Addison Part 2

When Addison landed in France, in 1699, the power of Louis XIV., so long the determined enemy of the English Revolution of 1688, had pa.s.sed its climax. The Peace of Ryswick, by which the hopes of the Jacobites were finally demolished, was two years old. The king, disappointed in his dreams of boundless military glory, had fallen into a fit of devotion, and Addison, arriving from England with a very imperfect knowledge of the language, was astonished to find the whole of French literature saturated with the royal taste. "As for the state of learning," says he, in a letter to Montague, dated August, 1699, "there is no book comes out at present that has not something in it of an air of devotion. Dacier has bin forced to prove his Plato a very good Christian before he ventures upon his translation, and has so far comply'd with y{e} tast of the age that his whole book is overrun with texts of Scripture, and y{e} notion of prae-existence, supposed to be stolen from two verses of y{e} prophets.

Nay, y{e} humour is grown so universal that it is got among y{e} poets, who are every day publis.h.i.+ng Lives of Saints and Legends in Rhime."

Finding, perhaps, that the conversation at the capital was not very congenial to his taste, he seems to have hurried on to Blois, a town then noted for the purity with which its inhabitants spoke the French language, and where he had determined to make his temporary abode. His only record of his first impressions of Paris is a casual criticism of "y{e} King's Statue that is lately set up in the Place Vendome." He visited, however, both Versailles and Fontainebleau, and the preference which he gives to the latter (in a letter to Congreve) is interesting, as antic.i.p.ating that taste for natural as opposed to artificial beauty which he afterwards expressed in the _Spectator_.

"I don't believe, as good a poet as you are, that you can make finer Lanskips than those about the King's houses, or with all yo{r} descriptions build a more magnificent palace than Versailles. I am, however, so singular as to prefer Fontainebleau to the rest. It is situated among rocks and woods that give you a fine variety of Savage prospects. The King has Humoured the Genius of the place, and only made of so much art as is necessary to Help and regulate Nature, without reforming her too much. The Cascades seem to break through the Clefts and Cracks of Rocks that are covered over with Moss, and look as if they were piled upon one another by Accident. There is an artificial wildness in the Meadows, Walks, and Ca.n.a.ls, and y{e} Garden, instead of a Wall, is Fenced on the Lower End by a Natural Mound of Rock-work that strikes the eye very agreeably. For my part, I think there is something more charming in these rude heaps of Stone than in so many Statues, and wou'd as soon see a River winding through Woods and Meadows as when it is tossed up in such a variety of figures at Versailles."[10]

Here and there, too, his correspondence exhibits traces of that delicate vein of ridicule in which he is without a rival, as in the following inimitable description of Le Brun's paintings at Versailles:

"The painter has represented his most Xtian Majesty under y{e} figure of Jupiter throwing thunderbolts all about the ceiling, and striking terror into y{e} Danube and Rhine, that lie astonished and blasted a little above the Cornice."

Of his life at Blois a very slight sketch has been preserved by the Abbe Philippeaux, one of the many gossipping informants from whom Spence collected his anecdotes:

"Mr. Addison stayed above a year at Blois. He would rise as early as between two and three in summer, and lie abed till between eleven and twelve in the depth of winter. He was untalkative while here, and often thoughtful; sometimes so lost in thought that I have come into his room and have stayed five minutes there before he has known anything of it. He had his masters generally at supper with him, kept very little company beside, and had no amour whilst here that I know of, and I think I should have known it if he had had any."

The following characteristic letter to a gentleman of Blois, with whom he seems to have had an altercation, is interesting as showing the mixture of coolness and dignity, the "blood and judgment well commingled" which Hamlet praised in Horatio, and which are conspicuous in all Addison's actions as well as in his writings:

"Sir,--I am always as slow in making an Enemy as a Friend, and am therefore very ready to come to an Accommodation with you; but as for any satisfaction, I don't think it is due on either side when y{e} Affront is mutual. You know very well that according to y{e} opinion of y{e} world a man would as soon be called a Knave as a Fool, and I believe most people w{d} be rather thought to want Legs than Brains.

