhams followed (1743- 175 7), and 
 then ensued the era of the Pitts, of Fox, and of Burke, the 
 
 era when the American and French Revolutions claimed the ^ enocl 0l 
 
 foreign 
 attention of English statesmen, and local reforms could get j nterests 
 
 no hearing. It was only after the downfall of Napoleon in 
 181 5, that England again turned her attention to the improvement 
 of her own political conditions. In the early phases of this reform 
 movement Macaulay finds a curious parallel with the political con- 
 ditions in 1704 (Essay on Addison, % 50), which may be made 
 clear by a brief sketch of conditions existing in 1826. 
 
 In 1826 Canning was Secretary for Foreign Affairs in the Tory 
 ministry of Lord Liverpool. This ministry was heir to the Tory 
 policy of the previous twenty years, that of an alliance be- 
 tween England and the leading European powers to check Wn |§ s antl 
 the aggressions of Napoleon Bonaparte. The fruits of this g 6 
 alliance had been as follows : First, the Tory party, under 
 Lords Castlereagh, Eldon, and Westmoreland, had become identified 
 with the policy of cooperation with the greater European powers 
 in dominating the lesser states; secondly, the excessive war expen- 
 ditures necessitated by this policy had forced upon the Tories a 
 financial policy which included large income and property tax and a 
 protective tariff on agricultural products. 
 
 Canning and his friends, Robinson, Huskisson, Wellesley, and 
 Palmerston, were moderate Tories, who differed from the extreme 
 Tories (Liverpool, Eldon, the Duke of Wellington, Peel) in advo- 
 cating the policy of holding aloof from entangling alliances with 
 European powers, in advocating a modification of the protective 
 tariff system, and in promoting legislation designed to lessen the 
 disproportionate power of the landed class in the House of Com- 
 mons, and to secure the admission to Parliament of Protestant 
 
xxviii ADDISON. 
 
 Dissenters. In all these matters they were favoring measures 
 subsequently passed under Whig ministries. Thus, although 
 in 1826 "there was no avowed coalition between them 
 Parallelism r^g Whigs] and the moderate Tories [Canning, etc.], all 
 xvl 1 . lgS men saw that such a coalition was inevitable; nay, that it 
 
 of 1704 was already half formed."* (See ^[ 50.) Thus, too, " those 
 
 statesmen saw that it was both for the public interest and 
 for their own interest to adopt a Whig policy. But if the foreign 
 policy of the Whigs were adopted [non-interference in the affairs 
 of other states], it was impossible to abstain from adopting their 
 financial policy " [economy, liberal policy toward dissenters, legisla- 
 tion in the interest of manufactures and commerce]. (See ^[ 49.) 
 In 1 828- 1 829 Lord John Russell secured the repeal of certain laws 
 against Protestant Dissenters and Catholics, and by the Reform Bill 
 of 1832 he also secured a redistribution of the representation 
 Later Par- f Qr ^ j ower House, which greatly reduced the power of 
 
 the Crown and of the peers over the House of Commons, 
 reforms. r 
 
 In this struggle Macaulay had a share, having entered Parlia- 
 ment in 1830 and espoused the Whig Principles. Thus the names 
 of Milton, Addison, and Macaulay become linked together in our 
 minds by reason of their community of interests as leading Whigs at 
 important epochs. For, although the party name " Whig" did not 
 come into use until 1679, yet the Puritan political principles were 
 fundamentally the same as those which found expression in the 
 Revolution of 1688, and Milton, Addison, and Macaulay stand upon 
 common ground in their championship of the principles of liberty, 
 enlightenment, and progress. 
 
 * " On the Catholic question, on the principles of commerce, on the 
 corn-laws, on the settlement of the currency, on the laws regulating the 
 trade in money, on colonial slavery, on the game laws, which are inti- 
 mately connected with the moral habits of the people ; on all these ques- 
 tions and everything like them, the Government found support from the 
 Whigs, and resistance from their self-denominated friends." — Palmer- 
 STON — Letter on effects of election of 1826. 
 
Chronological Table of the Notable Events referred to 
 in the Essay on Addison. 
 
 POLITICAL HISTORY. 
 1672. 
 
 1685. Accession of James II. 
 
 1687. 
 
 1688. " The Glorious Revolution." 
 
 1689-1697. Palatinate War. 
 
 1690. Battle of the Boyne. 
 
 1693. 
 
 1694. Expiration of " Censorship." 
 
 1697-8. 
 1699. 
 
 1701. February, Tories. Halifax im- 
 peached. 
 1701. June, Act of Settlement. 
 
 1701. September, Louis proclaims 
 
 James III. 
 1701-1713. Spanish Succession War. 
 
 1702. Accession of Anne. 
 
 *7°3- 
 
 1704. Battle of Blenheim. 
 
 1705. WhigS. 
 
 1706. Battle of Ramillies. 
 
 1707. Union of England and Scotland. 
 
 1708. Sunderland dismissed. 
 
 1709. Wharton Lord Lieutenant of 
 
 Ireland. 
 
 1710. Tories. (Sacheverell.) 
 
 1711. Marlborough disgraced. 
 
 1713. Treaty of Utrecht. 
 
 1714. August, Death of Anne. Inter- 
 
 regnum, seven weeks. 
 
 1714. September 18, Accession of 
 
 George I. 
 
 1715. WhigS. Impeachment of Boling- 
 
 broke and Oxford. 
 1715. 
 
 1716. 
 
 1717. 
 
 1718. 
 1719- 
 
 1719. June 17. 
 
 1720. Collapse of " South Sea Bubble." 
 1721-1742. Ascendency of Walpole. 
 1743-1754. Ascendency of Pelham 
 
 (Pitt, Bedford). 
 T-l^-T-in- Ascendency of Newcastle 
 
 1757-1761. Coalition Ministry (New- 
 castle, Pitt). 
 
 LITERARY HISTORY. 
 
 Addison b., May 1. Steele b., March. 
 
 Addison enters Oxford University. 
 
 Steele enters Christ Church College, 
 [Oxford. 
 Addison becomes Master of Arts. 
 The Georgics. Steele enlists. 
 
 Addison elected Fellow of Magdalene. 
 Addison's travelling pension granted. 
 
 Addison loses his pension. 
 Addison returns to England. 
 The Campaign. Remarks on Italy. 
 Addison Commissioner of Appeal in 
 [Excise. 
 Addison Under-Secretary of State, 
 
 with Hedges and Sunderland. 
 Addison to Hanover. Steele Gazetteer. 
 Addison loses Under-Secretaryship. 
 
 M.P. for Malmesbury. 
 Addison Secretary for Ireland. Taller. 
 
 Addison leaves Ireland. Steele Com- 
 missioner of Stamps. 
 Spectator, First series. 
 Guardian. Cato. 
 Addison Secretary to Lords Justices. 
 
 Spectator, Second series. 
 
 Addison Member of Board of Trade. 
 
 Addison's Quarrel with Pope. Drum- 
 mer. Freeholder. 
 
 Addison's Marriage. Commissioner for 
 Trade and Colonies. 
 
 Addison Secretary of State with Sunder 
 land. 
 
 Addison resigns Secretaryship. 
 
 The Old Whig. 
 
 Addison died of asthma and dropsy. 
 
 Steele died, 1729. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 MACAU LAY. 
 
 Chiefly Biographical. 
 Life of Macaulay. 
 
 i. By G. O. Trevelyan. (2 vols., Harpers.) 
 
 2. By J. Cotter Morison. English Men of Letters Series. 
 
 (Harpers.) 
 
 3. By C. H. Jones. (Appleton.) 
 Chiefly Critical. 
 
 Essays on Macaulay's Literary Work. 
 
 1. By Walter Bagehot. In Literary Studies, Vol. II. 
 
 2. By Leslie Stephen. In Hours in a Library, Vol. III. 
 
 3. By Matthew Arnold. In Mixed Essays. 
 General Criticism. 
 
 In Minto's Manual of English Prose Literature, pp. 87-130; 
 Taine's History of English Literature, Bk. III., pp. 256-294; 
 and Clark's A Study of English Prose Writers, pp. 420-454. 
 
 ADDISON. 
 
 Chiefly Biographical. 
 Joseph Addison. 
 
 1. By W. J. Courthope. English Men of Letters Series. 
 
 (Harpers.) 
 
 2. Landmarks of English Literature, Nicholl, pp. 171-182. 
 Chiefly Critical. 
 
 Minto's Manual of English Prose Literature, pp. 432-450; Taine's 
 History of English Literature, Bk. III., Ch. IV.; Clark's A 
 Study of English Prose Writers, pp. 82-116; Mrs. Oliphant's 
 Historical Characters of the Reign of Queen Anne (Addison, 
 the Humorist) ; Thackeray's Lectures on the English Hu- 
 morists of the Eighteenth Century (Congreve and Addison). 
 
ADDISON. xxxi 
 
 DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF ADDISON'S WORKS MENTIONED 
 IN THIS ESSAY. 
 
 Verses to Mr. Dryden (1693) is a short poem in which Dryden is praised 
 for his successful translations of the works of Virgil, Horace, Ovid, 
 etc., into English verse. Having thus gained the favorable notice of 
 the older poet, Addison paid him the delicate compliment of imita- 
 tion in publishing, a year later, his own 
 
 Translation of the Fourth Georgic (1694), which treats of the culture of 
 bees. In the same year appeared a poetical epistle formally ad- 
 dressed to Henry Sacheverell (Int., p. xxiii), entitled 
 
 An Account of the Greatest English Poets. But, as Addison included in 
 the same list with the names of Chaucer, Spenser, and Milton, that 
 of Charles Montague, it maybe suspected that the epistle was ad- 
 dressed rather to his future patron than to his college mate. The 
 next year he made a bolder appeal for patronage in his 
 
 Address to King William (1695), celebrating the monarch's achieve- 
 ments in the struggle then being waged against Louis XIV. The 
 introduction to this poem took the form of a laudatory 
 
 Address to Lord So /tiers, then Lord Keeper of the Great Seal (Index, 
 " Seals "). Meanwhile, Dryden, who had praised Addison's transla- 
 tion from the Georgics, had obtained from him a critical 
 
 Essay upon the Georgics, to be used as a preface to his own translation, 
 and Addison was at work upon his own 
 
 Translations from Ovid's Metamorphoses, — stories from Books 3 
 and 4. 
 
 During his stay at Magdalen, Addison produced a group of Latin 
 poems, subsequently published in the Muses Anglicance (1699), the 
 most important of which was the 
 
 Pax Gulielmi Auspiciis Europce Reddita (1697), a poem felicitating 
 King William III. upon his successful negotiation of the peace of 
 Ryswick (Int., p. xx). The others include, besides laudatory ad- 
 dresses to friends, the 
 
 Barometri Descriptio, a mere exercise in versifying a description of the 
 construction and uses of the barometer; 
 
 Splicer isterium, a similar description of the sports of a bowling-green ; 
 
 Machines Gesticulautes, a lively description of the popular form of en- 
 tertainment known as a "puppet-show"; and a more important 
 effort, the 
 
 Pygmceo-Geranomachia, which elaborates in fanciful vein a theme sug- 
 gested by Homer's reference to the annual battle between the pyg- 
 mies and the cranes {Iliad III. 3-6). This entire group, consisting 
 for the most part of poems from fifty to a hundred lines in length, is 
 dedicated to Cha-les Montague. 
 
xxxii ADDISON. 
 
 The first fruits of Addison's foreign tour appeared in the 
 
 Letter from Italy (1701), a poetical epistle addressed to Montague (now 
 Lord Halifax), in which he compares the present conditions in Italy 
 and France with those which prevail in England, and extols the lat- 
 ter as the home of Liberty. In Vienna he composed his 
 
 Dialogue upon the Usefulness of Ancient Medals, a work in which Phi- 
 lander, Cynthus, and Eugemas discuss the service performed by 
 medals in preserving dates, representations of objects, and general 
 historical facts. The most important result of Addison's foreign tour, 
 however, was the 
 
 Remarks on Several Parts of Italy. In this he gives expression to the 
 reflections of a man of classic learning and culture, upon visiting 
 scenes with the ancient aspect of which his studies have made him 
 imaginatively familiar. This work was not given to the world until 
 after he had won favor and fame by the publication of 
 
 The Campaign (1704), the history of which is told in H1I 50 to 57 of 
 the essay. The poem describes the march of Marlborough from the 
 Netherlands through the valleys of the Rhine and the Neckar, his 
 conjunction with Prince Eugene, and their united victory over the 
 French and Bavarians at Blenheim. 
 
 Rosamond (1706) is an opera in three acts, based upon the legend of 
 King Henry II. and the Fair Rosamond, whom he kept immured in 
 the bower at Woodstock, and who is said to have been poisoned by 
 his queen, Eleanor. In the interest of morality, Addison makes 
 Henry repent his sin and Eleanor spare her rival, who retires to a 
 convent; and he makes capital out of contemporary politics by in- 
 troducing a scene in which the monarch, in prophetic vision, sees 
 Woodstock transformed into the estate of Blenheim as a present to 
 the victorious Duke of Marlborough. For an account of 
 
 The Taller, see HH 75-89, and List of Periodicals, p. xxxiv, and for an 
 account of 
 
 The Examiner, The Spectator, and The Guardian, see HIT 94-104, 118; 
 and also List of Periodicals, p. xxxiv. 
 
 Cato (1713) is a drama in four acts based on the fate of Marcus Porcius 
 Cato in his attempt to defend Utica against Julius Caesar after the 
 latter's victories over Pompey and Scipio. In the first act is disclosed 
 the conspiracy of Sempronius, who, whi'e pretending to share Cato's 
 hostility to Caesar, is secretly attempting to induce the garrison of 
 Numidians commanded bySvphax to desert to Caesar. The second 
 act shows Cato urging the Senate to stand firm in defending Africa 
 from the tyrant (the "perpetual dictator" of Bolingbroke, H no) 
 who has already crushed the liberties of Rome and Egypt. In the 
 fourth act Sempronius attempts the abduction of Cato's daughter 
 Marcia, but is slain by her lover, a loyal Numidian prince named 
 Juba. The last act deals with the suicide of Cato, consequent upon 
 
ADDISON. xxxiii 
 
 his discovery that Caesar's advance cannot be checked. It opens 
 with Cato's famous soliloquy upon the future life, based upon the 
 arguments in Plato's Phcedo : — 
 
 " It must be so, Plato, thou reason'st well ! 
 Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, 
 This longing after immortality ? — " 
 
 The Late Trial and Conviction of Count Tariff (1713) was a pamphlet 
 in which Addison voiced the criticisms of the Whig mercantile class 
 upon the provisions of the treaty of Utrecht, a Tory measure, under 
 the image of a lawsuit between Count Tariff and Goodman Fact. 
 The success of the Cato led to the production of another play, the 
 comedy called 
 
 The Drummer (1715) , enacted at Dairy Lane Theatre. The plot of The 
 [hummer hinges upon the attempt of a fortune-hunting suitor to play 
 upon the fears of a woman whose husband is supposed to have been 
 killed in battle, and whom he hopes to terrify into marriage. He 
 circulates a rumor that her house is haunted, and then himself plays 
 the part of the ghost by concealing himself in various parts of the 
 house and beating a drum. The scheme is frustrated by the return 
 of her husband and the exposure of the fraud. For accounts of 
 
 The Freeholder (1715) and The Old Whig (1719), see HH 129, 157, and 
 List of Periodicals, p. xxxiv. The first part of Addison's unfinished 
 treatise on the 
 
 Evidences of the Christian Religion discusses the value of the corrobo- 
 rative evidence of the truth of the Gospels which may be obtained 
 from the works of pagan writers. 
 
 To some period late in his life must be attributed Addison's 
 
 Lines to Sir Godfrey Kueller, in which the poet draws an elaborate par- 
 allel between the work of Phidias (who, beginning with the lesser 
 gods, achieved finally the task of depicting Jove himself) and that of 
 Kneller, who began with a portrait of Charles II. and ended with 
 that of George I., beyond which (says the poet) no higher achievement 
 remained to be undertaken. 
 
ADDISON. 
 
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THE LIFE AND WRITINGS 
 OF ADDISON.* 
 
 (Edinburgh Review, July, 1843.) 
 
 1. 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 rigour of critical procedure. From that 
 
 5 opinion we dissent. We admit, indeed, that in a 
 
 H) c f c re n c c 
 
 country which boasts of many female writers, emi- due to sex 
 nently qualified by their talents and acquirements of an au - 
 to influence the public mind, it would be of most 
 pernicious consequence that inaccurate history or unsound 
 
 10 philosophy should be suffered to pass uncensured, merely 
 because the offender chanced to be a lady. But we con- 
 ceive that, on such occasions, a critic would do well to 
 imitate the courteous Knight who found himself com- 
 pelled by duty to keep the lists against Bradamante. 
 
 15 He, we are told, defended successfully the cause of which 
 he was the champion ; but before the fight began, ex- 
 changed Balisarda for a less deadly sword, of which he 
 carefully blunted the point and edge. 
 
 2. Nor are the immunities of sex the only immunities 
 20 which Miss Aikin° may rightfully plead. Several of her 
 
 * Tlie Life of Joseph Addison. By Lucy Aikin. 2 vols. 8vo. 
 London : 1843. 
 
2 ADDISON. 
 
 works, and especially the very pleasing Memoirs of the 
 Reign of James the First, have fully entitled her to the 
 and to re privileges enjoyed by good writers. One of those 
 vious good privileges we hold to be this, that such writers, 
 work " when, either from the unlucky choice of a subject, 5 
 
 or from the indolence too often produced by success, 
 they happen to fail, shall not be subjected to the severe 
 discipline which it is sometimes necessary to inflict upon 
 dunces and impostors, but shall merely be reminded by a 
 gentle touch, like that with which the Lnputan flapper 10 
 roused his dreaming lord, 1 that it is high time to wake. 
 
 3. 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 
 f subject. No person who is not familiar with the 15 
 Miss Ai- political and literary history of England during the 
 kin's work. reigns of William the 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 20 
 studies have taken a different direction. She is better 
 acquainted with Shakspeare and Raleigh, than with Con- 
 greve and Prior ; and is far more at home among the 
 ruffs and peaked beards of Theobald's than among the 
 Steenkirks and flowing periwigs which surrounded Queen 25 
 Anne's tea table at Hampton. She seems to have written 
 about the Elizabethan age, because she had read much 
 about it ; she seems, on the other hand, to have read a 
 little about the age' of Addison, because she had deter- 
 mined to write about it. The consequence is that she 30 
 
 1 Index, " Swift." 
 
ADDISON, 3 
 
 has had to describe men and things without having either 
 a correct or a vivid idea of them, 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 
 5 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 revised, and that 
 every date and fact about which there can be the smallest 
 doubt will be carefully verified. 
 
 10 4. To Addison himself we are bound by a sentiment 
 as much like affection as any sentiment can be, which is 
 inspired by one who has been sleeping a hundred and 
 twenty years in Westminster Abbey. We trust, however, 
 that this feeling will not betray us into that abject Addison ._ 
 
 I5 idolatry which we have often had occasion to repre- literary esti 
 hend in others, and which seldom fails to make both mate; 
 the idolater and the idol 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- 
 
 20 knowledge. We need not, therefore, hesitate to admit 
 that Addison has left us some compositions which do not 
 rise above mediocrity, some heroic poems hardly equal 
 to Parnell's, some criticism as superficial as Dr. Blair's, 
 and a tragedy not very much better than Dr. Johnson's. 
 
 25 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 no equal ; and 
 this may with strict justice be said of Addison.) 
 
 5. As a man, he may not have deserved the adoration 
 
 30 which he received from those who, bewitched by his 
 fascinating society, and indebted for all the comforts of 
 
4 ADDISON. 
 
 life to his generous and delicate friendship, worshipped 
 him nightly, in his favourite temple at Buttons. 1 But, 
 personal after full inquiry and impartial reflection, we have 
 estimate. i on g been convinced that he deserved as much love 
 and esteem as can be justly claimed by any of our infirm 5 
 and erring race. Some 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 cowardice, of cruelty, of ingratitude, 10 
 of envy. Men may easily be named, in whom some par- 
 ticular good disposition has been more conspicuous than in 
 Addison. But the just harmony of qualities, the exact tem- 
 per between the stern and the humane virtues, the habitual 
 observance of every law, not only of moral rectitude, but of 15 
 • moral grace and dignity, distinguish him from all men 
 who have been tried by equally strong temptations, and 
 about whose conduct we possess equally full information. 
 
 6. His father was the Reverend Lancelot Addison, 
 who, though eclipsed by his more celebrated son, made 20 
 Addison's some figure in the world, and occupies with credit 
 father. t NV0 folio pages in the Biographia Britannica. Lance- 
 
 lot was sent up, as a poor scholar, from Westmoreland to 
 Queen's College, Oxford, in the time of the Common- 
 wealth, made some progress in learning, became, like 25 
 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 he had left college, he 
 earned a humble subsistence by reading the liturgy of 
 
 1 Index, " Clubs." 
 
ADDISON. 5 
 
 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 garrison of Dunkirk. 
 5 When Dunkirk was sold to France, he lost his employ- 
 ment. But Tangier had been ceded by Portugal to Eng- 
 land 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. It was 
 
 I0 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 advan- 
 tage the chaplain had. He enjoyed an excellent oppor- 
 tunity of studying the history and manners of Jews and 
 
 15 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 interest- 
 ing volume on the Polity and Religion of Barbary, and 
 another on the Hebrew Customs and the State of Rab- 
 
 20 binical Learning. He rose to eminence in his profession, 
 and became 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 govern- 
 
 25 ment by strenuously opposing, in the Convocation of 
 1689, the liberal policy of William and Tillotson. 
 
 7. In 1672, not long after Dr. Addison's return from 
 Tangier, his son Joseph was born. Of Joseph's child- 
 hood we know little. He learned his rudiments Hisbov- 
 
 30 at schools in his father's neighbourhood, and was hood - 
 then sent to the Cha r ter House. The anecdotes which 
 
6 ADDISON. 
 
 are popularly related about his boyish tricks do not har- 
 monise very well with what we know of his riper years. 
 There remains a tradition that he was the ringleader in a 
 barring out, and another tradition that he ran away from 
 school and hid himself in a wood, where he fed on ber- 5 
 ries 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 know by what moral disci- 
 pline so mutinous and enterprising a lad was transformed 
 into the gentlest and most modest of men. I0 
 
 8. We have abundant proof that, whatever Joseph's 
 pranks may have been, he pursued his studies vigorously 
 His early and successfully. At fifteen he was not only fit 
 education, for the university, but carried thither a classical 
 taste and a stock of learning which would have done 15 
 honour 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 fell by accident into 
 the hands of Dr. Lancaster, Dean of Magdalene College. 1 
 The young scholar's diction and versification were 20 
 already such as veteran professors might envy. Dr. Lan- 
 caster was desirous to serve a boy of such promise ; nor 
 was an opportunity long wanting. The Revolution 2 had 
 just taken place ; and nowhere had it been hailed with 
 more delight than at Magdalene College. That great 25 
 and opulent corporation had been treated by James, and 
 by his Chancellor, with an insolence and injustice which, 
 even in such a Prince and in such a Minister, may justly 
 excite amazement, and which had done more than even 
 the prosecution of the Bishops" to alienate the Church 30 
 
 1 Index, " Universities." 2 Int., p. xvii. 3 /£ t> p . xv iii. 
 
ADDISON. 7 
 
 of England from the throne. A president, duly elected, 
 had been violently expelled from his dwelling : a Papist 
 had been set over the society by a royal mandate : the 
 Fellows 1 who, in conformity with their oaths, had refused 
 5 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 retribution 
 speedily came. The intruders were ejected : the vener- 
 able House was again inhabited by its old inmates : learn- 
 
 ioing flourished under the rule of the wise and virtuous 
 Hough ; and with learning was united a mild and liberal 
 spirit too often wanting in the princely colleges of Ox- 
 ford. 1 In consequence of the troubles through which the 
 society had passed, there had been no valid election of 
 
 15 new members during the year 1688. In 1689, therefore, 
 there was 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 
 generally esteemed the wealthiest in Europe. 
 
 20 9. At Magdalene, Addison resided during ten years. 
 He was, at first, one of those scholars who are called 
 Demies, 1 but was subsequently elected a fellow. His college 
 His college is still proud of his name : his portrait car eer. 
 still hangs in the hall ; and strangers are still told that 
 
 25 his favourite walk was under the elms which fringe the 
 meadow on the banks of the Cherwell. It is said, and is 
 highly probable, that he was distinguished among his fel- 
 low-students by the delicacy of his feelings, by the shy- 
 ness of his manners, and by the assiduity with which he 
 
 3 o often prolonged his studies far into the night. It is cer- 
 
 1 Index," Universities." 
 
8 ADDISON. 
 
 tain that his reputation for ability and learning stood 
 high. Many years later, the ancient doctors of Mag- 
 dalene 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. 5 
 
 10. It is proper, however, to remark that Miss Aikin has 
 
 committed the error, very pardonable in a lady, of over- 
 
 His classi- ratni g Addison's classical attainments. In one 
 
 cal learn- department of learning, indeed, his proficiency was 
 
 such as it is hardly possible to overrate. His know- 10 
 ledge of the Latin poets, from Lucretius and Catullus 
 down to Claudian and Prudentius, was singularly exact 
 and profound. He understood them thoroughly, entered 
 into their spirit, and had the finest and most discriminat- 
 ing perception of all their peculiarities of style and mel- 15 
 ody ; nay, he copied 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 jus- - 
 tice go. It is clear that Addison's serious attention dur- 20 
 ing 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 attained more than an ordinary 25 
 acquaintance with the political and moral writers of 
 Rome; nor was his own Latin prose by any means equal 
 to his Latin verse. His knowledge of Greek, though 
 doubtless such as was, in his time, thought respectable 
 at Oxford, was evidently less than that which many lads 3° 
 now carry away every year from Eton and Rugby. A 
 
ADDISON. 9 
 
 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. 
 5 ii. Great praise is due to the Notes which Addison 
 appended to his version of the second and third books of 
 the Metamorphoses. Yet those notes, while they , 
 
 J (Internal 
 
 show him to have been, in his own domain, an evidences; 
 accomplished scholar, show also how confined that from P oetic 
 
 references 
 
 io domain was. They are rich in apposite references 
 to Virgil, Statius, and Claudian ; 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 
 
 15 the Greek poets, it is the story of Pentheus in the third 
 book of the Metamorphoses. Ovid was indebted for that 
 story to Euripides and Theocritus, both of whom he has 
 sometimes followed minutely. But neither to Euripides 
 nor to Theocritus does Addison make the faintest allusion ; 
 
 20 and we, therefore, believe that we do not wrong him by 
 supposing that he had little or no knowledge of their 
 works. 
 
 12. His travels in Italy, again, abound with classical 
 quotations happily introduced ; but scarcely one of those 
 
 25 quotations is in prose. He draws more illustrations f CTeo 
 from Ausonius and Manilius than from Cicero. graphical 
 Even his notions of the political and military affairs references . 
 of the Romans seem to be derived from poets and poetas- 
 ters. Spots made memorable by events which have 
 
 30 changed the destinies of the world, and which have 
 been worthily recorded by great historians, bring to his 
 
io ADDISON 
 
 mind only scraps of some ancient versifier. In the gorge 
 of the Apennines he naturally remembers the hardships 
 which Hannibal's army endured, and proceeds to cite, 
 not the authentic narrative of Polybius, not the pictur- 
 esque narrative of Livy, but the languid hexameters of 5 
 Silius Italicus. On the banks of the Rubicon he never 
 thinks of Plutarch's lively description, or of the stern con- 
 ciseness of the Commentaries, or of those letters to Atti- 
 cus° which so forcibly express the alternations of hope and 
 fear in a sensitive mind at a great crisis. His only author- 10 
 ity for the events of the Civil War is Lucan.° 
 
 l$. All the best ancient works of art at Rome and 
 
 Florence are Greek. Addison saw them, however, with- 
 
 from nftr- out recalling one single verse of Pindar, of Callima- 
 
 ences to chus,° or of the Attic dramatists ; but they brought 15 
 
 .ui, tQ kj g reco i] ec tj on innumerable passages of Horace, 
 
 Juvenal, Statins, and Ovid. 
 
 14. The same may be said of the Treatise on Medals. 
 In that pleasing work we find about three hundred pas- 
 
 from refer- sa § es extracted with great judgment from the Roman 20 
 ences to poets ; but we do not recollect a single passage taken 
 from any Roman orator or historian ; and we are 
 confident that not 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 25 
 Greek coins were in historical interest equal, and in beauty 
 of execution far superior to those of Rome. 
 
 15. If it were necessary to find any further proof that 
 Addison's classical knowledge was confined within narrow 
 limits, that proof would be furnished by his Essay on the 30 
 Evidences of Christianity. The Roman poets throw 
 
ADDISON. ii 
 
 little or no light on the literary and historical questions 
 which he is under the necessity of examining in that 
 Essay. He is, therefore, left completely in the from 
 dark ; and it is melancholy to see how helplessly references 
 5 he gropes his way from blunder to blunder. He as- to llstoiy 
 signs, as grounds for his 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 Thun- 
 dering Legion, is convinced that Tiberius moved the senate 
 
 io to admit Jesus among the gods, and pronounces the letter 
 of Abgarus King of Edessa to be a record of great author- 
 ity. Nor were these errors the effects of superstition ; for 
 to superstition Addison was by no means prone. The truth 
 is that he was writing about what he did not understand. 
 
 15 16. Miss Aikin has discovered a letter from which it 
 appears that, while Addison resided at Oxford, he was one 
 of several writers whom the booksellers engaged to and lmm 
 make an English version of Herodotus ; and she transla- 
 infers that he must have been a good Greek scholar. tlon '^ 
 
 20 We can allow very little weight to this argument, when we 
 consider that his fellow-labourers were to have been Boyle 1 
 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 
 
 2 5 is, Boyle was unable to produce without help. Of Black- 
 more's attainments in the ancient tongues, it may be suffi- 
 cient 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 
 
 30 his readers with four false quantities to a page. 
 
 1 Index, " Boyle, Charles." 
 
12 ADDISON. 
 
 1 7. 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 value. .... . , , . 
 
 its admiration, not to the man who does what 
 nobody else even attempts to do, but to the man who 5 
 does best what multitudes do well. 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 Addison excelled his 
 contemporaries was then, as it is now, highly valued and i< 
 assiduously cultivated at all English 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 appreciate, though 
 by no means able to rival, the skill with which Addison i< 
 imitated Virgil. His lines on the Barometer and the 
 Bowling Green were applauded by hundreds, to whom the 
 Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris x was as unintelli- 
 gible as the hieroglyphics on an obelisk. 
 
 18. Purity of style, and an easy flow of numbers, are 2< 
 common to all Addison's Latin poems. Our favourite 
 
 His Latin piece is the Battle of the Cranes and Pygmies ; for 
 style. in that piece we discern a gleam of the fancy and 
 
 humour which many years later enlivened thousands of 
 breakfast tables. Swift boasted that he was never 2; 
 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 touches in his Voyage to Lilliput 2 
 from Addison's verses. Let our readers judge. 3. 
 
 1 Index, "Boyle, Charles." 2 Index, " Swift." 
 
ADDISON. 13 
 
 19. " The Emperor," says Gulliver, 1 " 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." 
 
 About thirty years before Gulliver's Travels appeared, 
 5 Addison wrote these lines : — 
 
 " Jamque acies inter medias sese arduus infert 
 Pygmeadum ductor, qui, majestate ver^ndus, 
 Incessuque gravis, reliquos supereminet omnes 
 Mole gigantea, mediamque exsurgit in ulnam." 2 
 
 10 20. 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 H}s first 
 the coffee-houses round Drury-Lane° theatre. 3 In his English 
 twenty-second year, he ventured to appear before verse - 
 
 15 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 eminence among the literary men of 
 that age. Dryden appears to have been much gratified by 
 
 20 the young scholar's praise ; and an interchange of civilities 
 and good offices followed. Addison was probably intro- 
 duced by Dryden to Congreve, and was certainly pre- 
 sented by Congreve to Charles Montague, 4 who was 
 then Chancellor of the Exchequer, 5 and leader of the 
 
 25 Whig party in the House of Commons. 
 
 21. At this time Addison seemed inclined to devote 
 himself to poetry. He published a translation of part His ear i y 
 of the fourth Georgic, Lines to King William, heroic 
 and other performances of equal value, that is to verse ' 
 
 1 Index, "Swift." 2 Note, p. 113. 3g e e Map, p. 125. 
 
 4 Index, " Halifax." 5 i n t #j p. x iv. 
 
14 ADDISON 
 
 . of no value at all. But in those days, the public . 
 in the habit of receiving with applause pieces which would 
 now have little chance of obtaining the Newdigate prize 
 or the Seatonian r prize. And the reason is obvious. The 
 heroic couplet was then the favourite measure. The art 5 
 of arranging words in that measure, so that the lines 
 ma] Qoothlyj that the accents may fall correctly, 
 
 that the rhymes may strike the ear strongly, and that 
 there may be a pause at the end of even - distich, is an 
 art as mechanical as that of mending a kettle or shoeing 10 
 a horse, am. 1 learned by any human being who 
 
 enough to learn anything. But, like other 
 mechanical arts, it was gradually improved by means oi 
 many experiments and many failures. It . ed 
 
 for Pope : to the trick, to make himself complete ig 
 
 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. before k § 
 all artists were on a level. Hundreds of dunces who 
 never blundered on one happy thought or expres- 
 were able to write reams of couplets which, as far 
 euphony was concerned, could not be distinguished from 
 those of Pope himself, and which very clever writers of 
 the reign of Charles the Second. Roche- sample, 
 
 or I >ldham,° would have contemplated with 25 
 
 admiring despair. 
 
 22. Ben Jonson = was a great man. Hoole 3 a \ 
 
 A small man. But Hoole, coming after Pope, had 
 compared ? r 
 
 with earlier learned how to manufacture decasyllabic verses, and 
 models, poured them forth by thousands and tens of the 
 sands, all as well turned, as smooth, and as like each other 
 
ADDISON. 15 
 
 as the blocks which have passed through Mr. Brunei's mill 
 in the dockyards 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 
 5 of a celebrated passage in the JEneid 3 : — 
 
 "This child our parent earth, stirred 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." l 
 
 15 23. Compare with these jagged misshapen distichs the 
 neat fabric which Hoole's machine produces in unlimited 
 abundance. We take the first lines on which we ;md wilh 
 open in his version of Tasso.° They are neither latei " ones > 
 better nor worse than the rest : — 
 
 20 "O thou, whoe'er thou art, whose steps are led, 
 
 By choice of fate, these lonely shores to tread. 
 No greater wonders east or west can boast 
 Than yon small island on the pleasing coast. 
 If e'er thy sight would blissful scenes explore, 
 
 25 The current pass, and seek the further shore.'' - 
 
 24. Ever since the time of Pope there has been a glut 
 
 of lines of this sort, and we are now as little disposed to 
 
 admire a man for being able to write them, as for ... 
 and with 
 
 being able to write his name. But in the days of contempo- 
 30 William the Third such versification was rare ; and rary work< 
 a rhymer who had any skill in it passed for a great poet, 
 1 Xote, p. 113. '- Gerusalemme Liberata, xi 
 
16 ADDISON. 
 
 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 tolerable metre what 
 might have been as well said in prose, or what was not 5 
 worth saying at all, were honoured with marks of dis- 
 tinction 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. 10 
 
 25. Dryden was now busied with Virgil, and obtained 
 from Addison a critical preface to the Georgics. In re- 
 
 r, , .. turn for this service, and for other services of the 
 
 Relations 
 
 with same kind, the veteran poet, in the postscript to 
 
 Dryden. t ^ e translation of the ^Eneid, complimented his 15 
 young friend with great liberality, and indeed with more 
 liberality than sincerity. He 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," 20 
 added Dryden, " my latter swarm is scarcely worth the 
 hiving." 
 
