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Of the jests by which the triumph of the Whig party was disturbed, the most
severe and happy was Bolingbroke's. Between two acts, he sent for Booth to his
box, and presented him, before the whole theatre, with a purse of fifty guineas
for defending the cause of liberty so well against the perpetual Dictator. This
was a pungent allusion to the attempt which Marlborough had made, not long
before his fall, to obtain a patent, creating him Captain-General for life.
It was April; and in April, a hundred and thirty years ago, the London season
was thought to be far advanced. During a whole month, however, Cato was
performed to overflowing houses, and brought into the treasury of the theatre
twice the gains of an ordinary spring. In the summer the Drury Lane Company went
down to the Act at Oxford, and there, before an audience which retained an
affectionate remembrance of Addison's 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 afternoon all the seats were filled.
About the merits of the piece which had so extraordinary an effect, the public,
we suppose, has made up its mind. To compare it with the masterpieces of the
Attic stage, with the great English dramas of the time of Elizabeth, or even
with the productions of Schiller's manhood, would be absurd indeed. Yet it
contains 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 other English tragedy of
the same school, above many of the plays of Corneille, above many of the plays
of Voltaire 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 united, to raise Addison's fame among his contemporaries.
The modesty and good nature of the successful dramatist had tamed even the
malignity of faction. But literary envy, it should seem, is a fiercer passion
than party spirit. It was by a zealous Whig that the fiercest attack on the Whig
tragedy was made. John Dennis published Remarks on Cato, which were written with
some acuteness and with much coarseness and asperity. Addison neither defended
himself nor retaliated. On many points he had an excellent defense; and, nothing
would have been easier than to retaliate; for Dennis had written bad odes, bad
tragedies, bad comedies: he had, moreover, a larger share than most men of those
infirmities and eccentricities which excite laughter; and Addison's power of
turning either an absurd book or an absurd man into ridicule was unrivalled.
Addison, however, serenely conscious of his superiority, looked with pity on his
assailant, whose temper, naturally irritable and gloomy, had been soured by
want, by controversy, and by literary failures.
But among the young candidates for Addison's favor there was one distinguished
by talents from the rest, and distinguished, we fear, not less by malignity and
insincerity. Pope was only twenty-five. But his powers had expanded to their
full maturity; and his best poem, the Rape of the Lock, had recently been
published. Of his genius, Addison had always expressed high admiration. But
Addison had early discerned, what might indeed have been discerned by an eye
less penetrating than his, that the diminutive, crooked, sickly boy was eager to
revenge himself on society for the unkindness of nature. In the Spectator, the
Essay on Criticism had been praised with cordial warmth; but a gentle hint had
been added, that the writer of so excellent a poem would have done well to avoid
ill-natured personalities. Pope, though evidently more galled by the censure
than gratified by the praise, returned thanks for the admonition, and promised
to profit by it. The two writers continued to exchange civilities, counsel, and
small good offices. Addison publicly extolled Pope's miscellaneous pieces; and
Pope furnished Addison with a prologue. This did not last long. Pope hated
Dennis, whom he had injured without provocation. The appearance of the Remarks
on Cato gave the irritable poet an opportunity of venting his malice under the
show of friendship; and such an opportunity 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 powers. He was a great master of invective and
sarcasm: he could dissect a character in terse and sonorous 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 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 argument 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 tragedy, 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.
There can be no doubt that Addison saw through this officious zeal, and felt
himself deeply aggrieved by it. So foolish and spiteful a pamphlet could do him
no good, and, if he were thought to have any hand in it, must do him harm.
Gifted with incomparable powers of ridicule, he had never even in self-defense,
used those powers inhumanly or uncourteously; and he was not disposed to let
others make his fame and 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 answered the Remarks, he could answer them like a gentleman; and he took care
to communicate this to Dennis. Pope was bitterly mortified; and to this
transaction we are inclined to ascribe the hatred with which he ever after
regarded Addison.