But I suppose whatever we said in y{e} heat of discourse is not y{e} real opinion we have of each other, since otherwise you would have scorned to subscribe yourself as I do at present, S{r}, y{r} very, etc.

A. Mons{r} L'Espagnol, Blois, 10{br} 1699."

The length of Addison's sojourn at Blois seems to have been partly caused by the difficulty he experienced, owing to the defectiveness of his memory, in mastering the language. Finding himself at last able to converse easily, he returned to Paris some time in the autumn of 1700, in order to see a little of polite society there before starting on his travels in Italy. He found the best company in the capital among the men of letters, and he makes especial mention of Malebranche, whom he describes as solicitous about the adequate rendering of his works into English; and of Boileau, who, having now survived almost all his literary friends, seems, in his conversation with Addison, to have been even more than usually splenetic in his judgments on his contemporaries. The old poet and critic was, however, propitiated with the present of the _Musae Anglicanae_; and, according to Tickell, said "that he did not question there were excellent compositions in the native language of a country that possessed the Roman genius in so eminent a degree."

In general, Addison's remarks on the French character are not complimentary. He found the vanity of the people so elated by the elevation of the Duke of Anjou to the throne of Spain that they were insupportable, and he felt no reluctance to quit France for Italy. His observations on the national manners, as seen at Blois, are characteristic:

"Truly, by what I have yet seen, they are the Happiest nation in the world. 'Tis not in the pow'r of Want or Slavery to make 'em miserable.

There is nothing to be met with in the Country but Mirth and Poverty.

Ev'ry one sings, laughs, and starves. Their Conversation is generally Agreeable; for if they have any Wit or Sense they are sure to show it.

They never mend upon a Second meeting, but use all the freedom and familiarity at first Sight that a long Intimacy or Abundance of wine can scarce draw from an Englishman. Their Women are perfect Mistresses in this Art of showing themselves to the best Advantage. They are always gay and sprightly, and set off y{e} worst faces in Europe with y{e} best airs. Ev'ry one knows how to give herself as charming a look and posture as S{r} G.o.dfrey Kneller c{d} draw her in."[11]

He embarked from Ma.r.s.eilles for Genoa in December, 1700, having as his companion Edward Wortley Montague, whom Pope satirises under the various names of Shylock, Worldly, and Avidien. It is unnecessary to follow him step by step in his travels, but the reader of his _Letter to Lord Halifax_ may still enjoy the delight and enthusiasm to which he gives utterance on finding himself among the scenes described in his favourite authors:

"Poetic fields encompa.s.s me around, And still I seem to tread on cla.s.sic ground; For here the Muse so oft her harp has strung, That not a mountain rears its head unsung; Renowned in verse each shady thicket grows, And every stream in heavenly numbers flows."[12]

The phrase "cla.s.sic ground," which has become proverbial, is first used in these verses, and, as will have been observed, Pope repeats it with evident reference to the above pa.s.sage in his satire on the travels of the "young aeneas." Addison seems to have carried the Latin poets with him, and his quotations from them are abundant and apposite. When he is driven into the harbour at Monaco, he remembers Lucan's description of its safety and shelter; as he pa.s.ses under Monte Circeo, he feels that Virgil's description of aeneas's voyage by the same spot can never be sufficiently admired; he recalls, as he crosses the Apennines, the fine lines of Claudian recording the march of Honorius from Ravenna to Rome; and he delights to think that at the falls of the Velino he can still see the "angry G.o.ddess" of the _aeneid_ (Alecto) "thus sinking, as it were, in a tempest, and plunging herself into h.e.l.l" amidst such a scene of horror and confusion.

His enthusiastic appreciation of the cla.s.sics, which caused him in judging any work of art to look, in the first place, for regularity of design and simplicity of effect, shows it self characteristically in his remarks on the Lombard and German styles of architecture in Italy. Of Milan Cathedral he speaks without much admiration, but he was impressed with the wonders of the Certosa near Pavia. "I saw," says he, "between Pavia and Milan the convent of the Carthusians, which is very s.p.a.cious and beautiful. Their church is very fine and curiously adorned, _but_ of a Gothic structure."