 26. The time had now arrived when it was necessary 
 for Addison to choose a calling. Everything seemed to 
 
 Choice of a point his course towards the clerical profession. 25 
 career. His m s habits were regular, his opinions orthodox. 
 Wsoppor^ H ^ s C01 l e g e na d large ecclesiastical preferment in 
 tunity. its gift, and boasts that it has given at least one 
 
 bishop to almost every see in England. Dr. Lancelot 
 Addison held an honourable place in the Church, and had 30 
 
ADDISON. 17 
 
 set his heart on seeing his son a clergyman. It is clear, 
 from some expressions in the young man's rhymes, that his 
 intention was to take orders. But Charles Montague l inter- 
 fered. Montague had first brought himself into notice by 
 
 5 verses, well timed and not contemptibly written, but never, 
 we think, rising above mediocrity. Fortunately for himself 
 and for his country, he early quitted poetry, in which he 
 could never have attained a rank as high as that of 
 Dorset or Rochester, and turned his mind to official 
 
 10 and parliamentary business. It is written that the ingen- 
 ious person who undertook to instruct Rasselas, 2 prince 
 of Abyssinia, in the art of flying, ascended an eminence, 
 waved his wings, sprang into the air, and instantly dropped 
 into the lake. But it is added that the wings, which were 
 
 15 unable to support him through the sky, bore him up effec- 
 tually as soon as he was in the water. This is no bad type 
 of the fate of Charles Montague, and of men like him. 
 When he attempted to soar into the regions of poetical in- 
 vention, he altogether failed ; but, as soon as he had de- 
 
 20 scended from that ethereal elevation 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 
 
 25 not by wearying the public with his own feeble perform- 
 ances, but by discovering and encouraging literary excel- 
 lence 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 encourage- 
 
 30 ment of learning, he was cordially supported by the ablest 
 
 1 Index, " Halifax." 2 Index, " Johnson," end. 
 
iS ADDISON. 
 
 and most virtuous of his colleagues, Lord Chancellor 
 Somers. Though both these great statesmen had a sin- 
 cere love of letters, it was not solely from a love of letters 
 that they were desirous to enlist youths of high intellec- 
 tual qualifications in the public service. The Revolution 5 
 had altered the whole system of government. 1 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 unprece- 
 dented influence on the public mind.. Parliament met 10 
 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 talents might be subverted by them. 15 
 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. x - 
 
 27. It is remarkable that in a neighbouring country, 20 
 we have recently seen similar effects follow from similar 
 causes. The revolution of Tuly 18^0 established 
 
 Illustration J J ° 
 
 from representative government in France. The men 
 
 French f letters instantly rose to the highest importance 
 
 history. . , f \ 5 r , 
 
 in the state. At the present moment most of the 25 
 persons whom we see at the head both of the Administra- 
 tion and of the Opposition, have been Professors, Histori- 
 ans, Journalists, Poets. 2 The influence of the literary class 
 in England, during the generation which followed the 
 Revolution, was great, but by no means so great as it has 30 
 
 1 Int., pp. xviii, xix, xx, xxi. 2 Note, p. 113. 
 
ADDISON. 19 
 
 lately been in France. For, in England, the aristocracy 
 of intellect had to contend with a powerful and deeply 
 rooted aristocracy of a very different kind. France had 
 no Somersets and Shrewsburies to keep down her Addi- 
 5 sons and Priors. 
 
 28. It was in the year 1699, when Addison had just 
 completed his twenty-seventh year, that the course of his 
 life was finally determined. Both the great chiefs of 
 
 3 ° His enlist- 
 
 the Ministry were kindly disposed towards him. In ment j n the 
 
 10 political opinions he already was what he continued Whig 
 to be through life, 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 Mon- 
 tague a Latin poem, truly Virgilian, both in style and 
 
 I5 rhythm, on the peace of Ryswick. 1 The wish of the young 
 poet's great friends was, it should seem, to employ him in 
 the service of the crown abroad. But an intimate know- 
 ledge of the French language was a qualification indispen- 
 sable to a diplomatist ; and this qualification Addison had 
 
 20 not acquired. It was, therefore, thought desirable that he 
 should pass some time on the Continent in preparing 
 himself for official 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 
 
 25 the interest of the Lord Chancellor. It seems to have 
 been apprehended that some difficulty might be started 
 by the rulers of Magdalene College. But the Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer wrote in the strongest terms to Hough. 
 The State — such was the purport of Montague's letter 
 
 30 — could not, at that time, spare to the Church such a 
 
 1 Int., p. xx. 
 
20 ADDISON. 
 
 man as Addison. Too many high civil posts were 
 already occupied by adventurers, who, destitute of every 
 liberal art and sentiment, at once pillaged and disgraced 
 the country which they pretended to serve. It had 
 become necessary to recruit for the public service from 5 
 a very different class, from that class of which Addison 
 was the representative. The close of the Minister's 
 letter was remarkable. " I am called," he said, " an 
 enemy of the Church. But I will never do it any other 
 injury than keeping Mr. Addison out of it." tc 
 
 29. This interference was successful ; and, in the sum- 
 mer of 1699, Addison, made a rich man by his pension, 
 
 Departure and still retaining his fellowship, quitted his beloved 
 for Europe. Oxford, and set out on his travels. He crossed 
 from Dover to Calais, proceeded to Paris, and was 15 
 received there with great kindness and politeness by 
 a kinsman of his friend Montague, Charles Earl of 
 Manchester, who had just been appointed Ambassador 
 to the Court of France. The Countess, a Whig and a 
 toast, was probably as gracious as her lord; for Addison 20 
 long retained an agreeable recollection of the impression 
 which she at this time made on him, and, in some lively 
 lines written on the glasses of the Kit Cat Club, 1 described 
 the envy which her cheeks, glowing with the genuine 
 bloom of England, had excited among the painted 25 
 beauties of Versailles. 
 
 30. Lewis the Fourteenth was at this time expiating 
 Ex^eri- tne v * ces °f nis vou th by a devotion which had no 
 ences at root in reason, and bore no fruit of charity. The 
 Biois. servile literature of France had changed its character 30 
 
 1 Index, "Clubs." 
 
ADDISON. 21 
 
 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 ; and Dacier was seeking for the Athana- 
 5 sian° mysteries in Plato. Addison described this state 
 of things in a short but lively and graceful letter to Mon- 
 tague. Another letter, written about the same time to 
 the Lord Chancellor, conveyed the strongest assurances 
 of gratitude and attachment. " The only return I can 
 
 10 make to your Lordship," said Addison, " will be to apply 
 myself entirely to my business." With this view he 
 quitted Paris and repaired to Blois,° a place where it was 
 supposed that the French language was spoken in its 
 highest purity, and where not a single Englishman could 
 
 15 be found. Here he passed some months pleasantly and 
 profitably. Of his way of life at Blois, one of his associ- 
 ates, an Abbe named Philippeaux, gave an account to 
 Joseph Spence. If this account is to be trusted, Addi- 
 son studied much, mused much, talked little, had fits of 
 
 20 absence, and either had no love affairs, or was too dis- 
 creet to confide them to the Abbe. A man who, even 
 when surrounded by fellow-countrymen and fellow-students, 
 had always been remarkably shy and silent, was not likely 
 to be loquacious in a foreign tongue, and among foreign 
 
 25 companions. But it is clear from Addison's letters, some 
 of which were long after published in the Guardian, 1 that, 
 while he appeared to be absorbed in his own medita- 
 tions, he was really observing French society with that 
 keen and sly, yet not ill-natured side glance, which was 
 
 30 peculiarly his own. 
 
 1 See List of Periodicals, p. xxxiv. 
 
22 ADDISON. 
 
 31. From Blois he returned to Paris ; ami, having now 
 mastered the French language, found great pleasure in 
 intercourse ^ ie soc i et y °f French philosophers and poets. He 
 with gave an account, in a letter to Bishop Hough, of 
 
 oileau. twQ hjghiv interesting conversations, one with Mai- 5 
 branche, the other with Boileau. Malbranche expressed 
 great partiality for the English, and extolled the genius 
 of Newton, but shook his head when Hobbes was men- 
 tioned, and was indeed so unjust as to call the author of 
 the Leviathan a poor silly creature. Addison's modesty 10 
 restrained him from fully relating, in his letter, the cir- 
 cumstances of his introduction to Boileau. Boileau, hav- 
 ing survived the friends and rivals of his youth, old, deaf, 
 and melancholy, lived in retirement, seldom went either 
 to Court or to the Academy, and was almost inaccessi- 15 
 ble to strangers. Of the English and of English litera- 
 ture he knew nothing. He had hardly heard the name 
 of Dryden. Some of our countrymen, in the warmth of 
 their patriotism, have asserted that this ignorance must 
 have been affected. We own that we see no ground for 20 
 such a supposition. English literature was to the French 
 of the age of Lewis the Fourteenth what German litera- 
 ture was to our own grandfathers. Very few, we suspect, 
 of the accomplished men who, sixty or seventy years ago, 
 used to dine in Leicester Square with Sir Joshua, 1 or at 25 
 Streatham with Mrs. Thrale, 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 Ahitophel ; but he had read Addi- 30 
 
 1 Index, " Reynolds." 
 
ADDISON. 23 
 
 son's Latin poems, and admired them 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," 
 5 says he, " is better known of Boileau than that he had an 
 injudicious and peevish contempt of modern Latin ; and 
 therefore his profession of regard was probably the effect 
 of his civility rather than approbation." Now, nothing is 
 better known of Boileau than that he was singularly spar- 
 
 ioing of compliments. We do not remember that either 
 friendship or fear ever induced him to bestow praise on 
 any composition which he did not approve. On literary 
 questions, his caustic, disdainful, and self-confident spirit 
 rebelled against that authority to which everything else 
 
 15 in France bowed down. He had the spirit to tell Lewis 
 the Fourteenth firmly and even rudely, that his Majesty 
 knew nothing about poetry, and admired verses which 
 were detestable. What was there in Addison's position 
 that could induce the satirist, whose stern and fastidious 
 
 20 temper had been the dread of two generations, to turn 
 sycophant for the first and last time ? Nor was 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 
 
 25 think amiss ? Has not the experience of centuries con- 
 firmed his opinion? Boileau also thought it probable 
 that, 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 
 
 30 honestly declare that he sees the smallest impurity in the 
 style of Livy ? Yet is it not certain that, in the style of 
 
24 ADDISON. 
 
 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 
 Frederic the Great understood French? Yet is it not 
 notorious that Frederic the Great, after reading, speaking, 5 
 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 French, without imminent risk of committing 10 
 some mistake 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 Dissertation on India, the last of Dr. Robertson's 15 
 works, in Waverley, in Marmion, Scotticisms at which a 
 London apprentice would laugh? But does it follow, 
 because we think thus, that we can find nothing to ad- 
 mire in the noble alcaics of Gray, or in the playful elegi- 
 acs of Vincent Bourne ? Surely not. Nor was Boileau 20 
 so ignorant or tasteless as to be incapable of appreciat- 
 ing good modern Latin. In the very letter to which 
 Johnson alludes, Boileau says, " Ne croyez pas pourtant 
 que je veuille par la blamer les vers Latins que vous 
 m'avez envoy£s d'un de vos illustres academiciens. Je25 
 les ai trouves fort beaux, et dignes de Vida° et de San- 
 azar,° 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, of the Pere Fraguier's epigrams, 3° 
 that Catullus seems to have come to life again. But 
 
ADDISON. 25 
 
 the best proof that Boileau did not fee. the undiscerning 
 contempt for modern Latin verses which has been im- 
 puted to him, is, that he wrote and published Latin 
 verses in several metres. Indeed it happens, curiously 
 5 enough, that the most severe censure ever pronounced 
 by him on modern Latin is conveyed in Latin hexame- 
 ters. We allude to the fragment which begins — 
 
 "Quid numeris iterum me balbutire Latinis, 
 Longe Alpes citra natum de patre Sicambro, 
 10 Musa, jubes? " 1 
 
 32. For these reasons we feel assured that the praise 
 which Boileau bestowed on the Machined Gesticulantes 2 
 and the Gerano-PygmtBomachia, 2 was sincere. He Validit of 
 certainly opened himself to Addison with a free- Boileau's 
 
 15 dom which was a sure indication of esteem. Lit- cntlclsm - 
 erature was the chief subject of conversation. The old 
 man talked on his favourite theme much and well, indeed, 
 as his young hearer thought, incomparably well. Boileau 
 had undoubtedly some of the qualities of a great critic. 
 
 20 He wanted imagination ; but he had strong sense. His 
 literary code was formed on narrow principles ; but in 
 applying it, he showed great judgment and penetration. 
 In mere style, abstracted from the ideas of which style is 
 the garb, his taste was excellent. He was weli acquainted 
 
 25 with the great Greek writers ; and, though unable fully 
 to appreciate their creative genius, admired the majestic 
 simplicity of their manner, and had learned from them 
 to despise bombast and tinsel. It is easy, we think, to 
 discover, in the Spectator 3 and the Guardian, 3 traces of 
 
 1 Note, p. 113. 2 See List of Addison's Works, p. xxxi. 
 
 3 See List of Periodicals, p. xxxiv. 
 
26 . ADDISON. 
 
 the influence, in part salutary and in part pernicious, 
 which the mind of Boileau had on the mind of Addison. 
 
 33. While Addison was at Paris, an event took place 
 which made that capital a disagreeable residence for an Eng- 
 lishman and a Whig. Charles, second of the name, 5 
 
 French ° ' ' J 
 
 political King of Spain, died, and bequeathed his domin- 
 condmons j ons t0 philip Duke of Anion, a younger son of the 
 
 in 1700. 
 
 Dauphin. The King of France, in direct violation 
 of his engagements both with Great Britain and with the 
 States General, accepted the bequest on behalf of his grand- 10 
 son. The House of Bourbon was at the summit of human 
 grandeur. England had been outwitted, and found her- 
 self in a situation at once degrading and perilous. 1 The 
 people of France, not presaging the calamities by which 
 they were destined to expiate the perfidy of their sov- 15 
 ereign, went mad with pride and 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 arro- 20 
 gant exultation of the Parisians, and probably foreseeing 
 that the peace between France and England could not 
 be of long duration, he set of! for Italy. 
 
 34. In December, 1 700,* he embarked at Marseilles. 
 As he glided along the Ligurian coast, he was delighted 25 
 
 1 Int., pp. xxi-xxiii. 
 
 * It is strange that Addison should, in the first line of his travels, 
 have misdated his departure from Marseilles by a whole year, and still 
 more strange that this slip of the pen, which throws the whole narrative 
 into inextricable confusion, should have been repeated in a succession 
 of editions, and never detected by Tickell or by Hurd. 
 
 — Macau lay. 
 
Voyage 
 alono- the 
 
 ADDISON. 27 
 
 by the sight of myrtles and olive trees, which retained their 
 verdure under the winter solstice. Soon, however, he en- 
 countered one of the black storms of the Mediter- 
 ranean. The captain of the ship gave up all for 
 5 lost, and confessed himself to a capuchin who hap- coast of 
 pened to be on board. The English heretic, in the ay " 
 meantime, fortified himself against the terrors of death 
 with devotions of a very different kind. How strong an 
 impression this perilous voyage made on him, appears 
 
 10 from the ode, " How are thy servants blest, O Lord ! nl 
 which was long after published in the Spectator. After 
 some days of discomfort and 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 
 
 15 of Genoa. 
 
 35. At Genoa, still ruled by her own Doge, and by 
 the nobles whose names were inscribed on her Book of 
 Gold, Addison made a short stay. He admired the Genoa and 
 narrow streets overhung by long lines of towering Venice; 
 
 20 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 contemplated the Gothic 
 magnificence of the cathedral with more wonder than 
 
 25 pleasure. He passed Lake Benacus while a gale was 
 blowing, and saw the waves raging as they raged when 
 Virgil looked upon them. 2 At Venice, then the gayest 
 spot in Europe, the traveller spent the Carnival, the 
 gayest season of the year, in the midst of masques, 
 
 30 dances, and serenades. Here he was at once diverted 
 
 1 Note, p. 113 +. 2 Georgics, ii, 160. 
 
28 ADDISON. 
 
 and provoked, by the absurd dramatic pieces 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 daughter 5 
 of Scipio. The lady had given her heart to Caesar. 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 should have escaped the notice of all Addison's 
 biographers. There cannot, we conceive, be the smallest 
 doubt that this scene, in spite of its absurdities and anach- 
 ronisms, struck the traveller's imagination, and suggested 15 
 to him the thought of bringing Cato on the English stage. 
 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. 
 
 36. On his way from Venice to Rome, he was drawn 20 
 some miles out of the beaten road by a wish to see the 
 San smallest independent state in Europe. 1 On a rock 
 
 Marino ; 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 25 
 so bad that few travellers had ever visited it, and none 
 had ever published an account of it. Addison could not 
 suppress a good-natured smile at the simple manners and 
 institutions of this singular community. But he observed, 
 with the exultation of a Whig, that the rude mountain 30 
 1 Note, p. 115. 
 
ADDISON. 29 
 
 tract which formed the territory of the republic swarmed 
 with an honest, healthy, and contented peasantry, while 
 the rich plain which surrounded the metropolis of civil 
 and spiritual tyranny was scarcely less desolate than the 
 5 uncleared wilds of America. 
 
 37. At Rome Addison remained on his first visit only 
 long enough to catch a glimpse of St. Peter's and of the 
 Pantheon. His haste is the more extraordinary 
 because the Holy Week was close at hand. He 
 
 10 has given no hint which can enable us to pronounce why 
 he chose to fly from a spectacle which every year allures 
 from distant regions persons of far less taste and sensibil- 
 ity than his. Possibly, travelling, as he did, at the charge 
 of a Government distinguished by its enmity to the 
 
 15 Church of Rome, he may have thought that it would be 
 imprudent in him to assist at the most magnificent rite of 
 that Church. Many eyes would be upon him ; and he 
 might find it difficult to behave in such a manner as to 
 give offence neither to his patrons in England, nor to 
 
 20 those among whom he resided. Whatever his motives 
 may have been, he turned his back on the most august 
 and affecting ceremony which is known among men, and 
 posted along the Appian way to Naples. 
 
 38. Naples was then destitute of what are now, per- 
 25 haps, its chief attractions. The lovely bay and the awful 
 
 mountain were indeed there. But a farmhouse 
 stood on the theatre of Herculaneum, and rows of ap e " 
 vines grew over the streets of Pompeii. The temples 
 of Paestum had not indeed been hidden from the eye 
 30 of man by any great convulsion f>{ nature ; but, strange 
 to say, their existence was a secret even to artists and 
 
30 ADDISON. 
 
 antiquaries. Though situated within a few hours' journey 
 of a great capital, where Salvator had not long before 
 painted, and where Vico was then lecturing, those noble 
 remains were as little known to Europe as the ruined 
 cities overgrown by the forests of Yucatan. What was 5 
 to be seen at Naples, Addison saw. He climbed Vesu- 
 vius, 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, 10 
 though cursorily, the abuses of the government and the 
 misery of the people. The great kingdom which had 
 just descended to Philip the Fifth, 1 was in a state of 
 paralytic dotage. Even Castile and Aragon were sunk 
 in wretchedness. Yet, compared with the Italian de- 15 
 pendencies of the Spanish crown, Castile and Aragon 
 might be called prosperous. It is clear that all the ob- 
 servations which Addison made in Italy tended to con- 
 firm him in the political opinions which he had adopted 
 at home. To the last, he always spoke of foreign travel 20 
 as the best cure for Jacobitism. 2 In his Freeholder;' the 
 Tory foxhunter asks what travelling is good for, except 
 to teach a man to jabber French, and to talk against 
 passive obedience. 
 
 39. From Naples, Addison returned to Rome by sea, 25 
 along the coast which his favourite Virgil had celebrated. 
 , The felucca passed the headland where the oar 
 
 second 1 
 
 visit to and trumpet were placed by the Trojan adven- 
 
 Rome; turers on the tomb of Misenus, and anchored at 
 
 night under the shelf er of the fabled promontory of 30 
 
 1 Int., p. xxii, top. 2/(5., p. xx, footnote. 3 See List of Periodicals, p. xxxiv. 
 
ADDISON. 31 
 
 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 ^neas. From the ruined port 
 of Ostia, the stranger hurried to Rome ; and at Rome 
 5 he remained during those hot and sickly months, when, 
 even in the Augustan age, all who could make their 
 escape fled from mad dogs and from streets black with 
 funerals, to gather the first figs of the season in the 
 country. It is probable that, when he, long after, poured 
 
 10 forth in verse his gratitude to the Providence which had 
 enabled him to breathe unhurt in tainted air, he was think- 
 ing of the August and.September which he passed at Rome. 
 40. It was not till the latter end of October that he tore 
 himself away from the masterpieces of ancient and Florence; 
 
 15 modern art which are collected in the city so long the A1 P S - 
 the mistress of the world. He then journeyed northward, 
 passed through Sienna, and for a moment forgot his 
 prejudices in favour of classic architecture as he looked on 
 the magnificent cathedral. At Florence he spent some 
 
 20 days with the Duke of Shrewsbury, who, cloyed with the 
 pleasures of ambition, and impatient of its pains, fearing 
 both parties, and loving neither, had determined to hide 
 in an Italian retreat talents and accomplishments which, 
 if they had been united with fixed principles and civil 
 
 25 courage, might have made him the foremost man of his 
 age. 1 These days, we are told, passed pleasantly ; and 
 we can easily believe it. For Addison was a delightful 
 companion when he was at his ease ; and the Duke, 
 though he seldom forgot that he was a Talbot, had the 
 
 30 invaluable art of putting at ease all who came near him. 
 
 1 See Int., p. xxiv, for his services in the crisis at Anne's death. 
 
32 ADDISON. 
 
 41. Addison gave some time to Florence, and espe- 
 cially to the sculptures in the Museum, 1 which he preferred 
 
 T ,. even to those of the Vatican. He then pursued his 
 
 Impending x 
 
 political journey through a country in which the ravages of 
 changes. ^ e j agt war were S {]\\ discernible, and in which all 5 
 men were looking forward with dread to a still fiercer con- 
 flict. Eugene had already descended from the Rhgetian 
 Alps, to dispute with Catinat the rich plain of Lombardy. 
 The faithless ruler of Savoy was still reckoned among the 
 allies of Lewis. 2 England had not yet actually declared 10 
 war against France ; but Manchester had left Paris ; and 
 the negotiations which produced the Grand Alliance 3 
 against the House of Bourbon were in progress. Under 
 such circumstances, it was desirable for an English trav- 
 eller to reach neutral ground without delay. Addison 15 
 resolved to cross Mont Cenis.° It was December ; and 
 the road was very different from that which now reminds 
 the stranger of the power and genius of Napoleon. The 
 winter, however, was mild ; and the passage was, for 
 those times, easy. To this journey Addison alluded 20 
 when, in the ode which we have already quoted, he said 
 that for him the Divine goodness had warmed the hoary 
 Alpine hills. 
 
 42. It was in the midst of the eternal snow that he 
 composed his Epistle to his friend Montague, now Lord 25 
 
 Th Ei>' tl Halifax. That Epistle, once widely renowned, is 
 
 to Mon- now known only to curious readers, and will hardly 
 
 tague; j^ considered by those to whom it is known as in 
 
 any perceptible degree heightening Addison's fame. It 
 
 is, however, decidedly superior to any English composi- 30 
 
 1 Note, p. 115. 2 Index, " Victor Amadeus II." 3 Int., p. xxii, top. 
 
ADDISON. 33 
 
 tion which he had previously published. Nay, we think 
 it quite as good as any poem in heroic metre which 
 appeared during the interval between the death of Dryden 
 and the publication of the Essay on Criticism. 1 It con- 
 5 tains passages as good as the second-rate passages of 
 Pope, and would have added to the reputation of Par- 
 nell° or Prior. ) 
 
 43. But, whatever be the literary merits or defects of 
 the Epistle, it undoubtedly does honour to the principles 
 
 10 and spirit of the author. Halifax had now nothing j ts signifi- 
 to give. He had fallen from power, had been cance. 
 held up to obloquy, had been impeached by the House 
 of Commons, and, though his Peers had dismissed the 
 impeachment, had, as it seemed, little chance of ever 
 
 15 again filling high office. The Epistle, written at such a 
 time, is one among many proofs that there was no mix- 
 ture of cowardice or meanness in the suavity and moder- 
 ation which distinguished Addison from all the other 
 public men of those stormy times. 
 
 20 44. 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 change of 
 State. Manchester exerted himself to serve his young prospects, 
 friend. It was thought advisable that an English agent 
 
 25 should be near the person of Eugene in Italy; and 
 Addison, whose diplomatic education was now finished, 
 was the man selected. He was preparing to enter on 
 his honourable functions, when all his prospects were for 
 a time darkened by the death of William the Third. 
 
 30 45. Anne had long felt a strong aversion, personal, 
 
 1 Note, p. 115. 
 
34 ADDISON. 
 
 political, and religious, to the Whig party. That aversion 
 appeared in the first measures of her reign. Manchester 
 and the was deprived of the seals, after he had held them 
 cause of only a few weeks. Neither Somers nor Halifax was 
 the change. sworn f t i ie p r i vv Council. 1 Addison shared 5 
 the fate of his three patrons. His hopes of employment 
 in the public service were at an end ; his pension was 
 stopped ; and it was necessary for him to support him- 
 self by his own exertions. He became tutor to a young 
 English traveller, and appears to have rambled with his 10 
 pupil over a great part of Switzerland and Germany. At 
 this time he wrote his pleasing treatise on Medals. 2 It 
 was not published till after his death ; but several dis- 
 tinguished scholars saw the manuscript, and gave just 
 praise to the grace of the style, and to the learning and 15 
 ingenuity evinced by the quotations. 
 
 46. From Germany Addison repaired to Holland, 
 where he learned the melancholy news of his father's death. 
 
 Return to After passing some months in the United Provinces, 
 England. he returned about the close of the year 1703 to 20 
 England. He was there cordially received by his friends, 
 and introduced by them into the Kit Cat Club, 3 a society 
 in which were collected all the various talents and accom- 
 plishments which then gave lustre to the Whig party. 
 
 47. Addison was, during some months after his return 25 
 from the Continent, hard pressed by pecuniary difficul- 
 ties. But it was soon in the power of his noble patrons 
 to serve him effectually. A political change, silent and 
 
 1 Int., p. xiv. 2 See List of Addison's Works, p. xxxii. 
 
 3 Index, " Clubs." 
 
ADDISON. 35 
 
 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 Apparent]y 
 time it seemed that the Whigs had fallen never to rise gloomy 
 
 5 again. The throne was surrounded by men sup- out °° ' 
 posed to be attached to the prerogative and to the 
 Church ; and among these none stood so high in the 
 favour of the Sovereign as the Lord Treasurer Godolphin 
 and the Captain General Marlborough. 
 
 IO 48. 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 except for 
 constantly followed by William ; that the landed the Tories, 
 interest would be favoured at the expense of trade ; that 
 
 15 no addition would be made to the funded debt; that the 
 privileges conceded to Dissenters by the late King would 
 be curtailed, if not withdrawn ; that the war with France, 
 if there must be such a war, would, on our part, be almost 
 entirely naval ; and that the Government would avoid 
 
 20 close connections with foreign powers, and, above all, 
 with Holland. 
 
 49. But the country gentlemen and country clergymen 
 were fated to be deceived, not for the last time. The 
 prejudices and passions which raged without con- 
 
 25 trol in vicarages, in cathedral closes, and in the situation 
 manor-houses of foxhunting squires, were not shared favorable to 
 by the chiefs of the ministry. Those statesmen 
 saw that it was both for the public interest, and for their 
 own interest, to adopt a Whig policy, at least as respected 
 
 30 the alliances of the country and the conduct of the war. 
 •But, if the foreign policy of the Whigs were adopted, it 
 
36 ADDISON. 
 
 was impossible to abstain from adopting also their finan- 
 cial 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 conces- 5 
 sions ; and further concessions the Queen was induced 
 to make. 
 
 50. 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 di- 10 
 
 parties in vided into two hostile sections. The position of Mr. 
 
 1704 and in Canning and his friends in 1826 corresponded to 
 that which Marlborough and Godolphin occupied 
 in 1 704. Nottingham and Jersey were, in 1 704, what Lord 
 Eldon° and Lord Westmoreland were in 1826. The Whigs 15 
 of 1704 were in a situation resembling that in which the 
 Whigs of 1826 stood. In 1704, Somers,° Halifax, Sun- 
 derland, Cowper, were not in office. There was no 
 avowed coalition between them and the moderate Tories. 
 It is probable that no direct communication tending to 20 
 such a coalition had yet taken place ; yet all men saw 
 that such a coalition was inevitable, nay, that it was 
 already half formed. 1 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 25 
 Whigs the news was hailed with transports of joy and 
 pride. No fault, no cause of quarrel, could be remem- 
 bered by them against the commander whose genius 
 had, in one day, changed the face of Europe, saved the 
 Imperial throne, humbled the House of Bourbon, and 30 
 
 1 For full explanation of HIT 49, 50, see Int., pp. xxvii, xxviii. 
 
ADDISON. 37 
 
 secured the Act of Settlement 1 against foreign hostility. 
 The feeling of the Tories was very different. They could 
 not indeed, without imprudence, openly express regret 
 at an event so glorious to their country ; but their con- 
 5 gratulations were so cold and sullen as to give deep dis- 
 gust to the victorious general and his friends. 
 
 51. Godolphin was not a reading man. Whatever 
 time he could spare from business he was in the habit of 
 spending at Newmarket or at the card table. But Whi ne , 
 
 10 he was not absolutely indifferent to poetry; and he of a literary 
 was too intelligent an observer not to perceive that cham P lon - 
 literature was a formidable engine of political warfare, 
 and that the great Whig leaders had strengthened their 
 party, and raised their character, by extending a liberal 
 
 15 and judicious patronage to good writers. He was morti- 
 fied, and not without reason, by the exceeding badness 
 of the poems which appeared in honour of the battle of 
 Blenheim. One of those poems has been rescued from 
 oblivion by the exquisite absurdity of three lines. 
 
 20 " Think of two thousand gentlemen at least, 
 
 And each man mounted on his capering beast; 
 Into the Danube they were pushed by shoals." 
 
 5 2 . Where to procure better verses the Treasurer did not 
 know. He understood how to negotiate a loan, or remit a 
 
 25 subsidy : he was also well versed in the history of The j 
 running horses and fighting cocks ; but his acquaint- tion of 
 ance among the poets was very small. He con- Addlson - 
 suited Halifax ; but Halifax affected to decline the 
 office of adviser. He had, he said, done his best, when 
 
 30 he had power, to encourage men whose abilities and 
 
 1 Note, p. 115, and Int., p. xviii. 
 
3 8 ADDISON. 
 
 acquirements might do honour to their country. Those 
 times were over. Other maxims had prevailed. Merit 
 was suffered to pine in obscurity ; and the public money 
 was squandered on the undeserving. " I do know," he 
 added, " a gentleman who would celebrate the battle in 5 
 a manner worthy of the subject; but I will not name 
 him." Godolphin, who was expert at the soft answer 
 which turneth away wrath, and who was under the neces- 
 sity of paying court to the Whigs, gently replied that 
 there was too much ground for Halifax's complaints, 10 
 but that what was amiss should in time be rectified, and 
 that in the meantime the services of a man such as 
 Halifax had described should be liberally rewarded. 
 Halifax then mentioned Addison, but, mindful of the 
 dignity as well as of the pecuniary interest of his friend, 15 
 insisted that the Ministep should apply in the most cour- 
 teous manner to Addison himself; and this Godolphin 
 promised to do. 
 
 53. Addison then occupied a garret up three pair of 
 stairs, over a small shop in the Haymarket. In this 20 
 humble lodging he was surprised, on the morning 
 response, which followed the conversation between Godolphin 
 and his an d Halifax, by a visit from no less a person than the 
 Right Honourable Henry Boyle, then Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer, and afterwards Lord Carleton. This high- 25 
 born minister had been sent by the Lord Treasurer as 
 ambassador to the needy poet. Addison readily under- 
 took the proposed task, a task which, to so good a Whig, 
 was probably a pleasure. When the poem was little more 
 than half finished, he showed it to Godolphin, who was 30 
 delighted with it, and particularly with the famous simili- 
 
ADDISON. 39 
 
 tude of the Angel. 1 Addison was instantly appointed to 
 a Commissionership worth about two hundred pounds a 
 year, and was assured that this appointment was only an 
 earnest of greater favours. 
 5 54. The Campaign 2 came forth, and was as much ad- 
 mired by the public as by the Minister. It pleases us less 
 on the whole than the Epistle to Halifax. 2 Yet it The Caw- 
 undoubtedly ranks high among the poems which dis- 
 appeared during the interval between the death of Dry- 
 
 10 den and the dawn of Pope's genius. The chief merit of 
 the Campaign, we think, is that which was noticed by 
 Johnson, the manly and rational rejection of fiction. 
 The first great poet whose works have come down to us 
 sang of war long before war became a science or a trade. 
 
 15 If, in his time, there was enmity between two little 
 Greek towns, each poured forth its crowd of citizens, 
 ignorant of discipline, and armed with implements of 
 labour rudely turned into weapons. On each side ap- 
 peared conspicuous a few chiefs, whose wealth had ena- 
 
 20 bled them to procure good armour, horses, and chariots, 
 and whose leisure had enabled them to practise military 
 exercises. One such chief, if he were a man of great 
 strength, agility, and courage, would probably be more 
 formidable than twenty common men ; and the force and 
 
 25 dexterity with which he flung his spear might have no 
 inconsiderable share in deciding the event of the day. 
 Such were probably the battles with which Homer was 
 familiar. But Homer related the actions of men of a 
 former generation, of men who sprang from the Gods, 
 
 30 and communed with the Gods face to face, of men, one 
 1 Note, p. 115. 2 See List of Addison's Works, p. xxxii. 
 
40 
 
 ADDISON 
 
 of whom could with ease hurl rocks which two sturdy 
 hinds of a later period would be unable even to lift. He 
 therefore naturally represented their martial exploits as 
 resembling in kind, but far surpassing in magnitude, those 
 of the stoutest and most expert combatants of his own 5 
 age. Achilles, clad in celestial armour, drawn by celes- 
 tial 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, accus- 10 
 tomed to the use of weapons, guarded by a shield and 
 helmet of the 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 15 
 where the Lifeguardsman Shaw° would be considered as 
 a much greater warrior than the Duke of Wellington. 
 Buonaparte loved to describe the astonishment with 
 which the Mamelukes looked at his diminutive figure. 
 Mourad Bey, distinguished above all his fellows by his 20 
 bodily strength, and by the skill with which he managed 
 his horse and his sabre, could not believe that a man who 
 was scarcely five feet high, and rode like a butcher, could 
 be the greatest soldier in Europe. 
 
 55. Homer's descriptions of war had therefore as much 25 
 
 truth as poetry requires. But truth was altogether wanting 
 
 to the performances of those who, writing about bat- 
 
 wkh P other tles which had scarcely anything in common with 
 
 battle- the battles of his times, servilely imitated his man- 
 
 pi " ner. The folly of Silius Italicus, in particular, is 30 
 
 positively nauseous. He undertook to record in verse 
 
ADDISON. 41 
 
 the vicissitudes of a great struggle between generals of 
 the first order : and his narrative is made up of the hid- 
 eous wounds which these generals inflicted with their own 
 hands. Asdrubal flings a spear which grazes the shoul- 
 5 der of the consul Nero ; but Nero sends his spear into 
 Asdrubal's side. Fabius slays Thuris and Butes and 
 Maris and Arses, and the longhaired Adherbes, and 
 the gigantic Thylis, and Sapharus and Monsesus, and the 
 trumpeter Morinus. Hannibal runs Perusinus through 
 10 the groin with a stake, and breaks the backbone of Tele- 
 sinus with a huge stone. This detestable fashion was 
 copied in modern times, and continued to prevail down 
 to the age of Addison. Several versifiers had described 
 William turning thousands to flight by his single prowess, 
 I5 and dyeing the Boyne with Irish blood. Nay, so estima- 
 ble a writer as John Philips, the author of the Splendid 
 Shilling, represented Marlborough as having won the 
 battle of Blenheim merely by strength of muscle and 
 skill in fence. The following lines may serve as an 
 20 example : — 
 
 "Churchill, viewing where 
 The violence of Tallard ° most prevailed, 
 Came to oppose his slaughtering arm. With speed 
 Precipitate he rode, urging his way 
 25 O'er hills of gasping heroes, and fallen steeds 
 
 Rolling in death. Destruction, grim with blood, 
 Attends his furious course. Around his head 
 The glowing balls play innocent, while he 
 With dire impetuous sway deals fatal blows 
 3° 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?" 
 