In September 1713 the Guardian ceased to appear. Steele had gone mad about
politics. A general election had just taken place: he had been chosen member for
Stockbridge; and he fully expected to play a first part in Parliament. The
immense success of the Tatler and Spectator had turned his head. He had been the
editor of both those papers and was not aware how entirely they owed their
influence and popularity to the genius of his friend. His spirits, always
violent, were now excited by vanity, ambition, and faction, to such a pitch that
he every day committed some offence against good sense and good taste. All the
discreet and moderate members of his own party regretted and condemned his
folly. "I am in a thousand troubles," Addison wrote, "about poor Dick, and wish
that his zeal for the public may not be ruinous to himself. But he has sent me
word that he is determined to go on, and that any advice I may give him in this
particular will have no weight with him."
Steele set up a political paper called the Englishman, which, as it was not
supported by contributions from Addison, completely failed. By this work, by
some other writings of the same kind, and by the airs which he gave himself at
the first meeting of the new Parliament, he made the Tories so angry that they
determined to expel him. The Whigs stood by him gallantly, but were unable to
save him. The vote of expulsion was regarded by all dispassionate men as a
tyrannical exercise of the power of the majority. But Steele's violence and
folly, though they by no means justified the steps which his enemies took, had
completely disgusted his friends; nor did he ever regain the place which he had
held in the public estimation.
Addison about this time conceived the design of adding an eighth volume to the
Spectator In June 1714 the first number of the new series appeared, and during
about six months three papers were published weekly. Nothing can be more
striking than the contrast between the Englishman and the eighth volume of the
Spectator, between Steele without Addison and Addison without Steele. The
Englishman is forgotten; the eighth volume of the Spectator contains, the finest
essays, both serious and playful, in the language.
Before this volume was completed, the death of Anne produced an entire change in
the administration of public affairs. The blow fell suddenly. It found the Tory
party distracted by internal feuds, and unprepared for any great effort. Harley
had just been disgraced. Bolingbroke, it was supposed, would be the chief
Minister. But the Queen was on her deathbed before the white staff had been
given, and her last public act was to deliver it with a feeble hand to the Duke
of Shrewsbury. The emergency produced a coalition between all sections of public
men who were attached to the Protestant succession. George the First was
proclaimed without opposition. A Council, in which the leading Whigs had seats,
took the direction of affairs till the new King should arrive. The first act of
the Lords justices was to appoint Addison their secretary.
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 flattering to mediocrity should be popular; and we are
sorry to deprive dunces of their consolation. But the truth must be told. It was
well observed by Sir James Mackintosh, whose knowledge of these times was
unequalled, that Addison never, in any official document, affected wit or
eloquence, and that his dispatches are, without exception, remarkable for
unpretending simplicity. 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 no difficulty in finding them. We are, however,
inclined to believe, that the story is not absolutely without a foundation. It
may well be that Addison did not know, till he had consulted experienced clerks
who remembered the times when William the Third was absent on the Continent, in
what form a letter from the Council of Regency to the King ought to be drawn. We
think it very likely that the ablest statesmen of our time, Lord John Russell,
Sir Robert Peel, Lord Palmerston, for example, would, in similar circumstances,
be found quite as ignorant. Every office has some little mysteries which the
dullest man may learn with a little attention, and which the greatest man cannot
possibly know by 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, and another is not. One
sentence must be in black ink, and another in red ink. If the ablest Secretary
for Ireland were moved to the India Board, if the ablest President of the India
Board were moved to the War Office, he would require instruction on points like
these; and we do not doubt that Addison required such instruction when he
became, for the first time, Secretary to the Lords Justices.
George the First took possession of his kingdom without opposition. A new
Ministry was formed, and a new Parliament favorable to the Whigs chosen.
Sunderland was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland; and Addison again went to
Dublin as Chief Secretary.