His most interesting criticism, however, is that on the Duomo at Siena:

"When a man sees the prodigious pains and expense that our forefathers have been at in these barbarous buildings, one cannot but fancy to himself what miracles of architecture they would have left us had they only been instructed in the right way; for, when the devotion of those ages was much warmer than that of the present, and the riches of the people much more at the disposal of the priests, there was so much money consumed on these Gothic cathedrals as would have finished a greater variety of n.o.ble buildings than have been raised either before or since that time. One would wonder to see the vast labour that has been laid out on this single cathedral. The very spouts are loaden with ornaments, the windows are formed like so many scenes of perspective, with a mult.i.tude of little pillars retiring behind one another, the great columns are finely engraven with fruits and foliage, that run twisting about them from the very top to the bottom; the whole body of the church is chequered with different lays of black and white marble, the pavement curiously cut out in designs and Scripture stories, and the front covered with such a variety of figures, and overrun with so many mazes and little labyrinths of sculpture, that nothing in the world can make a prettier show to those who prefer false beauties and _affected ornaments_ to a n.o.ble and majestic simplicity."[13]

Addison had not reached that large liberality in criticism afterwards attained by Sir Joshua Reynolds, who, while insisting that in all art there was but _one_ true style, nevertheless allowed very high merit to what he called the _characteristic_ styles. Sir Joshua would never have fallen into the error of imputing affectation to such simple and honest workmen as the early architects of Northern Italy. The effects of Addison's cla.s.sical training are also very visible in his descriptions of natural scenery. There is in these nothing of that craving melancholy produced by a sense of the infinity of nature which came into vogue after the French Revolution; no projection of the feelings of the spectator into the external scene on which he gazes; nor, on the other hand, is there any attempt to rival the art of the painter by presenting a landscape in words instead of in colours. He looks on nature with the same clear sight as the Greek and Roman writers, and in describing a scene he selects those particulars in it which he thinks best adapted to arouse pleasurable images in the mind of the reader. Take, for instance, the following excellent description of his pa.s.sage over the Apennines:

"The fatigue of our crossing the Apennines, and of our whole journey from Loretto to Rome, was very agreeably relieved by the variety of scenes we pa.s.sed through. For, not to mention the rude prospect of rocks rising one above another, of the deep gutters worn in the sides of them by torrents of rain and snow-water, or the long channels of sand winding about their bottoms that are sometimes filled with so many rivers, we saw in six days' travelling the several seasons of the year in their beauty and perfection. We were sometimes s.h.i.+vering on the top of a bleak mountain, and a little while afterwards basking in a warm valley, covered with violets and almond-trees in blossom, the bees already swarming over them, though but in the month of February.

Sometimes our road led us through groves of olives, or by gardens of oranges, or into several hollow apartments among the rocks and mountains, that look like so many natural greenhouses, as being always shaded with a great variety of trees and shrubs that never lose their verdure."[14]

Though his thoughts during his travels were largely occupied with objects chiefly interesting to his taste and imagination, and though he busied himself with such compositions as the _Epistle from Italy_, the _Dialogue on Medals_, and the first four acts of _Cato_, he did not forget that his experience was intended to qualify him for taking part in the affairs of State. And when he reached Geneva, in December, 1701, the door to a political career seemed to be on the point of opening. He there learned, as Tickell informs us, that he had been selected to attend the army under Prince Eugene as secretary from the King. He accordingly waited in the city for official confirmation of this intelligence; but his hopes were doomed to disappointment. William III. died in March, 1702; Halifax, on whom Addison's prospects chiefly depended, was struck off the Privy Council by Queen Anne; and the travelling pension ceased with the life of the sovereign who had granted it. Henceforth he had to trust to his own resources; and though the loss of his pension does not seem to have compelled him at once to turn homewards, as he continued on his route to Vienna, yet an incident that occurred towards the close of his travels shows that he was prepared to eke out his income by undertaking work that would have been naturally irksome to him.