42 ADDISON. 
 
 56. Addison, with excellent sense and taste, departed 
 from this ridiculous fashion. He reserved his praise for 
 
 Superiority ^ e Q uant i es which made Marlborough truly great, 
 of Addi- energy, sagacity, military science. But, above all, 
 son's work. the poet exto vi e( j t h e firmness of that mind which, 5 
 in the midst of confusion, uproar, and slaughter, ex- 
 amined and disposed every thing with the serene wisdom 
 of a higher intelligence. 
 
 57. Here it was that he introduced the famous com- 
 parison of Marlborough to an Angel guiding the whirl- 10 
 
 Its most wind. We will not dispute the general justice of 
 famous Johnson's remarks on this passage. But we must 
 
 passage. . J . ... . 
 
 point out one circumstance which appears to have 
 escaped all the critics. The extraordinary effect which 
 this simile produced when it first appeared, and which 15 
 to the following generation seemed inexplicable, is 
 doubtless to be chiefly attributed to a line which most 
 readers now regard as a feeble parenthesis, 
 
 " Such as, of late, o'er pale Britannia pass'd." 
 
 Addison spoke, not of a storm, but of the storm. The 2 o 
 great tempest of November 1703, the only tempest which 
 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 
 occasion of a parliamentary address or of a public fast. 25 
 Whole fleets had been cast away. Large mansions had 
 been blown down. One Prelate had been buried beneath 
 the ruins of his palace. London and Bristol had pre- 
 sented the appearance of cities just sacked. Hundreds 
 of families were still in mourning. The prostrate trunks 30 
 
DUKE OF MARLBORO. 
 
ADDISON. 43 
 
 of large trees, and the ruins of houses, still attested, in all 
 the southern counties, the fury of the blast. The popu- 
 larity which the simile of the angel enjoyed among Addi- 
 son's contemporaries, has always seemed to us to be a 
 5 remarkable instance of the advantages which, in rhetoric 
 and poetry, the particular has over the general. 
 
 58. Soon after the Campaign, was published Addi- 
 son's Narrative of his Travels in Italy. The first effect 
 produced by this Narrative was disappointment. 
 
 10 The crowd of readers who expected politics and wm k- 
 scandal, speculations on the projects of Victor Ama- Travels in 
 deus,° and anecdotes about the jollities of convents 
 and the amours of cardinals and nuns, were confounded 
 by finding that the writer's mind was much more occu- 
 
 15 pied by the war between the Trojans and Rutulians than 
 by the war between France and Austria ; and that he 
 seemed to have heard no scandal of later date than the 
 gallantries of the Empress Faustina. In time, however, 
 the judgment of the many was overruled by that of the 
 
 20 few ; and, before the book was reprinted, it was so 
 eagerly sought that it sold for five times the original 
 price. It is still read with pleasure : the style is pure 
 and flowing ; the classical quotations and allusions are nu- 
 merous and happy ; and we are now and then charmed by 
 
 25 that singularly humane and delicate humour in which Addi- 
 son excelled all men. Yet this agreeable work, even when 
 considered merely as the history of a literary tour, may 
 justly be censured on account of its faults of omission. 
 We have already said that, though rich in extracts from 
 
 30 the Latin poets, it contains scarcely any references to 
 the Latin orators and historians. We must add, that it 
 
44 ADDISON. 
 
 contains little, or rather no information, respecting the 
 history and literature of modern Italy. To the best of 
 our remembrance, Addison does not mention Dante, 
 Petrarch, Boccaccio, Boiardo, Berni,° Lorenzo de' Med- 
 ici, or Machiavelli. He coldly tells us that at Ferrara 5 
 he saw the tomb of Ariosto, and that at Venice he heard 
 the gondoliers sing verses of Tasso. But for Tasso and 
 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 stream of 10 
 Albula suggests to him several passages of Martial. 
 But he has not a word to say of the illustrious dead of 
 Santa Croce ; he crosses the wood of Ravenna without 
 recollecting the Spectre Huntsman, and wanders up and 
 down Rimini without one thought of Francesca. At 15 
 Paris he had eagerly sought an introduction to Boileau ; but 
 he seems not to have been at all aware that at Florence 
 he was in the vicinity of a poet with whom Boileau could 
 not sustain a comparison, of the greatest lyric poet of 
 modern times, Vincenzio Filicaja. This is the more 20 
 remarkable, because Filicaja was the favourite poet of 
 the accomplished Somers, under whose protection Addi- 
 son travelled, and to whom the account of the Travels 
 is dedicated. The truth is, that Addison knew little, and 
 cared less, about the literature of modern Italy. His 25 
 favourite models were Latin. His favourite critics were 
 French. Half the Tuscan poetry that he had read 
 seemed to him monstrous, and half tawdry. 
 
 59. His Travels were followed by the lively Opera of 
 Rosamond. This piece was ill set to music, and therefore 30 
 failed on the stage, but it completely succeeded in print, 
 
ADDISON. 45 
 
 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 ma ticwork' 
 5 heroic couplets to Pope, and blank verse to Rowe, opera of 
 and had employed himself in writing airy and 
 spirited songs, his reputation as a poet would have stood 
 far higher than it now does. Some years after his death, 
 Rosamond was set to new music by Doctor Arne,° and 
 
 10 was performed with complete success. Several passages 
 long retained their popularity, and were daily sung, dur- 
 ing the latter part of George the Second's reign, at all 
 the harpsichords in England. 
 
 60. While Addison thus amused himself, his prospects, 
 
 15 and the prospects of his party, were constantly becoming 
 brighter and brighter. In the spring of 170s the 
 
 • r , r , . . \ , Favorable 
 
 ministers were freed from the restraint imposed by political 
 a House of Commons in which Tories of the most conditions 
 perverse class had the ascendency. The elections 
 
 20 were favourable to the Whigs. The coalition which had 
 been tacitly and gradually formed was now openly avowed. 
 The Great Seal was given to Cowper. Somers and 
 Halifax were sworn of the Council. Halifax was sent 
 in the following year to carry the decorations of the 
 
 25 order of the Garter to the Electoral Prince of Hanover, 1 
 and was accompanied on his honourable mission by Addi- 
 son, who had just been made Undersecretary of State. 
 The Secretary of State under whom Addison first served 
 was Sir Charles Hedges, a Tory. But Hedges was soon 
 
 30 dismissed to make room for the most vehement of Whigs, 
 
 1 Son of Sophia; see Int., p. xviii, bottom. 
 
46 ADDISON. 
 
 Charles, Earl of Sunderland. In every department of 
 the state, indeed, the High Churchmen were compelled 
 to give place to their opponents. At the close of 1707, 
 the Tories who still remained in office strove to rally, 
 with' Harley at their head. But the attempt, though 5 
 favoured by the Queen, who had always been a Tory at 
 heart, and who had now quarrelled with the Duchess of 
 Marlborough, was unsuccessful. The time was not yet. 
 The Captain General was at the height of popularity and 
 glory. The Low Church party had a majority in Parlia- 10 
 ment. The country squires and rectors, though occa- 
 sionally uttering a savage growl, were for the most part 
 in a state of torpor, which lasted till they were roused 
 into activity, and indeed into madness, by the prosecu- 
 tion of Sacheverell. 1 Harley and his adherents were 15 
 compelled to retire. The victory of the Whigs was com- 
 plete. At the general election of 1708, their strength in 
 the House of Commons became irresistible ; and before 
 the end of that year, Somers was made Lord President 
 of the Council, and Wharton Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. 20 
 
 61. Addison sat for Malmsbury in the House of Com- 
 mons which was elected in 1 708. But the House of Com- 
 Poiiticai mons was not the field for him. The bashfulness 
 advance- f hi s nature made his wit and eloquence useless in 
 
 ment due to n , TT . . ., . . 
 
 literary debate. He once rose, but could not overcome his 25 
 services. diffidence, and ever after remained silent. Nobody 
 can think it strange that a great writer should fail as a 
 speaker. But many, probably, will think it strange that 
 Addison's failure as a speaker should have had no unfavour- 
 able effect on his success as a politician. 
 
 1 Int., p. xxiii. 
 
ADDISON. 47 
 
 man of high rank and great fortune might, though speaking 
 very little and very ill, hold a considerable post. But it 
 would now be inconceivable that a mere adventurer, a 
 man who, when out of office, must live by his pen, should 
 
 5 in a few years become successively Undersecretary of 
 State, chief Secretary for Ireland, and Secretary of State, 
 without some oratorical talent. Addison, without high 
 birth, and with little property, rose to a post which 
 Dukes, the heads of the great houses of Talbot, Russell, 
 
 10 and Bentinck, have thought it an honour to fill. With- 
 out opening his lips in debate, he rose to a post, the 
 highest that Chatham or Fox° ever reached. And this 
 he did before he had been nine years in Parliament. 
 We must look for the explanation of this seeming miracle 
 
 15 to the peculiar circumstances in which that generation 
 was placed. During the interval which elapsed between 
 the time when the Censorship of the Press ceased, and 
 the time when parliamentary proceedings began to be 
 freely reported, literary talents were, to a public man, of 
 
 20 much more importance, and oratorical talents of much 
 less importance, than in our time. At present, the best 
 way of giving rapid and wide publicity to a fact or an 
 argument is to introduce that fact or argument into a 
 speech made in Parliament. If a political tract were to 
 
 25 appear superior to the Conduct of the Allies, 1 or to the 
 best numbers of the Freeholder, 1 the circulation of such a 
 tract would be languid indeed when compared with the 
 circulation of every remarkable word uttered in the delib- 
 erations of the legislature. A speech made in the House 
 
 30 of Commons at four in the morning is on thirty thousand 
 
 1 See List of Periodicals, p. xxxiv. 
 
48 ADDISON. 
 
 tables before ten. A speech made on the Monday is 
 read on the Wednesday by multitudes in Antrim and 
 Aberdeenshire. The orator, by the help of the short- 
 hand writer, has to a great extent superseded the pam- 
 phleteer. It was not so in the reign of Anne. The 5 
 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 influ- 
 enced ; and the opinion of the public without doors 
 could not but be of the highest importance in a country 10 
 governed by parliaments, and indeed at that time gov- 
 erned by triennial parliaments. The pen was therefore a 
 more formidable political engine than the tongue. Mr. 
 Pitt l and Mr. Fox° contended only in Parliament. But 
 Walpole and Pulteney, the Pitt and Fox of an earlier^ 
 period, had not done half of what was necessary, when 
 they sat down amidst the acclamations of the House of 
 Commons. They had still to plead their cause before 
 the country, and this they could only do by means of 
 the press. Their works are now forgotten. But it is 20 
 certain that there were in Grub° Street few more assidu- 
 ous scribblers of Thoughts, Letters, Answers, Remarks, 
 than these two great chiefs of parties. Pulteney, when 
 leader of the Opposition, 2 and possessed of thirty thou- 
 sand a year, edited the Craftsman. 3 Walpole, though 25 
 not a man of literary habits, was the author of at least 
 ten pamphlets, and retouched and corrected many more. 
 These facts sufficiently show of how great importance 
 literary assistance then was to the contending parties. 
 
 1 Index, " Chatham." 2 Int., p. xxvi, bottom. 
 
 3 See List of Periodicals, p. xxxiv. 
 
ADDISON. 49 
 
 St. John was, certainly, in Anne's reign, the best Tory 
 speaker; Co\vper° was probably the best Whig speaker. 
 But it may well be doubted whether St. John did so 
 much for the Tories as Swift, and whether Cowper did 
 5 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 Englishman has ever, by means merely of lit- 
 erary talents, been able to climb. Swift would, in all 
 io probability, have climbed as high, if he had not been 
 encumbered by his cassock and his pudding sleeves. As 
 far as the homage of the great went, Swift had as much 
 of it as if he had been Lord Treasurer. 
 
 62. To the influence which Addison derived from his 
 15 literary talents was added all the influence which arises 
 
 from character. The world, always ready to think 
 the worst of needy political adventurers, was forced character. 
 to make one exception. Restlessness, violence, ( a ) Hi ^ in- 
 audacity, laxity of principle, are the vices ordinarily cgnty " 
 
 20 attributed to that class of men. But faction itself could 
 not deny that Addison had, through all changes of for- 
 tune, been strictly faithful to his early opinions, and to 
 his early friends ; that his integrity was without stain ; 
 that his whole deportment indicated a fine sense of the 
 
 25 becoming ; that, in the utmost heat of controversy, his 
 zeal was tempered by a regard for truth, humanity, and 
 social decorum ; that no outrage could ever provoke him 
 to retaliation unworthy of a Christian and a gentleman ; 
 and that his only faults were a too sensitive delicacy, and 
 
 30 a modesty which amounted to bashfulness. 
 
 63. He was undoubtedly one of the most popular men 
 
50 ADDISON. 
 
 of his time ; and much of his popularity he owed, we 
 believe, to that very timidity which his friends lamented. 
 That timidity often prevented him from exhibiting his 
 m His con- ta ^ ents t0 tne Dest advantage. But it propitiated 
 versational Nemesis. It averted that envy which would other- 5 
 talents. w j ge nave Deen excited by fame so splendid, 
 and by so rapid an elevation. No man is so great a 
 favourite with the public as he who is at once an object 
 of admiration, of respect, and of pity ; and such were 
 the feelings which Addison inspired. Those who enjoyed 10 
 the privilege of hearing his familiar conversation, declared 
 with one voice that it was superior even to his writings. 
 The brilliant Mary Montague said, that she had known 
 all the wits, and that Addison was the best company in 
 the world. The malignant Pope was forced to own, that 15 
 there was a charm in Addison's talk, which could be found 
 nowhere else. Swift, when burning with animosity against 
 the Whigs, could not but confess to Stella l that, after all, 
 he had never known any associate so agreeable as Addi- 
 son. Steele, an excellent judge of lively conversation, 20 
 said, that the conversation of Addison was at once the 
 most polite, and the most mirthful, that could be imag- 
 ined ; 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 25 
 judge of serious conversation, said, that when Addison 
 was at his ease, he went on in a noble strain of thought 
 and language, so as to chain the attention of every hearer. 
 Nor were Addison's great colloquial powers more admir- 
 able than the courtesy and softness of heart which 30 
 1 Index, " Swift," end. 
 
ADDISON. 51 
 
 appeared in his conversation. At the same time, it 
 would be too much to say that he was wholly devoid of 
 the malice which is, perhaps, inseparable from a keen 
 sense of the ludicrous. He had one habit which both 
 5 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 cox- 
 comb deeper and deeper into absurdity. That such was 
 
 10 his practice we should, we think, have guessed from his 
 works. The Tatler's criticisms on Mr. Softly's sonnet, 1 
 and the Spectator's dialogue with the politician who is so 
 zealous for the honour of Lady Q — p — t — s, 1 are excellent 
 specimens of this innocent mischief. 
 
 15 64. 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, , . Ris re 
 as soon as he saw an unknown face, his lips were tiring dis- 
 sealed, and his manners became constrained. None P OSItlon - 
 
 20 who met him only in great assemblies would have been 
 able to believe that he was the same man who had often 
 kept a few friends listening and laughing round a table, 
 from the time when the play ended, till the clock of 
 St. Paul's in Covent Garden struck four. Yet, even at 
 
 25 such a table, he was not seen to the best advantage. To 
 enjoy his conversation in the highest perfection, it was nec- 
 essary to be alone with him, and to hear him, in his own 
 phrase, think aloud. "There is no such thing," he used 
 to say, "as real conversation, but between two persons." 
 
 30 65. This timidity, a timidity surely neither ungraceful 
 
 1 Note, p. 116. 
 
52 ADDISON. 
 
 nor unamiable, led Addison into the two most serious 
 
 faults which can with justice be imputed to him. He 
 
 (d) His found that wine broke the spell which lay on his fine 
 
 faults : intellect, and was therefore too easily seduced into 
 
 (i) exces- • • i 01 -i 
 
 sive wine- convivial excess. Such excess was in that age 5 
 drinking, regarded, even by grave men, as the most venial of all 
 peccadilloes, and was so far from being a mark of ill- 
 breeding, that it was almost essential to the character of 
 a fine gentleman. But the smallest speck is seen on a 
 white ground ; and almost all the biographers of Addison 10 
 have said something about this failing. Of any other 
 statesman or writer of Queen Anne's reign, we should no 
 more think of saying that he sometimes took too much 
 wine, than that he wore a long wig and a sword. 
 
 66. To the excessive modesty of Addison's nature we 15 
 must ascribe another fault, which generally arises from a 
 and (2) ver y different cause. He became a little too fond 
 love of of seeing himself surrounded by a small circle of 
 adulation. a( j m i rerSj to whom he was as a King, or rather as a 
 God. All these men were far inferior to him in ability, 20 
 and some of them had very serious faults. Nor did those 
 faults escape his observation j for, if ever there was an 
 eye which saw through and 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. 25 
 The feeling with which he looked on most of his humble 
 companions was one of benevolence, slightly tinctured 
 with contempt. He was at perfect ease in their com- 
 pany ; he was grateful for their devoted attachment ; and 
 he loaded them with benefits. Their veneration for him 3° 
 appears to have exceeded that with which Johnson was 
 
ADDISON. 53 
 
 regarded by Boswell, or Warburton by Hurd.° It was 
 not in the power of adulation to turn such a head, or 
 deprave such a heart, as Addison's. But it must in can- 
 dour be admitted that he contracted some of the faults 
 5 which can scarcely be avoided by any person who is so 
 unfortunate as to be the oracle of a small literary coterie. 
 
 67. One member of this little society was Eustace 
 Budgell, a young Templer 1 of some literature, and a 
 distant relation of Addison. There was at this time 
 
 . His satel- 
 
 IO no stain on the character of Budgell, and it is not ntes : 
 improbable that his career would have been pros- C 1 ) Eustace 
 perous and honourable, if the life of his cousin had 
 been prolonged. But, when the master was laid in the 
 grave, the disciple broke loose from all restraint, descended 
 
 15 rapidly from one degree of vice and misery to another, 
 ruined his fortune by follies, attempted to repair it by 
 crimes, and at length closed a wicked and unhappy life 
 by self-murder. Yet, to the last, the wretched man, 
 gambler, lampooner, cheat, forger, as he was, retained 
 
 20 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. 
 
 68. Another of Addison's favourite companions was 
 Ambrose Phillipps, a good Whig and a middling poet, 
 
 25 who had the honour of bringing into fashion a spe- ,. Am 
 cies of composition which has been called, after his brose 
 name, Namby Pamby. But the most remarkable Phlll, PPs; 
 members of the little senate, as Pope long afterwards called 
 it, were Richard Steele and Thomas Tickell. 
 
 30 69. Steele had known Addison from childhood. They 
 
 1 Index, "Inns of Court." 
 
54 ADDISON. 
 
 had been together at the Charter House and at Oxford ; 
 but circumstances had then, for a time, separated them 
 (3) Richard widely. Steele had left college without taking a de- 
 Steele; gree, had been disinherited by a rich relation, had 
 led a vagrantjife, had served in the army, had tried to 5 
 find the philosopher's stone, and had written a religious 
 treatise and several comedies. He was one of those 
 people whom it is impossible either to hate or to respect. 
 His temper was sweet, his affections warm, his spirits 
 lively, his passions strong, and his principles weak. His 10 
 life was spent in sinning and repenting ; in inculcating 
 what was right, and doing what was wrong. In specula- 
 tion, he was a man of piety and honour ; in practice, he 
 was much of the rake and a little of the swindler.__ He 
 was, however, so good natured that it was not easy to be 15 
 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 success, to 20 
 keep him out of scrapes, introduced him to the great, 
 procured a good place for him, corrected his plays, and, 
 though by no means rich, lent him large sums of money. 
 One of these loans appears, from a letter dated in August 
 1708, to have amounted to a thousand pounds. These 25 
 pecuniary transactions probably led to frequent bickerings. 
 It is said that, on one occasion, Steele's negligence, or 
 dishonesty, provoked Addison to repay himself by the 
 help of a bailiff. We cannot join Miss Aikin in rejecting 
 this story. Johnson heard it from Savage, who heard it 30 
 from Steele. Few private transactions which took place 
 
ADDISON. 55 
 
 a hundred and twenty years ago, are proved by stronger 
 evidence than this. But we can by no means agree with 
 those who condemn *\ddison's severity. The most ami- 
 able of mankind may well be moved to indignation, when 
 5 what he has earned hardly, and lent with great inconven- 
 ience to himself, for the purpose of relieving a friend in 
 distress, is squandered with insane profusion. We will 
 illustrate our meaning by an example which is not the 
 less striking because it is taken from fiction. Dr. Harri- 
 
 io son, in Fielding's Amelia, is represented as the most 
 benevolent of human beings ; yet he takes in execution, 
 not only the goods, but the person of his friend Booth. 1 
 Dr. Harrison resorts to this strong measure because he 
 has been informed that Booth, while pleading poverty as 
 
 15 an excuse for not paying just debts, has been buying fine 
 jewellery, and setting up a coach. No person who is well 
 acquainted with Steele's life and correspondence can 
 doubt that he behaved quite as ill to Addison as Booth 
 was accused of behaving to Dr. Harrison. The real his- 
 
 20 tory, we have little doubt, was something like this : — 
 A letter comes to Addison, imploring help in pathetic 
 terms, and promising reformation and speedy repayment. 
 Poor Dick declares that he has not an inch of candle, or 
 a bushel of coals, or credit with the butcher for a shoulder 
 
 25 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 and 
 buckles another year. In this way he manages to send a 
 
 30 hundred pounds to his friend. The next day he calls on 
 iNote, p. 117. 
 
56 ADDISON. 
 
 Steele, and finds scores of gentlemen and ladies assem- 
 bled. The fiddles are playing. The table is groaning 
 under Champagne, Burgundy, and pyramids of sweet- 
 meats. Is it strange that a man whose kindness is thus 
 abused, should send sheriffs officers to reclaim what is 5 
 due to him? 
 
 70. Tickell was a young man, fresh from Oxford, who 
 had introduced himself to public notice by writing a 
 
 (4) Thomas most ingenious and graceful little poem in praise of 
 Tickell. the opera of Rosamond. He deserved, and at 10 
 length attained, the first place in Addison's friendship. 
 For a time Steele and Tickell were on good terms. But 
 they loved Addison too much to love each other, and at 
 length became as bitter enemies as the rival bulls in 
 Virgil. 1 x 5 
 
 71. At the close of 1708 Wharton became Lord 
 Lieutenant of Ireland, and appointed Addison Chief 
 
 Secretary. Addison was consequently under the 
 
 Promotion . .. 
 
 to Irish necessity of quitting London for Dublin. Besides 
 Secretary- the chief secretaryship, which was then worth about 20 
 two thousand pounds a year, he obtained a patent 
 appointing him keeper of the Irish Records for life, with a 
 salary of three or four hundred a year. Budgell accom- 
 panied his cousin in the capacity of private Secretary. 
 
 72. Wharton and Addison had nothing in common 25 
 but Whiggism. The Lord Lieutenant was not only licen- 
 
 Conduct in tious and corrupt, but was distinguished from other 
 office, libertines and jobbers by a callous impudence which 
 
 presented the strongest contrast to the Secretary's gentle- 
 ness and delicacy. Many parts of the Irish administra- 3c 
 
 l JEneid, XII, 715 + ; Georgics, III, 220 +. 
 
ADDISON. 57 
 
 tion at this time appear to have deserved serious blame. 
 But against Addison there was not a murmur. He long 
 afterwards asserted, what all the evidence which we have 
 ever seen tends to prove, that his diligence and integrity 
 5 gained the friendship of all the most considerable persons 
 in Ireland. 
 
 73. The parliamentary career of Addison in Ireland 
 has, we think, wholly escaped the notice of all his biog- 
 raphers. He was elected member for the borough an d in 
 
 10 of Cavan in the summer of 1709; and in the Parliament, 
 journals of two sessions his name frequently occurs. 
 Some of the entries appear to indicate that he so far 
 overcame his timidity as to make speeches. Nor is this 
 by any means improbable ; for the Irish House of Com- 
 
 15 mons was a far less formidable audience than the English 
 House ; and many tongues which were tied by fear in the 
 greater assembly became fluent in the smaller. Gerard 
 Hamilton, for example, who, from fear of losing the 
 fame gained by his single speech, sat mute at Westmin- 
 
 20 ster during forty years, spoke with great effect at Dublin 
 when he was Secretary to Lord Halifax. 
 
 74. While Addison was in Ireland, an event occurred 
 to which he owes his high and permanent rank among 
 
 25 British writers. As yet his fame rested on per- ~ 
 
 J J v Iransition 
 
 formances which, though highly respectable, were to his liter- 
 not built for duration, and which would, if he had ary career - 
 produced nothing else, have now been almost forgot- 
 ten, on some excellent Latin verses, on some English 
 30 verses which occasionally rose above mediocrity, and on 
 a book of travels, agreeably written, but not indicating any 
 
58 ADDISON. 
 
 extraordinary powers of mind. These works showed him 
 to be a man of taste, sense, and learning. The time had 
 come when he was to prove himself a man of genius, and 
 to enrich our literature with compositions which will live 
 as long as the English language. 5 
 
 75. In the spring of 1 709 Steele formed a literary proj- 
 ect of which he was far indeed from foreseeing the 
 
 consequences. Periodical papers had during many 
 
 periodical years been published in London. Most of these 
 
 pubiica- were political ; but in some of them questions of 10 
 
 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. 
 
 76. Steele had been appointed Gazetteer 1 by Sunder- 
 land, at the request, it is said, of Addison, and thus had 15 
 
 Steele's access to foreign intelligence earlier and more 
 project for authentic than was in those times within the reach 
 tie Toiler. Q f an or( j mar y news-writer. This circumstance 
 seems to have suggested to him the scheme of publishing 
 a periodical paper on a new plan. It was to appear on 20 
 the days on which the post left London for the country, 
 which were, in that generation, the Tuesdays, Thursdays, 
 and Saturdays. It was to contain the foreign news, 
 accounts of theatrical representations, and the literary 
 gossip of Will's 2 and of the Grecian. 2 It was also to con- 25 
 tain remarks on the fashionable topics of the day, com- 
 pliments 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 30 
 
 1 Index, " Gazette." 2 Index, " Clubs." 
 
ADDISON. 59 
 
 planned. His public intelligence he drew from the best 
 sources. He knew the town, and had paid dear for the 
 knowledge. He had read much more than the dissipated 
 men of that time were in the habit of reading. He was 
 5 a rake among scholars, and a scholar among rakes. His 
 style was easy and not incorrect ; and, though his wit and 
 humour were of no high order, his gay animal spirits im- 
 parted to his compositions an air of vivacity which 
 ordinary readers could hardly distinguish from comic 
 10 genius. His writings have been well compared to those 
 light wines which though deficient in body and flavour, 
 are yet a pleasant small drink, if not kept too long, or 
 carried too far. 
 
 77. Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, Astrologer, was an 
 15 imaginary 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 donym 
 satirical pamphlet against Partridge, the maker of "Bicker- 
 almanacks. Partridge had been fool enough to 
 
 20 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. Steele determined 
 to employ the name which this controversy had made 
 
 25 popular ; and, in 1 709, it was announced that Isaac 
 Bickerstaff, Esquire, Astrologer, was about to publish a 
 paper called the Tatler. 
 
 78. Addison had not been consulted about this scheme ; 
 but as soon as he heard of it he determined to give his 
 
 30 assistance. The effect of that assistance cannot be Addison's 
 better described than in Steele's own words. " I cooperation. 
 
60 ADDISON. 
 
 fared," he said, " like a distressed prince who calls in a 
 powerful neighbour 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 5 
 a greater thing than I intended it." 
 
 79. 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 
 
 The dis- J 
 
 closure of powers. He was the possessor of a vast mine, rich 10 
 his powers. ^^ a h un d re d ores. But he had been acquainted 
 only with 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 15 
 lighted on an inexhaustible vein of the finest gold. 
 
 80. 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, 
 
 (a) Diction. .,.■„,.., , . • , , 
 
 had the English language been written with such 20 
 sweetness, grace, and facility. But this was the smallest 
 part of Addison's 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, 1 his genius would have 25 
 triumphed over all faults of manner. As a moral satirist 
 he stands unrivalled. If ever the best Tatlers and Spec- 
 tators were equalled in their own kind, we should be in- 
 clined to guess that it must have been by the lost comedies 
 of Menander. 3° 
 
 1 Note, p. 117. 
 
ADDISON. 61 
 
 8 1 . In wit, properly so called, 1 Addison was not inferior 
 to Cowley or Butler. No single ode of Cowley contains 
 so many happy analogies as are crowded into the 
 
 lines to Sir Godfrey Kneller ; and we would under- tion and 
 5 take to collect from the Spectators as great a num- character 
 ber of ingenious illustrations as can be found in Hudi- 
 bras. 2 The still higher faculty of invention Addison pos- 
 sessed in still larger measure. The numerous fictions, 
 generally original, often wild and grotesque, but always 
 
 io singularly graceful and happy, which are found in his 
 essays, fully entitle him to 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 
 
 15 observed he had 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 any- 
 
 20 thing more vivid than Addison's best portraits, we must 
 go either to Shakspeare or Cervantes. 
 
 82. But what shall we say of Addison's humour, of his 
 sense of the ludicrous, of his power of awakening that 
 sense in others, and of drawing mirth from inci- 
 
 25 dents which occur every day, and from little pecu- 
 liarities 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 analyse it. 
 
 83. Perhaps the best way of describing Addison's 
 30 peculiar pleasantry is to compare it with the pleasantry 
 
 1 Note, p. 117. 2 Index, "Butler." 
 

 62 ADDISON. 
 
 of some other great satirists. The three most eminent 
 
 masters of the art of ridicule during the eighteenth 
 
 Proposed cent ury, were, we conceive, Addison, Swift, and 
 
 compari- Voltaire. Which of the three had the greatest 
 
 power of moving laughter may be questioned. But 5 
 
 each of them, within his own domain, was supreme. 
 
 84. Voltaire is the prince of buffoons. His merriment 
 is without disguise or restraint. He gambols ; he grins ; 
 
 H nor of ne sna ^ es tne sides ; he points the finger ; he 
 Voltaire turns up the nose ; he shoots out the tongue. The 10 
 and Swift; manner f Swift is the very opposite to this. He 
 moves laughter, but never joins in it. \ He appears in his 
 works such as he appeared in society." All the company 
 are convulsed with merriment, while the Dean, the author 
 of all the mirth, preserves an invincible gravity, and even 15 
 sourness of aspect, and gives utterance to the most eccen- 
 tric and ludicrous fancies, with the air of a man reading 
 the commination service. 1 
 
 85. The manner of Addison is as remote from that of 
 Swift as from that of Voltaire. He neither laughs out 20 
 
 Addison's n ^ e tne French wit, nor, like the Irish wit, throws 
 a double portion of severity into his countenance 
 while laughing inwardly ; but preserves a look pecul- 
 iarly his own, a look of demure serenity, disturbed only by 
 an arch sparkle of the eye, an almost imperceptible eleva- 25 
 tion of the brow 7 , 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 is constantly tempered by good 
 nature and good breeding. 30 
 
 1 Note, p. 117. 
 
 more 
 genial 
 
ADDISON. 63 
 
 86. We own that the humour of Addison is, in our 
 opinion, of a more delicious flavour than the humour of 
 either Swift or Voltaire. Thus much, at least, is 
 certain, that both Swift and Voltaire have been suc- 
 
 5 cessfully mimicked, and 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. 1 There are passages 
 in Arbuthnot's satirical works which we, at least, cannot 
 
 10 distinguish from Swift's best writing. But of the many 
 eminent men who have made Addison their model, though 
 several have copied his mere diction with happy effect, 
 none have been able to catch the tone of his pleasantry. 
 In the World, 2 in the Connoisseur, 2 in the Mirror, 2 in the 
 
 15 Lounger, 2 there are numerous papers written in obvious 
 imitation of his Tatlers and Spectators. Most of these 
 papers have some merit ; many are very lively and amus- 
 ing ; but there is not a single one which could be passed 
 off as Addison's on a critic of the smallest perspicacity. 
 
 20 fS"]. 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 an d mor e 
 moral purity which we find even in his merriment, humane. 
 Severity, gradually hardening and darkening into mis- 
 
 25 anthropy, characterises 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 examples of virtue, neither in the Great First 
 Cause nor in the awful enigma of the grave, could he see 
 
 30 any thing but subjects for drollery. The more solemn 
 1 Note, p. 118. 2 See List of Periodicals, p. xxxiv. 
 
64 ADDISON. 
 
 and august the theme, the more monkey-like was. his gri- 
 macing and chattering. The mirth of Swift is the mirth 
 of Mephistophiles ; the mirth of Voltaire is the mirth of 
 Puck.° If, as Soame Jenyns° oddly imagined, a portion 
 of the happiness of Seraphim and just men made perfect 5 
 be derived from an exquisite perception of the ludicrous, 
 their mirth 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 sublime. Nothing great, nothing amiable, no moral 10 
 duty, no doctrine of natural or revealed religion, has ever 
 been 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 15 
 than the power of making men ridiculous ; and that power 
 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 20 
 be difficult, if not impossible, to find in all the 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, 25 
 wreaked on Bettesworth and on Franc de Pompignan. 
 He was a politician ; he was the best writer of his party ; 
 he lived in times of fierce excitement, in times when 
 persons of high character and station stooped to scurrility 
 such as is now practised only by the basest of mankind. 3° 
 Yet no provocation and no example could induce him to 
 return railing for railing 
 
ADDISON. 65 
 
 88. Of the service which his essays rendered to moral- 
 ity it is difficult to speak too highly. It is true, that, 
 when the Tatler appeared, that age of outrageous Ethical 
 profaneness and licentiousness which followed the effectsofhis 
 
 5 Restoration had passed away. Jeremy Collier had wntin s s - 
 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 that there was some connection be- 
 
 10 tvveen genius and profligacy, between the domestic vir- 
 tues and the sullen formality 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 company with wit more 
 
 15 sparkling than the wit 6f Congreve, and with humour 
 richer than the humour of Vanbrugh. 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 always been con- 
 
 20 sidered among us as the mark of a fool. And this revo- 
 lution, the greatest and most salutary ever effected by any 
 satirist, he accomplished, be it remembered, without writ- 
 ing one personal lampoon. 
 
 89. In the early contributions of Addison to the Tatler 
 25 his peculiar powers were not fully exhibited. Yet from 
 
 the first, his superiority to all his coadjutors was evi- Hjs co . 
 dent. Some of his later Tatlers are fully equal to butions to 
 any thing that he ever wrote. Among the portraits, the Tatler - 
 we most admire Tom Folio, 1 Ned Softly, 1 and the Politi- 
 30 cal Upholsterer. 1 The proceedings of the Court of Hon- 
 1 Note, p. 118. 
 
66 ADDISON. 
 
 our, 1 the Thermometer of Zeal/ the story of the Frozen 
 Words, 2 the Memoirs of the Shilling, 2 are excellent speci- 
 mens of that ingenious and lively species of fiction in 
 which Addison excelled all men. There is one still bet- 
 ter paper of the same class. But though that paper, a 5 
 hundred and thirty-three years ago, was probably thought 
 as edifying as one of Smalridge's sermons, we dare not 
 indicate it to the squeamish readers of the nineteenth 
 century. 
 
 90. During the session of Parliament which com- 10 
 menced in November 1 709, and which the impeachment 
 
 Th . of Sacheverell has made memorable," 5 Addison ap- 
 
 relative im- pears to have resided in London. The Tatler was 
 portance. now more popular than any periodical paper had 
 ever been ; and his connection with it was generally known. 15 
 It was not known, however, that almost every thing good 
 in the Tatler was his. The truth is, that the fifty or sixty 
 numbers which 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 20 
 had no share. 
 
 91. He required, at this time, all the solace which he 
 could derive from literary success. The Queen had always 
 
 Political disliked the Whigs. She had during some years 
 conditions disliked the Marlborough family. But, reigning by a 25 
 in 1709. disputed title, she could not venture directly to 
 oppose herself to a majority of both Houses of Parlia- 
 ment ; and, engaged as she was in a war, on the event of 
 which her own Crown was staked, she could not venture 
 to disgrace a great and successful general. But at length, 30 
 1 Note, p. 118. 2 Note, p. 119, top. 3 Int., p. xxiii. 
 