At Dublin Swift resided; and there was much speculation about the way in which
the Dean and the Secretary would behave towards each other. The relations which
existed between these remarkable men form an interesting and pleasing portion of
literary history. They had early attached themselves to the same political party
and to the same patrons. While Anne's Whig Ministry was in power, the visits of
Swift to London and the official residence of Addison in Ireland had given them
opportunities of knowing each other. They were the two shrewdest observers of
their age. But their observations on each other had led them to favorable
conclusions. Swift did full justice to the rare powers of conversation which
were latent under the bashful deportment of Addison. Addison, on the other hand,
discerned much good-nature under the severe look and manner of Swift; and,
indeed, the Swift of 1708 and the Swift of 1738 were two very different men.
But the paths of the two friends diverged widely. The Whig statesmen loaded
Addison with solid benefits. They praised Swift, asked him to dinner, and did
nothing more for him. His profession laid them under a difficulty. In the State
they could not promote him; and they had 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 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 honor and consistency
to revenge, joined the Tories, and became their most formidable champion. He
soon found, however, that his old friends were less to blame than he had
supposed. The dislike with which the Queen and the heads of the Church regarded
him was insurmountable; and it was with the greatest difficulty that he obtained
an ecclesiastical dignity of no great value, on condition of fixing his
residence in a country which he detested.
Difference of political opinion had produced, not indeed a quarrel, but a
coolness between Swift and Addison. They at length ceased altogether to see each
other. Yet there was between them a tacit compact like that between the
hereditary guests in the Iliad:
"'Egkhea d' allelon aleometha kai di' dmilon. Polloi men gar emoi Troes kleitoi
t' epikouroi Kteinein on ke theos ge pori kai possi kikheio Polloi d' au soi
Akhaioi enairmen, on ke duneai."
It is not strange that Addison, who calumniated and insulted nobody, should not
have calumniated or insulted Swift. But it is remarkable that Swift, to whom
neither genius nor virtue was sacred, and who generally seemed to find, like
most other renegades, a peculiar pleasure in attacking old friends, should have
shown so much respect and tenderness to Addison.
Fortune had now changed. The accession of the House of Hanover had secured in
England the liberties of the people, and in Ireland the dominion of the
Protestant caste. To that caste Swift was more odious than any other man. He was
hooted and even pelted in the streets of Dublin; and could not venture to ride
along the strand for his health without the attendance of armed servants. Many
whom he had formerly served now libeled and insulted him. At this time Addison
arrived. He had been advised not to show the smallest civility to the Dean of
St. Patrick's. He had answered, with admirable spirit, that it might be
necessary for men whose fidelity to their party was suspected, to hold no
intercourse with political opponents; 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.
Those associates of Addison whose political opinions agreed with his shared his
good fortune. He took Tickell with him to Ireland. He procured for Budgell a
lucrative place in the same kingdom. Ambrose Phillips was provided for in
England, Steele had injured himself so much by his eccentricity and
perverseness, that he obtained but a very small part of what he thought his due.
He was, however, knighted; he had a place in the household; and he subsequently
received other marks of favor from the Court.
Addison did not remain long in Ireland. In 1715 he quitted his secretaryship for
a seat at the Board of Trade. In the same year his comedy of the Drummer was
brought on the stage. The name of the author was not announced; the piece was
coldly received; and some critics had expressed a doubt whether it were really
Addison's. To us the evidence, both external and internal, seems decisive. It is
not in Addison's best manner; but it contains numerous passages which no other
writer known to us could have produced. It was again performed after Addison's
death, and, being known to be his, was loudly applauded.
Towards the close of the year 1715, while the Rebellion was still raging in
Scotland, Addison published the first number of a paper called the Freeholder.
Among his political works the Freeholder is entitled to the first place. Even in
the Spectator there are few serious papers nobler than the character of his
friend Lord Somers, and certainly no satirical papers superior to those in which
the Tory fox-hunter is introduced. This 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 than the Freeholder, so none does more honor to his moral
character. It is difficult to extol too highly the candor and humanity of a
political writer whom even the excitement of civil war cannot hurry into
unseemly violence. Oxford, it is well known, was then the stronghold of Toryism.