At Rotterdam, on his return towards England, he met with Jacob Tonson, the bookseller, for whom, as has been said, he had already done some work as a translator. Tonson was one of the founders of the Kit-Kat Club, and in that capacity was brought into frequent and intimate connection with the Whig magnates of the day. Among these was the Duke of Somerset, who, through his wife, then high in Queen Anne's favour, exercised considerable influence on the course of affairs. The Duke required a tutor for his son, Lord Hertford, and Tonson recommended Addison. On the Duke's approval of the recommendation, the bookseller seems to have communicated with Addison, who expressed himself, in general terms, as willing to undertake the charge of Lord Hertford, but desired to know more particulars about his engagement. These were furnished by the Duke in a letter to Tonson, and they are certainly a very curious ill.u.s.tration of the manners of the period. "I ought," says his Grace, "to enter into that affair more freely and more plainly, and tell you what I propose, and what I hope he will comply with--viz., I desire he may be more on the account of a companion in my son's travels than as a governor, and that as such I shall account him: my meaning is, that neither lodging, travelling, nor diet shall cost him sixpence, and over and above that my son shall present him at the year's end with a hundred guineas, as long as he is pleased to continue in that service to my son, by his personal attendance and advice, in what he finds necessary during his time of travelling."

To this not very tempting proposal Addison replied: "I have lately received one or two advantageous offers of y{e} same nature, but as I should be very ambitious of executing any of your Grace's commands, so I can't think of taking y{e} like employ from any other hands. As for y{e} recompense that is proposed to me, I must take the liberty to a.s.sure your Grace that I should not see my account in it, but in y{e} hope that I have to recommend myself to your Grace's favour and approbation." This reply proved highly offensive to the Duke, who seems to have considered his own offer a magnificent one. "Your letter of the 16th," he writes to Tonson, on June 22, 1703, "with one from Mr. Addison, came safe to me. You say he will give me an account of his readiness of complying with my proposal. I will set down his own words, which are thus: 'As for the recompense that is proposed to me, I must confess I can by no means see my account in it,'

etc. All the other parts of his letter are compliments to me, which he thought he was bound in good breeding to write, and as such I have taken them, and no otherwise; and now I leave you to judge how ready he is to comply with my proposal. Therefore, I have wrote by this first post to prevent his coming to England on my account, and have told him plainly that I must look for another, which I cannot be long a-finding."

Addison's princ.i.p.al biographer, Miss Aikin, expresses great contempt for the n.i.g.g.ardliness of the Duke, and says that, "Addison must often have congratulated himself in the sequel on that exertion of proper spirit by which he had escaped from wasting, in an attendance little better than servile, three precious years, which he found means of employing so much more to his own honour and satisfaction, and to the advantage of the public." Mean as the Duke's offer was, it is nevertheless plain that Addison really intended to accept it, and, this being so, he can scarcely be congratulated on having on this occasion displayed his usual tact and felicity. Two courses appear to have been open to him. He might either have simply declined the offer "as not finding his account in it," or he might have accepted it in view of the future advantages which he hoped to derive from the Duke's "favour and approbation;" in which case he should have said nothing about finding the "recompense" proposed insufficient. By the course that he took he contrived to miss an appointment which he seems to have made up his mind to accept, and he offended an influential statesman whose favour he was anxious to secure.

To his pecuniary embarra.s.sments was soon added domestic loss. At Amsterdam he received news of his father's death, and it may be supposed that the private business in which he must have been involved in consequence of this event brought him to England, where he arrived some time in the autumn of 1703.

CHAPTER IV.

HIS EMPLOYMENT IN AFFAIRS OF STATE.

Addison's fortunes were now at their lowest ebb. The party from which he had looked for preferment was out of office; his chief political patron was in particular discredit at Court; his means were so reduced that he was forced to adopt a style of living not much more splendid than that of the poorest inhabitants of Grub Street. Yet within three years of his return to England he was promoted to be an Under-Secretary of State--a post from which he mounted to one position of honour after another till his final retirement from political life. That he was able to take advantage of the opportunity that offered itself was owing to his own genius and capacity; the opportunity was the fruit of circ.u.mstances which had produced an entire revolution in the position of English men of letters.

