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ed in print, and is indeed excellent in | Church party had a majority in Parits kind. The smoothness with which liament. The country squires and recthe verses glide, and the elasticity with tors, though occasionally uttering a which they bound, is, to our ears at savage growl, were for the most part in least, very pleasing. We are inclined a state of torpor, which lasted till they to think that if Addison had left heroic were roused into activity, and indeed couplets to Pope, and blank verse to into madness, by the prosecution of Rowe, and had employed himself in Sacheverell. Harley and his adherents writing airy and spirited songs, his were compelled to retire. The victory reputation as a poet would have stood of the Whigs was complete. At the far higher than it now does. Some general election of 1708, their strength years after his death, Rosamond was in the House of Commons became irreset to new music by Doctor Arne; and sistible; and, before the end of that was performed with complete success. year, Somers was made Lord President Several passages long retained their po- of the Council, and Wharton Lord pularity, and were daily sung, during the Lieutenant of Ireland. latter part of George the Second's reign, at all the harpsichords in England.

Addison sat for Malmsbury in the House of Commons which was elected While Addison thus amused himself, in 1708. But the House of Commons his prospects, and the prospects of his was not the field for him. The bashparty, were constantly becoming bright- fulness of his nature made his wit and er and brighter. In the spring of 1705, eloquence useless in debate. He once the ministers were freed from the re- rose, but could not overcome his diffistraint imposed by a House of Com-dence, and ever after remained silent. mons, in which Tories of the most Nobody can think it strange that a perverse class had the ascendency. great writer should fail as a speaker. The elections were favourable to the But many, probably, will think it Whigs. The coalition which had been strange that Addison's failure as a tacitly and gradually formed was now speaker should have had no unfavouropenly avowed. The Great Seal was able effect on his success as a politician. given to Cowper. Somers and Halifax In our time, a man of high rank and were sworn of the Council. Halifax great fortune might, though speaking was sent in the following year to carry very little and very ill, hold a conthe decorations of the order of the gar-siderable post. But it would now be ter to the Electoral Prince of Hanover, inconceivable that a mere adventurer, and was accompanied on this honour- a man who, when out of office, must able mission by Addison, who had just live by his pen, should in a few years been made Undersecretary of State. become successively Undersecretary of The Secretary of State under whom State, chief Secretary for Ireland, and Addison first served was Sir Charles Secretary of State, without some oraHedges, a Tory. But Hedges was torical talent. Addison, without high soon dismissed, to make room for the birth, and with little property, rose to most vehement of Whigs, Charles, Earl a post which Dukes, the heads of the of Sunderland. In every department great houses of Talbot, Russell, and of the state, indeed, the High Church- Bentinck, have thought it an honour to men were compelled to give place to fill. Without opening his lips in debate, their opponents. At the close of 1707, he rose to a post, the highest that Chatthe Tories who still remained in office ham or Fox ever reached. And this strove to rally, with Harley at their he did before he had been nine years head. But the attempt, though favoured in Parliament. We must look for the by the Queen, who had always been a explanation of this seeming miracle to Tory at heart, and who had now quar- the peculiar circumstances in which relled with the Duchess of Marlborough, that generation was placed. During was unsuccessful. The time was not yet. the interval which elapsed between the The Captain General was at the height time when the Censorship of the Press of popularity and glory. The Low ceased, and the time when parliamen

tary proceedings began to be freely | lets, and retouched and corrected many reported, literary talents were, to a more. These facts sufficiently show of public man, of much more importance, how great importance literary assistance and oratorical talents of much less im- then was to the contending parties. St. portance, than in our time. At pre- John was, certainly, in Anne's reign, sent, the best way of giving rapid and the best Tory speaker; Cowper was wide publicity to a fact or an argument probably the best Whig speaker. But is to introduce that fact or argument it may well be doubted whether St. into a speech made in Parliament. If John did so much for the Tories as a political tract were to appear superior Swift, and whether Cowper did so much to the Conduct of the Allies, or to the for the Whigs as Addison. When these best numbers of the Freeholder, the things are duly considered, it will not circulation of such a tract would be be thought strange that Addison should languid indeed when compared with have climbed higher in the state than the circulation of every remarkable any other Englishman has ever, by word uttered in the deliberations of the means merely of literary talents, been legislature. A speech made in the able to climb. Swift would, in all proHouse of Commons at four in the bability, have climbed as high, if he morning is on thirty thousand tables had not been encumbered by his casbefore ten. A speech made on the sock and his pudding sleeves. As far Monday is read on the Wednesday by as the homage of the great went, Swift multitudes in Antrim and Aberdeen- had as much of it as if he had been shire. The orator, by the help of the Lord Treasurer. shorthand writer, has to a great extent superseded the pamphleteer. It was not so in the reign of Anne. The best speech could then produce no effect except on those who heard it. It was only by means of the press that the opinion of the public without doors could be influenced: and the opinion of the public without doors could not but be of the highest importance in a country governed by parliaments, and indeed at that time governed by triennial parliaments. The pen was therefore a more formidable political engine than the tongue. Mr. Pitt 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 do only by means of the press. Their works are now forgotten. But it is certain that there were in Grub Street few more assiduous scribblers of He was undoubtedly one of the most Thoughts, Letters, Answers, Remarks, popular men of his time; and much of than these two great chiefs of parties. his popularity he owed, we believe, to Pulteney, when leader of the Oppo- that very timidity which his friends sition, and possessed of thirty thousand lamented. That timidity often prea year, edited the Craftsman. Walpole, vented him from exhibiting his talents though not a man of literary habits, to the best advantage. But it prowas the author of at least ten pamph-pitiated Nemesis. It averted that envy