The High Street had been repeatedly lined with bayonets in 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 under such circumstances, Addison addressed to the
University, is singularly gentle, respectful, and even affectionate. Indeed, he
could not find it in his heart to deal harshly even with imaginary persons. His
fox-hunter, though ignorant, stupid, and violent, is at heart a good fellow, and
is at last reclaimed by the clemency of the King. Steele was dissatisfied with
his friend's moderation, and, though he acknowledged that the Freeholder was
excellently written, complained that the Ministry played on a lute when it was
necessary to blow the trumpet. He accordingly determined to execute a flourish
after his own fashion, and tried to rouse the public spirit of the nation by
means of a paper called the Town Talk, which is now as utterly forgotten as his
Englishman, as his Crisis, as his Letter to the Bailiff of Stockbridge, as his
Reader, in short, as everything that he wrote without the help of Addison.
In the same year in which the Drummer was acted, and in which the first numbers
of the Freeholder appeared, the estrangement of Pope and Addison became
complete. Addison had from the first seen that Pope was false and malevolent.
Pope had discovered that Addison was jealous. The discovery was made in a
strange manner. Pope had written the Rape of the Lock, in two cantos, without
supernatural machinery. These two cantos had been loudly applauded, and by none
more loudly than by Addison. Then Pope thought of the Sylphs and Gnomes, Ariel,
Momentilla, Crispissa, and Umbriel, and resolved to interweave the Rosicrucian
mythology with the original fabric. He asked Addison's advice. Addison said that
the poem as it stood was a delicious little thing, and entreated Pope not to run
the risk of marring what was so excellent in trying to mend it. Pope afterwards
declared that this insidious counsel first opened his eyes to the baseness of
him who gave it.
Now there can be no doubt that Pope's plan was most ingenious, and that he
afterwards executed it with great skill and success. But does it necessarily
follow that Addison's advice was bad. And if Addison's advice was bad, does it
necessarily follow that it was given from bad motives? If a friend were to ask
us whether we would advise him to risk his all in a lottery of which the chances
were ten to one against him, we should do our best to dissuade him from running
such a risk. Even if he were so lucky as to get the thirty thousand pound prize,
we should not admit that we had counseled 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 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 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 remodeled the Rape of the Lock, made the
same experiment on the Dunciad. All these attempts failed. Who was to foresee
that Pope would, once in his life, be able to do what he could not himself do
twice, and what nobody else has ever done?
Addison's advice was good. But had it been bad, why should we pronounce it
dishonest? Scott tells us that one of his best friends predicted the failure of
Waverley. Herder adjured Goethe not to take so unpromising a subject as Faust.
Hume tried to dissuade Robertson from writing the History of Charles the Fifth
Nay, Pope himself was one of those who prophesied that Cato would never succeed
on the stage, and advised Addison to print it without risking a representation.
But Scott, Goethe, Robertson, Addison, had the good sense and generosity to give
their advisers credit for the best intentions. Pope's heart was not of the same
kind with theirs.
In 1715, while he was engaged in translating the Iliad, he met Addison at a
coffee-house. Phillips and Budgell were there; but their sovereign got rid of
them, and asked Pope to dine with him alone. After dinner Addison said that he
lay under a difficulty which he wished to explain. "Tickell," he said,
"translated some time ago the first book of the Iliad. I have promised to look
it over and correct it. I cannot therefore ask to see yours; for that would be
double-dealing." Pope made a civil reply, and begged that his second book might
have the advantage of Addison's revision. Addison readily agreed, looked over
the second book, and sent it back with warm commendations.
Tickell's version of the first book appeared soon after this conversation. In
the preface all rivalry was earnestly disclaimed. Tickell declared that he
should not go on with the Iliad. That enterprise he should leave to powers which
he admitted to be superior to his own. His only view, he said, in publishing
this specimen was to bespeak the favor of the public to a translation of the
Odyssey, in which he had made some progress.