Through the greater part of Charles II.'s reign the profession of literature was miserably degraded. It is true that the King himself, a man of wit and taste, was not slow in his appreciation of art; but he was by his character insensible to what was serious or elevated, and the poetry of gallantry, which he preferred, was quite within reach of the courtiers by whom he was surrounded. Rochester, Buckingham, Sedley, and Dorset are among the princ.i.p.al poetical names of the period; all of them being well qualified to s.h.i.+ne in verse, the chief requirements of which were a certain grace of manner, an air of fas.h.i.+onable breeding, and a complete disregard of the laws of decency. Besides these "songs by persons of quality," the princ.i.p.al entertainment was provided by the drama. But the stage, seldom a lucrative profession, was then crowded with writers whose fertile, if not very lofty, invention kept down the price of plays. Otway, the most successful dramatist of his time, died in a state of indigence, and as some say, almost of starvation, while playwrights of less ability, if the house was ill-attended on the third night, when the poet received all the profits of the performance, were forced, as Oldham says, "to starve or live in tatters all the year."[15]

Periodical literature, in the shape of journals and magazines, had as yet no existence; nor could the satirical poet or the pamphleteer find his remuneration in controversial writing the strong reaction against Puritanism having raised the monarchy to a position in which it was practically secure against the a.s.saults of all its enemies. The author of the most brilliant satire of the period, who had used all the powers of a rich imagination to discredit the Puritan and Republican cause, was paid with nothing more solid than admiration, and died neglected and in want.

"The wretch, at summing up his misspent days, Found nothing left but poverty and praise!

Of all his gains by verse he could not save Enough to purchase flannel and a grave!

Reduced to want he in due time fell sick, Was fain to die, and be interred on tick; And well might bless the fever that was sent To rid him hence, and his worse fate prevent."[16]

In the latter part of this reign, however, a new combination of circ.u.mstances produced a great change in the character of English literature and in the position of its professors. The struggle of Parties recommenced. Wearied with the intolerable rule of the Saints, the nation had been at first glad to leave its newly-restored King to his pleasures, but, as the memories of the Commonwealth became fainter, the people watched with a growing feeling of disgust the selfishness and extravagance of the Court, while the scandalous sale of Dunkirk and the sight of the Dutch fleet on the Thames made them think of the patriotic energies which Cromwell had succeeded in arousing. At the same time the thinly-disguised inclination of the King to Popery, and the avowed opinions of his brother, raised a general feeling of alarm for the Protestant liberties of the nation. On the other hand, the Puritans, taught moderation by adversity, exhibited the really religious side of their character, and attracted towards themselves a considerable portion of the aristocracy, as well as of the commercial and professional cla.s.ses in the metropolis--a combination of interests which helped to form the nucleus of the Whig party. The clergy and the landed proprietors, who had been the chief sufferers from Parliamentary rule, naturally adhered to the Court, and were nicknamed by their opponents Tories. Violent party conflicts ensued, marked by such incidents as the Test Act, the Exclusion Bill, the intrigues of Monmouth, the Popish Plot, and the trial and acquittal of Shaftesbury on the charge of high treason.

Finding his position no longer so easy as at his restoration, Charles naturally bethought him of calling literature to his a.s.sistance. The stage, being completely under his control, seemed the readiest instrument for his purpose; the order went forth, and an astonis.h.i.+ng display of monarchical fervour in all the chief dramatists of the time--Otway, Dryden, Lee, and Crowne--was the result. Shadwell, who was himself inclined to the Whig interest, laments the change:

"The stage, like old Rump pulpits, is become The scene of News, a furious Party's drum."

But the political influence of the drama and the audience to which it appealed being necessarily limited, the King sought for more powerful literary artillery, and he found it in the serviceable genius of Dryden, whose satirical and controversial poems date from this period. The wide popularity of _Absalom and Achitophel_, written against Monmouth and Shaftesbury; of _The Medal_, satirising the acquittal of Shaftesbury; of _The Hind and Panther_, composed to advance the Romanising projects of James II.; points to the vast influence exercised by literature in the party struggle. Nevertheless, in spite of all that Dryden had done for the Royal cause, in spite of the fact that he himself had more than once appealed to the poet for a.s.sistance, the ingrat.i.tude or levity of Charles was so inveterate that he let the poet's services go almost unrequited.