ADDISON. 67 
 
 in the year 1 710, the causes which had restrained her from 
 showing her aversion to the Low Church party ceased to 
 operate. The trial of Sacheverell * produced an outbreak 
 of public feeling scarcely less violent than the outbreaks 
 
 5 which we can ourselves remember in 1820, and in 1831. 
 The country gentlemen, the country clergymen, the rab- 
 ble of the towns, were all, for once, on the same side. It 
 was clear that, if a general election took place before the 
 excitement abated, the Tories would have a majority. 
 
 10 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 Lewis. Indeed, 
 it seemed much more likely that the English and German 
 armies would divide the spoils of Versailles and Marli,° 
 
 15 than that a Marshal of France would bring back the Pre- 
 tender to St. James's. The Queen, acting by the advice 
 of Harley, determined to dismiss her servants. In June 
 the change commenced. Sunderland was the first who 
 fell. The Tories exulted over his fall. The Whigs tried, 
 
 20 during a few weeks, to persuade themselves that her Maj- 
 esty had acted only from personal dislike to the Secretary, 
 and that she meditated no further alteration. But, early 
 in August, Godolphin was surprised by a letter from 
 Anne, which directed him to break his white staff. Even 
 
 25 after this event, the irresolution or dissimulation of Har- 
 ley kept up the hopes of the Whigs during another month ; 
 and then the ruin became rapid and violent. The Downf n 
 Parliament was dissolved. The Ministers were of Whig 
 turned out. The Tories were called to office. The ministr Y- 
 
 30 tide of popularity ran violently in favour of the High 
 
 1 Int., p. xxiii. 
 
68 ADDISON. 
 
 Church party. That party, feeble in the late House of 
 Commons, was now irresistible. The power which the 
 Tories had thus suddenly acquired, they used with blind 
 and stupid ferocity. The howl which the whole pack set 
 up for prey and for blood appalled even him who had 5 
 roused and unchained them. When, at this distance of 
 time, we calmly review the conduct of the discarded min- 
 isters, we cannot but feel a movement of indignation at 
 the injustice with which they were treated. No body of 
 men had ever administered the government with more 10 
 energy, ability, and moderation ; and their success had 
 been proportioned to their wisdom. They had saved 
 Holland and Germany. They had humbled France. 
 They had, as it seemed, all but torn Spain from the 
 House of Bourbon. They had made England the first 15 
 power in Europe. At home they had united England 
 and Scotland. They had respected the rights of con- 
 science and the liberty of the subject. They retired, 
 leaving their country at the height of prosperity and 
 glory. And yet they were pursued to their retreat by 20 
 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. 
 
 92. None of the Whigs suffered more in the general 25 
 wreck than Addison. He had just sustained some heavy 
 
 pecuniary losses, of the nature of which we are im- 
 Addison's l \ ' 
 
 loss of the perfectly informed, when his Secretaryship was taken 
 
 Secretary- f rom n i m# He had reason to believe that he should 
 
 also be deprived of the small Irish office which 30 
 
 he held by patent. He had just resigned his Fellow- 
 
ADDISON. 69 
 
 ship. 1 It seems probable that he had already ventured to 
 raise his eyes to a great lady, and that, while his political 
 friends were in power, and while his own fortunes were ris- 
 ing, he had been, in the phrase of the romances which were 
 
 5 then fashionable, permitted to hope. But Mr. Addison the 
 ingenious writer, and Mr. Addison the chief Secretary, 
 were, in her ladyship's opinion, two very different per- 
 sons. All these calamities united, however, could not 
 disturb the serene cheerfulness of a mind conscious of 
 
 10 innocence, and rich in its own wealth. He told his 
 friends, with smiling resignation, that they ought to 
 admire his philosophy, that he had lost at once his for- 
 tune, his place, his Fellowship, and his mistress, that he 
 must think of turning tutor again, and yet that his spirits 
 
 15 were as good as ever. 
 
 93. He had one consolation. Of the unpopularity 
 which his friends had incurred, he had no share. Such was 
 the esteem with which he was regarded that, while TT . 
 
 His con- 
 
 the most violent measures were taken for the purpose tinued 
 2c of forcing Tory members on Whig corporations, 2 P°P ulai % 
 he was returned to Parliament without even a contest. 
 Swift, who was now in London, and who had already 
 determined on quitting the Whigs, wrote to Stella in 
 these remarkable words : " The Tories carry it among 
 25 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 be refused." 
 
 94. The good will with which the Tories regarded 
 Addison is the more honourable to him, because it had 
 
 30 not been purchased by any concession on his part. 
 
 1 Index, " Universities." 2 Note, p. 119. 
 
70 ADDISON. 
 
 During the general election he published a political Jour- 
 nal, entitled the Whig Examiner. Of that Journal it may 
 His work ^e sufficient to sav that Johnson, i n spite of his strong 
 on the political prejudices, pronounced it to be superior in 
 
 Examiner. ^ tQ any of g w jf t » s wr i t i n gs on the other side. 5 
 When it ceased to appear, Swift, in a letter to Stella, 1 
 expressed his exultation 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 moreio 
 vigorously asserted, and on none did the superiority of 
 his powers more evidently appear." 
 
 95. The only use which Addison appears to have 
 made of the favour with which he was regarded by the 
 
 His loyalty Tories was to save some of his friends from the 15 
 to his general ruin of the Whig party. He felt himself to 
 
 friends. ^ e j n a s i tuat j on wn ich 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 20 
 not ascertained. Steele held two places. He was Gaz- 
 etteer, 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 implied under- 
 standing that he should not be active against the new 25 
 government ; and he was, during more than two years, 
 induced by Addison to observe this armistice with toler- 
 able fidelity. 
 
 96. Isaac Bickerstaff accordingly became silent upon 
 politics, and the article of news which had once formed 30 
 
 1 Index. "Swift." end. 
 
 
ADDISON. 71 
 
 about one-third of his paper altogether disappeared. The 
 Tatler had completely changed its character. It was now 
 nothing but a series of essays on books, morals, and 
 
 _ . . _ 1 i , • • The Tatler 
 
 manners. Steele therefore resolved to bring it to a succeeded 
 5 close, and to commence a new work on an improved by the spec- 
 plan. It was announced that this new work would be 
 published daily. 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 
 
 10 Addison's genius. On the second of January 171 1, ap- 
 peared the last Tatler. At the beginning of March fol- 
 lowing appeared the first of an incomparable series of 
 papers, containing observations on life and literature by 
 an imaginary spectator. 
 
 15 97. The Spectator himself was conceived and drawn 
 by Addison ; and it is not easy to doubt that the Character 
 portrait was meant to be in some features a likeness of the 
 of the painter. The Spectator is a gentleman who, s P ectator * 
 after passing a studious youth at the university, has trav- 
 
 20 elled on classic ground, and has bestowed much atten- 
 tion on curious points of antiquity. He has, on his return, 
 fixed his residence in London, and has observed all the 
 forms of life which are to be found in that great city, has 
 daily listened to the wits of Will's, 1 has smoked with the 
 
 25 philosophers of the Grecian, 1 and has mingled with the 
 parsons at Child's, 1 and with the politicians at the St. 
 James's. 1 In the morning, he often listens to the hum of 
 the Exchange ; in the evening, his face is constantly 
 to be seen in the pit of Drury Lane° theatre. But an 
 
 30 insurmountable bashfulness prevents him from open- 
 1 Index, " Clubs." See also Maps, pp. 124-125. 
 
72 ADDISON. 
 
 ing his mouth, except in a small circle of intimate 
 friends. 
 
 98. These friends were first sketched by Steele. Four 
 of the club, the templar, the clergyman, the soldier, 
 
 The Spec- and the merchant, were uninteresting figures, fits 
 tatorClub. on ]y f or a background. But the other two, an 
 old country baronet and an old town rake, though not 
 delineated with a very delicate pencil, had some good 
 strokes. Addison took the rude outlines into his own 
 hands, retouched them, coloured them, and is in truth 10 
 the creator of the Sir Roger de Coverley and the Will 
 Honeycomb with whom we are all familiar. 
 
 99. The plan of the Spectator must be allowed to be 
 both original and eminently happy. Every valuable essay 
 
 in the series may be read with pleasure separately 115 
 
 Incidents ? , , , r u 1 J 
 
 in the vet tne " ve or Slx hundred essays form a whole, and 
 
 spectator a whole which has the interest of a novel. It must 
 be remembered, too, that at that time no novel, 
 giving a lively and powerful picture of the common life 
 and manners of England, had appeared. Richardson 20 
 was working as a compositor. Fielding was robbing 
 birds' nests. Smollett was not yet born. The narra- 
 tive, therefore, which connects together the Spectator's 
 Essays, gave to our ancestors their first taste of an exqui- 
 site and untried pleasure. That narrative was indeed 25 
 constructed with no art or labour. 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 Spectator on the water to Spring 
 Gardens, walks among the tombs in the Abbey, and is 30 
 frightened by the Mohawks, but conquers his apprehen- 
 
ADDISON. 73 
 
 sion so far as to go to the theatre when the Distressed 
 Mother is acted. The Spectator pays a visit in the sum- 
 mer to Coverley Hall, is charmed with the old house, the 
 old butler, and the old chaplain, eats a jack caught by 
 5 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 Honeycomb marries and reforms at sixty. 
 The club breaks up ; and the Spectator resigns his func- 
 
 iotions. Such events can hardly be said to form a plot; 
 yet they are related with such truth, such grace, such wit, 
 such humour, such pathos, such knowledge of the human 
 heart, such knowledge of the ways of the world, that they 
 charm us on the hundredth perusal. We have not the 
 
 15 least doubt that if Addison 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 English essayists, but as the 
 forerunner of the great English novelists. 
 
 20 100. 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 
 
 ... ... Excellence 
 
 is as good as the best essay of any of his coadjutors, of Addi- 
 His best essays approach near to absolute perfec- son's con- 
 
 2rtion; nor is their excellence more wonderful than 
 their variety. His invention never seems to flag ; nor 
 is he ever under the necessity of repeating himself, or of 
 wearing out a subject. There are no dregs in his wine. 
 He regales us after the fashion of that prodigal nabob 
 
 ^owho held that there was only one good glass in a bottle. 
 As soon as we have tasted the first sparkling foam of a 
 
74 ADDISON. 
 
 jest, it is withdrawn, and a fresh draught of nectar is at 
 our lips. On the Monday we have an allegory as lively 
 and ingenious as Lucian's Auction of Lives ; on the 
 Tuesday, an Eastern apologue, as richly coloured as the 
 Tales of Scherezade ; on the Wednesday, a characters 
 described with the skill of La Bruyere ; on the Thurs- 
 day, a scene from common life, equal to the best chap- 
 ters in the Vicar of Wakefield ; on the Friday, some sly 
 Horatian pleasantry on fashionable follies, on hoops, 
 patches, or puppet shows; and on the Saturday, a to 
 religious meditation, which will bear a comparison with 
 the finest passages in Massillon. 
 
 101. It is dangerous to select where there is so much 
 that deserves the highest praise. We will venture, how- 
 Specific ever, to say, that any person who wishes to form a 15 
 mention. notion of the extent and variety of Addison's pow- 
 ers, will do well to read at one sitting the following 
 
 o. papers, the two Visits to the Abbey, the Visit to the 
 Exchange, the Journal of the Retired Citizen, the Vision 
 of Mirza, the Transmigrations of Pug the Monkey, and 20 
 the Death of Sir Roger de Coverley. 1 
 
 102. The least valuable of Addison's contributions to 
 the Spectator are, in the judgment of our age, his criti- 
 
 Viiueofhis ca ^ P a P ers - Yet his critical papers are always 
 critical luminous, and often ingenious. The very worst of25 
 
 papers. them must be regarded 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 before his own. No essays in 30 
 
 iNote, p. 119. 
 
ADDISON. 75 
 
 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 pol- 
 sished, gives lustre to the ^Eneid° and the odes of Hor- 
 ace, is mingled with the rude dross of Chevy Chase. 
 
 103. 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 G , 
 
 1 J buccess of 
 
 10 was at first three thousand. It subsequently in- the de- 
 creased, and had risen to near four thousand when r * 
 the stamp tax was imposed. 1 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 
 
 15 yielded a large revenue both to the state and to the 
 authors. For particular papers, the demand was im- 
 mense ; of some, it is said, twenty thousand copies were 
 required. But this was not all. To have the Spectator 
 served up every morning with bohea and rolls was a 
 
 2oluxury for the few. The majority were content to wait 
 till essays enough had appeared to form a volume. Ten 
 thousand copies of each volume were immediately taken 
 off, and new editions were called for. It must be remem- 
 bered, that the population of England was then hardly a 
 
 25 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 shopkeeper or a farmer who found 
 any pleasure in literature, was a rarity. Nay, there was 
 doubtless more than one knight of the shire 2 whose 
 
 30 country seat did not contain ten books, receipt books 
 1 Note, p. 119. 2 i n t. t pp. xiii, bottom, and xiv. 
 
76 ADDISON. 
 
 and books on farriery included. In these circum- 
 stances, the sale of the Spectator must 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. 1 5 
 
 104. x\t the close of 1712 the Spectator ceased to 
 appear. It was probably felt that the short-faced gentle- 
 
 The man and his club had been long enough before the 
 
 Guardian town ; and that it was time to withdraw them, and to 
 
 succeeds 
 
 the spec- replace them by a new set of characters. In a few 10 
 tator. weeks the first number of the Guardian 2 was pub- 
 
 lished. But the Guardian was unfortunate both in its birth 
 and in its death. It 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 impossible to make the Guardian what 
 the Spectator had been. Nestor Ironside and the Miss 
 Lizards 1 were people to whom even he could impart no 
 interest. He could only furnish some excellent little 
 essays both serious and comic ; and this he did. 20 
 
 105. 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 the biographers, 
 
 The Cato ,'■,,., , . r ■, 
 
 but which seems to us to admit 01 a very easy solu- 
 tion. He was then engaged in bringing his Cato on the 25 
 stage. 
 
 106. The first four acts of this drama had been lying 
 in his desk since his return from Italy. His modest and 
 
 . , . sensitive nature shrank from the risk of a public 
 
 its history, _ r 
 
 and shameful failure ; and, though all who saw the 30 
 
 Note, p. 119. 2 See List of Periodicals, p. xxxiv. 
 
ADDISON. 77 
 
 manuscript were loud 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 representation. At length, after 
 
 5 many fits of apprehension, the poet yielded to the urgency 
 of his political friends, 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, struggling to the last for the 
 
 10 liberties of Rome, and the band of patriots who still stood 
 firm round Halifax and Wharton. 1 
 
 107. Addison gave the play to the managers of Drury 
 Lane° theatre, without stipulating for any advantage to 
 himself. They, therefore, thought themselves j ts presen- 
 
 15 bound to spare no cost in scenery and dresses, tation, 
 The decorations, it is true, would 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 
 
 20 guineas. The prologue was written by Pope, and is 
 undoubtedly a dignified and spirited composition. 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 
 
 25 crowded with attentive and friendly listeners from the 
 Inns° of Court and the literary coffee-houses. Sir Gilbert 
 Heathcote, 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 2 and 
 
 3oGarraway's 2 than in the haunts of wits and critics. 
 
 1 See List of Addison's Works, " Cato," p. xxxii. - Index, " Clubs." 
 
78 ADDISON. 
 
 1 08. These precautions were quite superfluous. The 
 Tories, as a body, regarded Addison with no unkind 
 
 and its feelings. Nor was it for their interest, professing, 
 
 reception. as tnev did, profound reverence for law and pre- 
 scription, and abhorrence both of popular insurrections 5 
 and of standing armies, to appropriate to themselves 
 reflections thrown on the great military chief and dema- 
 gogue, who, with the support of the legions and of the 
 common people, subverted all the ancient institutions of 
 his country. Accordingly, every shout that was raised by 10 
 the members of the Kit Cat l was echoed by the High 
 Churchmen of the October l ; and the curtain at length 
 fell amidst thunders of unanimous applause. 
 
 109. The delight and admiration of the town were 
 described by the Guardian 2 in terms which we might 15 
 
 Th C to ^tribute to partiality, were it not that the Exam- 
 and poli- iner, 2 the organ of the Ministry, held similar lan- 
 ticians; guage. 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 20 
 or judgment. The honest citizens who marched 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 25 
 Sempronius their favourite, and by giving to his insincere 
 rants louder plaudits than they bestowed on the temper- 
 ate eloquence of Cato. Wharton, too, who had the in- 
 credible effrontery to applaud the lines about flying from 
 prosperous vice and from the power of impious men to a 30 
 
 1 Index, " Clubs." 2 See List of Periodicals, p. xxxiv. 
 
ADDISON. 79 
 
 private station, did not escape the sarcasms of those who 
 justly thought that he could fly from nothing more vicious 
 or impious than himself. The epilogue, which was writ- 
 ten by Garth, a zealous Whig, was severely and not 
 
 5 unreasonably censured as ignoble and out of place. But 
 Addison was described, even by the bitterest Tory writers, 
 as a gentleman 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. 
 
 10 no. Of the jests by which the triumph of the Whig 
 party was disturbed, the most severe and happy was Bol- 
 ingbroke's. Between two acts, he sent for Booth e .g. Boling- 
 to his box, and presented him, before the whole broke- 
 theatre, with a purse of fifty guineas for defending the 
 
 15 cause of liberty so well against a perpetual Dictator. 
 This was a pungent allusion to the attempt which Marl- 
 borough had made, not long before his fall, 1 to obtain a 
 patent creating him Captain General for life. 
 
 in. It was April; and in April, a hundred and thirty 
 
 20 years ago, the London season was thought to be far 
 advanced. During a whole month, however, Cato Success of 
 was performed to overflowing houses, and brought the Cat0 > 
 into the treasury of the theatre twice the gains of an 
 ordinary spring. In the summer the Drury Lane cora- 
 
 25pany went down to the Act° at Oxford, and there, before 
 an audience which retained an affectionate remembrance 
 of Addison's accomplishments and virtues, his tragedy 
 was acted during several days. The gownsmen began 
 to besiege the theatre in the forenoon, and by one in the 
 
 30 afternoon all the seats were filled. 
 
 1 Int., p. xxiii, " The Tory triumph." 
 
80 ADDISON. 
 
 112. About the merits of the piece which had so 
 extraordinary an effect, the public, we suppose, has 
 and its liter- made up its mind. To compare it with the mas- 
 ary merit, terpieces of the Attic stage, with the great English 
 dramas of the time of Elizabeth, or even with the pro- 5 
 ductions of Schiller's manhood, would be absurd indeed. 
 Yet it contains excellent dialogue and declamation, and, 
 among plays fashioned on the French model, must be 
 allowed to rank high ; not indeed with Athalie or Saul ; 
 but, we think, not below Cinna,° and certainly above any 10 
 other English tragedy of the same school, above many of 
 the plays of Corneille, above many of the plays of Vol- 
 taire and Alfieri, and above some plays of Racine. 
 Be this as it may, we have little doubt that Cato did 
 as much as the Tatlers, Spectators, and Freeholders 15 
 
 united, to raise Addison's fame among his contem- 
 
 poraries. 
 
 113. The modesty and good nature of the successful 
 dramatist had tamed even the malignity of faction. But 
 Dennis's literary envy, it should seem, is a fiercer passion than 20 
 attack on party spirit. It was by a zealous Whig that the 
 the Cato. fiercest attack on the Whig tragedy was made. 
 John Dennis published Remarks on Cato, which were 
 written with some acuteness and with much coarseness 
 and asperity. Addison neither defended himself nor 25 
 retaliated. On many points he had an excellent de- 
 fence ; and nothing would have been easier than to 
 retaliate ; for Dennis had written bad odes, bad trag- 
 edies, bad comedies : he had, moreover, a larger share 
 than most men of those infirmities and eccentricities 30 
 which excite laughter; and Addison's power of turning 
 
ADDISON. 81 
 
 either an absurd book or an absurd man into ridicule was 
 unrivalled. Addison, however, serenely conscious of his 
 superiority, looked with pity on his assailant, whose 
 temper, naturally irritable and gloomy, had been soured 
 
 5 by want, by controversy, and by literary failures. 
 
 114. But among the young candidates for Addison's 
 favour there was one distinguished by talents from the 
 rest, and distinguished, we fear, not less by malig- , . 
 
 nity and insincerity. Pope was only twenty-five, sincere 
 
 10 But his powers had expanded to their full maturity ; defence of 
 and his best poem, the Rape of the Lock, 1 had re- 
 cently been published. Of his genius, Addison had always 
 expressed high admiration. But Addison had early dis- 
 cerned, what might indeed have been discerned by an 
 
 15 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 added, that the writer of so excel- 
 
 20 lent 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 civilities, counsel, and 
 
 25 small good offices. Addison publicly extolled Pope's mis- 
 cellaneous pieces ; and Pope furnished Addison with a 
 prologue. This did not last long. Pope hated Dennis, 
 whom he had injured without provocation. The appear- 
 ance of the Remarks on Cato gave the irritable poet 
 
 30 an opportunity of venting his malice under the show of 
 1 Note, p. 119. 
 
82 ADDISON. 
 
 friendship ; and such an opportunity could not but be 
 welcome to a nature which was implacable in enmity, 
 and which always preferred the tortuous to the straight 
 path. He published, accordingly, the Narrative of the 
 Frenzy of John Dennis. But Pope had mistaken his 5 
 powers. He was a great master of invective and sar- 
 casm ; he could dissect a character in terse and sono- 
 rous couplets, brilliant with antithesis : but of dramatic 
 talent he was altogether destitute. If he had written a 
 lampoon on Dennis, such as that on Atticus, or that 10 
 on Sporus, the old grumbler would have been crushed. 
 But Pope writing dialogue resembled — to borrow Horace's 
 imagery 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-15 
 ment there is not even the show ; and the jests are such 
 as, 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 trag-20 
 edy, no change of fortune, no change at all." "Pray, 
 good Sir, be not angry," says the old woman ; " I'll fetch 
 change." This is not exactly the pleasantry of Addison. 
 115. There can be no doubt that Addison saw through 
 this officious zeal, and felt himself deeply aggrieved by 25 
 it So foolish and spiteful a pamphlet could do 
 Approval him no good, and, if he were thought to have any 
 of Pope. hand in it> must do>ira harm. Gifted with incom- 
 parable powers of ridicule, he had never, even in self- 
 defence, used those powers inhumanly or uncourteously ; 3 ° 
 and he was not disposed to let others make his fame and 
 
y^ 
 
 'o/^c 
 
ADDISON. 83 
 
 his interests a pretext under 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 disapproved of it, and that if he an- 
 5swered the Remarks, he would answer them like a gentle- 
 man ; 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. 
 10 116. In September 1713 the Guardian 1 ceased to ap- 
 pear. Steele had gone mad about politics. A general 
 election had just taken place : he had been chosen Steele's 
 member for Stockbridge ; and he fully expected to egotism, 
 play a first part in Parliament. The immense success of 
 15 the Tatler and Spectator had turned his head. He had 
 been the editor of 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 
 20 such a pitch that he every day committed some offence 
 against good sense and good taste. All the discreet and 
 moderate members of his own party regretted and con- 
 demned his folly. " I am in a thousand troubles," Addi- 
 son wrote, " about poor Dick, and wish that his zeal for 
 25 the public may not be ruinous to himself. But he has 
 sent me word that he is determined to go on, and that 
 any advice I may give him in this particular will have 
 no weight with him." 
 
 117. Steele set up a political paper called the English- 
 woman, which, as it was not supported by contributions 
 1 See H 104. 
 
84 ADDISON. 
 
 from Addison, completely failed. By this work, by some 
 other writings of the same kind, and by the airs which 
 and its he gave himself at the first meeting of the new Par- 
 
 penalty. Hament, he made the Tories so angry that they de- 
 termined to expel him. The Whigs stood by him gallantly, 5 
 but were unable to save him. The vote of expulsion was 
 regarded by all 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 ; ic 
 nor did he ever regain the place which he had held in 
 the public estimation. 
 
 118. Addison about this time conceived the design of 
 adding an eighth volume to the Spectator. In June 1714, 
 
 The specta- ^ ie ^ rst num ber of the new series appeared, and 15 
 tor, Second during about six months three papers were pub- 
 lished weekly. Nothing can be more striking than 
 the contrast between the Englishman and the eighth 
 volume of the Spectator, between Steele without Addi- 
 son and Addison without Steele. The Englishman is 20 
 forgotten ; the eighth volume of the Spectator contains, 
 perhaps, the finest essays, both serious and playful, in 
 the English language. 
 
 119. Before this volume was completed, the death of 
 Anne produced an entire change in the administration 25 
 
 Return to °^ P u t> nc affairs. The blow fell suddenly. It found 
 
 power with the Tory party distracted by internal feuds, and un- 
 
 Whig-s, 1714. p re p are( j f or an y g rea t effort. Harley had just been 
 
 disgraced. Bolingbroke, it was supposed, would be the 
 
 chief minister. But the Queen was on her death-bed 3c 
 
ADDISON. 85 
 
 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 be- 
 tween all sections of public men who were attached to 
 5 the Protestant succession. George the First was pro- 
 claimed without opposition. A Council, in which the 
 leading Whigs had seats, took the direction of affairs 
 till the new King should arrive. 1 The first act of the 
 Lords Justices was to appoint Addison their secretary. 
 
 10 120. There is an idle tradition that he was directed to 
 prepare a letter to the King, that he could not satisfy 
 himself 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 flat- The Letter 
 
 15 tering to mediocrity should be popular ; and we are t0 the King, 
 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 un- 
 equalled, that Addison never, in any official document, 
 
 20 affected wit or eloquence, and that his despatches are, 
 without exception, remarkable for unpretending simplic- 
 ity. Everybody who knows with what ease Addison's 
 finest essays were produced must be convinced that, if 
 well-turned phrases had been wanted, he would have had 
 
 25 no difficulty in finding them. We are, however, inclined 
 to believe, that the story is not absolutely without a foun- 
 dation. It may well be that Addison did not know, till 
 he had consulted experienced clerks who remembered 
 the times when William the Third was absent on the Con- 
 
 3otinent, in what form a letter from the Council of Regency 
 
 1 Int., p. xxiii, "Jacobite intrigues," et seq. 
 
86 ADDISON. 
 
 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 quite as ignorant. 
 Every office has some little mysteries which the dullest 5 
 man may learn with a little attention, and which the 
 greatest man cannot possibly know by intuition. One 
 paper must be signed by the chief of the department ; 
 another by his deputy ; to a third the royal sign manual 
 is necessary. One communication is to be registered, 10 
 and another is not. One sentence must be in black ink, 
 and another in red ink. If the ablest Secretary for Ire- 
 land were moved to the India Board, if the ablest Presi- 
 dent of the India Board were moved to the War Office, 
 he would require instruction on points like these; and 15 
 we do not doubt that Addison required such instruction 
 when he became, for the first time, Secretary to the 
 Lords Justices. 
 
 i2i. George the First took possession of his kingdom 
 
 without opposition. A new ministry was formed, and a 20 
 
 Return to new Parliament favourable to the Whigs chosen. 
 
 Ireland. Sunderland was appointed Lord Lieutenant of 
 
 Ireland ; and Addison again went to Dublin as Chief 
 
 Secretary. 
 
 122. At Dublin Swift resided; and there was mucli25 
 
 speculation about the way in which the Dean and the 
 
 Previous Secretary would behave towards each other. The 
 
 relations relations which existed between these remarkable 
 
 with Swift ; men f orm an interesting an d pleasing portion of 
 
 literary history. They had early attached themselves to-,o 
 the same political party and to the same patrons. While 
 
ADDISON. 87 
 
 Anne's Whig ministry was in power, the visits of Swift to 
 London and the official residence of Addison in Ireland 
 had given them opportunities of knowing each other. 
 They were the two shrewdest observers of their age. But 
 
 5 their observations on each other had led them to favour- 
 able conclusions. Swift did full justice to the rare powers 
 of conversation which were latent under the bashful 
 deportment of Addison. Addison, on the other hand, 
 discerned much good nature under the severe look and 
 
 iomanner of Swift; and, indeed, the Swift of 1708 and the 
 Swift of 1738 were two very different men. 
 
 123. 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 their neces . 
 
 15 nothing more for him. His profession laid them sarylimita- 
 under a difficulty. In the State they could not pro- tlons ' 
 mote him ; and they had reason 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 
 
 20 high opinion of their orthodoxy. He did not make fair 
 allowance for the difficulties which prevented Halifax 
 and Somers from serving him, thought himself an ill-used 
 man, sacrificed honour and consistency to revenge, joined 
 the Tories, and became their most formidable champion. 
 
 25 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 Church regarded him 
 was insurmountable ; and it was with the greatest difficulty 
 that he obtained an ecclesiastical dignity of no great 
 
 3ovalue, on condition of fixing his residence in a country 
 which he detested. 
 
88 ADDISON. 
 
 124. Difference of political opinion had produced, not 
 indeed a quarrel, but a coolness between Swift and Addi- 
 
 and the son. They at length ceased altogether to see each 
 results. other. Yet there was between them a tacit compact 
 like that between the hereditary guests in the Iliad. 5 
 
 E7xe<x 5' aWrjXwit aXeib/xeda kclI 81 6fxi\ov ' 
 HoWol ixev yap ifxol T/ocDes /cXetroi r eiriKovpot, 
 Kreivetv, ov /ce Beds ye Troprj /ecu irocrcri /a^eia;, 
 IloXXot 5' ad aoi 'A%atot evaip^pLev, 8p /ce dvvrjai. 1 
 
 125. It is not strange that Addison, who calumniated 10 
 and insulted nobody, should not have calumniated or in- 
 
 Swift's for- suited Swift. But it is remarkable that Swift, to 
 bearance. whom neither genius nor virtue was sacred, and who 
 generally seemed to find, like most other renegades, a 
 peculiar pleasure in attacking old friends, should have 15 
 shown so much respect and tenderness to Addison. 
 
 126. Fortune had now changed. The accession of 
 the House of Hanover had secured in England the 
 
 Addison's liberties of the people, and in Ireland the domin- 
 generosity. j on f the Protestant caste. To that caste Swift was 20 
 more odious than any other man. He was hooted and 
 even pelted in the streets of Dublin ; and could not ven- 
 ture to ride along the strand for his health without the 
 attendance of armed servants. Many whom ' he had 
 formerly served now libelled and insulted him. At this 25 
 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 sus- 
 pected, to hold no intercourse with political opponents; 30 
 
 1 Note, p. 120. 
 
ADDISON. 89 
 
 but that one who had been a steady Whig in the worst 
 times might venture, when the good cause was triumphant, 
 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 two 
 great satirists resumed their habits of friendly intercourse. 
 
 127. Those associates of Addison whose political 
 opinions agreed with his shared his good fortune. He 
 took Tickell with him to Ireland. He procured Addison's 
 
 10 for BudgelP a lucrative place in the same kingdom, patronage. 
 Ambrose Phillipps was provided for in England. Steele 
 had injured himself so much by his eccentricity and per- 
 verseness, that he obtained but a very small part of what 
 he thought his due. He was, however, knighted ; he 
 
 15 had a place in the household; and he subsequently re- 
 ceived other marks of favour from the court. 
 
 128. Addison did not remain long in Ireland. In 
 1 715 he quitted his secretaryship for a seat at the Board 
 
 of Trade. In the same year his comedy of the Promotion . 
 
 20 Drummer T was brought on the stage. The name of the Drum- 
 the author was not announced ; the piece was coldly mer ' 
 received ; and some critics have expressed a doubt 
 whether it were really Addison's. To us the evidence, 
 both external and internal, seems decisive. It is not in 
 
 25 Addison's best manner; but it contains numerous pas- 
 sages which no other writer known to us could have pro- 
 duced. It was again performed after Add-on's death, 
 and, being known to be his, was loudly apriauded. 
 
 129. Towards the close of the year 1715, while the 
 30 Rebellion was still raging in Scotland, 2 Addison published 
 
 1 See List of Addison's Works, p. xxxiii. 2 Note, p. 120. 
 
90 ADDISON. 
 
 the first number of a paper called the Freeholder. Among 
 his political works the Freeholder is entitled to the 
 The Free- first place. Even in the Spectator there are few 
 holder. serious papers nobler than the character of his friend 
 
 Lord Somers, and certainly no satirical papers superiors 
 to those in which the Tory foxhunter is introduced. 
 This character 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 10 
 than the Freeholder, so none does more honour to his 
 moral character. It is difficult to extol too highly the 
 candour 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 strong- 15 
 hold of Toryism. The High Street had been repeatedly 
 lined with bayonets in 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 admonition which, even under2o 
 such circumstances, Addison addressed to the University, 
 is singularly gentle, respectful, and even affectionate. In- 
 deed, he could not find it in his heart to deal harshly 
 even with imaginary persons. His foxhunter, though 
 ignorant, stupid, and violent, is at heart a good fellow, 25 
 and is at last reclaimed by the clemency of the King. 
 Steele was dissatisfied with his friend's moderation, and, 
 though he acknowledged that the Freeholder was excel- 
 lently written, complained that the ministry played on a 
 lute when it was necessary to blow the trumpet. He 30 
 
 1 Index, " Fielding." 
 
ADDISON. 91 
 
 accordingly determined to execute 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, 1 which 
 is now as utterly forgotten as his Englishman, 1 as his 
 5 Crisis, 1 as his Letter to the Bailiff of Stockbridge, as his 
 Reader, 1 in short, as every thing that he wrote without 
 the help of Addison. 
 
 130. In the same year in which the Drummer was 
 acted, and in which the first numbers of the Freeholder 
 
 10 appeared, the estrangement of Pope and Addison Estran 
 became complete. Addison had from the first merit of 
 seen that Pope was false and malevolent. Pope Po P c ; re ~ 
 
 motecaust 
 
 had discovered that Addison was jealous. The dis- 
 covery was made in a strange manner. Pope had written 
 
 15 the Rape of the Lock, in two cantos, without supernatural 
 machinery. These two cantos had been loudly ap- 
 plauded, and by none more loudly than by Addison. 
 Then Pope thought of the Sylphs and Gnomes, Ariel, 
 Momentilla, Crispissa, and Umbriel, and resolved to 
 
 20 interweave the Rosicrucian mythology with the original 
 fabric. 2 He asked Addison's advice. Addison said that 
 the poem as it stood was a delicious little thing, and en- 
 treated Pope not to run the risk of marring what was so 
 excellent in trying to mend it. Pope afterwards declared 
 
 25 that this insidious counsel first opened his eyes to the 
 baseness of him who gave it. 
 
 131. Now there can be no doubt that Pope's plan was 
 most ingenious, and that he afterwards executed it with 
 great skill and success. But does it necessarily follow 
 
 30 that Addison's advice was bad? And if Addison's 
 1 See List of Periodicals, p. xxxiv. 2 See Note (on 18. 11), p. 119. 
 
92 ADDISON. 
 
 advice was bad, does it necessarily follow that it was given 
 from bad motives? If a friend were to ask us whether 
 Add' ' we would advise him to risk his all in a lottery of 
 sound which the chances were ten to one against him, we 
 
 judgment, should, do our best to dissuade him from running such 5 
 a risk. Even if he were so lucky as to get the thirty thou- 
 sand pound prize, we should not admit that we had coun- 
 selled 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 Addison's advice good advice. It 10 
 rested on a sound principle, the result of long and wide 
 experience. The general rule undoubtedly is that, when 
 a successful work of imagination has been produced, it 
 should not be recast. We cannot at this moment call 
 to mind a single instance in which this rule has been 15 
 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 with which he had expanded and 20 
 remodelled the Rape of the Lock, made the same experi- 
 ment 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 twice, and what 
 nobody else has ever done? 25 
 
 132. Addison's advice was good. But had it been 
 
 bad, why should we pronounce it dishonest? Scott tells 
 
 and his us that one of his best friends predicted the failure 
 
 sincerity. f Waverley. Herder adjured Goethe not to 
 
 take so unpromising a subject as Faust. Hume tried 30 
 
 to dissuade Robertson from writing the History of 
 
ADDISON. 93 
 
 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, Addi- 
 5 son, had the good sense and generosity to give their 
 advisers credit for the best intentions. Pope's heart was 
 not of the same kind with theirs. 
 