To the influence which Addison derived from his 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 to make one exception. Restlessness, violence, audacity, laxity of principle, are the vices ordinarily attributed to that class of men. But faction itself could not deny that Addison had, through all changes of fortune, been strictly faithful to his early opinions, and to his early friends; that his integrity was without stain; that his whole deportment indicated a fine sense of the becoming; that, in the utmost heat of controversy, his zeal was tempered by a regard for truth, humanity, and social decorum; that no outrage could ever provoke him to retaliation unworthy of a Christian and a gentleman; and that his only faults were a too sensitive delicacy, and a modesty which amounted to bashfulness.

chief.

Such were Addison's talents for conversation. But his rare gifts were not exhibited to crowds or to strangers. As soon as he entered a large company, as soon as he saw an unknown face, his lips were sealed and his manners became constrained. None who met him only in great assemblies would have been able to believe that he was the same man who had often kept a few friends listening and laughing round a table, from the time when the play ended, till the clock of St. Paul's in Covent Garden struck four. Yet, even at such a table, he was not seen to the best advantage. To enjoy his conversation in the highest perfection, it was necessary to be alone with him, and to hear him, in his own phrase, think aloud. "There is no such thing," he used to say, "as real conversation, but between two persons."

which would otherwise have been ex-cellent specimens of this innocent miscited 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 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 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 that, after all, he had never known any associate so agreeable as Addison. Steele, an excellent judge of lively conversation, said, that the conversation of Addison was at once the most polite, and the most mirthful, that could be imagined; that it was Terence and Catullus in one, heightened by an exquisite something which was neither Terence nor Catullus, but Addison alone. Young, an excellent 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 admirable than the courtesy and softness of heart which 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 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 chang- To the excessive modesty of Aded his tone, "assented with civil leer," dison's nature, we must ascribe another and lured the flattered coxcomb deeper fault which generally arises from a very and deeper into absurdity. That such different cause. He became a little too was his practice, we should, we think, fond of seeing himself surrounded by a have guessed from his works. The small circle of admirers, to whom he Tatler's criticisms on Mr. Softly's son- was as a King or rather as a God. All net, and the Spectator's dialogue with these men were far inferior to him in the politician who is so zealous for the ability, and some of them had very sehonour of Lady Q-p-t-s, are ex-rious faults. Nor did those faults escape VOL. II.

This timidity, a timidity surely neither ungraceful nor unamiable, led Addison into the two most serious faults which can with justice be imputed to him. He found that wine broke the spell which lay on his fine intellect, and was therefore too easily seduced into convivial excess. Such excess was in that age regarded, even by grave men, as the most venial of all peccadilloes, and was so far from being a mark of ill-breeding, that it was almost essential to the character of a fine gentleman. But the smallest speck is seen on a white ground; and almost all the biographers of Addison 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.

his observation; 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. 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 company; he was grateful for their devoted attachment; and he loaded them with benefits. Their veneration for him appears to have exceeded that with which Johnson was regarded by Boswell, or Warburton by Hurd. It was not in the power of adulation to turn such a head, or deprave such a heart, as Addison's. But it must in candour be admitted that he contracted some of the faults which can scarcely be avoided by any person who is so unfortunate as to be the oracle of a small literary coterie.

One member of this little society was Eustace Budgell, a young Templar of some literature, and a distant relation of Addison. There was at this time no stain on the character of Budgell, and it is not improbable that his career would have been prosperous 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 rapidly from one degree of vice and mi- | sery to another, ruined his fortune by follies, attempted to repair it by crimes, and at length closed a wicked and unhappy life by selfmurder. Yet, to the last, the wretched man, gambler, lampooner, cheat, forger, as he was, retained his affection and veneration for Addison, and recorded those feelings in the last lines which he traced before he hid himself from infamy under London Bridge.

