Part 51 (2/2)

At the publication the wits seemed proud to pay their attendance with encomiastick verses. The best are from an unknown hand, which will, perhaps, lose somewhat of their praise when the author is known to be Jeffreys.

Cato had yet other honours. It was censured as a party-play by a scholar of Oxford; and defended in a favourable examination by Dr. Sewel. It was translated by Salvini into Italian, and acted at Florence; and by the Jesuits of St. Omer's into Latin, and played by their pupils. Of this version a copy was sent to Mr. Addison: it is to be wished that it could be found, for the sake of comparing their version of the soliloquy with that of Bland.

A tragedy was written on the same subject by Deschamps, a French poet, which was translated with a criticism on the English play. But the translator and the critick are now forgotten.

Dennis lived on unanswered, and, therefore, little read. Addison knew the policy of literature too well to make his enemy important by drawing the attention of the publick upon a criticism, which, though sometimes intemperate, was often irrefragable.

While Cato was upon the stage, another daily paper, called the Guardian, was published by Steele[180]. To this Addison gave great a.s.sistance, whether occasionally, or by previous engagement, is not known.

The character of guardian was too narrow and too serious: it might properly enough admit both the duties and the decencies of life, but seemed not to include literary speculations, and was, in some degree, violated by merriment and burlesque. What had the guardian of the Lizards to do with clubs of tall or of little men, with nests of ants, or with Strada's prolusions?

Of this paper nothing is necessary to be said, but that it found many contributors, and that it was a continuation of the Spectator, with the same elegance, and the same variety, till some unlucky sparkle, from a tory paper, set Steele's politicks on fire, and wit at once blazed into faction. He was soon too hot for neutral topicks, and quitted the Guardian to write the Englishman.

The papers of Addison are marked in the Spectator by one of the letters in the name of Clio, and in the Guardian by a hand; whether it was, as Tickell pretends to think, that he was unwilling to usurp the praise of others, or, as Steele, with far greater likelihood, insinuates, that he could not, without discontent, impart to others any of his own. I have heard that his avidity did not satisfy itself with the air of renown, but that with great eagerness he laid hold on his proportion of the profits.

Many of these papers were written with powers truly comick, with nice discrimination of characters, and accurate observation of natural or accidental deviations from propriety; but it was not supposed that he had tried a comedy on the stage, till Steele, after his death, declared him the author of the Drummer. This, however, Steele did not know to be true by any direct testimony; for, when Addison put the play into his hands, he only told him, it was the work of a ”gentleman in the company;” and when it was received, as is confessed, with cold disapprobation, he was probably less willing to claim it. Tickell omitted it in his collection; but the testimony of Steele, and the total silence of any other claimant, has determined the publick to a.s.sign it to Addison, and it is now printed with his other poetry. Steele carried the Drummer to the playhouse, and afterwards to the press, and sold the copy for fifty guineas.

To the opinion of Steele may be added the proof supplied by the play itself, of which the characters are such as Addison would have delineated, and the tendency such as Addison would have promoted. That it should have been ill received would raise wonder, did we not daily see the capricious distribution of theatrical praise.

He was not all this time an indifferent spectator of publick affairs. He wrote, as different exigencies required, in 1707, the present State of the War, and the Necessity of an Augmentation; which, however judicious, being written on temporary topicks, and exhibiting no peculiar powers, laid hold on no attention, and has naturally sunk by its own weight into neglect. This cannot be said of the few papers ent.i.tled the Whig Examiner, in which is employed all the force of gay malevolence and humorous satire. Of this paper, which just appeared and expired, Swift remarks, with exultation, that ”it is now down among the dead men[181].”

He might well rejoice at the death of that which he could not have killed. Every reader of every party, since personal malice is past, and the papers which once inflamed the nation are read only as effusions of wit, must wish for more of the Whig Examiners; for on no occasion was the genius of Addison more vigorously exerted, and on none did the superiority of his powers more evidently appear. His Trial of Count Tariff, written to expose the treaty of commerce with France, lived no longer than the question that produced it.