 133. In 1 715, while he was engaged in translating the 
 Iliad, he met Addison at a coffee-house. Phillipps and 
 
 ioBudgell were there; but their sovereign got rid His loyalty 
 of them, and asked Pope to dine with him alone. to Tickeii. 
 After dinner, Addison said that he lay under a difficulty 
 which he wished to explain. " Tickell," he said, " trans- 
 lated some time ago the first book of the Iliad. I have 
 
 15 promised to look it over and correct 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 sec- 
 
 2oond book, and sent it back with warm commendations. 
 
 134. Tickell's version of the first book appeared soon 
 after this conversation. In the preface, all rivalry was 
 earnestly disclaimed. Tickell declared that he Ticke]rs 
 should not go on with the Iliad. That enterprise seif-efface- 
 
 25 he should leave to powers which he admitted to be ment - 
 superior to his own. His only view, he said, in publishing 
 this specimen was to bespeak the favour of the public to a 
 translation of the Odyssey, in which he had made some 
 progress. 
 
 30 135. Addison, and Addison's devoted followers, pro- 
 nounced both the versions good, but maintained that 
 
94 ADDISON. 
 
 Tickell's had more of the original. The town gave a de- 
 cided preference to Pope's. We do not think it worth 
 while to settle such a question of precedence. 
 estimate of Neither of the rivals can be said to have translated 
 Pope's the Iliad, unless, indeed, the word translation be 5 
 
 used in the sense which it bears in the Midsummer 
 Night's Dream. When Bottom makes his appearance 
 with an ass's head instead of his own, Peter Quince ex- 
 claims, " Bless thee ! Bottom, bless thee ! thou art trans- 
 lated." In this sense, undoubtedly, the readers of either 10 
 Pope or Tickell may very properly exclaim, " Bless thee, 
 Homer ; thou art translated indeed." 
 
 136. Our readers will, we hope, agree with us in think- 
 ing that no man in Addison's situation could have acted 
 
 Pope's sus- more fairly and kindly, both towards Pope, and tow- 15 
 picions arc j s Tickell, than he appears to have done. But 
 
 an odious suspicion had sprung 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 20 
 be depreciated. The subscription, on which rested his 
 hopes of a competence, was 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. 25 
 
 137. Is there any external evidence to support this 
 grave accusation ? The answer is short. There is 
 
 unproven 
 
 absolutely none. 
 
 138. Was there any internal evidence which proved 
 Addison to be the author of this version? Was it a work 30 
 which Tickell was incapable of producing? Surely not. 
 
ADDISON. 95 
 
 Tickell was a Fellow of a College at Oxford, and must be 
 supposed to have been able to construe the Iliad ; and 
 he was a better versifier than his friend. We are not bv evi- 
 aware that Pope pretended to have discovered dence, 
 5 any turns of expression peculiar to Addison. Had such 
 turns of expression been discovered, they would be suf- 
 ficiently accounted for by supposing Addison to have cor- 
 rected his friend's lines, as he owned that he had done. 
 
 139. Is there any thing in the character of the accused 
 10 persons which makes the accusation probable? We 
 
 answer confidently -t— nothing. Tickell was long 
 
 r 1 • • 1 -i i 1 -r. 1 • ir or justified 
 
 after this time described by Pope himself as a very by the char- 
 fair and worthy man. Addison had been, during acters of 
 
 cither * 
 
 many years, before the public. Literary rivals, po- 
 litical 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 honour 
 and of social morality. Had he been indeed a man 
 meanly jealous of fame, and capable of stooping to base 
 20 and wicked acts for the purpose of injuring his competitors, 
 would his vices have remained latent so long? He was 
 a writer of tragedy : had he ever injured Rowe° ? He 
 was a writer ot comedy : had he not done ample justice 
 to Congreve, and given valuable help to Steele ? He 
 25 was a pamphleteer : have not his good nature and gener- 
 osity been acknowledged by Swift, his rival in fame and 
 his adversary in politics? 
 
 140. That Tickell should have been guilty of a villany 
 seems to us highly improbable. That Addison should 
 
 30 have been guilty of a villany seems to us highly improb- 
 able. But that these two men should have conspired 
 
96 ADDISON. 
 
 together to commit a villany seems to us improbable 
 
 in a tenfold degree. All that is known to us of their 
 
 a fortiori intercourse tends to prove, that it was not the 
 
 of both intercourse of two accomplices in crime. These 
 
 are some of the lines in which Tickell poured forth 5 
 
 his sorrow over the coffin of Addison : — 
 
 "Or dost thou warn poor mortals left behind, 
 A task well suited to thy gentle mind? 
 Oh, if sometimes thy spotless form descend, 
 To me thine aid, thou guardian genius, lend. ic 
 
 When rage misguides me, or when fear alarms, 
 When pain distresses, or when pleasure charms, 
 In silent whisperings purer thoughts impart, 
 And turn from ill a frail and feeble heart; 
 Lead through the paths thy virtue trod before, i« 
 
 Till bliss shall join, nor death can part us more." 
 
 (Enforce- 
 
 141. In what words, we should like to know, did this 
 guardian genius invite his pupil to join in a plan 
 
 ment of such as the Editor of the Satirist l would hardly 
 argument.) dare tQ propose to tne Editor of the Age? 20 
 
 142. We do not accuse Pope of bringing an accusation 
 which he knew to be false. We have not the smallest 
 
 Po e's love doubt tnat ne believed it to be true ; and the evi- 
 ofchican- dence on which he believed it he found in his own 
 eiy * bad heart. His own life was one long series of tricks, 25 
 
 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 conse- 
 quences of injury and insult by lying and equivocating, 
 was the habit of his life. He published a lampoon on the 30 
 
 1 See List of Periodicals, p. xxxiv. 
 
ADDISON. 97 
 
 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 on Lady Mary Wortley 
 
 5 Montague ; he was taxed with it ; and he lied with more 
 than usual effrontery and vehemence. 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. 1 Besides his frauds of malignity, of fear, 
 
 ioof interest, and of vanity, there were frauds which he 
 seems to have committed from love of fraud alone. He 
 had a habit of stratagem, a pleasure in outwitting all who 
 came near him. Whatever his object might be, the in- 
 direct road to it was that which he preferred. For Boling- 
 
 15 broke, Pope undoubtedly felt as much 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. 1 
 
 20 143. Nothing was more natural than that such a man 
 as this should attribute to others that which he felt within 
 himself. A plain, probable, coherent explanation is 
 
 r , , • , -r-r • ....,, ItS fruitS. 
 
 frankly given to him. He is certain that it is all a 
 romance. A line of conduct scrupulously fair, and even 
 
 25 friendly, is 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, and wants none, except those which he 
 carries in his own bosom. 
 
 30 144. Whether Pope's malignity at length provoked 
 
 1 Note, p. 120. 
 
98 ADDISON. 
 
 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 con- 
 
 aiieged taining some reflections which stung Pope to the 
 
 attack on quick. What those reflections were, and whether 5 
 
 Pope. 
 
 thev were reflections of which he had a rieht to 
 
 complain, we have now no means of deciding. The Earl 
 of Warwick, a foolish and vicious lad, who regarded Addi- 
 son with the feeling with which such. lads generally regard 
 their best friends, told Pope, truly or falsely, that this 10 
 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 Warwick had a claim, 15 
 we are not disposed to attach much importance to this 
 anecdote. 
 
 145. It is certain, however, that Pope was furious. He 
 had already sketched the character of Atticus in prose. 
 Pope's lam- -^ n n * s an g er ne turned this prose into the brilliant 20 
 poon on and energetic lines which everybody knows by 
 Atticus. heart, or ought to know by heart, 1 and sent them 
 to Addison. One charge which Pope has enforced with 
 great skill is probably not without foundation. Addison 
 was, we are inclined to believe, too fond of presiding 25 
 over a circle of humble friends. Of the other impu- 
 tations which these famous lines are intended to con- 
 vey, scarcely one has ever been proved to be just, and 
 some are certainly false. That Addison was not in the 
 habit of "damning with faint praise" appears from in- 30 
 
 1 Note, p. 120. 
 
ADDISON. 99 
 
 numerable 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 
 5 friends, as "so obliging that he ne'er obliged." 
 
 146. That Addison felt the sting of Pope's satire 
 keenly, we cannot doubt. That he was conscious of one 
 of the weaknesses with which he was reproached is Addison's 
 highly probable. But his heart, we firmly believe, forbear- 
 
 10 acquitted him of the gravest part of the accusation. ance " 
 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 distorted and diseased 
 body, tenanted by a yet more distorted and diseased 
 
 1 5 mind; spite and envy thinly disguised by sentiments as 
 benevolent and noble as those which Sir Peter Teazle 
 admired in Mr. Joseph Surface ; a feeble sickly licentious- 
 ness ; an odious love of filthy and noisome images ; these 
 were things which a genius less powerful than that to 
 
 20 which we owe the Spectator could easily have held up 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 
 
 25 times, a minister would have found it easy to harass the 
 most innocent Catholic by innumerable petty vexations. 
 Pope, near twenty years later, said that " through the 
 lenity of the government alone he could live with com- 
 fort." " Consider," he exclaimed, " the injury that a 
 
 30 man of high rank and credit may do to a private person, 
 under penal laws and many other disadvantages." It is 
 
 1 ~t 
 
ioo ADDISON. 
 
 pleasing to reflect that the only revenge which Addison 
 took was to 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 5 
 published, that the masterly hand of Pope would do as 
 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. Friendship 
 was, of course, at an end. 10 
 
 147. One reason which induced the Earl of Warwick 
 to play the ignominious part of talebearer on this occa- 
 sion, may have been his dislike of the marriage 
 suit to the which was about to take place between his mother 
 Countess of an( J Addison. The Countess Dowager, a daughter 1 ? 
 of the old and honourable family of the Middletons 
 of Chirk, a family which, in any country 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 dis-20 
 trict of London, and Holland House may be called a 
 town residence. But, in the days of Anne and George 
 the First, milkmaids and sportsmen wandered between 
 green hedges, and over fields bright with daisies, from 
 • Kensington almost to the shore of the Thames. Addison 25 
 and Lady Warwick were country neighbours, and became 
 intimate friends. The great wit and scholar tried to 
 allure the young Lord from the fashionable amusements 
 of beating watchmen, breaking windows, and rolling 
 women in hogsheads down Holborn Hill, 1 to the study 30 
 
 1 Index, " Mohocks." 
 
ADDISON. 101 
 
 of letters and the practice of virtue. These well-meant 
 exertions did little good, however, either to the disciple 
 or to the master. Lord Warwick grew up a rake ; and 
 Addison fell in love. The mature beauty of the Countess 
 5 has been celebrated by poets in language which, after a 
 very large allowance has been made for flattery, would 
 lead us to believe that she was a fine woman ; and her 
 rank doubtless heightened her attractions. The court- 
 ship was long. The hopes of the lover appear to have 
 
 io risen and fallen with the fortunes of his party. His 
 attachment was at length matter of such notoriety that, 
 when he visited Ireland 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, Addi- 
 
 15 son -should be called Lycidas, a name of singularly evil 
 omen for a swain just about to cross St. George's Channel. 
 
 148. At length Chloe capitulated. Addison was in- 
 deed able to treat with her on equal terms. He had 
 reason to expect preferment even higher than that His mar- 
 
 20 which he had attained. He had inherited the for- ria S e - 
 tune of a brother who died Governor of Madras. He 
 had purchased an estate in Warwickshire, and had been 
 welcomed to his domain in very tolerable verse by one of 
 the neighbouring squires, the poetical foxhunter, William 
 
 25Somerville.° In August 17.16, the newspapers announced 
 that Joseph Addison, Esquire, famous for many excellent 
 works both in verse and prose, had espbused the Countess 
 Dowager of Warwick. 
 
 149. He now fixed his abode at Holland House, a 
 30 house which can boast of a greater number of inmates 
 
 distinguished in political and literary history than any 
 
102 ADDISON. 
 
 other private dwelling in England. His portrait still 
 
 hangs there. The features are pleasing ; the complexion 
 
 Residence * s remarkably fair ; but, in the expression we trace 
 
 at Holland rather the gentleness of his disposition than the 
 
 force and keenness of his intellect. 5 
 
 150. Not long after his marriage he reached the height 
 of civil greatness. The Whig Government had, during 
 
 Climax of some time, been torn by internal dissensions. Lord 
 political Townshend led one section of the Cabinet, Lord 
 career. Sunderland the other. 1 At length, in the spring of 10 
 
 1 71 7, Sunderland triumphed. Townshend retired from 
 office, and was accompanied by Walpole and Cowper. 
 Sunderland proceeded to reconstruct the Ministry ; and 
 Addison was appointed Secretary of State. It is certain 
 that the Seals were pressed upon him, and were at- firsts 
 declined by him. Men equally versed in official business 
 might easily have been found ; and his colleagues knew 
 that 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. 20 
 
 151. But scarcely had Addison entered the Cabinet 
 when his health began to fail. From one serious attack 
 
 Loss of he recovered in the autumn ; and his recovery was 
 health. celebrated in Latin verses, worthy of his own pen, 
 
 by Vincent Bourne, who was then at Trinity College, 25 
 Cambridge. A relapse soon took place ; and, in the 
 following spring, Addison was prevented by a severe 
 asthma from discharging the duties of his post. He 
 resigned it, and was succeeded by his friend Craggs, a 
 young man whose natural parts, though little improved 30 
 
 1 Int., p. xxv, "Septennial Rill," et seq. 
 
ADDISON. 103 
 
 by cultivation, were quick and showy, whose graceful 
 person and winning manners had made him generally 
 acceptable in society, and who, if he had lived, would 
 probably have been the most formidable of all the 
 5 rivals of Walpole. 
 
 152. As yet there was no Joseph Hume." The Min- 
 isters, therefore, were able to bestow on Addison a 
 retiring pension of fifteen hundred pounds a year. 
 
 , r . . . . , , Retirement. 
 
 In what form this pension was given we are not told 
 ioby the biographers, and have not time to inquire. But it 
 is certain that Addison did not vacate his seat in the 
 House of Commons. 
 
 153. Rest of mind and body seems to have re-established 
 his health ; and he thanked God, with cheerful piety, for 
 
 15 having set him free both from his office and Literary 
 from his asthma. Many years seemed to be plans, 
 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 
 
 20 performance, a part, which we could well spare, has come 
 down to us. 
 
 154. But the fatal complaint soon returned, and 
 gradually prevailed against all the resources of medi- 
 cine. It is melancholy to think that the last months 
 
 25 of such a life should have been overclouded both by Steele's 
 domestic and by political vexations. A tradition estrange- 
 which began early, which has been generally received, 
 and to which we have nothing to oppose, has represented 
 his wife as an arrogant and imperious woman. It is said 
 
 3othat, till his health failed him, he was glad to escape 
 
104 ADDISON. 
 
 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. All those friends, 5 
 however, were not left to him. Sir Richard Steele had 
 been gradually estranged by various causes. He con- 
 sidered himself as one who, in evil times, had braved 
 martyrdom for his political principles, and demanded, 
 when the Whig party was triumphant, a large compensa- 10 
 tion for what he had suffered when it was militant. 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 out 15 
 favours 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 disturbed 
 Sir Richard, was the elevation of Tickell, who, at thirty, 
 was made by Addison Undersecretary of State ; while 20 
 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 solicitations and 
 complaints, to content himself with a share in the patent25 
 of Drury Lane° theatre. Steele himself says, in his 
 celebrated letter to Congreve, that Addison, by his 
 preference of Tickell, " incurred the warmest resent- 
 ment of other gentlemen " ; and every thing seems to 
 indicate that, of those resentful gentlemen, Steele was 30 
 himself one. 
 
ADDISON. 105 
 
 155. 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 The Peer- 
 against itself, was rent by a new schism. The a S e Bil1 - 
 
 5 celebrated Bill for limiting the number of Peers * had been 
 brought in. The proud Duke of Somerset, first in rank 
 of all the nobles whose origin permitted them to sit in 
 Parliament, was the ostensible author of the measure. 
 But it was supported, and, in truth, devised by the 
 10 Prime Minister. 
 
 156. We are satisfied that the bill was most pernicious ; 
 and we fear that the motives which induced Sunder- 
 land to frame it were not honourable to him. But 
 
 , . , . „ Its merits. 
 
 we cannot deny that it was supported by many of 
 
 15 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 vigour of life, been so 
 grossly abused, that it was still regarded with a jealousy 
 which, when the peculiar situation of the House of Bruns- 
 
 20 wick° is considered, may perhaps be called immoderate. 
 The particular prerogative of creating peers had, in the 
 opinion of the W T higs, been grossly abused by Queen 
 Anne's last Ministry ; and even the Tories admitted that 
 her Majesty, in swamping, as it has since been called, 
 
 25 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 inde- 
 pendent powers, the sovereign, the nobility, and the 
 commons, ought constantly to act as checks on each 
 
 30 other. If this theory were sound, it seemed to follow 
 
 1 Int., p. xxv. 
 
106 ADDISON. 
 
 that to put one of these powers under the absolute con- 
 trol of the other two, was absurd. But if the number of 
 peers were unlimited, it could not well be denied that 
 the Upper House was under the absolute control of the 
 Crown and the Commons, and was indebted only to 5 
 their moderation for any power which it might be suffered 
 • to retain. 
 
 157. Steele took part in the Opposition, Addison with 
 the Ministers. Steele, in a paper called the Plebeian, 
 
 vehemently attacked the bill. Sunderland called forro 
 defence ; ne ^P on Addison, and Addison obeyed the call. In a 
 the Old paper called the Old Whig, he answered, and indeed 
 refuted, Steele's arguments. It seems to us that the 
 premises of both the controversialists were unsound, that, 
 on those premises, Addison reasoned well and Steele ill, 15 
 and that consequently Addison brought out a false con- 
 clusion while Steele blundered upon the truth. In style, 
 in wit, and in politeness, Addison maintained his superi- 
 ority, though the Old Whig is by no means one of his 
 happiest performances. 20 
 
 158. At first, both the anonymous opponents observed 
 the laws of propriety. But at length Steele so far forgot 
 
 (•\ddison himself as to throw an odious imputation on the 
 misunder- morals of the chiefs of the administration. Addi- 
 stood.) son re pii e d w i tri severity, but, in our opinion, with 25 
 
 less severity than was due to so grave an offence against 
 morality and decorum ; nor did he, in his just anger, 
 forget for a moment the laws of good taste and good 
 breeding. One calumny which has been often repeated, 
 and never yet contradicted, it is our duty to expose. It 30 
 is asserted in the Biographia Britannica that Addison des- 
 
ADDISON. 107 
 
 ignated Steele as " little Dicky." This assertion was 
 repeated by Johnson, who had never seen the Old Whig, 
 and was therefore excusable. It has also been repeated 
 by Miss Aikin,° who has seen the Old Whig, and for 
 
 5 whom therefore there is less excuse. Now, it is true that 
 the words " little Dicky" occur in the Old Whig, and that 
 Steele's name was Richard. It is equally true that the 
 words " little Isaac " occur in the Duenna, and that New- 
 ton's name was Isaac. But we confidently affirm that 
 
 ,0 Addison's little Dicky had no more to do with Steele, 
 than Sheridan's little Isaac with Newton. If we apply 
 the words " little Dicky " to Steele, we deprive a very 
 lively and ingenious passage, not only of all its wit, but 
 of all its meaning. Little Dicky was the nickname of 
 
 15 Henry Norris, an actor of remarkably small stature, but 
 of great humour, who played the usurer Gomez, then a 
 most popular part, in Dryden's ' Spanish Friar.' * 
 
 159. The merited reproof which Steele had received, 
 
 * " We will transcribe the whole paragraph. How it can have been 
 misunderstood is unintelligible to us. 
 
 ' But our author's chief concern is for the poor House of Commons, 
 whom he represents as naked and defenceless, when the Crown by los- 
 ing this prerogative, would be less able to protect them against the 
 power of a House of Lords. Who forbears laughing when the Spanish 
 Friar represents little Dicky, under the person of Gomez, insulting the 
 colonel that was able to fright him out of his wits with a single frown? 
 This Gomez, says he, flew upon him like a dragon, got him down, the 
 Devil being strong in him, and gave him bastinado on bastinado and 
 buffet on buffet, which the poor colonel, being prostrate, suffered with a 
 most Christian patience. The improbability of the fact never fails to 
 raise mirth in the audience ; and one may venture to answer for a Brit- 
 ish 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.' " 
 
 — MACAULAY. 
 
108 ADDISON. 
 
 though softened by some kind and courteous expressions, 
 galled him bitterly. He replied with little force and 
 End of con- great acrimony ; but no rejoinder appeared. Addi- 
 troversy. son was f as ^ hastening to his grave ; and had, we 
 may well suppose, little disposition to prosecute a quarrels 
 with an old friend. His complaint had terminated in 
 dropsy. He bore up long and manfully. But at length 
 he abandoned all hope, dismissed his physicians, and 
 calmly prepared himself to die. 
 
 1 60. His works he intrusted to the care of Tickell, and 10 
 dedicated them a very few days before his death to 
 
 Preparation Craggs, in a letter written with the sweet and grace- 
 tor death. f u i eloquence of a Saturday's Spectator. In this, 
 his last composition, he alluded to his approaching end 
 in words so manly, so cheerful, and so tender, that it 15 
 is difficult to read them without tears. At the same time 
 he earnestly recommended the interests of Tickell to the 
 care of Craggs. 
 
 161 . Within a few hours of the time at which this dedi- 
 cation was written, Addison sent to beg Gay,° who was then 20 
 living by his wits about town, to come to Holland House. 
 
 interview Gay went, and was received with great kindness. 
 
 with Gay. 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 25 
 forgive. There was, however, some wrong, the remem- 
 brance 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 30 
 plan to serve him had been in agitation at court, and 
 
ADDISON. 109 
 
 had been frustrated by Addison's influence. Nor is this 
 improbable. Gay had paid assiduous court to the royal > 
 family. But in the Queen's days he had been the eulo- 
 gist of Bolingbroke, and was still connected with many 
 5 Tories. It is not strange that Addison, while heated by 
 conflict, should have thought himself justified in obstruct- 
 ing the preferment of one whom he might regard as a 
 political enemy. Neither is it strange that, when review- 
 ing his whole life, and earnestly scrutinising all his mo- 
 iotives, 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. 
 
 162. One inference may be drawn from this anecdote. 
 15 It appears that Addison, on his deathbed, called himself 
 
 to a strict account, and was not at ease till he had i ts si°-nifi- 
 asked pardon for an injury which it was not even cance. 
 suspected that he had committed, for an injury which 
 would have caused disquiet only to a very tender con- 
 
 20 science. Is it not then reasonable to infer that, if he had 
 really been guilty of forming a base conspiracy against 
 the fame and fortunes of a rival, he would have expressed 
 some remorse for so serious a crime ? But it is unneces- 
 sary to multiply arguments and evidence for the defence 
 
 25 when there is neither argument nor evidence for the accu- 
 sation. 
 
 163. 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 
 
 3odie." The piety of Addison was, in truth, of a 
 singularly cheerful character. The feeling which pre- 
 
no ADDISON. 
 
 dominates in all his devotional 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 his cries before they 
 could form themselves in prayer; who had preserved hiss 
 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 partake them ; who had 
 rebuked the waves of the Ligurian gulf, had purified theio 
 autumnal air of the Campagna, and had restrained the 
 avalanches of Mont Cenis. Of the Psalms, his favourite 
 was that which represents the Ruler of all things under 
 the endearing image of a shepherd, whose crook guides 
 the flock safe, through gloomy and desolate glens, to 15 
 meadows well watered and rich with herbage. On that 
 goodness to which he ascribed all the happiness of his 
 life, he relied in the hour of death with the love which 
 casteth out fear. He died on the seventeenth of June 
 1 7 19. He had just entered on his forty-eighth year. 20 
 
 164. His body lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, 
 and was borne thence to the Abbey at dead of night. 
 The obse- The choir sang a funeral hymn. Bishop Atterbury, 
 quies. ne of those Tories who had loved and hon- 
 
 oured the most accomplished of the Whigs, met the 25 
 corpse, and led the procession by torchlight, round the 
 shrine of Saint Edward and the graves of the Plantage- 
 nets, to the Chapel of Henry the Seventh. On the north 
 side of that Chapel, in the vault of the House of Albe- 
 marle, the coffin of Addison lies next to the coffin of3° 
 Montague. Yet a few months ; and the same mourners 
 
ADDISON. in 
 
 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. 
 
 5 165. Many tributes were paid to the memory of Addi- 
 son ; but one alone is now remembered. Tickell be- 
 wailed his friend in an elegy which would do honour Evidences 
 to the greatest name in our literature, and which of respect, 
 unites the energy and magnificence of Dryden to the 
 
 10 tenderness and purity of Cowper. This fine poem was 
 prefixed to a superb edition of Addison's works, which 
 was published, in 1721, by subscription. The names of 
 the subscribers proved how widely his fame had been 
 spread. That his countrymen should be eager to pos- 
 
 i5sess his writings, even in a costly form, is not wonder- 
 ful. But it is wonderful that, though English literature 
 was then little studied on the continent, Spanish Grandees, 
 Italian Prelates, Marshals of France, should be found in 
 the list. Among the most remarkable names are those 
 
 20 of the Queen of Sweden, of Prince Eugene, of the 
 
 Grand Duke of Tuscany, of the Dukes of Parma, Modena, 
 
 and Guastalla, of the Doge of Genoa, of the Regent 
 
 Orleans, and of Cardinal Dubois. We ought to add 
 
 -that this edition, though eminently beautiful, is in some 
 
 25 important points defective; nor, indeed, do we yet pos- 
 sess a complete collection of Addison's writings. 
 
 166. 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, in- Memoria i 
 
 3° scribed with his name, on the walls of the Abbey, in West- 
 It was not till three generations had laughed mmster - 
 
H2 ADDISON. 
 
 and wept over his pages, that the omission was supplied 
 by the public veneration. At length, in our own time, 
 his image, skilfully graven, appeared in the Poet's Corner. 
 It represents him, as we can conceive him, clad in his 
 dressing gown and freed from his wig, stepping from his 5 
 parlour at Chelsea into his trim little garden, with the 
 account of the Everlasting Club, 1 or the Loves of Hilpa 
 and Shalum, 1 just finished for the next day's Spectator, 
 in his hand. Such a mark of national respect was due 
 to the unsullied statesman, to the accomplished scholar, 10 
 to the master of pure English eloquence, to the con- 
 summate 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 recon-15 
 ciled wit and virtue, after a long and disastrous separa- 
 tion, during which wit had been led astray by profligacy, 
 and virtue by fanaticism. 
 
 1 Note, p. 121. 
 
Bfc» 
 
 f f*«Sl(%»i 
 
NOTES, ILLUSTRATIVE AND EXPLAN 
 ATORY. 
 
 13. 9. These lines occur in the PygmcEo-machia (p. xxxi), and may 
 be freely rendered as follows: "And now, amid the files, presses for- 
 ward the tall chief of the Pygmies, with dreadful majesty and stately 
 stride, his giant frame towering above all the rest — rising even a 
 nail's breadth above them." 
 
 15. 14. In the first scene of Jonson's The Poetaster, Act V., Virgil is 
 depicted as reading to his patron, Maecenas, and his friends from the 
 Fourth Book of the sEneid, the passage (11. 173-188) containing an alle- 
 gorical description of the Goddess Rumor, or Fame, daughter of Terra. 
 The Giants, brute sons of Earth, had attempted to scale Heaven, and 
 had been chastised by Jove. Then their "parent, Earth, in spite" 
 against all the gods, brought forth Rumor, swift of flight, keen of 
 vision, and clamorous of tongue. 
 
 18. 28. The government of France, under Louis XVIII. and 
 Charles X., was but little removed from absolutism, although it was 
 Parliamentary in type. In 1830 Charles X. attempted (a) to nullify an 
 election recently held for choosing representatives to the national legis- 
 lature ; (6) to alter the basis of suffrage laid down in the Constitution ; 
 and (c) to establish a vigorous Censorship of the Press. A revolution 
 ensued, and the king was driven from the throne. In the Constitutional 
 Monarchy which followed, the champions of free speech were recog- 
 nized, and in 1843 (when this essay was written), among the notable 
 persons active in French political life were Guizot, an author, and 
 formerly a Professor of History; Thiers, a historian, and editor of Le 
 National; Villeinain, formerly Professor of Rhetoric; Lamartine, a 
 poet ; and Etienne Arago, a popular author. 
 
 25. 10. This passage may be freely rendered as follows : " Muse, 
 why dost thou bid me again to stammer in Latin verses, — me who 
 sprang from foreign stock far north of the Alps ? " 
 
 27. 10. No. 489 of the Spectator contained the following ode, in the 
 second stanza of which Addison evidently refers to his sojourn at Rome 
 (31, 4-12) ; in the third to his journey over Mont Cenis (32, 15-23); 
 and in the fourth and the remaining stanzas to his threatened shipwreck 
 (27,2-13):- 
 
 "3 
 
ii4 NOTES. 
 
 " How are thy servants blest, O Lord! 
 How sure is their defence ! 
 Eternal Wisdom is their guide, 
 Their help Omnipotence. 
 
 " In foreign realms and lands remote, 
 Supported by thy care, 
 Through burning climes I pass'd unhurt, 
 And breathed in tainted air. 
 
 " Thy mercy sweeten'd every soil, 
 Made every region please : 
 The hoary Alpine hills it warm'd, 
 And smooth'd the Tyrrhene seas. 
 
 " Think, O my soul, devoutly think, 
 How, with affrighted eyes, 
 Thou saw'st the wide extended deep 
 In all its horrors rise ! 
 
 " Confusion dwelt in every face, 
 And fear in every heart : 
 When waves on waves, and gulfs on gulfs, 
 O'ercame the pilot's art. 
 
 " Yet then from all my griefs, O Lord, 
 Thy mercy set me free, 
 Whilst in the confidence of prayer 
 My soul took hold on thee. 
 
 " For though in dreadful whirls we hung 
 High on the broken wave, 
 I knew thou wert not slow to hear, 
 Nor impotent to save. 
 
 " The storm was laid, the winds retired, 
 Obedient to thy will ; 
 The sea that roar'd at thy command, 
 At thy command was still. 
 
 " In midst of dangers, fears, and death, 
 Thy goodness I'll adore, 
 And praise thee for thy mercies past, 
 And humbly hope for more. 
 
NOTES. 115 
 
 " My life, if thou preserv'st my life, 
 Thy sacrifice shall be ; 
 And death, if death must be my doom, 
 Shall join my soul to thee." 
 
 28. 22. San Marino, one of the oldest states of Europe, lying within 
 the territory of the kingdom of Italy, has preserved an independent 
 republican government for centuries. It is one of the smallest states in 
 the world, covering but thirty-two square miles, and containing only 
 eight thousand inhabitants. 
 
 32. 2. In using the expression the " Museum " at Florence, Macau- 
 lay probably has in mind the art gallery of the Uffizi Palace, which 
 contains a multitude of rare works of art, — marbles (including the 
 famous " Niobe " group), bronzes (including Donatello's "David"), 
 and paintings. The Vatican sculptures include the "Apollo Belvedere," 
 the " Antinous," and the " Laocoon group." 
 
 33. 4. The value and the ingenuousness of Macaulay's criticism 
 may be judged from the fact that this impressive statement covers the 
 " heroic poems," published in a period of eleven years only, since Dry- 
 den died in 1700, and Pope's Essay on Criticism appeared in 1711. 
 
 37. 1. The Act of Settlement, passed in 1701, had provided that 
 after the death of Queen Anne the succession to the throne should de- 
 volve upon her father's cousin, Sophia, Princess of Hanover; and in the 
 event of her death, upon her direct descendants, provided they were 
 Protestants. Louis XIV. had ignored this act in proclaiming Anne's 
 brother king of England on the death of James II. in 1701. Marlbor- 
 ough's victory over the French at Blenheim rendered hopeless Louis's 
 plans for seating James Edward upon his father's throne. 
 
 39. 1. In the Campaign, when Addison approaches the climax of 
 his description of the contest between Marlborough and Tallard at 
 Blenheim, he artfully interrupts his narrative with the exclamation : — 
 
 " But, O my Muse ! what numbers wilt thou find 
 To sing the furious troops in battle join'd? 
 Methinks I hear the drum's tumultuous sound, 
 The victors' shouts and dying groans confound ; 
 The dreadful burst of cannon rend the skies, 
 And all the thunder of the battle rise. 
 
 " 'Twas then great Marlborough's mighty soul was prov'd, 
 That, in the shock of charging hosts unmov'd, 
 Amidst confusion, horror, and despair 
 Examin'd all the dreadful scenes of war;' 
 In peaceful thought the field of death survey'd, 
 To fainting squadrons sent the timely aid, 
 
u6 NOTES. 
 
 Inspir'd repuls'd battalions to engage, 
 And taught the doubtful battle where to rage. 
 So when an angel by divine command 
 With rising tempest shakes a guilty land, 
 Such as of late o'er pale Britannia past, 
 Calm and serene he drives the furious blast ; 
 And, pleased th' Almighty's orders to perform, 
 Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm." 
 
 51. ii. "Will's Coffee House, April 24 (1710). 
 
 " I yesterday came hither about two hours before the company gen- 
 erally make their appearance, with a design to read over all the news- 
 papers; but, upon my sitting down, I was accosted by Ned Softly, who 
 saw me from a corner in the other end of the room, where I found he 
 had been writing something. . . . 'You must understand,' says Ned, 
 ' that the sonnet I am going to read to you was written upon a lady 
 who showed me some verses of her own making, and is perhaps the 
 best poet of our age. But you shall hear it.' Upon which he began to 
 read as follows : — 
 
 '"TO MIRA, ON HER INCOMPARABLE POEMS. 
 
 I. 
 
 '" When dress'd in laurel wreaths you shine, 
 And tune your soft, melodious notes, 
 You seem a sister of the Nine, 
 Or Phoebus' self in petticoats. 
 
 II. 
 
 " ' I fancy, when your song you sing, 
 
 Your song you sing with so much art, 
 
 Your pen was pluck'd from Cupid's wing; 
 
 For, ah ! it wounds me like his dart.' 
 
 "'Why,' says I, 'this is a little nosegay of conceits, a very lump of 
 salt; every verse has something in it that piques; and then the dart in 
 the last line is certainly as pretty a sting in the tail of an epigram ... as 
 ever entered into the thought of a poet.' " Here follows an account of 
 Mr. Bickerstaff' s discussion of each line and phrase of the poem with 
 its author, who does not perceive the delicious satire of the criticisms. 
 
 51. 13. In the Spectator, No. 567, Addison introduced a burlesque at- 
 tack on persons in public life, satirizing those libellous writers who intro- 
 duced into their articles the names of their victims with the vowels left 
 out in order to escape prosecution. One sentence read as follows : 
 " Must the British nation suffer forsooth, because my lady Q-p-t-s has 
 been disobliged? " Of course, " my Lady Q-p-t-s " was a wholly mythical 
 
NOTES. 
 
 117 
 
 person, but in the next issue (No. 568) Addison described an interview 
 at a coffee house with a politician who assumed to know who was in- 
 tended by this, as by all the other syncopated names. " I do assure 
 you," says he, " were I my Lady Q-p-t-s, I would sue him for scandalum 
 
 magnatum." 
 
 55. 12. Mr. Booth, in Fielding's Amelia, is the extravagant and 
 rather worthless husband of the heroine of the story, and is uplifted and 
 ennobled by the fidelity and nobility of her character. Dr. Harrison is 
 the clergyman who aided in bringing about their marriage, and who is a 
 kind and yet wise friend to both. 
 