Addison, and Addison's devoted followers, pronounced both the versions good, but
maintained that Tickell's had more of the original. The town gave a decided
preference to Pope's. We do not think it worth while to settle such a question
of precedence. Neither of the rivals can be said to have translated the Iliad,
unless, indeed, the word translation be used in the sense which it bears in the
Midsummer Night's Dream. When Bottom makes his appearance with an ass's head
instead of his own, Peter Quince exclaims, "Bless thee! Bottom, bless thee! thou
art translated." In this sense, undoubtedly, the readers of either Pope or
Tickell may very properly exclaim, "Bless thee! Homer; thou art translated
indeed."
Our readers will, we hope, agree with us in thinking that no man in Addison's
situation could have acted more fairly and kindly, both towards Pope and towards
Tickell, than he appears to have done. But an odious suspicion had 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 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.
Is there any external evidence to support this grave accusation? The answer is
short. There is absolutely none.
Was there any internal evidence which proved Addison to be the author of this
version? Was it a work which Tickell was incapable of producing? Surely not.
Tickell was a Fellow of a College at Oxford, and must be supposed to have been
able to construe the Iliad; and he was a better versifier than his friend. We
are not aware that Pope pretended to have discovered any turns of expression
peculiar to Addison. Had such turns of expression been discovered, they would be
sufficiently accounted for by supposing Addison to have corrected his friend's
lines, as he owned that he had done.
Is there anything in the character of the accused persons which makes the
accusation probable? We answer confidently--nothing. Tickell was long after this
time described by Pope himself as a very fair and worthy man. Addison had been,
during many years, before the public. Literary rivals, political opponents, had
kept their eyes on him. But neither envy nor faction, in their utmost rage, had
ever imputed to him a single deviation from the laws of honor and of social
morality. Had he been indeed a man meanly jealous of fame, and capable of
stooping to base and wicked arts 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 of comedy: had he not done ample justice to
Congreve, and given valuable help to Steele? He was a pamphleteer: have not his
good nature and generosity been acknowledged by Swift, his rival in fame and his
adversary in politics?
That Tickell should have been guilty of a villainy seems to us highly
improbable. That Addison should have been guilty of a villainy seems to us
highly improbable. But that these two men should have conspired together to
commit a villainy seems to us improbable in a tenfold degree. All that is known
to us of their intercourse tends to prove, that it was not the intercourse of
two accomplices in crime. These are some of the lines in which Tickell poured
forth his sorrow over the coffin of Addison:
Or dost thou warn poor mortals left behind, A task well suited to thy gentle
mind? Oh, if sometimes thy spotless form descend, To me thine aid, thou guardian
genius, lend, When rage misguides me, or when fear alarms, When pain distresses,
or when pleasure charms, In silent whisperings purer thoughts impart, And turn
from ill a frail and feeble heart; Lead through the paths thy virtue trod
before, Till bliss shall join, nor death can part us more."
In what words, we should like to know, did this guardian genius invite his pupil
to join in a plan such as the Editor of the Satirist would hardly dare to
propose to the Editor of the Age?
We do not accuse Pope of bringing an accusation which he knew to be false. We
have not the smallest doubt that he believed it to be true; and the evidence on
which he believed it he found in his own bad heart. His own life was one long
series of tricks, as mean and as malicious as that of which he suspected Addison
and Tickell. He was all stiletto and mask. To injure, to insult, and to save
himself from the consequences of injury and insult by lying and equivocating,
was the habit of his life. He published a lampoon on the Duke of Chandos; he was
taxed with it; and he lied and equivocated. He published a lampoon on Aaron
Hill; he was taxed with it; and he lied and equivocated. He published a still
fouler lampoon on Lady Mary Wortley 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. Besides his frauds of malignity, of fear, of
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 indirect road to it was
that which he preferred. For Bolingbroke, 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.
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
frankly given to him. He is certain that it is all a romance. A line of conduct
scrupulously fair, and even 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.
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