Dryden, it is true, held the posts of Laureate and Royal Historiographer, but his salary was always in arrears, and the letter which he addressed to Rochester, First Lord of the Treasury, asking for six months' payment of what was due to him, tells its own story.

James II. cared nothing for literature, and was probably too dull of apprehension to understand the incalculable service that Dryden had rendered to his cause. He showed his appreciation of the Poet-Laureate's genius by deducting 100 from the salary which his brother had promised him, and by cutting off from the emoluments of the office the time-honoured b.u.t.t of canary!

Under William III. the complexion of affairs again altered. The Court, in the old sense of the word, ceased to be a paramount influence in literature. William III. derived his authority from Parliament; he knew that he must support it mainly by his sword and his statesmans.h.i.+p. A stranger to England, its manners and its language, he showed little disposition to encourage letters. Pope, indeed, maliciously suggests that he had the bad taste to admire the poetry of Blackmore, whom he knighted; but, as a matter of fact, the honour was conferred on the worthy Sir Richard in consequence of his distinction in medicine, and he himself bears witness to William's contempt for poetry.

"Reverse of Louis he, example rare, Loved to deserve the praise he could not bear.

He shunned the acclamations of the throng, And always coldly heard the poet's song.

Hence the great King the Muses did neglect, And the mere poet met with small respect."[17]

Such political verse as we find in this reign generally consists, like Halifax's _Epistle to Lord Dorset_, or Addison's own _Address to King William_, of hyperbolical flattery. Opposition was extinct, for both parties had for the moment united to promote the Revolution, and the only discordant notes amid the chorus of adulation proceeded from Jacobite writers concealed in the garrets and cellars of Grub Street. Such an atmosphere was not favorable to the production of literature of an elevated or even of a characteristic order.

Addison's return to England coincided most happily with another remarkable turn of the tide. Leaning decidedly to the Tory party, who were now strongly leavened with the Jacobite element, Anne had not long succeeded to the throne before she seized an opportunity for dismissing the Whig Ministry whom she found in possession of office. The Whigs, equally alarmed at the influence acquired by their rivals, and at the danger which threatened the Protestant succession, neglected no effort to counterbalance the loss of their sovereign's favour by strengthening their credit with the people. Having been trained in a school which had at least qualified them to appreciate the influence of style, the aristocratic leaders of the party were well aware of the advantages they would derive by attracting to themselves the services of the ablest writers of the day.

Hence they made it their policy to mingle with men of letters on an equal footing, and to hold out to them an expectation of a share in the advantages to be reaped from the overthrow of their rivals.

The result of this union of forces was a great increase in the number of literary-political clubs. In its half-aristocratic, half-democratic const.i.tution the club was the natural product of enlarged political freedom, and helped to extend the organisation of polite opinion beyond the narrow orbit of Court society. Addison himself, in his simple style, points out the nature of the fundamental principle of a.s.sociation which he observed in operation all around him. "When a set of men find themselves agree in any particular, though never so trivial, they establish themselves into a kind of fraternity, and meet once or twice a week upon the account of such a fantastic resemblance."[18] Among these societies, in the first years of the eighteenth century, the most celebrated was, perhaps, the Kit-Kat Club. It consisted of thirty-nine of the leading men of the Whig party; and, though many of these were of the highest rank, it is a characteristic fact that the founder of the club should have been the bookseller Jacob Tonson. It was probably through his influence, joined to that of Halifax, that Addison was elected a member of the society soon after his return to England. Among its prominent members was the Duke of Somerset, the first meeting between whom and Addison, after the correspondence that had pa.s.sed between them, must have been somewhat embarra.s.sing. The club a.s.sembled at one Christopher Catt's, a pastry-cook, who gave his name both to the society and the mutton-pies which were its ordinary entertainment. Each member was compelled to select a lady as his toast, and the verses which he composed in her honour were engraved on the wine-gla.s.ses belonging to the club. Addison chose the Countess of Manchester, whose acquaintance he had made in Paris, and complimented her in the following lines: