Volume I Part 2 (1/2)

With that strong regard for the drama which cannot well be wanting to the man who has an artist's vivid sense of life, Steele never withdrew his good will from the players, never neglected to praise a good play, and, I may add, took every fair occasion of suggesting to the town the subtlety of Shakespeare's genius. But he now ceased to write comedies, until towards the close of his life he produced with a remarkable success his other play, the 'Conscious Lovers'. And of that, by the way, Fielding made his Parson Adams say that 'Cato' and the 'Conscious Lovers' were the only plays he ever heard of, fit for a Christian to read, 'and, I must own, in the latter there are some things almost solemn enough for a sermon.'

Perhaps it was about this time that Addison wrote his comedy of the 'Drummer', which had been long in his possession when Steele, who had become a partner in the management of Drury Lane Theatre, drew it from obscurity, suggested a few changes in it, and produced it--not openly as Addison's--upon the stage. The published edition of it was recommended also by a preface from Steele in which he says that he liked this author's play the better

'for the want of those studied similies and repartees which we, who have writ before him, have thrown into our plays, to indulge and gain upon a false taste that has prevailed for many years in the British theatre. I believe the author would have condescended to fall into this way a little more than he has, had he before the writing of it been often present at theatrical representations. I was confirmed in my thoughts of the play by the opinion of better judges to whom it was communicated, who observed that the scenes were drawn after Moliere's manner, and that an easy and natural vein of humour ran through the whole. I do not question but the reader will discover this, and see many beauties that escaped the audience; the touches being too delicate for every taste in a popular a.s.sembly. My brother-sharers'

(in the Drury Lane patent) 'were of opinion, at the first reading of it, that it was like a picture in which the strokes were not strong enough to appear at a distance. As it is not in the common way of writing, the approbation was at first doubtful, but has risen every time it has been acted, and has given an opportunity in several of its parts for as just and good actions as ever I saw on the stage.'

Addison's comedy was not produced till 1715, the year after his unsuccessful attempt to revive the 'Spectator', which produced what is called the eighth volume of that work. The play, not known to be his, was so ill spoken of that he kept the authors.h.i.+p a secret to the last, and Tickell omitted it from the collection of his patron's works. But Steele knew what was due to his friend, and in 1722 manfully republished the piece as Addison's, with a dedication to Congreve and censure of Tickell for suppressing it. If it be true that the 'Drummer' made no figure on the stage though excellently acted, 'when I observe this,'

said Steele, 'I say a much harder thing of this than of the comedy.'

Addison's Drummer is a gentleman who, to forward his suit to a soldier's widow, masquerades as the drumbeating ghost of her husband in her country house, and terrifies a self-confident, free-thinking town exquisite, another suitor, who believes himself brought face to face with the spirit world, in which he professes that he can't believe. 'For my part, child, I have made myself easy in those points.' The character of a free-thinking exquisite is drawn from life without exaggeration, but with more than a touch of the bitter contempt Addison felt for the atheistic c.o.xcomb, with whom he was too ready to confound the sincere questioner of orthodox opinion. The only pa.s.sages of his in the 'Spectator' that border on intolerance are those in which he deals with the free-thinker; but it should not be forgotten that the commonest type of free-thinker in Queen Anne's time was not a thoughtful man who battled openly with doubt and made an independent search for truth, but an idler who repudiated thought and formed his character upon tradition of the Court of Charles the Second. And throughout the 'Spectator' we may find a Christian under-tone in Addison's intolerance of infidelity, which is entirely wanting when the moralist is Eustace Budgell. Two or three persons in the comedy of the 'Drummer' give opportunity for good character-painting in the actor, and on a healthy stage, before an audience able to discriminate light touches of humour and to enjoy unstrained although well-marked expression of varieties of character, the 'Drummer' would not fail to be a welcome entertainment.

But our sketch now stands at the year 1705, when Steele had ceased for a time to write comedies. Addison's 'Campaign' had brought him fame, and perhaps helped him to pay, as he now did, his College debts, with interest. His 'Remarks on Italy', now published, were, as Tickell says, 'at first but indifferently relished by the bulk of readers;' and his 'Drummer' probably was written and locked in his desk. There were now such days of intercourse as Steele looked back to when with undying friends.h.i.+p he wrote in the preface to that edition of the 'Drummer'

produced by him after Addison's death:

'He was above all men in that talent we call humour, and enjoyed it in such perfection, that I have often reflected, after a night spent with him apart from all the world, that I had had the pleasure of conversing with an intimate acquaintance of Terence and Catullus, who had all their wit and nature, heightened with humour more exquisite and delightful than any other man ever possessed.' And again in the same Preface, Steele dwelt upon 'that smiling mirth, that delicate satire and genteel raillery, which appeared in Mr. Addison when he was free from that remarkable bashfulness which is a cloak that hides and m.u.f.fles merit; and his abilities were covered only by modesty, which doubles the beauties which are seen, and gives credit and esteem to all that are concealed.'

Addison had the self-consciousness of a sensitive and speculative mind.

This, with a shy manner among those with whom he was not intimate, pa.s.sed for cold self-a.s.sertion. The 'little senate' of his intimate friends was drawn to him by its knowledge of the real warmth of his nature. And his friends.h.i.+ps, like his religion, influenced his judgment.