Not long afterwards, an attempt was made to revive the Spectator, at a time, indeed, by no means favourable to literature, when the succession of a new family to the throne filled the nation with anxiety, discord, and confusion; and either the turbulence of the times, or the satiety of the readers, put a stop to the publication, after an experiment of eighty numbers, which were afterwards collected into an eighth volume, perhaps more valuable than any of those that went before it. Addison produced more than a fourth part[182]; and the other contributors are, by no means, unworthy of appearing as his a.s.sociates. The time that had pa.s.sed during the suspension of the Spectator, though it had not lessened his power of humour, seems to have increased his disposition to seriousness: the proportion of his religious, to his comick papers, is greater than in the former series.

The Spectator, from its recommencement, was published only three times a week; and no discriminative marks were added to the papers. To Addison Tickell has ascribed twenty-three.

The Spectator had many contributors; and Steele, whose negligence kept him always in a hurry, when it was his turn to furnish a paper, called loudly for the letters, of which Addison, whose materials were more, made little use; having recourse to sketches and hints, the product of his former studies, which he now reviewed and completed: among these are named by Tickell, the essays on Wit, those on the Pleasures of the Imagination, and the Criticism on Milton.

When the house of Hanover took possession of the throne, it was reasonable to expect that the zeal of Addison would be suitably rewarded.

Before the arrival of king George, he was made secretary to the regency, and was required, by his office, to send notice to Hanover that the queen was dead, and that the throne was vacant. To do this would not have been difficult to any man but Addison, who was so overwhelmed with the greatness of the event, and so distracted by choice of expression, that the lords, who could not wait for the niceties of criticism, called Mr.

Southwell, a clerk in the house, and ordered him to despatch the message.

Southwell readily told what was necessary in the common style of business, and valued himself upon having done what was too hard for Addison[183].

He was better qualified for the Freeholder, a paper which he published twice a week, from Dec. 23, 1715, to the middle of the next year. This was undertaken in defence of the established government, sometimes with argument, and sometimes with mirth. In argument he had many equals; but his humour was singular and matchless. Bigotry itself must be delighted with the Tory Fox-hunter.

There are, however, some strokes less elegant, and less decent; such as the Pretender's Journal, in which one topick of ridicule is his poverty.

This mode of abuse had been employed by Milton against king Charles the second.

_Jacobaei_ Centum, exulantis viscera marsupii regis.

And Oldmixon delights to tell of some alderman of London, that he had more money than the exiled princes; but that which might be expected from Milton's savageness, or Oldmixon's meanness, was not suitable to the delicacy of Addison.

Steele thought the humour of the Freeholder too nice and gentle for such noisy times; and is reported to have said, that the ministry made use of a lute, when they should have called for a trumpet.

This year, 1716[184], he married the countess dowager of Warwick, whom he had solicited by a very long and anxious courts.h.i.+p, perhaps with behaviour not very unlike that of sir Roger to his disdainful widow; and who, I am afraid, diverted herself often by playing with his pa.s.sion. He is said to have first known her by becoming tutor to her son [185]. ”He formed,” said Tonson, ”the design of getting that lady from the time when he was first recommended into the family.” In what part of his life he obtained the recommendation, or how long and in what manner he lived in the family, I know not. His advances, at first, were certainly timorous[186], but grew bolder as his reputation and influence increased; till, at last, the lady was persuaded to marry him, on terms much like those on which a Turkish princess is espoused, to whom the sultan is reported to p.r.o.nounce, ”Daughter, I give thee this man for thy slave.”

The marriage, if uncontradicted report can be credited, made no addition to his happiness; it neither found them nor made them equal. She always remembered her own rank, and thought herself ent.i.tled to treat with very little ceremony the tutor of her son. Howe's ballad of the Despairing Shepherd, is said to have been written, either before or after marriage, upon this memorable pair; and it is certain that Addison has left behind him no encouragement for ambitious love.

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