 60. 25. This reference to a change in literary styles is suggestive of 
 the several influences that have shaped English literary taste at different 
 epochs. Horace Walpole's style, says Macaulay, elsewhere, " is more 
 deeply tainted with Gallicism than that of any other English writer with 
 whom we are acquainted. His composition often reads, for a page 
 together, like a rude translation from the French." Dr. Johnson's style, 
 shaped by his extraordinary Latin scholarship, may be judged by the 
 following extract from a letter : " That voluntary debility, which modern 
 language is content to term indolence, will, if it is not counteracted by 
 resolution, render in time the strongest faculties lifeless, and turn the 
 flame to the smoke of virtue." Carlyle (to whom Macaulay refers 
 last), by his translations from the German, did perhaps more than any 
 other writer to familiarize the English people with the works of the great 
 German poets and philosophers of the last century. It may be suspected 
 that the " half-German jargon " in which he clothed his thoughts (e.g. in 
 Sartor Resartus and the French Revolution) was deliberately adopted 
 for the sake of attracting attention to his utterances. 
 
 61. 1. By "wit, properly so called," Macaulay means an exercise 
 of the fancy that was especially admired in the eighteenth century. It is 
 thus defined by Addison : Wit is " the putting together with quickness and 
 variety ideas wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity ... in 
 such a way as to give delight and surprise to the reader." Macaulay 
 illustrates this by the analogy in the Lines to Kneller (see List of Ad- 
 dison's Works, p. xxxiii), where Kneller's work is ingeniously demon- 
 strated to be akin to that of Phidias. Of the " ingenious illustrations " 
 in Hudibras, the following is perhaps the most celebrated : — 
 
 " And, like a lobster boiled, the morn 
 From black to red began to turn." 
 
 62. 18. The " commination service " is a service ordained to be read 
 in the Church of England on the first day of Lent, for the " denouncing 
 of God's anger and judgments against sinners." The " invincible 
 gravity " of Dean Swift when giving utterance to his most eccentric fancies 
 
n8 NOTES. 
 
 may be judged by this passage from his Modest Proposal to utilize the 
 surplus babies in Ireland for food. "I have been assured by a very 
 knowing American of my acquaintance that a young healthy child, well 
 nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome 
 food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt 
 that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout." 
 
 63. 8. In April, 1766, was published in Paris a satirical and abusive 
 letter signed V * * * addressed to Dr. Jean-Jaques Pansophe, by whom 
 was evidently meant Jean Jaques Rousseau. The letter was a defence of 
 the writer against a charge of atheism, and was at once attributed to 
 Voltaire ; but he strenuously denied its authorship and diverted suspicion 
 toward the Abbe Coyer. The weight of evidence to-day, however, seems 
 to indicate that Voltaire was the author. 
 
 65. 29, 30. " Tom Folio is a broker in learning, employed to get 
 together good editions, and stock the libraries of great men. . . . He 
 is a universal scholar so far as the title-page of all authors ; knows the 
 manuscript in which they were discovered, the editions through which 
 they have passed, with the praises or censures which they have received 
 from the several members of the learned world. He has a greater 
 esteem for Aldus and Elzevir than for Virgil and Horace." ( Tatler, 
 No. 158). Ned Softly ( Tatler, 163) is referred to in the note on 51, 10. 
 The Political Upholsterer {Tatler, No. 155) was an industrious man 
 of business who became so much engrossed in the pursuit of political 
 gossip, especially that relating to the intrigues of continental powers, 
 that he finally became wholly neglectful of the upholsterer's trade, and 
 was forced to borrow of his friends half-crowns wherewith to support life 
 while he pestered them by detailing his news at inopportune times. 
 {See, also, No. 160.) The Court of Honor is described in the Tatler, No. 
 250, as follows : " As I last year presided over a court of justice, it is my 
 intention this year to set myself at the head of a court of honor. ... I 
 intend to set myself as president, with several men of honor on my right 
 hand, and women of virtue on my left, as my assistants. . . . Having thus 
 furnished my bench, I shall establish correspondences with the horse- 
 guards, and the veterans of Chelsea College ; the former to furnish me 
 with twelve men of honor as often as I shall have occasion for a grand 
 jury ; and the latter, with as many good men and true, for a petty jury." 
 The records contained in Tatler, Nos. 253, 256, 259, 262, 265, relate how 
 the court adjudged cases of " short bows, cold salutations, supercilious 
 looks," etc. By some editors these papers are attributed to Addison 
 and Steele jointly. The Thermometer of Zeal ( Tatler, No. 220) is a 
 " church thermometer" upon which the degrees are " marked upon the 
 following figure . . . : Ignorance, Persecution, Wrath, Zeal, Church, 
 Moderation, Lukewarmness, Infidelity, Ignorance. The reader will 
 observe that the church is placed in the middle point of the glass, 
 
NOTES. 119 
 
 between Zeal and Moderation ; the situation in which she always 
 flourishes, and in which every good Englishman wishes her." The story 
 of the Frozen Words (which thawed and became audible during a 
 period of warm weather), is told in Toiler, No. 254. The Memoirs of 
 a Shilling (which turned its face toward its annalist and spoke in " a 
 soft silver sound") may be found in Tatler, No. 249. 
 
 69. 20. In many English towns, political rights were limited, by a 
 charter of incorporation, to a small body of persons, whose powers were 
 self-perpetuated. Thus a party, once in power, was enabled to control 
 elections by the use of the powers of corporations, and of its patronage 
 in both church and state. 
 
 74. 18-21. The first paper on Westminster Abbey {Spectator, 
 No. 26) describes the serious reflections to which the sight of that noble 
 and historic edifice naturally gives rise; the second (No. 329) is a 
 humorous description of the behavior of Sir Roger de Coverley within 
 its precincts. The Visit to the Exchange (No. 69) is devoted to the 
 consideration of the importance of commerce to civilization. The 
 Journal of the Retired Citizen (No. 317) contains a minute account 
 of his daily life, including such items as " Monday, eight o'clock, — I put 
 on my clothes and walked into the parlour. Tuesday {being- holiday) 
 
 .eight o'clock. — Rose as usual." The Vision of Mirza (No. 159) is an 
 allegory upon the significance of life and death. The Transmigra- 
 tions of Pug the Monkey (No. 343) employs the doctrine of Pythago- 
 ras that souls pass from body to body as a basis for satire upon the 
 animal propensities of some men. The Death of Sir Roger (No. 
 517) is notable for its simple, homely pathos. 
 
 75. 12. This stamp tax, imposed in 1712, required that there be 
 affixed to each newspaper consisting of a single sheet a stamp of the 
 value of one half-penny. This was a device of the party then in 
 power (Tory) to check the libellous attacks of its political adversaries 
 through the periodical press. During the reign of George II. the tax 
 was doubled. 
 
 76. 5. The following data may serve as a basis for comparison : 
 The first edition of Scott's Rob Roy (10,000 copies) was exhausted in a 
 fortnight; of Dickens's Christmas Carol, five editions (15,000 copies in 
 all) were sold the first year ; of the Spectator the earlier sales were 3000 
 copies daily, and the later sales are estimated at 14,000 copies daily. 
 
 76. 18. The Lizard family played in the Guardian a part similar to 
 that of the Spectator Club in the Spectator, and to Isaac Bickerstaff and 
 jenny Distaff in the Tatler. Nestor Ironside was " the Guardian " of 
 certain orphaned children of the Lizard family. 
 
 81. 11. The Rape of the Lock describes an episode in the London 
 society in which Pope moved, — namely, the surreptitious cutting of a 
 lock of hair from the head of Miss Arabella Fermor by Lord Petre, at a 
 
120 NOTES. 
 
 card party. It is written in a mock-heroic vein, the wrath of the lady 
 forming the principal motif, as does that of Achilles in the Iliad. In its 
 original form it consisted of two cantos, and contained no element of 
 the supernatural, but it was subsequently enlarged to five cantos by the 
 addition of sylphs, gnomes, and genii, who play the same part in the 
 strife that Zeus, Athene, and the other deities play in the Iliad, and thus 
 increase the opportunity for pseudo-heroics. 
 
 88. i. This passage is quoted from Iliad, VI., 226 + , where Glaucus 
 and Diomed, when about to fight, discover that their fathers had been 
 pledged to amity by the ties of "guest-friendship." In Pope's free 
 translation, Diomed is made to exclaim: — 
 
 " Enough of Trojans to this lance must yield, 
 In the full harvest of yon ample field ; 
 Enough of Greeks shall dye thy spear with gore : 
 But thou and Diomed be foes no more. 
 Now change we arms, and prove to either host 
 We guard the friendship of the line we boast." 
 
 89. 30. Late in 1715, the Earl of Mar started a Jacobite movement 
 in Scotland, designed to disseat George I. in favor of the Stuart " Pre- 
 tender" before the tenure of the Hanoverians should have become 
 secured by lapse of time. The appearance of James Edward in person 
 lent strength to the movement, but he was forced to flee in January, 
 1716, and the movement speedily collapsed. 
 
 97. 9. This was a stratagem of Pope's to gain notoriety by robbing 
 himself of letters from persons of high standing in society, and then rais- 
 ing a" hue and cry " after the thief. He contrived to place letters which 
 had been sent to him by certain peers in the hands of a bookseller 
 named Curll, and then instigated the House of Lords to prosecute Curll 
 for having the " stolen " property in his possession. 
 
 97. 19. Five years before Pope's death, Bolingbroke loaned to him 
 the manuscript copies of certain of his political pamphlets, which, if 
 published, would render him obnoxious to those in power. At Pope's 
 death it was discovered that he had secretly had 1500 copies printed, 
 in violation of a pledge made to Bolingbroke. 
 
 98. 22. These lines, perhaps the most notable satiric verses in the 
 English language, are to be found in the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, 11. 
 193+ , and read as follows : — 
 
 " Peace to all such ! but were there one whose fires 
 True Genius kindles, and fair Fame inspires; 
 Blest witli each talent and each art to please, 
 And born to write, converse, and live with ease; 
 Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, 
 
NOTES. 121 
 
 Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne; 
 
 View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, 
 
 And hate for arts that caus'd himself to rise ; 
 
 Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, 
 
 And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; 
 
 Willing to wound, and yet'afraid to strike, 
 
 Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike ; 
 
 Alike reserv'd to blame, or to commend, 
 
 A tim'rous foe and a suspicious friend ; 
 
 Dreading e'en fools, by Flatterers besieg'd, 
 
 And so obliging, that he ne'er oblig'd ; 
 
 Like Cato, give his little Senate laws, 
 
 And sit attentive to his own applause; 
 
 While Wits and Templars ev'ry sentence raise, 
 
 And wonder with a foolish face of praise : — 
 
 Who but must laugh, if such a man there be ? 
 
 Who would not weep, if ATTICUS were he." 
 112. 7-8. The Everlasting Club {Spectator, No. 72) was a club 
 of one hundred members, which was always in session because the 
 twenty-four hours of the day were so distributed among the members that 
 a certain number of them were always present. The Loves of Hilpa 
 and Shalum {Spectator, Nos. 584, 585) are described in a tale of the 
 early days of creation, when men's lives extended over several 
 centuries. Shalum, after his brother had come "to an untimely end 
 in the two hundred and fortieth year of his age," woed his widow 
 from the tenth to the one hundred and fiftieth year of her widowhood 
 with such arguments as " Remember, O thou daughter of Zilpah, that 
 the age of man is but a thousand years ; that beauty is but the admira- 
 tion of a few centuries." In the end a happy chapter of accidents made 
 him wealthy as well as ardent, and his wooing was crowned with success. 
 
 TOPICS AND QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW. 
 
 {References are to the numbered paragraphs of the Essay.) 
 
 Addison (1) His Biography. Name the successive public offices 
 which he held. Name the works to which he contributed, and state what 
 share he had in each. What career did he originally choose? What 
 circumstances, political and personal, led to the change in his choice of 
 a profession? (26, 28.) In which career would he find the greater 
 opportunity for exercising his literary gifts? (Cf. the careers of Steele, 
 the politician, and Swift, the churchman.) What traits in Addison's 
 character does it seem likely that he inherited from his ancestors? (6) 
 How did his early training tend to fit him for his literary work? (7) 
 What was the object and what were the benefits derived from his for- 
 eign tour? Describe the circumstances regarding his two sojourns in 
 
122 NOTES. 
 
 Ireland (71-74, 121; 127, 128). Show the influence of the Spanish Suc- 
 cession War upon his fortunes (33, 51-54, 60; 91, 92). Show the influ- 
 ence of contemporaiy English politics upon his career (108, 150). 
 Discuss his work in the British and Irish parliaments, with Macaulay's 
 explanation of his behavior in each (61, 73). 
 
 (2) His Literary Work. In what respects is the Campaign superior 
 to other poems of its class? (54-57.) What are the specific excellencies 
 of Addison's Tatler and Spectator papers? Of the Cato f (109-112.) Of 
 the Freeholder? (129.) Describe the origin (96), the plan (99), the 
 contents (100, 101), the success (103) of the Spectator. Describe the 
 services of Addison to the nation as a censor of morals (87, 88). 
 
 How does Macaulay rate Addison's work in comparison with Steele's? 
 (100, 118.) How does he rate Addison's humor in comparison with that 
 of Swift? (87.) With that of Voltaire? (84-87.) How does he rank the 
 Cato in comparison with the classic French drama? (112.) State his 
 estimate of the quality of Addison's style (80) ; of his wit (81) ; of his 
 humor (85) ; of his critical work (102). 
 
 (3) His Friends. Prepare a sketch of each of the following persons: 
 Steele: His character (69, 116); his relations with Addison (69,76, 
 
 78, 95, 109, 154-159) ; his political career (76, 116, 117). See, also, Index. 
 
 Swift: His life and literary work (Index); the characteristics pecul- 
 iar to his work (87) ; his relations with Addison (122-125). 
 
 Pope: His life and work (Index); his relations with Addison (114, 
 115, 130-146) ; Macaulay's proofs of Addison's integrity in his relations 
 with Pope ; instances of Pope's treachery to other friends. 
 
 Halifax (Charles Montague) : His public services (Index) ; his 
 influence on Addison's career (26, 28, 42, 43, 45, 52). 
 
 (4) His Character. Gather and systematize under appropriate 
 headings the different characteristics attributed by Macaulay to Addi- 
 son. Determine the exact quality alleged to exist, and note in regard to 
 each the facts in his behavior or in his writings which prove the exist- 
 ence of that quality. At least three main classes should be considered, 
 — his virtues, his faults, his attainments. Note what Macaulay says or 
 implies of his moral standards (62, 87), his magnanimity to his foes 
 (146), his generosity to his friends (93,95, 122-127), his modesty (65- 
 66, 113). Weigh the testimony involved in the respect with which his 
 contemporaries regarded him (94, 108-109, 164-165). What two faults 
 does Macaulay attribute to him? (65-66, 113.) How many and what 
 arguments are used by Macaulay to demonstrate that he was not a well- 
 rounded classical scholar? (8, 10-17, 58.) What does Macaulay say of 
 his conversational powers (63,64), and how does this harmonize with 
 his other characteristics ? Describe the close of Addison's life, and 
 show how his behavior at that time illustrates the characteristics which 
 you have attributed to him. 
 
NOTES. 123 
 
 The Age of Queen Anne. What were the characteristic features of 
 the intellectual life of this period ? Of the literary productions (sub- 
 jects, style, taste, spirit)? What themes were most commonly treated ? 
 What poetic forms were most popular ? What were the relations between 
 the government and the men of letters? What change in the type of 
 government was being completed ? How did this affect the fortunes of 
 Addison, Steele, and Swift ? What were the leading principles and 
 measures of the party to which Addison belonged ? What events gave 
 it control from 1705-1710? What accident gave it the advantage in 
 1714 ? What were the relations between England and the various con- 
 tinental powers during this reign ? How closely was the intellectual life 
 of England in touch with that on the Continent ? What was the lead- 
 ing factor in social life during this age ? What part does this factor play 
 in Addison's literary career, and what influence did he exert upon it ? 
 
 The Essay. Of what book is this essay a review ? What adverse 
 criticisms docs Macaulay make upon that book ? How does his treat- 
 ment of his theme illustrate his characteristic method as a reviewer ? 
 What attitude does he assume toward female writers ? What qualities 
 should you judge that he would consider requisite to an ideal biography, 
 judging by his criticisms of Miss Aikin's work ? What qualities does 
 he elsewhere demand? (Int., pp. ix-xii.) How far does this essay 
 seem to you to meet these requirements ? What elements of style are 
 noticeable in Macaulay's work ? 
 
 Does Macaulay betray an exhaustive and intimate knowledge of 
 Addison's life and character ? Do his references, allusions, and illus- 
 trations display erudition ? Wit? Originality? Are they drawn chiefly 
 from classic mythology, ancient literature, or modern life ? Does 
 Macaulay assume wide or profound or limited knowledge on the part 
 of the reader ? From his discussion of Addison's classical erudition 
 (10-17, 5 8 ) an d his description of Addison's foreign tour (35-40), what 
 should you conclude in regard to Macaulay's classical scholarship ? 
 Does the essay seem to you to be written in a judicial or in a partisan 
 spirit ? 
 
 Compare the essay on Addison with that on Milton, as regards struc- 
 ture, style, and matter. In which does Macaulay adhere the more 
 closely to his ostensible subject ? In which does he employ ornament 
 the more freely? In which does he enunciate the more striking and 
 original propositions ? Which has the more artificial method of treat- 
 ment ? Note especially the methods of opening and of closing the two 
 essavs. 
 

 124 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 London in 1720 — Covent Garden and Westward. 
 
 By employing a ruler to determine the boundaries of the lettered and numbered 
 sections, the following places may be located. 
 
 Charter House, ^,1,2 
 Cock Lane, A 5 , S, 4. 
 Coffee Houses: 
 
 Button's, 7, 8. 
 
 Child's, T, 6. 
 
 Garraway's, Y, 7. 
 
 Grecian, AT, 8. 
 
 Jonathan's, Y, 6. 
 
 St. James, C, 13. 
 
 Will's, J, 8. 
 Gray's Inn, M, 3. 
 Grub St., JV, 2. 
 Holborn Hill, P, 4. 
 Leicester Square, F, 9. 
 
 Milton's Homes : 
 
 Birthplace, Bread St., /', 6. 
 
 St. Bride's, Fleet St., P, 6. 
 
 Aldersgate St., V, 3. 
 
 Barbican, V, 2. 
 
 Charing Cross, G, 12. 
 
 Jewin St., U, 3. 
 
 Burial place. St. Giles', I', 2 
 
 Royal Exchange, A', 
 
 St. Paul's, T, 6. 
 
 The Temple, O, 7, 8. 
 
 Theatres: 
 
 Covent Garden, J, 
 Drury Lane. K, 7. 
 Haymarket, E, F, 
 
 Y,6. 
 

 
 
 =s?mt7oW 
 
 
 i§Blfl 
 
 
 Efl 
 
EXPLANATORY INDEX. 
 
 Abgarus : King of Edessa, a city of Northern Mesopotamia. Euse- 
 bius (q.v.) introduces into his history a letter purporting to have 
 been written by Agbarus to Jesus Christ, requesting the iatter to 
 come to him and heal his sickness. It was stated that Jesus refused 
 to do so, but offered to send one of his disciples. 
 
 Absalom and Ahitophel : a satire by Dryden on the politicians of the 
 reign of James II., including Buckingham, Shaftesbury, etc. 
 
 Academy : the Academie Francaise was founded in 1635, when Car- 
 dinal Richelieu transformed an existing organization of poets into 
 a national institution, created for the purpose of securing in the 
 French language the qualities of purity, richness, and refinement. 
 To carry out this purpose, it pledged itself to compile a dictionary 
 and other technical works. In its capacity as arbiter in questions 
 of the disputed pronunciation, spelling, etc., of French words, it per- 
 forms a public service for which no similar English body exists. 
 
 Achilles : the chief warrior of the allied armies that conducted the 
 siege of Troy. His quarrel with the commander Agamemnon, his 
 grief at the death of his friend Patroclus, and his terrible revenge 
 therefor, which brought about the death of the Trojan champion, 
 Hector, and the fall of Troy, form the subject of Homer's Iliad. In 
 a paroxysm of anger at Patroclus's death, he performs the feat 
 referred to in H 54, which is described in Mad, XXL, 1-16. 
 
 Act : in the University of Oxford, candidates for degrees were in the 
 habit of presenting at their graduation a thesis, or statement of 
 some philosophical truth, the truth of which they were prepared to 
 maintain in debate against any disputant. This performance was 
 technically known as their " Act." The term as used by Macaulay 
 means the " Commencement " exercises of the University. 
 
 ■ffineid : a Latic epic poem, by Virgil, treating of the adventures of 
 /Kneas, who (according to Virgil's narrative) fled from the sack of 
 Troy and with a few ships sailed to Italy, landed near the Tiber, 
 and, after a long conquest with the native tribes of Rutulians, laid the 
 foundations of the Roman nation. As it is one of the two greatest 
 epic poems of antiquity, its translation has been the favorite task of 
 ambitious poets. 
 
 Aikin, Lucy (1781-1864) : author of several biographies, and Memoirs 
 of the Courts of Elizabeth, James I, and Charles I. 
 126 
 
INDEX. 127 
 
 Akenside, Mark (1721-1770) : a popular English physician and poet. 
 The theme of his didactic poem, The Pleasures of the Imagination, 
 was suggested by the " Essays on Imagination," in Addison's Spec- 
 tator. It was first published in 1744, and was recast in 1757. His 
 Epistle to Curio, published in 1744, was originally a poem in the 
 ten-syllabled rhymed verse of Pope's school, but was republished 
 under the title of Ode to Curio, in 1744, with its form changed to 
 that of the Spencerian stanza. 
 
 Albula : a sulphur stream four miles from Tivoli. 
 
 Alcaics : lyric poems in the peculiar metre employed by Alcaeus, a 
 Greek poet who flourished about 600 B.C. 
 
 Alfieri (1749-1803) : the greatest Italian dramatist. He composed 
 fourteen tragedies, of which Saul was his masterpiece. 
 
 Aniadeus II. (1665-1732) : Duke of" Savoy," one of the principalities 
 of the Holy Roman Empire. His predecessors had suffered many 
 losses of territory from French aggressions, and had waged numer- 
 ous wars in attempted reprisals. Amadeus generally ranged him- 
 self among the foes of Louis XIV., but more than once traitorously 
 changed sides and threw his influence in Louis's favor. In 1692, 
 for example, he was serving as commander-in-chief of the troops of 
 Austria in the war of the Palatinate, but was induced by a bribe 
 from Louis XIV. to espouse the cause of the French. He was a 
 claimant for the throne of Spain, and, in the Spanish Succession 
 War, he lost his estates and fled to Italy, where his distant cousin, 
 Prince Eugene of Savoy, was serving as commander of the impe- 
 rial forces engaged in wresting from Spain her Italian possessions. 
 By the peace of Utrecht (1714) he gained, as his share of the spoils, 
 the island of Sicily, with the title of king. 
 
 Appian Way : the famous road connecting Rome with various portions 
 of Southern Italy, constructed by Appius Claudius Crecus (313 B.C.) 
 and his successors. 
 
 Arbuthnot, Dr. John (1667-1735), was one of the ablest of the coterie 
 of brilliant writers who shed glory upon the reign of Queen Anne, 
 to whom he was physician-extraordinary. His writings comprise 
 scientific treatises and satires on political and social subjects, e.g. 
 The Art of Lying in Politics and The History of John Bull. 
 
 Ariosto (1474-1533) : an Italian poet and statesman. He lived at Fer- 
 rara, twenty-six miles northeast of Bologna, where he wrote his epic 
 poem, Orlando Furioso. This was intended as a companion poem 
 to the Orlando Innamorato of Boiardo (a.v.). The subject of the 
 former is the chivalrous exploits of Roland, nephew of Charlemagne, 
 and its romantic character gives free play to those tendencies of the 
 poet toward florid description, to which Macaulay refers. 
 
 Arne, Dr. Thomas (1710-1778), was an English musician, celebrated 
 ■ not only for his compositions, but for his connection with persons 
 
128 INDEX. 
 
 of more note than himself. He set to music the lyrical numbers 
 in Milton's Comus, composed the musical setting of the famous 
 patriotic lyric, Rule Britannia, and wrote the music for several 
 operas, of which Addison's Rosamond is the most important. 
 
 Athalie : a tragedy based on Jewish history, composed by Racine {q.v.). 
 
 Athanasian Mysteries: Athanasius (296-373 a.d.) was the chief 
 bishop of Alexandria, and opposer of Arius {q.v.) at the Council of 
 Nicea, 325. He upheld the doctrine that the three persons in the 
 divine Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) are absolutely one, 
 equal, and coeternal. The effort to conceive rationally the nature 
 and relations of this mysterious " Three in One " has occupied the 
 intellects of orthodox Christians until the present day. Dacier 
 (1651-1722), librarian to Louis XIV., published a translation of 
 Plato's works, in which he endeavored to trace a kinship between 
 his mystic doctrines and those of Athanasius. 
 
 Atterbury, Francis, Bishop of Rochester (1662-1732), was the leading 
 Tory Churchman of his age. He had a part in the Phalaris con- 
 troversy {see Boyle, Charles), and in the Sacheverell agitation. {See 
 Int., p. xxiii.) He was finally banished from England for treasonous 
 conspiracies with the Jacobites. 
 
 Attic Dramatists: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides {q.v). 
 
 Atticus (109-32 B.C.) : a highly cultivated Roman writer and historian. 
 He held aloof from practical politics and from severe literary labor, 
 adopting the attitude of a calm and dispassionate observer of men 
 and books. His literary taste was unquestioned, even the polished 
 Cicero {q.v.) submitting to his judgment. The similarity between 
 his character and that which Pope wished to impute to Addison, led 
 Pope to employ the name " Atticus " as a veiled method of referring 
 to Addison in his celebrated satirical attack on Addison. {See A., 
 % 145, and note, p. 120.) This satire, printed first as a lampoon in 
 1723, was afterward published in a collection of miscellaneous 
 writings by Pope in 1727, and still later, in 1735, was engrafted into 
 the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot {q.v.). 
 
 Augustan Age : an age in the history of any country made remarkable 
 by the excellence of the literature produced therein is likely to be 
 called the Augustan Age of that country, because it holds a place in 
 its general history like that which the age of Augustus Caesar (42 
 B.C. -14 A.D.) holds in Roman history. During his reign epic and 
 lyric poetry and history all attained a high degree of excellence 
 in the works of Virgil, Horace, and Livy. 
 
 Ausonius (310-394) : a minor Roman writer of light verse, e.g. his 
 idyll on the Moselle River. 
 
 Bayle, Pierre (1647-1706) : author of a Historical and Critical Dic- 
 tionary of the French Language (1696, 2 vols.), which was bitterly 
 attacked as irreligious. 
 
INDEX. 129 
 
 Benacus : the old name of Lake Garda, the largest lake in Italy. It 
 lies between Venice and Lombardy, the district in which Virgil's 
 early life was spent, and its scenery is employed as a background 
 in his poetry. In his Georgics, II, 160, he refers to Lake Benacus, 
 as " tossing in billows, with a roaring as of the sea." 
 
 Bentinck : the greatness of the " House of Bentinck " dates from the 
 Revolution, when William III. created his friend William Bentinck, 
 of Holland, Earl of Portland. Since that time the House has pro- 
 duced several statesmen of ability and high repute. 
 
 Bentley, Kichard (1662-1742) : the head of Trinity College, Cambridge, 
 surpassed all his contemporaries in the extent and variety of his 
 learning. This was proved in the famous discussion with Boyle 
 and his adherents in which Bentley demonstrated the spurious char- 
 acter of the alleged Greek Epistles of Phalaris. (See Boyle.) 
 
 Berni, Francis (1490-1536) : a satirical poet of Italy. 
 
 Bettesworth : a lawyer lampooned by Swift for his mediocre legal 
 attainments and his presumption in assuming equality with eminent 
 members of the English bar. 
 
 Bickerstaff : a pseudonym employed by Dean Swift in his famous con- 
 troversy with John Partridge. This man had for thirty years pub- 
 lished an almanac containing various unscientific predictions. 
 Swift, seizing the opportunity to indulge his satirical gift, published 
 an almanac for the year 1708, including among his predictions the 
 statement that the death of Partridge would take place on March 29, 
 at ten o'clock. For two years after this date he insisted in various 
 published communications that Partridge had died at the set time, 
 using Partridge's own predictions to verify his assertions, although 
 his victim (who took the whole matter seriously) wrote frantic arti- 
 cles for the press to prove his own existence. The name " Bicker- 
 staff" was afterward adopted by Steele as a nom de plume. 
 
 Blackmore, Sir Richard (1650-1729) : a physician, the author of 
 unimportant works on theology and politics, and author of seven 
 long poems, of which the Creation is the most important. 
 
 Blair, Dr. (1718-1800) : Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres in the 
 University of Edinburgh, was the author of well-known but weak 
 treatises on the rules of literary composition and the principles of 
 good taste in literature. 
 
 Blenheim : a village in Bavaria on the Danube River, the scene of 
 Marlborough's brilliant victory in 1704. 
 
 Blois : a city of France, about one hundred miles southwest of Paris, 
 where several French monarchs have had country residences. 
 
 Boccaccio, Giovanni ( 1313-1375) : a celebrated Italian poet and 
 romancer. His tales have furnished plots for the greatest English 
 writers, such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dryden, etc. 
 
 Boiardo (1430-1^94) : one of the greater Italian poets. His Orlando 
 
13° 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Innamorato, a long romantic poem, passed through sixteen editions 
 in half a century, and was the source whence Ariosto derived the 
 characters of the still more celebrated Orlando Furioso. 
 
 Boileau, Nicholas (1636-1711) : a French poet and essayist, who 
 exerted a marked influence upon the style and character of Pope's 
 writings. The latter's Essay on Criticism is an imitation of 
 Boileau's D' Art Poetique, and both he and Pope produced epistles 
 in imitation of Horace. Both were dominated by the aim to preserve 
 in their writings elegance and sobriety of form, wit and vigor of 
 expression. 
 
 Bolingbroke, Henry St. John, Viscount B. (1678-1751): a noted 
 philosopher and Tory statesman. As Henry St. John, he was Sec- 
 retary of War from the period of the Blenheim campaign (1704) 
 to the year 1708, when the growing Whig influence in Parliament 
 forced his retirement. With Harley (a.v.) he intrigued to destroy 
 the influence of Marlborough and end the Spanish Succession War, 
 and he became Foreign Secretary in 1710, on the downfall of the 
 Whigs. (See Int., p. xxiii ) He was now created Viscount Boling- 
 broke, and did a great service to his country by negotiating the 
 Peace of Utrecht. He intrigued successfully for the overthrow of 
 Harley, but unsuccessfully to prevent the Hanoverian succession 
 (see Int., p. xxiv), and was obliged to flee into exile. Later, gain- 
 ing permission to return to England, he began a newspaper war 
 upon the Whig ministry in the Craftsman, and in various pam- 
 phlets, but spent much of his time in the study of literature and 
 philosophy with Pope, Swift, etc. 
 
 Booth, Barton (1681-1723) : joint manager with Colley (Jibber of 
 Drury Lane Theatre (q.v.), was the greatest actor of Addison's 
 day. His articulation is praised in Pope's Imitation 0/ Horace, Bk. 
 II., Ep. 1 ("well-mouthed Booth"), while the effect of his appear- 
 ance in the title role of Addison's Cato is satirized in the same 
 epistle : — 
 
 " Booth enters — Hark ! the universal peal ! 
 But has he spoken? Not a syllable. 
 ' What shook the stage, and made the people stare? ' 
 Cato's long wig, flower'd gown, and lacquered chair." 
 
 Boswell, James (1740-1795) : a Scotch lawyer, who won immortal 
 fame by his biography of Dr. Samuel Johnson, in which are pre- 
 sented the most minute and faithful details of Johnson's conversa- 
 tion and personal characteristics. 
 
 Bottom : a character in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. 
 He was an Athenian weaver, whose head was transformed into that 
 of an ass through the magic arts of the mischievous fairy Puck. 
 While Bottom was in this condition, Titania, queen of the fairies, 
 
INDEX. 131 
 
 was led through Puck's mischievous devices to fall in love with 
 him under the delusion that he was beautiful. (See M. N. D., 
 III., 1.) 
 
 Bourbon, House of : the family that held the royal dignity in France 
 from 1589 to 1793, and later from 1815 to 1830. 
 
 Bourne, Vincent (1695-1747) : an usher in the Westminster School 
 who won great praise for his Latin poetry. It was claimed by 
 Cowper that he excelled even the minor Roman poets. 
 
 Boyle, Charles (1676-1731) : Earl of Orrery. When a student in 
 Cambridge University he published the edition of the Epistles of 
 /'/i a I avis over which occurred the controversy with Bentley (a. v.). 
 These epistles, one hundred forty-eight in number, were first pub- 
 lished in the original Greek at Venice in 1498, but purported to be 
 the production of Phalaris, tyrant of Agrigentum in Sicily during 
 the sixth century before Christ. Boyle, in his edition, assumed 
 them to be genuine antique relics of great value. Unfortunately, he 
 went out of his way to attack Bentley, librarian of the King's library, 
 for alleged attempts to put difficulties in the way of their publication, 
 and Bentley published a reply, in which he presented apparently 
 conclusive proofs that the epistles are of comparatively modern 
 origin. The scholars of Oxford University, who had encouraged 
 Boyle to publish the epistles, took up his cause, and the controversy 
 raged for more than two years. 
 
 Boyle, Henry (died 1725) : was Chancellor of the Exchequer from 
 1701 to 1708, in which year he became Secretary of State. Having 
 gone out of office with the Whigs, he was restored to power in 1714, 
 and was raised to the peerage as Lord Carleton. 
 
 Boyne. Battle of (July 1, 1690) : the battle which, by the defeat of 
 fames II., gave to William III. the mastery of Ireland. 
 
 Bradamante : a female warrior, a heroine in the poem of Orlando 
 Furioso. For the incident referred to in the Essay on Addison, 
 U i, see Orlando Enrioso, XLV., 68. 
 
 Brunei's Mill: Sir Marc Isambard Brunei (1769-1849) was the en- 
 gineer who planned and constructed the first tunnel under the 
 Thames River. His invention of a machine for turning pulley 
 blocks was of great importance to English ship-builders, since the 
 necessity of securing absolute accuracy in the proportions of those 
 blocks made their production by hand very expensive. 
 
 Brunswick, House of: The Hanoverian kings were descendants from 
 William, Duke of Brunswick-Liineburg (1569). 
 
 Bruyere, Jean de la (1645-1696), French teacher, was also a student 
 and analyst of human nature. He published Caracteres on Les 
 Mceurs de ce Steele, partly a translation from the Greek of Theo- 
 phrastus, partly a study of contemporary persons and manners. 
 
 Buchanan, George (1506-1582), because of his fine classical scholar- 
 
132 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 ship was made tutor first to Mary of Scots, and afterward to her 
 son, James VI. He wrote much Latin verse. 
 
 Budgell, Eustace (1685-1736) : a relative and protege of Addison. 
 His claim to literary fame rests on his connection with Addison's 
 Spectator and Tatler, to which he contributed thirty-seven papers, 
 most of them signed X. He lost his property in the disastrous 
 South Sea speculation {see Int., p. xxv), failed to secure an elec- 
 tion to Parliament, forged a will to retrieve his fortunes, was discov- 
 ered, and committed suicide by drowning in the Thames River, 
 leaving this justifying message to the world, — " What Cato did, and 
 Addison approved, cannot be wrong." The reference is to Cato's 
 soliloquy on self-murder, introduced by Addison into his play of 
 Cato. (See Cato, Marcus Porcius.) 
 
 Butler, Dr. Samuel (1612-1680) : author of Hudibras, a mock-heroic 
 poem written in ridicule of the excesses and follies of Puritanism 
 as seen by a Royalist and Churchman. The poem relies for its 
 effect on quaint and ingenious collocations of ideas and unusual 
 rhymes, e.g. : — 
 
 " And pulpit, drum ecclesiastic, 
 Was beat with fist instead of a stick." 
 
 Callimachus (3d century B.C.) : a Greek poet, librarian of the Alex- 
 andrian Library. He was the author of eight hundred works, 
 including elegies, stories {Causes), epigrams, and hymns. 
 
 Canning, George (1770-1827) : an English statesman. {Seep, xxvii.) 
 
 Caprsese : a beautiful island at the entrance of the Bay of Naples, 
 Here the Emperor Tiberius built twelve villas, the ruins of which 
 are still visible. 
 