His geniality that wore a philosophic cloak before the world, caused him to abandon himself in the 'Spectator', even more unreservedly than Steele would have done, to iterated efforts for the help of a friend like Ambrose Philips, whose poems to eminent babies, 'little subject, little wit,' gave rise to the name of Namby-pamby. Addison's quietness with strangers was against a rapid widening of his circle of familiar friends, and must have made the great-hearted friends.h.i.+p of Steele as much to him as his could be to Steele. In very truth it 'doubled all his store.' Steele's heart was open to enjoyment of all kindly intercourse with men. In after years, as expression of thought in the literature of nations gained freedom and sincerity, two types of literature were formed from the types of mind which Addison and Steele may be said to have in some measure represented. Each sought advance towards a better light, one part by dwelling on the individual duties and responsibilities of man, and his relation to the infinite; the other by especial study of man's social ties and liberties, and his relation to the commonwealth of which he is a member. Goethe, for instance, inclined to one study; Schiller to the other; and every free mind will incline probably to one or other of these centres of opinion. Addison was a cold politician because he was most himself when a.n.a.lyzing principles of thought, and humours, pa.s.sions, duties of the individual. Steele, on the contrary, braved ruin for his convictions as a politician, because his social nature turned his earnestness into concern for the well-being of his country, and he lived in times when it was not yet certain that the newly-secured liberties were also finally secured. The party was strong that desired to re-establish ancient tyrannies, and the Queen herself was hardly on the side of freedom.

In 1706, the date of the union between England and Scotland, Whig influence had been strengthened by the elections of the preceding year, and Addison was, early in 1706, made Under-Secretary of State to Sir Charles Hedges, a Tory, who was superseded before the end of the year by Marlborough's son-in-law, the Earl of Sunderland, a Whig under whom Addison, of course, remained in office, and who was, thenceforth, his active patron. In the same year the opera of _Rosamond_ was produced, with Addison's libretto. It was but the third, or indeed the second, year of operas in England, for we can hardly reckon as forming a year of opera the Italian intermezzi and interludes of singing and dancing, performed under Clayton's direction, at York Buildings, in 1703. In 1705, Clayton's _Arsinoe_, adapted and translated from the Italian, was produced at Drury Lane. Buononcini's _Camilla_ was given at the house in the Haymarket, and sung in two languages, the heroine's part being in English and the hero's in Italian. Thomas Clayton, a second-rate musician, but a man with literary tastes, who had been introducer of the opera to London, argued that the words of an opera should be not only English, but the best of English, and that English music ought to ill.u.s.trate good home-grown literature. Addison and Steele agreed heartily in this. Addison was persuaded to write words for an opera by Clayton--his _Rosamond_--and Steele was persuaded afterwards to speculate in some sort of partners.h.i.+p with Clayton's efforts to set English poetry to music in the entertainments at York Buildings, though his friend Hughes warned him candidly that Clayton was not much of a musician. _Rosamond_ was a failure of Clayton's and not a success of Addison's. There is poor jesting got by the poet from a comic Sir Trusty, who keeps Rosamond's bower, and has a scolding wife. But there is a happy compliment to Marlborough in giving to King Henry a vision at Woodstock of the glory to come for England, and in a scenic realization of it by the rising of Blenheim Palace, the nation's gift to Marlborough, upon the scene of the Fair Rosamond story. Indeed there can be no doubt that it was for the sake of the scene at Woodstock, and the opportunity thus to be made, that Rosamond was chosen for the subject of the opera. Addison made Queen Eleanor give Rosamond a narcotic instead of a poison, and thus he achieved the desired happy ending to an opera.

Believe your Rosamond alive.

'King.' O happy day! O pleasing view!

My Queen forgives--

'Queen.' --My lord is true.

'King.' No more I'll change.

'Queen.' No more I'll grieve.

'Both.' But ever thus united live.

That is to say, for three days, the extent of the life of the opera. But the literary Under-Secretary had saved his political dignity with the stage tribute to Marlborough, which backed the closet praise in the 'Campaign.'

In May, 1707, Steele received the office of Gazetteer, until then worth 60, but presently endowed by Harley with a salary of 300 a-year. At about the same time he was made one of the gentlemen ushers to Queen Anne's husband, Prince George of Denmark. In the same year Steele married. Of his most private life before this date little is known. He had been married to a lady from Barbadoes, who died in a few months.

From days referred to in the 'Christian Hero' he derived a daughter of whom he took fatherly care. In 1707 Steele, aged about 35, married Miss (or, as ladies come of age were then called, Mrs.) Mary Scurlock, aged 29. It was a marriage of affection on both sides. Steele had from his first wife an estate in Barbadoes, which produced, after payment of the interest on its enc.u.mbrances, 670 a-year. His appointment as Gazetteer, less the 45 tax on it, was worth 255 a-year, and his appointment on the Prince Consort's household another hundred. Thus the income upon which Steele married was rather more than a thousand a-year, and Miss Scurlock's mother had an estate of about 330 a-year. Mary Scurlock had been a friend of Steele's first wife, for before marriage she recalls Steele to her mother's mind by saying, 'It is the survivor of the person to whose funeral I went in my illness.'

'Let us make our regards to each other,' Steele wrote just before marriage, 'mutual and unchangeable, that whilst the world around us is enchanted with the false satisfactions of vagrant desires, our persons may be shrines to each other, and sacred to conjugal faith, unreserved confidence, and heavenly society.'

There remains also a prayer written by Steele before first taking the sacrament with his wife, after marriage. There are also letters and little notes written by Steele to his wife, treasured by her love, and printed by a remorseless antiquary, blind to the sentence in one of the first of them:

'I beg of you to shew my letters to no one living, but let us be contented with one another's thoughts upon our words and actions, without the intervention of other people, who cannot judge of so delicate a circ.u.mstance as the commerce between man and wife.'

But they are printed for the frivolous to laugh at and the wise to honour. They show that even in his most thoughtless or most anxious moments the social wit, the busy patriot, remembered his 'dear Prue,'