Another of Addison's favourite companions was Ambrose Phillipps, a good Whig and a middling poet, who had the honour of bringing into fashion a species of composition which has been called, after his name, Namby Pamby. But the most remarkable members of the little senate, as Pope long afterwards called it, were Richard Steele and Thomas Tickell.

Steele had known Addison from childhood. They had been together at the Charter House and at Oxford; but circumstances had then, for a time, separated them widely. Steele had left college without taking a degree, had been disinherited by a rich relation, had led a vagrant life, had served in the army, had tried to find the philosopher's stone, and had written a religious treatise and several comedies. He was one of those people whom it is 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 life was spent in sinning and repenting; in inculcating what was right, and doing what was wrong. In speculation, he was a man of piety and honour; in practice he was much of the rake and a little of the swindler. He was, however, so goodnatured that it was not easy to be seriously angry with him, and that even rigid moralists felt more inclined to pity than to blame him, when he diced himself into a spunging house or drank himself into a fever. Addison regarded Steele with kindness not unmingled with scorn, tried, with little success, to keep him out of scrapes, introduced him to the great, procured a good place for him, corrected his plays, and, though by no means rich, lent him large sums of money. One of these loans appears, from a letter dated in August 1708, to have amounted to a thousand pounds. These 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. cannot join with Miss Aikin in rejecting this story. Johnson heard it from Savage, who heard it from Steele. Few private transactions which took place a hundred and twenty years ago, are proved by stronger evidence than this. But we can by no means agree with those who condemn Addison's severity. The most amiable of mankind may well be moved to indignation, when what he has earned hardly, and lent with great inconvenience to himself, for the purpose of relieving a friend in distress,

We

necessity of quitting London for Dublin. Besides the chief secretaryship, which was then worth about two thousand pounds a year, he obtained a patent appointing him keeper of the Irish Records for life, with a salary of three or four hundred a year. Budgell accompanied his cousin in the capacity of private Secretary.

is squandered with insane profusion. | came Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and We will illustrate our meaning by an appointed Addison Chief Secretary. example, which is not the less striking Addison was consequently under the because it is taken from fiction. Dr. Harrison, in Fielding's Amelia, is represented as the most benevolent of human beings; yet he takes in execution, not only the goods, but the person of his friend Booth. Dr. Harrison resorts to this strong measure because he has been informed that Booth, while pleading poverty as an excuse for not paying just debts, has been buying fine Wharton and Addison had nothing jewellery, and setting up a coach. No in common but Whiggism. The Lord person who is well acquainted with Lieutenant was not only licentious and Steele's life and correspondence can corrupt, but was distinguished from doubt that he behaved quite as ill to other libertines and jobbers by a callous Addison as Booth was accused of be- impudence which presented the stronghaving to Dr. Harrison. The real est contrast to the Secretary's gentlehistory, we have little doubt, was some-ness and delicacy. Many parts of the thing like this: A letter comes to Irish administration at this time appear Addison, imploring help in pathetic to have deserved serious blame. But 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 of mutton. Ad-gence and integrity gained the frienddison is moved. He determines to deny himself some medals which are wanting to his series of the twelve Cæsars; 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 hundred pounds to his friend. The next day he calls on Steele, and finds scores of gentlemen and ladies assembled. The fiddles are playing. The table is groaning under Champagne, Burgundy, and pyramids of sweetmeats. Is it strange that a man whose kindness is thus abused, should send sheriff's officers to reclaim what is due to him?

Tickell was a young man, fresh from Oxford, who had introduced himself to public notice by writing a most ingenious and graceful little poem in praise of the opera of Rosamond. He deserved, and at length attained, the 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.

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 dili

ship of all the most considerable persons in Ireland.

The parliamentary career of Addison in Ireland has, we think, wholly escaped the notice of all his biographers. He was elected member for the borough of Cavan in the summer of 1709; and in the journals of two sessions his name frequently occurs. Some of the entries appear to indicate that he so far overcame his timidity as to make speeches. Nor is this by any means improbable; for the Irish House of Commons was a far less formidable 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 Westminster during forty years, spoke with great effect at Dublin when he was Secretary to Lord Halifax.

While Addison was in Ireland, an event occurred to which he owes his high and permanent rank among British writers. As yet his fame rested on performances which, though highly At the close of 1708 Wharton be- respectable, were not built for duration,

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