 Capuchins : the nickname given to the members of the Franciscan Order 
 of Monks; so named from the small hood (capuchon) which 
 formed a distinctive portion of their dress. 
 
 Carnival : strictly speaking, the carnival is the period from the seventh 
 of January to midnight of Shrove Tuesday. At the latter time be- 
 gins Lent, a period set apart by the Roman Catholic Church for 
 self-denial and abstinence from pleasures. In popular use the 
 word " carnival " is applied to the last three or four days of the 
 period, which, especially in Italian cities, are given up to wild revelry, 
 as a farewell to the pleasures soon to be renounced. 
 
 Catinat (1637-1712), Marshal of France, and a leading commander 
 during the War of the Spanish Succession, was defeated by Eugene 
 of Savoy at Carpi during the struggle for the control of the Spanish 
 possessions in Italy. 
 
 Cato. Marcus Porcius (95 B.C. -46 a.d.), the hero of Addison's drama 
 of Cato, was a Roman statesman celebrated for marked ability. 
 and for his upright character. He bravely denounced the supposed 
 
INDEX. 133 
 
 complicity of Julius Caesar in the conspiracy of Catiline, and 
 became an adherent of Pompey in his struggle for supremacy 
 against Caesar, fearing the effect on popular liberty of the latter's 
 growing power. After Pompey's death he fled to Africa and shared 
 with Metellus Scipio the leadership of the troops remaining there. 
 After the overthrow of Scipio at Thapsus, Cato preferred death to 
 continuance in life, and after spending the night reading Plato's 
 Dialogue upon the immortality of the soul, he committed suicide by 
 stabbing himself in the breast. 
 
 Catullus (87-54 B.C.) : a Roman lyric poet whose epigrams and love 
 poems are unrivalled in their exquisite grace and beauty. 
 
 Cenis, Mont: the site of an Alpine road from Savoy to Piedmont, 
 built by Napoleon I. between 1802 and 1810. 
 
 Censorship of the Press : From the Reformation until 1693 a system 
 had prevailed in England requiring publications to be licensed by 
 a Censor. In that year the House of Commons voted not to 
 renew the act under which the system was perpetuated, and no cen- 
 sorship has since been exercised. Under the Censorship, no news- 
 paper, except the Gazette {g.v.), was published. 
 
 Cervantes (1547-1616) : author of the satirical romance, Don Quixote, 
 the most notable piece of character delineation in Spanish literature. 
 
 Chandos, Duke of: the subject of one of Pope's lampoons. This lam- 
 poon comprises lines 99-172 of the fourth of the A/oral Essays, the 
 Duke of Chandos being represented under the guise of Timon, a 
 rich spendthrift, with pretensions to learning and benevolence, but 
 wholly lacking in taste and judgment. 
 
 Charter House : an endowed charitable hospital and school founded 
 in London in 161 1, for the education of the sons of poor gentle- 
 men. 
 
 Chatham, Wm. Pitt, Earl of (1708-1778) : called the Great Com- 
 moner. Pitt entered Parliament in 1735, and rose rapidly to the 
 position of Leader of the Whig party in the House of Commons. 
 He was successively Paymaster of the Forces, Secretary of State, 
 and Lord Privy Seal, acting also in the latter case as Prime Minis- 
 ter. In 1766 he was created Earl of Chatham, and two years later 
 retired from political office because of ill health. 
 
 Chelsea : formerly a rural suburb of London, lying four miles south- 
 west of the Old City. 
 
 Chirk : a town in Denbighshire in North Wales. 
 
 Chevy Chase : a popular early English ballad which deals with a 
 border contest between Lord Percy and the Douglas. 
 
 Cicero, Marcus Tullius (106-43 B.C.) : the most polished orator and 
 essayist of the classical period of Roman letters. He wrote numer- 
 ous orations and innumerable epistles, all marked by extreme 
 elegance of expression and perfection of form. 
 
134 INDEX. 
 
 Cinna : an historical tragedy by Corneille, the greatest French tragic 
 
 dramatist. 
 Circe : An enchantress of ancient mythology, who was fabled to dwell 
 on an island in the Mediterranean, near Italy. She offered to her 
 victims a magic potion which transformed those who drank it into 
 swine. Ulysses, a Greek hero, however, received from the god 
 Hermes an herb which formed an antidote to the drug. Circe's 
 promontory is the promontory of Circeii, in Latium, now called 
 Monte Circello. Since at a distance it appears like an island, 
 tradition identified it with the island mentioned above. 
 Clarendon (1608-1674) : Edward Hyde, Lord Clarendon, was a leading 
 statesman of the Restoration. (See p. xvii.) He wrote a History 
 of the Great Rebellion, notable for its graphic anecdotes, its keen 
 analysis of motives, and its masterly portraiture of character. 
 Claudian (about 400 A.D.), the latest of the great Latin poets, was 
 considered by his contemporaries the peer of Homer and Virgil. 
 Clubs and Coffee Houses : A unique feature of society during the 
 reign of Queen Anne was the prevalence of clubs. These served 
 the combined ends fulfilled in later days by newspapers, magazines 
 of literary criticism, societies, clubs, and associations for promoting 
 culture or for furthering the interests of persons engaged in the 
 same business. The clubs met generally in rooms reserved for 
 them at coffee houses, another of the characteristic products of the 
 social life of the period. These were places of public resort where 
 tea, coffee, wines, and more substantial refreshments were served to 
 the frequenters, where the regular periodicals, like the Spectator a.nd 
 the Guardian, and the more recent ephemeral sheets, like the 
 Conduct of the Allies, were to be seen fresh from the press, furnish- 
 ing abundant subject for discussion. 
 
 The names, locations, and characteristics of the leading clubs and 
 coffee houses were as follows : — 
 Button's Coffee House, in Covent Garden, was a favorite resort 
 
 of Addison, Steele, Pope, Swift, and other literary men. 
 Child's Coffee House was in St. Paul's Churchyard, and was 
 the meeting place of clergymen, especially ardent High Church- 
 men, and members of the other learned professions. 
 The Cocoa Tree was the resort of the Tory politicians. 
 Garraway's Coffee House was in Exchange Alley, and by its 
 contiguity to the Stock Exchange attracted brokers and 
 merchants. 
 THE Grecian, the earliest of these houses (dating from 1652), was 
 located in Devereux Court, and derived its name from the 
 nationality of its proprietor. It was the gathering place of men 
 of a quiet, reflective temper, and was the scene of many philo- 
 sophical discussions, These facts were so well known that the 
 
 
INDEX. 135 
 
 editor of the Tatler (see Periodicals) significantly dated all his 
 more learned papers from the Grecian. 
 
 JONATHAN'S, in Change Alley, named from its keeper, was the 
 rendezvous of stock-brokers and bankers. 
 
 The Kit Cat Club, the most celebrated club of the day, con- 
 sisted of about forty prominent Whigs, who met at a mut- 
 ton-pie house kept by Christopher Cat, in Shire Lane. Among 
 the members were Walpole, Congreve, Addison, and Steele. 
 Each member at his admission celebrated in verse the praises 
 of the lady whom he had chosen for his "toast," and this 
 verse was subsequently engraved upon his drinking-glass. 
 Addison's " toast" was the Countess of Manchester {see H 29), 
 and the verse read as follows : — 
 
 " 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 shew'd, 
 And with unborrow'd blushes glow'd." 
 
 The October Club consisted of one hundred and fifty Tories and 
 
 High Churchmen, of whom perhaps the most noted was Dean 
 
 Swift (q.v.). Its name perpetuates the fame of its excellent 
 
 October ale. From it the Tatler dated his political news. 
 
 ST. James' Coffee House was a resort of Whig politicians. It 
 
 was the headquarters of the Spectator. 
 Will's Coffee House, in Covent Garden, named from its pro- 
 prietor, William Unwin, was the resort of those who made 
 special pretence to wit and fashion. Here Dryden held court, 
 and promulgated the laws of poetic composition. From this 
 house were dated the literary items in the Tatler. 
 Cock Lane Ghost (1762) : This is one of the most celebrated hoaxes 
 ever perpetrated upon a credulous public. It is supposed that the 
 daughter of one Parsons, owner of a house in Cock Lane, Smith- 
 field, first amused herself by making mysterious sounds with a 
 board which she had concealed in bed. This gave rise to rumors 
 that the house was haunted, and Parsons, seeking notoriety and 
 profit, induced the girl to continue the deception, and gave definite- 
 ness to the rumors by alleging that the ghost was that of a Mrs. 
 Kent, whom he alleged to have been murdered by her husband. 
 On the exposure of the hoax, Parsons was pilloried for impos- 
 ture. 
 Collects : brief, comprehensive prayers, in a liturgy, as distinguished 
 
 from prayers appealing for specific blessings. 
 Collier, Jeremy, Bishop (1650-1726), was a stern critic of the vices of 
 
136 INDEX. 
 
 the stage after the Restoration. He published, in 1698, A Short 
 View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage. 
 
 Commentaries : an autobiographical account by Caius Julius Caesar 
 (100-44 B - c -) of his campaigns in Gaul. 
 
 Congreve, William (1670-1729) : a dramatist of the age of Queen 
 Anne, especially noted for his brilliancy in dialogue. 
 
 Convocation : a body of ecclesiastics of the Church of England, 
 sitting for the purpose of legislating on church matters. The Con- 
 vocation of 1689 thwarted the will of William III., who desired so 
 to change the oaths and ritual of the State Church as to bring within 
 its organization all dissenting Protestant clergymen. 
 
 Corneille. Pierre (1606-1684), the greatest tragic dramatist in France, 
 was the author of The Cid, Cinna, Polyencte, and other historical 
 dramas in the classical style, besides several comedies. 
 
 Covent Garden was originally the garden of the Convent at West- 
 minster. It lies between Westminster and the Old City of London, 
 and is now noted for its market for fruit and flowers, and for its 
 theatre. (See map, p. 124.) 
 
 Cowley, Dr. Abraham (1618-1667) : an English minor poet, author of 
 many poems exhibiting some ability, but tedious. They include 
 many odes and one epic, the Davideis. 
 
 Cowper. William (1664-1723) : a Whig statesman, who held the 
 position of Lord Chancellor under Anne from 1705-1710. 
 
 Cowper, William (1731-1800) : one of the tenderest and sweetest of 
 England's minor poets, a man of remarkable delicacy and sensi- 
 tiveness of spirit. All his more important poems, The Task, John 
 Gilpin's Ride, The Translation of the Iliad and the Odyssey, were 
 due to suggestions made by friends, which were seized upon by bis 
 sensitive nature and elaborated by his genius. 
 
 Coyer, L'Abbe (1707-1782): tutor to the Prince of Turenne, and 
 author of several sportive and serious works, Decouverte de T Isle 
 Frivole, Les Bagatelles Morales, etc. 
 
 Craggs, Addison's successor as Secretary of State, died in 1721. It 
 was in a letter to Craggs written in 17 15 that the first prose draft of 
 Pope's Character of Alliens (q.v.) originally appeared. 
 
 Curll, Edmund (1675-1745), was a bookseller of the age of Queen 
 Anne, noted because of his relations with Pope, Bolingbroke, and 
 other prominent men. 
 
 Dante (1265-1321) was the greatest Italian poet. His chief work was 
 The Divine Comedy, an epic poem in three parts, the Inferno, the 
 Purgatorio, and the Paradiso, treating of the penalties of sin, the pro- 
 cess of purification, and the state of the redeemed in heaven. 
 
 Dennis, John (1657-1734) : a dramatist and literary critic. Himself a 
 worse than mediocre writer, he vented his spite at his own failure 
 to win praise by savage attacks on Pope, Addison, and other 
 
INDEX. 137 
 
 authors more successful than himself. (See Pope's Dunciad, 
 I., 106.) 
 
 Dickens, Charles (1812-1870) : English novelist. This essay was 
 published in 1843 when The Pickwick Papers, Nicholas Nickleby, 
 The Old Curiosity Shop, and Barnaby Rudge had made Dickens's 
 popularity assured ; but his strongest and ripest work, in David 
 Copperfield, Little Dorrit, and The Tale of Two Cities, had not yet 
 been given to the world. 
 
 Doria : The family of Doria was the leading house in Genoa for many 
 generations. Andrea Doria (1466-1560) was the most noted naval 
 commander in Italian history, defending his native state against 
 her Italian rivals (Venice and Pisa), and against the aggressions of 
 foreign powers (France, Germany, and the Turks). 
 
 Dorset, Charles Sackville, Earl of (1637-1706), was a courtier and 
 patron of the fine arts, and composed mediocre satires and songs. 
 
 Drury Lane: celebrated for more than two hundred years as the site 
 of one of the best-known London theatres. (See map, p. 125.) 
 
 Dryden, John (1631-1700), Poet Laureate of England, was the acknowl- 
 edged head of English men of letters in the generation that followed 
 Milton. He gave shape to the new literary movement toward scru- 
 pulous perfection of technique (due to the influence of the French 
 school of Corneille, Racine, and Boileau) that culminated in the work 
 of Pope and Addison. He was the author of the most brilliant sat- 
 ires in the language {Absalom and Ahitophel, MacFlecknoe) , of 
 numerous religious and political poems (Religio Laid, The Hind 
 and the Panther), and of many tragedies and translations. The 
 latter included not only works in foreign tongues (e.g. Tht ^Eneid), 
 but also English works written in a form or style counter to the 
 prevailing taste. His life was disturbed by reason of his attitude 
 toward the political troubles of the time, but his literary supremacy 
 was undisputed. Among his attempts to " modernize " early works 
 is included an opera called The State of Innocence and Fall of Man, 
 based on Paradise Lost. For this attempt Milton had given the 
 cynical permission, " Ay, you may tag my verses." 
 
 Dubois, Cardinal (1656-1723) : Tutor of the Duke of Orleans (the 
 nephew of Louis XIV.), and his political adviser while he held the 
 position of Regent of France during the minority of Louis XV. 
 
 Duenna: a comedy by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, produced in 1775. 
 
 Duke. Richard (1655-1707) : a third-rate theologian and poet. 
 
 Dunciad: Alexander Pope's most ambitious satire, first published in 
 1728. It was a poem originally in three volumes, later expanded 
 to four, and was directed against the quarrelsome horde of lesser 
 literary writers and critics who ventured to dispute Pope's decisions 
 in literary matters, or to criticise his own work. It was constructed 
 as a mock-epic poem, celebrating the glory of the reign of the 
 
138 INDEX. 
 
 " King of Dulness," Lewis Theobald, with whom Pope quarrelled 
 over their rival editions of Shakespeare's works. In the revised 
 edition (1742), Theobald was displaced, and Colley Gibber, the 
 object of Pope's latest antipathy, was raised to the position of hero. 
 
 Dunkirk, the extreme northern town on the coast of France, was 
 captured by the English in 1651, and was restored to France by 
 Charles II. in 1662 for four million pounds. 
 
 Eldon, Lord (1751-1838) : Lord Chancellor of England during most of 
 the period between 1801-1827. He was not an able statesman, but 
 held his position by virtue of his strict adherence to the conserva- 
 tive Tory principles, especially in their opposition to religious re- 
 forms. He resented the liberalism of Canning, and resigned when 
 the latter became chief of the ministry in 1827. {See p. xxvii.) 
 
 Electoral Prince of Hanover: the great grandson of James I. who 
 ascended the throne of England as George I. {See p. xxiv. ) 
 
 Erasmus (1467-1536) : an eminent Dutch scholar and writer, and a 
 master of the classical tongues, all his productions being in Latin. 
 
 Etherege, Sir George (1636-1690) : one of the corrupt dramatists of 
 the Restoration. The character of his work may be judged by the 
 title of his leading drama, The Alan of Mode, or Sir Fopling Flutter. 
 
 Eugene, Prince, of Savoy (1663-1736) : leading imperial general in the 
 Spanish Succession War, in which he wrested Italy from the French 
 under Catinat {q.v.). His visit to England in 1711 to urge a con- 
 tinuance of the alliance against Louis XIV. is referred to in the 
 Spectator, No. 269. 
 
 Euripides (480-406 B.C.) : the latest of the trio of great Greek tragic 
 dramatists (Sophocles, /Eschylus, Euripides). He wrote about eighty 
 dramas, of which the Electra is one; eighteen still exist. 
 
 Faustina : the name of two Roman empresses of the second century, 
 both of notoriously corrupt character. One was the wife of Anto- 
 ninus Pius, and the other was her daughter, wife of the philosopher 
 and moralist, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. 
 
 Fielding, Henry (1707-1754) : with Dr. Samuel Richardson, the creator 
 of the modern "novel" as a literary type. His most celebrated 
 novel is Tom Jones. The hero of this novel is in love with Sophia 
 Western, whose father, Squire Western, is a typical British country 
 gentleman of the old school. Amelia, which followed Tom Jones, 
 is the story of a woman whose fidelity and tenderness elevate and 
 finally redeem the character of her worthless husband, Booth. 
 
 Filicaja, Vincenzio (1642-1707) : a Florentine poet, author of brilliant 
 patriotic odes and sonnets; but certainly not the greatest lyric poet 
 of modern times, as asserted in H 58 of the Essay on Addison. 
 
 Fox, Henry (1705-1774) : a parliamentary opponent of William Pitt. 
 He was Secretary of War in 1746, and Paymaster of the Forces in 
 1757. He was raised to the peerage as Lord Holland in 1762. 
 
INDEX. 139 
 
 Fox, Charles James (1749-1806) : son of the preceding; a leading 
 statesman of the period of the American revolution. For the char- 
 acter of both, see Macaulay's Essay on Lord Holland. 
 
 Fracastorius, Hieronymus (1483-1553) : (the Latin equivalent of 
 Fracastoro Girolamo) a physician of Verona, author of poems and 
 medical works written exclusively in the Latin tongue. 
 
 Fraguier, Pere (1666-1728) : a French savant and classical scholar, a 
 member of the French Academy ('/.v.). He wrote historical and 
 literary dissertations, and various Latin poems. 
 
 Frederick the Great (1712-1786), king of Prussia, was an ardent ad- 
 mirer of French culture, and sought in every way to foster it in 
 Prussia. He composed several works in French, and encouraged 
 Voltaire, Diderot, and other learned Frenchmen to take up their 
 abode at his court. 
 
 Garth, Sir Samuel (1660-1719) : a poet and physician, a member of 
 the Kit Cat Club, and a friend of Addison, for whose Cato he fur- 
 nished the epilogue. 
 
 Garter, Order of the : an English order of knighthood, membership 
 in which may be conferred by the sovereign as a mark of especial 
 honor. Among the knights are included the sovereign and the 
 princes of the blood royal. 
 
 Gay, John (1685-1731), a friend of Pope and Swift, was the author of 
 several humorous poems and plays. As his literary work furnished 
 him but a scanty living, he added to his income by serving as sec- 
 retary, first to the Duchess of Manchester, and later to Lord Clar- 
 endon. He also sought the patronage of the Hanoverians on their 
 accession to the throne. His Beggars' Opera, published in 1727, 
 brought him fame and money. 
 
 Gazette: the London Gazette was a publication founded in 1665 as 
 the organ of the Government for the publication of official an- 
 nouncements, legal notices, political intelligence, etc. It was owned 
 by the Government, and conducted by a Government appointee. 
 
 Genoa: a state in northwestern Italy. It was subject to France from 
 1499-1528, when its independence was won under the leadership 
 of Andrea Doria (o.v.). From that time until the French Revolu- 
 tion its government was republican in form, although oligarchic in 
 essence. Its chief officers bore the ancient title of Doge (or Duke) . 
 
 Georgics : a poem of rural life, by Virgil. It is divided into four 
 books, treating of the cultivation of the soil, the propagation of trees 
 and vines, the raising of horses and cattle, and the care of bees. 
 
 Godolphin, Sidney, Earl of (1645-1712), because of his extraordinary 
 financial abilities, held practical control of the finances of England 
 during the administrations of Charles II., William III., and Anne. 
 Godolphin espoused the cause of James II. against William, and, 
 adhering to h ; s Tory principles, was removed from office during 
 
140 INDEX. 
 
 the latter part of William's reign, when the Whig party was in the 
 ascendant. After Anne's accession he was made Lord High 
 Treasurer, and held this office until 1710, when the growing power 
 of his rival, Harley {q.v.), forced his dismissal. 
 
 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang (1749-1832) : the greatest genius in the 
 history of German literature. The dramatic poem of Faust, his 
 masterpiece, is a profound study of the strife of man's soul with his 
 own nature, expressed in terms of the old German Faust-legend. 
 In this legend, Faust, desirous of sounding every depth of human 
 experience, sells his soul to Mephistopheles, the Spirit of Evil, on 
 condition that the supernatural powers of the demon shall be at his 
 command for a term of years. 
 
 Granville, George (1667-1735) : a Tory statesman and poet. He was 
 Secretary of War in 1710, and intrigued for the restoration of the 
 Stuarts in 1714. He was the author of two plays {Heroic Love, The 
 British Enchantress) and some unimportant verse. 
 
 Gray, Thomas (1716-1771), was the author of some of the noblest 
 reflective poetry in the English language. He had a lofty poetic 
 imagination, profound classical scholarship, and a sensitive taste. 
 He aimed at Greek perfection of style, and showed the influence 
 of Greek literary models in his Pindaric Odes and his Elegy in a 
 Country Churchyard. 
 
 Grub Street, now called Milton Street, was for many years the habitat 
 of impecunious men of letters, who eked out their income by doing 
 piece-work for publishers, such as compiling books of reference, 
 making indexes, copying manuscripts, etc. {See map, p. 125.) 
 
 Gwynn, Eleanor (1650-1687) : an actress of the Restoration and a 
 favorite of Charles II. He seems to have conceived for her a 
 genuine affection, as almost his latest words were an expression 
 of solicitude lest she should suffer from want after his death. 
 
 Hale, Sir Matthew (1609-1676) : Lord Chief Justice of England under 
 Charles II., and a notable pattern of uprightness in an age of cor- 
 ruption, both in his official career and in his ethical writings. 
 
 Halifax, Charles Montague, Earl of ( 1661-1715) : a Whig statesman, 
 financier, and patron of letters. His devices for raising money for 
 the wars of William III. {see pp. xix, xx) led to the beginning of 
 the English national debt, and to the establishment of the Bank of 
 England. He was Chancellor of the Exchequer under William III., 
 was out of power during the Tory ascendency under Anne and 
 was restored to power only at her death. He served as Prime 
 Minister from the accession of George I. until his own death in 1715. 
 
 Hamilton, Gerard (1729-1796), a member of the House of Commons, 
 was popularly known as " Single-speech Hamilton," because in 
 1765 he delivered one brilliant oration, and with one exception 
 never again attempted to address the House. 
 
INDEX. 141 
 
 Hampton Court Palace : a royal residence situated in the village 
 of Hampton, on the Thames, fifteen miles southwest of London. 
 It was built by Cardinal Wolsey and presented by him to King 
 Henry VIII., and was used as a royal residence by all the later 
 Tudor and Stuart monarchs. 
 
 Harley, Robert, Earl of Oxford (1661-1724), was a politician rather 
 than a statesman, but exerted a strong influence upon Queen 
 Anne during part of her reign. Originally holding office, first as 
 Speaker and later as Secretary of State in the Whig Ministry of 
 Godolphin, he intrigued with the Tories to overthrow his chief, and 
 in 1710 had gained enough influence to secure his dismissal. A 
 year later Harley was made Lord High Treasurer in a Tory min- 
 istry, and bent his efforts toward bringing the Spanish Succession 
 War (a Whig war) to a close. In 1714 his late ally, Bolingbroke 
 (q.v.), now coveting his position, undermined his influence as 
 Harley had undermined that of Godolphin, and procured bis dis- 
 missal. He was later impeached by his enemies, but was acquitted, 
 and lived in retirement until his death. 
 
 Haymarket Square : the site of one of the principal London theatres, 
 thence called "The Haymarket." {See map, p. 124.) 
 
 Herculaneum. : a town at the foot of Vesuvius, buried by an eruption 
 in the year 79 A.D. Its position was discovered in 1706, but its 
 excavation was not begun until 1738. 
 
 Herder, J. (1744-1803), was a philosopher, a theologian, and a literary 
 critic, while in scientific speculation he was far in advance of his 
 contemporaries. He learned much from Kant, and imparted much 
 to Goethe, the two greatest thinkers of modern Germany. 
 
 Herodotus (fifth century B.C.) : author of a History of Greece in nine 
 books, covering the period from 700-479 B.C. It is of the greatest 
 importance to students of Ancient History, although of course 
 Herodotus had no conception of the necessity of sifting and verify- 
 ing alleged historical facts. 
 
 Hill, Aaron (1685-1749) : a lesser poet and miscellaneous writer. 
 He was manager of Drury Lane Theatre, and composed several 
 dramas. He was attacked by Pope in the Dunciad, but in so veiled 
 a manner that Pope was able, later, to deny that Hill was the 
 person referred to. 
 
 Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679) : author of works which profoundly 
 affected the thought of his time. His chief work, Leviathan, ex- 
 pounded his philosophy of the origin and sanctions of government. 
 He claimed that government rests on the necessity of restraining 
 the masses, and the power of a few men to control the rest. 
 
 Holland House : a mansion in Kensington, northwest of the old City 
 of London, built in 1607 by Sir Walter Cope. His daughter mar- 
 ried Henry Rich (son of the Earl of Warwick), who was later 
 
142 INDEX. 
 
 created first Earl of Holland. As the mansion passed to the Hol- 
 land branch of the Warwick family, the names of Rich, Warwick, 
 and Holland are all associated with its history. Addison married 
 the widow of the sixth Earl of Warwick. 
 
 Later the mansion passed by purchase and subsequent in- 
 heritance into the possession of Henry Fox {g.v.), in whose interest 
 the now extinct title of Lord Holland was revived. His grand- 
 son made Holland House a social centre and a rendezvous for 
 noted persons. Macaulay says elsewhere: "From 1799 to 1840 
 there was hardly in England a distinguished man in politics, sci- 
 ence, or literature who had not been a guest in Holland House." 
 
 Holy Week : the last week in Lent, often called Passion Week, as 
 being the anniversary of the final scenes of suffering in the life 
 of Christ. In the austerity with which it is celebrated it forms a 
 counterpart to the week of " carnival " {g.v.) which precedes 
 Lent. 
 
 Hoole, John (1727-1803), translated into English verse the two great 
 Italian epics of the Renaissance, Ariosto's Orlando Furioso and 
 Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered. 
 
 Horace (65-8 B.C.) : the leading lyric poet of the Augustan age of Latin 
 literature. His Odes, Epodes, Satires, and Epistles have always been 
 the model and the despair of modern poets. 
 
 Hough, John (1651-1743), was elected President of Magdalen College, 
 Oxford, in 1687, by the Fellows, but was arbitrarily removed by 
 James II. He was reinstated the next year, and held the position 
 until 1690, when he was made Bishop of Oxford. 
 
 Hume, David (1711-1776), philosopher and historian, was the first 
 writer who ever attempted to treat English history in such a way 
 as to trace the causes that have determined its course. His History 
 of England, although brilliant, is biassed by his Tory political views, 
 and by his hostility to the Christian religion. 
 
 Hume, Joseph (1777-1855), was a parliamentary reformer, and an un- 
 compromising antagonist of every existing type of political abuses, 
 such as extravagant expenditures, flogging in the army, imprison- 
 ment for debt, grievous trade restrictions, etc. 
 
 Hurd, Richard, D.D. (1720-1808) : a friend of Bishop Warburton (g.v.). 
 Hurd, as Warburton's biographer, sustains the same relation to him 
 that Boswell (g.v.) sustains to Samuel Johnson. 
 
 Infanta Catharine, the daughter of King John II. of Portugal, married 
 to Charles Stuart (afterwards King Charles II. of England). 
 
 Inns of Court : associations of English lawyers possessing special privi- 
 leges of the highest importance, among them that of admitting can- 
 didates to the practice of law. There are four Inns of Court, all 
 taking their names from the historic buildings occupied by them, 
 namely, " Lincoln's Inn," " The Inner Temple," " The Middle Tern- 
 
INDEX. 143 
 
 pie," and " Gray's Inn." The word " Templar" therefore means a 
 lawyer who is a member of the Inner or the Middle Temple. 
 
 Ireland, Samuel William Henry (1777-1835) : author of two dramas, 
 Vortigem and Henry II., which he claimed to have been written 
 by Shakespeare, and to have been recently discovered among some 
 papers bequeathed by that author to his friend, " William Hen rye 
 Irelaunde." 
 
 Jack Pudding (properly written jack-pudding) : a buffoon or clown. 
 
 Jenyns, Soame (1704-1787) : the author of a work entitled View of the 
 Infernal Evidence of the Christian Religion, containing speculations 
 in regard to the nature of the future life. 
 
 Jersey, Earl of : an extreme Tory member of the Ministry in power at 
 the beginning of the reign of Anne; he was dismissed in 1704, when 
 Godolphin and Marlborough began to look to the Whigs as their 
 main supporters in their policy of continued alliance with the 
 European powers against Louis XIV. 
 
 Jerusalem Chamber : a room in the Deanery ot Westminster Abbey, 
 so named because it was decorated with a view of Jerusalem. 
 
 Johnson, Samuel (1709-1783), was a great lexicographer, essayist, 
 critic, and conversationalist, but not a great dramatist. A defect 
 common to all his writings, due in part to his vast classical erudi- 
 tion, is his preference for polysyllabic words, and for the stately 
 periodic sentences imitated from Latin models. 
 
 His Lives of the Poets contain biographical and critical studies of 
 English poets from Cowley to Gray, including Milton, Dryden, 
 Pope, Addison, and Swift. His tragedy of Irene (1749), although 
 it had the support of Garrick, was withdrawn from the stage after a 
 run of only nine days. His story of Rasselas, written under stress 
 of poverty, to obtain funds for the burial of his mother, relates how 
 Prince Rasselas was confined in a valley in Abyssinia, called " The 
 Happy Valley," in order to remove him from any possible share in 
 the miseries that swarm in the world. The " ingenious philoso- 
 pher " referred to by Macaulay in H 26 proposed to aid Rasselas to 
 escape by means of a flying machine, but his first attempts to 
 demonstrate the art of flying proved a disastrous failure. 
 
 Jonson, Ben (1573-1637) , was, next to Shakespeare, the greatest drama- 
 tist of the age of Elizabeth and James I. His dramas depict strik- 
 ing types of character, The Alchemist, Sejanns, Catiline. 
 
 Juvenal (55 ?-i35 ? A.D.) : author of sixteen Latin Satires, which depict 
 for us the manners and morals of the early Roman Empire. They 
 have been the subject of translation and imitation by many English 
 authors, including Dryden and Johnson. 
 
 Kensington : the district of London west of the old City and north of 
 Westminster. 
 
 Kneller, Sir Godfrey (1648-1723), court painter to Charles II., was 
 
 
144 INDEX. 
 
 knighted by William III. He painted the portraits of nine sover- 
 eigns, including all the English sovereigns from Charles II. to 
 George I., and those of many members of the Kit Cat Club {g.v.). 
 He was the subject of an adulatory poem by Addison. 
 
 Leicester Square : the site of the house occupied by Sir Joshua Rey- 
 nolds from 1760 to the end of his life in 1792. {See map, p. 124.) 
 
 Lessing (1729-1781), a German critic and dramatist, first won fame by 
 his Vindications, critical writings intended to stimulate appreciation 
 of unjustly maligned or forgotten writers. He aided in developing 
 a new critical journal, the Litter aturbrie/e, in which he aims to lead 
 a revolt against conventional standards of taste in literature. 
 
 Ligurian Coast : the coast of Genoa. 
 
 Livy (59 P..C.-17 A.D.) : the author of a History of Rome, distinguished 
 by its vivid, graphic treatment of historical episodes, such as that of 
 Hannibal's invasion of Italy (in Bk. XXI). 
 
 Lucan (39-65 A.D.) : the nephew of Seneca and of " Gallio " (q.v. ) ; and 
 the author of Pharsalia, or De Bello Civile, an epic poem treating 
 of the struggle between Pompey and Julius Caesar. 
 
 Lucian (120-200 A.D) : a Greek satirical writer. His Aitctioyi of Lives 
 is a lively skit on philosophy, depicting an attempt of Zeus to sell 
 representative philosophers of different sects at auction. 
 
 Lucretius (95-51 B.C.) : the author of a Latin poem in six books 
 entitled De Rcrum Natures, containing religious and scientific 
 speculations in regard to the origin and nature of the universe, 
 which were far in advance of the common belief of his time. 
 
 Lycia : a province in the southwestern part of Asia Minor. Its warriors, 
 led by Sarpedon, aided the Trojans during the Siege of Troy. 
 
 Lycidas; a name meaning "white" or " pure-souled," applied by 
 Milton to his friend Edward King in his elegy on the latter's death 
 by drowning in the Irish Sea. 
 
 Machiavelli (1469-1527) : an Italian statesman, author ot a treatise 
 called the Prince, on statecraft as it was conceived in the Mid- 
 dle Ages. The method advocated in this famous treatise is so 
 repugnant 10 modern ethical ideas, that the author's name has 
 become a synonym for an unscrupulous and crafty politician. 
 
 Mackintosh, Sir James (1765-1832) : author of a History of the Revo- 
 lution of 1688. 
 
 Macready, William Charles (1793-1873) : an illustrious actor of Shake- 
 spearean characters, at one time manager of Drury Lane Theatre. 
 
 Malbranche, Nicolas (1638-1715) : a French philosopher, author of 
 De la Recherche de la Verite. He taught that " Human souls exist 
 in God as their bodies exist in space," that " God is the cause of 
 all changes that take place in the universe," and that " We see all 
 things in God." Thus his mysticism is far removed from the 
 rationalism that characterizes the philosophy of Hobbes and Hume. 
 
INDEX. 145 
 
 Malmsbury: a parliamentary borough in Northern Wiltshire. When 
 Addison represented this borough he was living in London. 
 
 Mamelukes : Egyptian cavalry forces subject to the Sultan of Turkey, 
 that fought under Mourad Bey, the Turkish commander against 
 Napoleon Bonaparte in his Egyptian campaign of 1798. 
 
 Manchester, Charles Montague, Earl and Duke of (died, 1722) : a 
 Whig statesman, prominent as a diplomatist in the embassies of 
 Venice, Paris, and Vienna. In 1719 he was created Duke of Man- 
 chester for his services in securing the Hanoverian succession. 
 
 Manilius : a poet of the Augustan age, author of the Astronomicon. 
 
 Marlborough, John Churchill, Duke of (1650-1722) : began his 
 career as a page in the service of James, Duke of York. By his 
 pleasing personality and his mental ability, unhampered by any 
 high ethical standard, he rose to high positions of honor and trust 
 in the army and the state. He was raised to the peerage by James 
 (now King James II.), and was appointed General of the forces 
 detailed to defend the king against William of Orange in 1688. 
 Churchill, however, abandoned the cause of the Stuarts, and was 
 rewarded by William with the title of Earl of Marlborough. 
 
 Churchill had married a court beauty named Sarah Jennings, an 
 intimate friend of James's daughter Anne. On the accession of 
 Anne to the throne the Earl and his Lady became virtual rulers of 
 the kingdom. At home Marlborough dictated the policy of his 
 son-in-law, Godolphin, the ostensible Prime Minister; abroad, as 
 commander-in-chief of the English forces in the War of the 
 Spanish Succession, he was equally supreme: while Lady Marl- 
 borough, as Mistress of the Robes, Keeper of the Privy Purse, 
 and confidential adviser of the Queen, was the dominant power 
 at Court. 
 
 Marlborough's brilliant and successful campaigns on the Danube 
 and in Flanders, marked by the victories of Blenheim, Ramillies, 
 Oudenarde, and Malplaquet, crushed the French defence, ultimately 
 forcing the Peace of Utrecht, and won for him the highest honor, the 
 title of Duke of Marlborough. But the Queen had meanwhile 
 grown weary of being dominated by Sarah Jennings, whose most 
 prominent traits were her imperious disposition and her pugnacity. 
 Through the intrigues of Harley (q.v.) the Tories once more forced 
 their way into power. Godolphin and Sunderland were dismissed 
 in 1712 (see H 91) and the enemies of Marlborough secured his 
 impeachment on the charge of having embezzled funds entrusted 
 to him for the prosecution of the war. He was in disgrace until 
 the accession of George I., when he was again made commander- 
 in-chief of the army. He died of apoplexy in 1722. 
 Marli : a village five miles north of Versailles. 
 Martial (last of the ^.rst century) : a brilliant Latin epigrammatist and 
 
146 INDEX. 
 
 lyric poet, author of more than a thousand witty and polished epi- 
 grams on manners, persons, and incidents of his time. 
 
 Marvel, Andrew (1621-1678), was an intimate friend of Milton, and 
 served as bis assistant in the Latin Secretaryship. He wrote some 
 noble and beautiful poems, notably his Horatian Ode on Cromwell's 
 return from Ireland. 
 
 Massillon (1663-1742) : a French ecclesiastic, preacher to Louis XV., 
 distinguished for the eloquence and persuasive force of his sermons. 
 
 Medici, Lorenzo di (1448-1492) : a Florentine banker, and virtual ruler 
 of Tuscany , patron of art, letters, and sciences. 
 
 Menander (342-290 B.C.) : the author of one hundred comedies, of 
 which only fragments remain. External evidences indicate that his 
 works, like Addison's, appealed to a cultivated sense of humor. 
 
 Mephistophiles : the leading character in Goethe's Faust (q.v.). 
 
 Metamorphoses : the chief poetical work of the Latin poet, Publius 
 Ovidius Xaso ("Ovid," B.C. 43-A.D. 18). It consists of a collection 
 of mythological fables in fifteen books, narrating various transforma- 
 tions undergone by the world and its inhabitants through the inter- 
 vention of the gods. 
 
 Milan, the second in size of Italian cities, contains the third largest 
 cathedral in the world, a Gothic building constructed entirely of 
 marble, and covered with the most elaborate ornamentation. Its 
 exterior is adorned with six thousand statues. 
 
 Misenus : the trumpeter of the fleet of .Eneas. The .-Eiicid, VI., 162, 
 describes how a Triton, jealous of his music, dragged him from 
 a rock and plunged him to his death in the waves. 
 
 Mohocks or Mohawks : a club of dissolute young men, organized in 
 London in 1711. Its members found amusement in outrages upon 
 persons who went abroad in the streets at night. (See A, H 147.) 
 
 Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley (1690-1762) : a wit, woman of letters, 
 and society leader of the eighteenth century ; friend of Addison and, 
 until their fierce quarrel (see A,U 142), of Pope. The lampoon re- 
 ferred to in the passage indicated above, charges her (under the 
 name of Sappho) with slovenliness of dress and person. 
 
 Newdigate Prize : a prize given at Oxford University for the best 
 original production in English verse. To win it is now esteemed a 
 great honor, since the victor's name is enrolled with those of Heber, 
 Faber, Arthur Stanley, Ruskin, Shairp, Matthew Arnold, etc. 
 
 Newmarket : an English town famous for its racing course, where 
 seven important races are held annually. 
 
 Newton, Sir Isaac (1642-1727), the world's most profound and original 
 scientific investigator, was also one of the most gifted mathemati- 
 cians in an age of great mathematicians. He was Professor of 
 Mathematics in Cambridge University, and President of the Royal 
 Society. 
 
INDEX. 147 
 
 North, Frederick Lord (1732-1792) : the minister who, by his subser- 
 vient attitude toward the narrow-minded king, George III., and by 
 his consequent arbitrary attitude toward the American colonists, 
 was chiefly responsible for the defection of the thirteen colonies 
 that formed the United States. 
 
 Nottingham, Daniel Finch, 2d Earl of (1647-1730) : as representa- 
 tive of the Tory party, he was Secretary of State under William 
 III. in 1689, was displaced by a Whig in 1694, and having been re- 
 appointed by Anne in 1702, was again dismissed when the Whig 
 influence began to gain the ascendency in 1704. 
 
 Oldham, John (1653-1683): a satirist contemporary with Dryden, 
 author of four satires against the Order of Jesuits. 
 
 Orleans, Philippe, Duke of (1674-1723), was the Regent of France 
 dining the minority of King Louis XV. (1715-1723). Because' of 
 his early training in vice under the tutelage of the unscrupulous 
 Dubois {q.v.), he led a life of debauchery, but was a patron of the 
 fine arts, and a popular ruler. 
 
 Paestum, situated about forty miles southeast of Naples, was a flourish- 
 ing city in the fifth century before Christ. It contained no less than 
 three temples, of which only ruins now remain. 
 
 Palmerston, Henry Temple, Viscount (1784-1865) : a leading Brit- 
 ish statesman of this century, who exhibited preeminent abilities in 
 the direction of the department of Foreign Affairs. He was twice 
 made Prime Minister in 1855-1858 and in 1859-1865. At the time 
 the Essay on Addison was published, 1843, Palmerston had already 
 guided the nation through the difficulties created by revolutions in 
 France, Belgium, Spain, and Portugal. 
 
 Pantheon: a Roman temple built by the Emperor Agrippa in 27 B.C., 
 and originally dedicated to all the gods. It was rebuilt in 610 A.D., 
 and was converted into a Christian church. It is notable as being 
 the only perfectly preserved ancient building in Rome. 
 
 Farnell, Thomas (1679-1717) : a friend of Harley, Swift, and Pope. 
 He assisted Pope in the translation of Homer's works, and com- 
 posed the introductory memoir of Homer for the translation of the 
 Iliad. His own productions include The Hermit, Night, Piece on 
 Death, The Queens Peace ( = the Treaty of Utrecht), The Battle of 
 the Progs and Mice (from Homer), and Biblical poems. 
 
 Paul Pry : The name of the chief character in a drama written by John 
 Poole (1792-1879), first produced at the Hay market in 1825, and 
 thereafter very popular. Pry is an idle, inquisitive fellow, always 
 meddling with the affairs of other people. 
 
 Peel, Sir Rohert (1788-1850) : a prominent financier and statesman, 
 twice Prime Minister of England. 
 
 Petrarch (1304-1374) : an Italian poet and historian of high rank. His 
 compositions of most abiding interest are a series of love poems 
 
148 INDEX. 
 
 (sonnets and songs) addressed to " Laura," on whom he has con- 
 ferred an immortality only less secure than that conferred by Dante 
 upon " Beatrice" in the Divine Comedy. 
 
 Philips, John (1676-1708), whom his monument in Westminster 
 Abbey calls a second Milton, composed three popular poems. 
 The Splendid Shilling was an imitation of Milton's Paradise Lost, 
 Cider an imitation of Virgil's Georgics {q.v.), and Blenheim a rival 
 of Addison's Campaign. 
 
 Phillipps, Ambrose (1671-1749), was a friend of Addison and Steele. 
 He was the author of six pastorals and several dramas, and was a 
 contributor to the Guardian and the Freethinker. 
 
 Pickwick, Samuel : the leading character in one of Dickens's earliest 
 and most popular novels. 
 
 Pindar, a Greek poet of the fifth century B.C. He is called the 
 "Theban Eagle" because of the soaring imagination and spirit 
 exhibited in his triumphal Odes, the only complete examples of his 
 work extant. 
 
 Plato (427-347 B.C.) : the greatest Athenian philosopher. 
 
 Plutarch (66-120) : the author of a series of Parallel Lives, biograph- 
 ical sketches in Greek, treating of twenty-three Greek and twenty- 
 three Roman public characters. These biographies, because of their 
 historical and literary value, are highly prized by students. 
 
 Pollio (76 B.C. -4 A.D.) : a versatile Roman man of letters and a patron 
 of artists. Among his proteges were Virgil and Horace. 
 
 Polybius (204-122 B.C.) : a Greek historian, who composed a history 
 in forty books, treating of the gradual subjugation of the civilized 
 world by Rome from 200-146 B.C. The work is characterized by 
 fulness of research, accuracy of statement, and sound judgment. 
 
 Pompeii : a city south of Mt. Vesuvius, almost entirely buried by an 
 eruption of ashes from that mountain in the year 79 A.D., and redis- 
 covered and excavated by degrees during the last two centuries. 
 
 Pompignan, Franc de (1709-1784) : a French philosopher who, having 
 been elected to the French Academy, gave so much offence to the 
 members that, with the aid of Voltaire's sarcasms, they drove him 
 into retirement at a distance from Paris. 
 
 Pope, Alexander (1688-1744) : the -leading poet of the age of Queen 
 Anne, and with Dryden the most brilliant of English satirists. His 
 character exhibited a curious compound of the most brilliant intel- 
 lectual gifts with so much vanity and ill nature as to lessen the 
 pleasure derived from those gifts both by himself and by his readers. 
 He was an acknowledged master of the technique of poetical com- 
 position ; he composed didactic, reflective, satirical, and sportive 
 verse that won the applause of the literary world ; the translations 
 from Homer earned him a competence, yet he was never happy, 
 because always involved in a quarrel with erstwhile friends. 
 
INDEX. 149 
 
 Of the works mentioned by Macaulay, the Essay on Criticism, 
 written in his twentieth year, was a masterly handling of a theme 
 (rules of poetic composition and criticism) already well treated by 
 Horace (q.v.) and Boileau {q.v.). It is in the form of a treatise in 
 three parts, written in the heroic couplet. The Rape of the Lock is 
 described on p. 119, in the note on 81, n. 
 
 Posilipo : a mountain northwest of Naples, remarkable for its tunnel, 
 755 yards in length, which was excavated probably before the 
 Christian era, but according to local tradition was constructed by 
 the poet Virgil through his magic arts. A portion of it bears the 
 name of " Virgil's Tomb." 
 
 Prior, Matthew (1664-1721) : a man of humble birth, who through 
 talent and patronage was enabled to become a diplomatist of some 
 note. He had a share in most of the important foreign transactions 
 of William II. and Anne; was a friend of Halifax {q.v.), jersey 
 {q.v.), and Haiiev. He was a writer of many rhymed fables, and 
 of much society verse, all popular but ephemeral. 
 
 Prudentius (348-405) : the author of some early Christian poems in 
 the Latin language. 
 
 Puck : a character in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, who 
 exercises his supernatural powers in making sportive mischief 
 among the lovers and clowns of the play. 
 
 Pulteney, William, Earl of Bath (1682-1764), was originally a 
 co-worker with Walpole (q.v.), but conceiving that he was 
 ignored by the latter, he put himself at the head of a group of 
 rebellious Whigs who called themselves "The Patriots." {See Int., 
 p. xxvii.) 
 
 Rabbinical Literature was the work of Jewish expounders of the Law 
 of Moses, and contained many mystical doctrines. 
 
 Racine, Jean (1639-1699) : the greatest French tragic dramatist. 
 During his somewhat dissipated earlier career his efforts were con- 
 fined almost entirely to the dramatic treatment of historical char- 
 acters {Mithridate, Ephigenie, I 'hear e). With increasing years he 
 became more earnest, and his later subjects were taken from sacred 
 history (Esther, Athalie, Cantiques Spirituelles) . 
 
 Raleigh, Sir Walter (1552-1618) : an English courtier, adventurer, 
 and writer of the Elizabethan Age. 
 
 Ravenna : a city of Northeastern Italy, the scene of an apparition 
 of a " Spectre Horseman," as described by Boccaccio. 
 
 Reynolds, Sir Joshua (1723-1792), was a celebrated portrait painter, 
 the first president of the " Royal Academy of Painting," and the 
 founder of the celebrated club which included Samuel Johnson and 
 Boswell, Burke, Goldsmith, and Garrick. 
 
 Rhaetian Alps : that portion of the Alpine range which separates 
 Lombardy from Eastern Switzerland. 
 
150 INDEX. 
 
 Richardson, Samuel (1689-1761), the first English novelist, was a 
 journeyman printer in early life, and later a master-printer and 
 publisher. It was only when he was fifty-one years old that he 
 wrote Pamela, the first of the series of three novels that won him 
 fame and the title of " Creator of the English Novel." 
 
 Kimini: a city of Italy on the upper Adriatic. The story of the un- 
 happy love of Francesca de Rimini for the noble brother of her 
 brutal husband, and of the punishment of their sin, forms the best- 
 known single episode in Dante's Divine Comedy. 
 
 Robertson, Rev. William (1721-1793) : Royal Historiographer of 
 Scotland ; author of an able History of Scotland, a History 0/ Amer- 
 ica, and a History of the Reign of Charles V., which won warm 
 praise from critics like Hume, Walpole, and Lord Chesterfield. 
 
 Rochester, John Wilmot, Earl of (1647-1680) : a witty, dissolute 
 courtier, a favorite of King Charles II.; author of many verses, but 
 of no poetry. 
 
 Rosicrucians : a secret society dating from the fourteenth century, whose 
 members professed to be adepts at magic arts, and to possess the 
 power to control the deities (sylphs, gnomes, fays) which reside in 
 the elements (earth, air, water, fire). 
 
 Rowe, Nicholas (1674-1718) : Poet Laureate to George I. ; author of 
 Tamerlane, fane Grey, and other tragrdies. 
 
 Rubicon : the stream which separated the Gallic province governed by 
 Julius Caesar in 49 K.C. from* Roman territory. Plutarch, in his 
 Life of Ccesar, and Lucan, in his Pharsalia, mention how Caesar 
 hesitated on the northern bank before crossing to contest with 
 Pompey the supremacy at Rome. Caesar, in his autobiographical 
 Commentaries, does not mention the act. 
 
 Russell, House of: a noble English family, dating from the Norman 
 Conquest. It has given to the state many of its notable public 
 servants. Among these are the first Duke of Bedford, Edward 
 Russell, Admiral of the English Navy, and also 
 
 Russell, Lord John (1792-1878): the statesman who, by his bill pro- 
 viding for changes in boroughs to secure more equitable division 
 of representation in England {see Int., p. xxviii), brought about 
 the most notable advance of this century in English political con- 
 ditions. He was Prime Minister from 1841 to 1846. 
 
 Rutulians : a people inhabiting the coast of Italy, whose defeat by 
 ^Eneas upon his arrival there is described in Virgil's .-Eneid. 
 
 St. James : a palace situated on the street called Pall Mall in London, 
 occupied by the monarchs of England since the time of Henry VIII. 
 Hence the name " St. James's" has become a common expression 
 for the " Court of Great Britain." 
 
 St. John : see Bolingbroke. 
 
 St. Peter's : a cathedral at Rome, the largest Christian church edifice 
 
INDEX. 151 
 
 in the world, constructed and adorned by Bramante, Michael An- 
 gelo, and Raphael. 
 
 Salvator Rosa (1615-1673) : an Italian painter of landscapes, gener- 
 ally of a wild, savage type, and also of historical pictures. 
 
 Sannazaro (1458-1530) : an Italian poet of the Renaissance, who owes 
 his reputation to his Italian pastoral medley of prose and verse, 
 called the Arcadia, and to some Latin lyrics. 
 
 Santa Croce : a church edifice in Florence, which contains monuments 
 of Dante, Gallio, Machiavelli, Michael Angelo, Alfieri, etc. 
 
 Saul : a tragedy based on Scripture history, by Alfieri {g.v.). 
 
 Savage, Richard (1697-1743) : a dissolute and impecunious poet of 
 small talents, a friend of Aaron Hill, of Pope, and of Samuel Johnson. 
 
 Savoy : formerly a state lying between the Rhone and the Alps, south 
 of Switzerland. Its rulers shrewdly made use of their geographi- 
 cal position to increase their importance in European politics by 
 throwing their influence on the side of France, Germany, or Spain, 
 as their immediate interests dictated. 
 
 Scherezade : the wife of the Sultan of the Indies, who relates to him 
 the tales called the Arabian Nights' Entertainments. 
 
 Schiller (1759-1805) : a German dramatist and poet. His master- 
 pieces, dealing mainly with historical characters, include William 
 Tell, three dramas on the life of Wallenstein, and Mary Stuart. 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter (1771-1832), was probably the most popular English 
 novelist that ever lived, in point of the number of his works that 
 reached celebrity and the extensive sales which they commanded. 
 
 Seals : to acquire validity, public documents in England must receive 
 an impression from one of several " seals," according to their char- 
 acter. (The conditions hereafter explained prevailed in the seven- 
 teenth century.) The Great Seal (employed as the emblem of 
 royalty on the Sovereign's proclamations summoning and pro- 
 roguing Parliament, etc.) was always placed in charge of the Lord 
 Chancellor, or of a special officer called the Lord Keeper of the 
 Great Seal. It could not be used on any document that had not 
 already received the Privy Seal. Thus the Privy Seal served as a 
 check upon the action of the Chancellor. This seal, which was in 
 charge of the officer called the Lord Privy Seal, was also used to 
 render valid all minor state documents, these having already been 
 certified by minor officers with the Signet Seals. 1 
 
 Seatonian Prize : a prize awarded annually at Cambridge University, 
 England, for the best poem on a religious subject. 
 
 Shaw. " Lifeguardsman Shaw " was a pugilist of giant frame, who 
 entered the army and won celebrity at the battle of Waterloo. 
 
 Sheridan, Richard Brinsley (1751-1816) : author of exceedingly 
 
 1 The Privy Seal is now used only on minor documents, such as grants from 
 the Crown (called " Letters Patent"). 
 
152 INDEX. 
 
 popular comedies, e.g. The Rivals, The Duenna, The School for 
 Scandal. 
 
 Shrewsbury, Charles Talbot, Duke of (1660-1718), was a leading 
 statesman during the reign of William III., Anne, and George I. 
 He played a prominent part in securing the accession of the Hano- 
 verians, and was made Lord High Treasurer by George I. 
 
 Sidonius Apollinaris (430-483 a.d.) : a churchman, and author of 
 pretentious Latin poems in twenty-four books. v . 
 
 Silius Italicus (25-101 A.D.) : author of an uninspired Latin poem, 
 Tunica, in seventeen books, dreary and prolonged. It treats of 
 the careers of Hannibal, Scipio, and other heroes of the Punjc 
 wars. 
 
 Smalridge, George D. (1663-1719) : Bishop of Bristol, an eloquent 
 pulpit orator. 
 
 Smollett, Tobias (1721-1771), completes, with Richardson and Field- 
 ing {g.v.), the trio of great novelists of the generation that saw the 
 birth of that type of literature. His chief works are Roderick Ran- 
 dom and Humphrey Clinker. 
 
 Somers, John, Lord Somers (1652-1716), was the leader, official or un- 
 official, of the Whig party during the reigns of William I II. and Anne. 
 Indeed, he was a leader in the events that gave rise to that party, for 
 he acted as counsel for the defence in the trial of the seven bishops 
 {see Int., p. xviii), and was chairman of the committee appointed to 
 frame the immortal Declaration of Rights {ibid.). He was appointed 
 Attorney General, then Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, {see Seals) 
 and later Lord High Chancellor, by William III. His impeachment 
 by his Tory enemies, in 1701, although unsuccessful, forced him 
 thereafter to maintain a subordinate position until his death, except 
 during the two years of Whig supremacy (1708-1710), when he 
 was Lord President of the Council. 
 
 Somerset, Charles Seymour, Duke of (1661-1748) : known as the 
 " Proud Duke. of Somerset," because of his haughty bearing and 
 ostentatious mode of living. The Seymour family has given to 
 England a queen and a regent of the kingdom, and its members 
 have intermarried with many persons of the blood royal. 
 
 Somerville, William (1767-1855) : author of a long poem called The 
 Chase. 
 
 Sophocles (496-405 B.C.) : a tragic poet of Athens, the rival of /Eschylus 
 {g.v.) ; author of Antigone, Ajax, CEdipus Tyrannus, and other 
 plays, all notable for their mastery over dramatic situations, their 
 character delineation, and their pathos. 
 
 Spence, Joseph (1699-1768) : Professor of Poetry and of History in 
 Oxford University, a friend of Pope and Walpole. At his death 
 he left a collection of anecdotes of the celebrities that he had 
 known. 
 
INDEX. 153 
 
 Sporus : a name applied by Pope, in the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot (1735), 
 to Lord John Hervey, the husband of one of Pope's friends, whom 
 he attacked repeatedly in his various satires. 
 
 Spring Garden : the name of a pleasure resort of the early Stuart 
 monarchs, adjoining their palace of Whitehall, containing bathing 
 ponds, archery butts, a pheasant yard, and a bowling green. Aft t 
 the Restoration this resort was abolished and the name was trans- 
 ferred to a new garden which was opened at Vauxhall. 
 
 Statius (45-96 A.D.) : a Roman court poet, author of a tedious epic 
 poem in twelve books, the Thebais, based on an episode in the his- 
 tory of Thebes, and also of numerous lyric poems of more merit. 
 
 Steele, Sir Kichard (1672-1729), was the son of an attorney in Dublin. 
 He was a schoolmate of Addison at the Charterhouse {q.v.), and 
 later entered Christ College, Oxford, but left college after three 
 years to enlist in the Horse Guards. He gained notice from the 
 literary world by the publication of several dramas, was introduced 
 into the Kit Cat Club, became an attendant of Prince George, con- 
 sort of Queen Anne, and was appointed Gazetteer {see Gazette) by 
 Harley in 1707. On the death of the Prince Consort, he lost his 
 public employment, and turned to literature as a profession. In 
 his weekly paper, the Tatter, published under the pretended editor- 
 ship of Isaac Bickerstaff {q.v.) , he created a new literary type, the 
 modern essay. The Tatlcr was succeeded by the Spectator, and 
 that by the Guardian. All these publications owe much of their 
 success to the assistance given to Steele by Addison. The Guardian 
 was followed by the Englishman. Steele entered Parliament in 
 1713, but was expelled by the Tories for alleged seditious utterances 
 in a Whig pamphlet, the Crisis. He returned to political life when 
 the Whigs regained power after Anne's death {see Int., p. xxiv), 
 and also became manager of Drury Lane Theatre. 
 
 Steenkirks : lace neckcloths, arranged with studious disorder, which 
 were worn by the London fops as an emblem of the battle of Steen- 
 kirk, in which the noblemen of the French army, surprised by the 
 troops of William III., rushed into the fray with their dress in all 
 stages of disarray. {See 11 3, and Int., p. xx.) 
 
 Stepney, George (1663-1707) : author of a translation of Juvenal's 
 Satires. 
 
 Streatham : a village about five miles southwest of London, where 
 Samuel Johnson resided with Mr. and Mrs. Thrale for many years, 
 and where Garrick, Reynolds, Burke, etc., were frequent visitors. 
 
 Sunderland, Charles Spencer, Third Earl of (1675-1722) : was the 
 son of the second Earl of Sunderland, a leading statesman of the 
 Revolution, and son-in-law of the Duke of Marlborough. He was 
 an extreme Whig, and was made Secretary of State by Anne dur- 
 ing the period of Whig supremacy from 1706 to 1710. {See p. xxii.) 
 
154 INDEX. 
 
 He returned to office with the Whigs in 17 14. He became first 
 • Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, then Lord Privy Seal, then Secretary 
 of State, with Addison as his colleague, and finally Lord High 
 Treasurer and Prime Minister in 1718. 
 Surface, Joseph : a character in Sheridan's School for Scandal, who by 
 the profession of extreme virtue entirely deceived his friend, Sir Peter 
 Teazle, in regard to his really unscrupulous character. 
 Swift, Jonathan, Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin (1667-1745), was cele- 
 brated as a churchman, politician, and man of letters. His great 
 genius was employed chiefly in a battle against the hard conditions 
 of his life, against the dishonesty and selfishness of the society amid 
 which he moved, and against the political opponents that he hated. 
 He won recognition with his Battle of the Books (a satire on the 
 controversy over the Epistles of Phalaris ; see Boyle, Charles), by 
 his Tale of a Tub (a satire on the controversies of religious sects), 
 and by his practical jest in the Bickerstaff predictions on Partridge, 
 the almanac maker. (See Bickerstaff.) 
 
 He became an intimate friend of Harley, and placed all his liter- 
 ary powers at the disposal of the Tories after their accession to 
 power in 1710. (See p. xxiii.) In their service he edited the Exa??i- 
 iner, published numerous partisan pamphlets, and undoubtedly 
 contributed much to undermine Marlborough's popularity and 
 weaken the war sentiment in England. His only reward was that 
 he was given a poor ecclesiastical office in Dublin, far removed from 
 all the intellectual companionships in London that he esteemed the 
 " ornament of life." In Ireland, as in England, he devoted his ener- 
 gies to the righting of public wrongs, and here, too, he composed 
 that greatest of satires, Gulliver's Travels, in which he attacks the 
 greatest and the meanest vices of mankind in a spirit of bitter indig- 
 nation at the degradation which they disclose in mankind. 
 
 In this romance an Englishman named Lemuel Gulliver visits 
 many strange regions, among them the flying island of Laputa, a 
 country inhabited by a race of philosophers. The natives are so 
 strongly inclined to reflection that they would be wholly oblivious 
 to the outer world were it not for attendants who recall their 
 wandering thoughts by flapping their faces with an inflated bladder. 
 
 It is evident from the above that Swift's habitual temper was a 
 scornful one. He was never married, and seems really to have 
 loved but one woman, his pupil, Hester Johnson, to whom he wrote 
 a series of letters known as the Journal to Stella, containing a 
 minute account of his life in London from 1710-1713. These letters 
 betray the warmest affection, but for reasons at which the world can 
 only guess, Swift never married Stella. Thus, with his social instincts 
 ungratified, his ambitions thwarted, his affections starved, he lived 
 in constantly failing health for thirty years, until insanity clouded his 
 
INDEX. 155 
 
 brain, and a lethargy which had for two years held his body inactive 
 finally culminated in death. 
 
 Talbot, House of: a noble and renowned English family, dating from 
 the time of William the Conqueror. It has given to England a 
 series of twenty Dukes of Shrewsbury, many of them conspicuous 
 for services tendered to the state. (See Shrewsbury.) 
 
 Tallard : the Marshal of France who commanded the French forces at 
 the battle of Blenheim. 
 
 Tangier, the chief seaport of Morocco, was a colonial possession of 
 Portugal until 1662, when it was transferred to Charles II. as a part 
 of the marriage portion of his bride, Catharine of Braganza. 
 
 Tasso, Bernado (1493-1569), father of the illustrious poet Torquato 
 Tasso (see below), was the author of several bombastic, pretentious, 
 extravagant poems, both lyric and epic. 
 
 Tasso, Torquato (1544-1595) : the third in the trio of Italian epic poets 
 of the first rank. (Dante, fourteenth century; Ariosto, fifteenth cen- 
 tury; Tasso, sixteenth century.) His most celebrated works are 
 the pastoral poem of Aminta, and the epic "Jerusalem Delivered. 
 The latter treats of the victories that marked the " First Crusade for 
 the Holy Sepulchre." It was criticised as exhibiting too little his- 
 torical accuracy and too little regard for the conventional rules of 
 epic composition, and as dwelling too much upon profane matters, 
 to the ignoring of the religious side of the crusade. Tasso therefore 
 recast it as Jerusalem Captured. 
 
 Temple, Sir William (1628-1699), was early distinguished as a diplo- 
 matist and an essayist. In his mastery of style he was a forerunner 
 of Addison, being, according to Johnson, the first writer to give 
 cadence to English prose. (See Macaulay's Essay on Sir William 
 Temple.) One of his essays (On Ancient and Modern Learning) , by 
 the attention it called to the Letters of Phalaris, may be said to have 
 occasioned the controversy between Bentley and Boyle (<].v.). 
 
 Terence (193-159 B.C.), was one of the chief Latin comic dramatists, an 
 imitator of Menander (q.v.), and a capital delineator of the idiosyn- 
 crasies of human nature. 
 
 Theocritus (third century B.C.), by the production of his Idylls (i.e. 
 Rural Scenes) , became the creator of the type of pastoral poetry. 
 
 Theobald's : the country seat of Lord Burleigh, the leading minister of 
 Queen Elizabeth, situated thirteen miles north of London. 
 
 Thrale, Mrs. (1741-1821), was the wife of Henry Thrale, a brewer, and 
 an intimate friend of Samuel Johnson. At their home at Streatham 
 Place (q.v.) he lived for sixteen years, during which Mrs. Thrale's 
 softening influence constantly modified for the better his rather 
 rough and crude nature, while her vivacity cheered him in his 
 periods of gloom. After her husband's death and her marriage to 
 a musiciar named Piozzi, her intimacy with Johnson ceased. 
 
156 INDEX. 
 
 " Thundering Legion " : this was the twelfth legion of the army of 
 Marcus Aurelius in his campaign against the barbarous tribes 
 about the Danube in 174 A.D. Eusebius relates that this legion, in 
 a battle against the Quadi, was saved from destruction by a thunder 
 storm sent by God in direct answer to prayer, which checked the 
 onslaughts of the heathen. 
 
 Tickell, Thomas (16S6-1740J : a poet of indifferent abilities, known 
 chiefly because of his friendship with Addison. His translation of 
 the first book of Iliad was the occasion of Pope's famous outburst 
 of spleen against Addison. (See Essay on Addison, H 133 to 136.) 
 
 Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury (1630-1694) : the best preacher 
 of his age, and a man of remarkable saintliness of character. 
 
 Townshend, Charles (1674-1738)^ prominent English statesman, was 
 a follower of Lord Somers (q.v.) in political matters. He held 
 minor offices while the Whigs were in power during the reign of 
 Anne, and shared their downfall in 1712, returning to power with 
 them under the Hanoverians. He was the first Secretary of State 
 under George I., but was dismissed in 1716, when Addison super- 
 seded him. (See Int., p. xxv.) After another period of power (1721- 
 1730) he retired to private life, leaving to his brother-in-law, Wal- 
 pole, the leadership of the Whig party. 
 
 "Universities : the great English universities are composed of a num- 
 ber of colleges, each of which constitutes a separately endowed and 
 self-governed corporation. A student who is entered at one of the 
 colleges becomes thereby a member of the university. The col- 
 leges exist for the purpose of giving instruction and furnishing lodg- 
 ings and board to students, while the university has the sole power 
 of granting degrees. The different colleges acquire a reputation 
 for one special line of work, as Magdalene for Latin. 
 
 A college corporation consists of a president, a group of fellows 
 (or associated members), and a group of scholars. The fellows 
 form a board of government and instruction, having power to elect 
 a president and to fill vacancies in their own number by electing 
 persons of marked ability and scholarly attainments who have re- 
 ceived the degree of Master of Arts. The scholars are persons who 
 have not yet attained to that degree, but are supposed to be in line 
 of advancement to fellowships. Both fellows and scholars draw 
 from the college revenues a fixed annual stipend for their support, 
 and the endowments were originally made with the intention of 
 providing education and support for students who were to enter 
 the service of the church, or to become members of the teaching 
 staff of the college. Students who lived at their own expense 
 rather than at that of the college were called " Gentlemen Com- 
 moners." At Magdalene College provision was originally made 
 for a number of demi-scholars, who were to bear half the cost of 
 
INDEX. i 57 
 
 their board, but later the name Demies came to be applied to the 
 entire body of scholars. 
 
 Valerius Flaccus: a mediocre Roman poet of the first century A.D., 
 author of an epic poem called the Argonautica. 
 
 Vanbrugh, Sir John (1666-1726) : a writer of brilliant but coarse 
 plays. 
 
 Vatican: the residence of the Pope, at Rome, and the largest palace in 
 the world. It is an enormous building, containing libraries, picture 
 galleries, museums of antiquities and of sculpture. The latter con- 
 tain among other noted pieces of sculpture, the Apollo Belvidere 
 and the Antinous, probably the most beautiful statues in the world. 
 
 Versailles : The town of Versailles, eleven miles southwest of Paris, 
 contains the palace built by King Louis XIV., at a cost of fifty mill- 
 ion dollars. During his reign and that of his dissolute successor, 
 Louis XV., it was the usual residence of the court. 
 
 Vico (1668-1744) : an Italian philosopher and teacher. In 1697 he 
 became Professor of Rhetoric at Naples, and later was made Court 
 Historian. He was the first distinctly philosophical historian. 
 
 Vida (1485-1566) : an Italian ecclesiastic, and author of many Latin 
 poems characterized by grace and smoothness of movement. 
 
 Virgil (70-19 B.C.): the greatest Latin poet; author of the sEneid, 
 one of the few epic poems of the first rank. The reading of this 
 and of Virgil's Eclogues and Georgics has always formed part of 
 the training of English students of the classics. 
 
 Voltaire (1694-1778), historian, philosopher, dramatist, essayist, was 
 the most brilliant of all French men of letters. Living in a time 
 of great corruption in Church and State, he devoted much of his 
 energy to satires, casting ridicule and odium upon all classes and 
 conditions that fell under his disapproval. 
 
 Walcheren : an island at the mouth of the Scheldt. In 1809 a British 
 fleet, bearing 41,000 soldiers, was despatched to capture the fortified 
 town of Antwerp on the Scheldt, held by 2,000 of Napoleon's sol- 
 diers. But the delay of the British commander permitted the 
 garrison in Antwerp to be reenforced, and he was ultimately com- 
 pelled to abandon the project, leaving 15,000 men to garrison 
 Walcheren. After one-half of these had perished as a result of the 
 unhealthful climate, the rest were also withdrawn, and the affair 
 constitutes a fiasco second to none in military annals. 
 
 Walpole, Horace (1717-1797), son of Robert Walpole {q.v.), not 
 only was the author of many light essays, novels, and poems, but 
 was also an assiduous writer of letters, of which he left over 2500. 
 
 Walpole, Robert, Lord Orford (1676-1745), was the greatest Whig 
 statesman of his time. He was Secretary, first of War, and then of 
 the Navy, under Anne, but was disgraced by the triumphant Tories 
 in 1712. His power under the Hanoverian monarchs, at first weak, 
 
158 INDEX. 
 
 
 rapidly approached absolutism, although lie had such antagonists 
 as Bolingbroke and Swift to combat. He was at various times a 
 Privy Councillor, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Paymaster General, 
 and Lord Treasurer. Finding his influence waning as Pitt forced 
 himself into notice, Walpole resigned his offices in 1742, accepted 
 a peerage, and retired to private life. 
 
 Walsh, William (1663-1709) : an English political worker and writer 
 of amatory verse ; a friend of Dryden and a patron of Pope. 
 
 Warburton, William, Bishop of Gloucester (1698-1779) : an Eng- 
 lish clergyman celebrated for his friendship with Pope (who made 
 him his literary executor), and for his absurd pretensions to erudi- 
 tion and profound philosophy in his published works. His works 
 were published by his ardent admirer, Hurd, Bishop of Worcester. 
 
 Warwick : The modern earldom of Warwick was originally held by 
 many families of note in England, including the Beauchamps, 
 Nevilles, Plantagenets, Dudleys, Riches, and Brookes. 
 
 Westminster Abbey (church) was founded by King Edward the Con- 
 fessor, "St. Edward," in 1269, and enlarged by successive mon- 
 archs. It is the burial place of thirteen kings (including the 
 Stuarts, the later Plantagenets, the first Tudor), and of many poets, 
 scholars, and statesmen. The lady chapel, built in honor of King 
 Henry VII. by his son Henry VIII., is perhaps the most ornate 
 apartment in the cathedral. 
 
 Westmoreland, Lord (1759-1841), an extreme Tory, was a member 
 of Pitt's Tory cabinet from 1804 to 1827. By that year the growing 
 Whig sentiment had made his retention in office impossible. 
 
 Wharton, Thomas, Marquis of (1640-1714), was a leading Whig 
 statesman of the Revolution, a co-worker with Somers, Halifax, and 
 Sunderland. Macaulay's strictures upon his personal character 
 are unwarrantably severe. His services to the state were not small, 
 and his patronage of Addison deserves commendation. 
 
 White Staff: the symbol of the office of Lord High Treasurer. 
 
 Wieland (1733-1813) : a German writer of religious poetry, of ro- 
 mances, and of miscellaneous works, all characterized by elegance 
 and heauty of treatment. 
 
 Wycherley, William (1640-1715) : one of the most brilliant and most 
 corrupt dramatists of the Restoration. 
 
 Young, Edward (1681-1765), author of the celebrated didactic poem, 
 Night Thoughts, produced also many other pretentious composi- 
 tions, all marred by pomposity and grandiloquence. 
 
 Yucatan, the peninsula of Yucatan, discovered in 1517, contains many 
 ruins of prehistoric cities, including temples constructed on such a 
 grand scale that they were for many years supposed to prove 
 that an elaborate civilization formerly must have prevailed there. 
 They are now held to be the ruins of Indian villages. 
 
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