Part 52 (1/2)
The year after, 1717, he rose to his highest elevation, being made secretary of state. For this employment he might justly be supposed qualified by long practice of business, and by his regular ascent through other offices; but expectation is often disappointed; it is universally confessed that he was unequal to the duties of his place. In the house of commons he could not speak, and, therefore, was useless to the defence of the government. In the office, says Pope,[187] he could not issue an order without losing his time in quest of fine expressions. What he gained in rank he lost in credit; and, finding by experience his own inability, was forced to solicit his dismission, with a pension of fifteen hundred pounds a year. His friends palliated this relinquishment, of which both friends and enemies knew the true reason, with an account of declining health, and the necessity of recess and quiet.
He now returned to his vocation, and began to plan literary occupations for his future life. He purposed a tragedy on the death of Socrates; a story of which, as Tickell remarks, the basis is narrow, and to which I know not how love could have been appended. There would, however, have been no want either of virtue in the sentiments, or elegance in the language.
He engaged in a n.o.bler work, a defence of the Christian religion, of which part was published after his death; and he designed to have made a new poetical version of the psalms.
These pious compositions Pope imputed[188] to a selfish motive, upon the credit, as he owns, of Tonson[189], who, having quarrelled with Addison, and not loving him, said, that when he laid down the secretary's office, he intended to take orders, and obtain a bishop.r.i.c.k; ”For,” said he, ”I always thought him a priest in his heart.”
That Pope should have thought this conjecture of Tonson worth remembrance, is a proof, but, indeed, so far as I have found, the only proof, that he retained some malignity from their ancient rivalry. Tonson pretended but to guess it; no other mortal ever suspected it; and Pope might have reflected, that a man, who had been secretary of state in the ministry of Sunderland, knew a nearer way to a bishop.r.i.c.k than by defending religion, or translating the psalms.
It is related, that he had once a design to make an English dictionary, and that he considered Dr. Tillotson as the writer of highest authority.
There was formerly sent to me by Mr. Locker, clerk of the leathersellers'
company, who, was eminent for curiosity and literature, a collection of examples selected from Tillotson's works, as Locker said, by Addison. It came too late to be of use, so I inspected it but slightly, and remember it indistinctly. I thought the pa.s.sages too short.
Addison, however, did not conclude his life in peaceful studies; but relapsed, when he was near his end, to a political dispute.
It so happened that, 1718-19, a controversy was agitated, with great vehemence, between those friends of long continuance, Addison and Steele.
It may be asked, in the language of Homer, what power or what cause could set them at variance. The subject of their dispute was of great importance. The earl of Sunderland proposed an act, called the Peerage Bill; by which the number of peers should be fixed, and the king restrained from any new creation of n.o.bility, unless when an old family should be extinct. To this the lords would naturally agree; and the king, who was yet little acquainted with his own prerogative, and, as is now well known, almost indifferent to the possessions of the crown, had been persuaded to consent. The only difficulty was found among the commons, who were not likely to approve the perpetual exclusion of themselves and their posterity. The bill, therefore, was eagerly opposed, and, among others, by sir Robert Walpole, whose speech was published.
The lords might think their dignity diminished by improper advancements, and particularly by the introduction of twelve new peers at once, to produce a majority of tories in the last reign; an act of authority violent enough, yet certainly legal, and by no means to be compared with that contempt of national right with which, some time afterwards, by the instigation of whiggism, the commons, chosen by the people for three years, chose themselves for seven. But, whatever might be the disposition of the lords, the people had no wish to increase their power. The tendency of the bill, as Steele observed in a letter to the earl of Oxford, was to introduce an aristocracy; for a majority in the house of lords, so limited, would have been despotick and irresistible.
To prevent this subversion of the ancient establishment, Steele, whose pen readily seconded his political pa.s.sions, endeavoured to alarm the nation by a pamphlet called the Plebeian. To this an answer was published by Addison, under the t.i.tle of the Old Whig, in which it is not discovered that Steele was then known to be the advocate for the commons.
Steele replied by a second Plebeian; and, whether by ignorance or by courtesy, confined himself to his question, without any personal notice of his opponent.
Nothing, hitherto, was committed against the laws of friends.h.i.+p, or proprieties of decency; but controvertists cannot long retain their kindness for each other. The Old Whig answered the Plebeian, and could not forbear some contempt of ”little d.i.c.ky, whose trade it was to write pamphlets.” d.i.c.ky, however, did not lose his settled veneration for his friend; but contented himself with quoting some lines of Cato, which were at once detection and reproof. The bill was laid aside during that session; and Addison died before the next, in which its commitment was rejected by two hundred and sixty-five to one hundred and seventy-seven.
Every reader surely must regret that these two ill.u.s.trious friends, after so many years pa.s.sed in confidence and endearment, in unity of interest, conformity of opinion, and fellows.h.i.+p of study, should finally part in acrimonious opposition. Such a controversy was ”Bellum plusquam _civile_,” as Lucan expresses it. Why could not faction find other advocates? But, among the uncertainties of the human state, we are doomed to number the instability of friends.h.i.+p.
Of this dispute I have little knowledge but from the Biographica Britannica. The Old Whig is not inserted in Addison's works; nor is it mentioned by Tickell in his life; why it was omitted, the biographers, doubtless, give the true reason; the fact was too recent, and those who had been heated in the contention were not yet cool.
The necessity of complying with times, and of sparing persons, is the great impediment of biography. History may be formed from permanent monuments and records; but lives can only be written from personal knowledge, which is growing every day less, and in a short time is lost for ever. What is known can seldom be immediately told; and when it might be told, it is no longer known. The delicate features of the mind, the nice discriminations of character, and the minute peculiarities of conduct, are soon obliterated; and it is surely better that caprice, obstinacy, frolick, and folly, however they might delight in the description, should be silently forgotten, than that, by wanton merriment and unseasonable detection, a pang should be given to a widow, a daughter, a brother, or a friend. As the process of these narratives is now bringing me among my contemporaries, I begin to feel myself ”walking upon ashes under which the fire is not extinguished,” and coming to the time of which it will be proper rather to say ”nothing that is false, than all that is true.”
The end of this useful life was now approaching. Addison had, for some time, been oppressed by shortness of breath, which was now aggravated by a dropsy; and, finding his danger pressing, he prepared to die conformably to his own precepts and professions.
During this lingering decay, he sent, as Pope relates[190], a message by the earl of Warwick to Mr. Gay, desiring to see him. Gay, who had not visited him for some time before, obeyed the summons, and found himself received with great kindness. The purpose for which the interview had been solicited was then discovered. Addison told him, that he had injured him; but that, if he recovered, he would recompense him. What the injury was, he did not explain, nor did Gay ever know, but supposed that some preferment designed for him had, by Addison's intervention, been withheld.
Lord Warwick was a young man of very irregular life, and, perhaps, of loose opinions[191]. Addison, for whom he did not want respect, had very diligently endeavoured to reclaim him; but his arguments and expostulations had no effect. One experiment, however, remained to be tried: when he found his life near its end, he directed the young lord to be called; and when he desired, with great tenderness, to hear his last injunctions, told him: ”I have sent for you, that you may see how a Christian can die.” What effect this awful scene had on the earl, I know not: he, likewise, died himself in a short time, In Tickell's excellent elegy on his friend are these lines:
He taught us how to live; and, oh! too high The price of knowledge, taught us how to die.
In which he alludes, as he told Dr. Young, to this moving interview.
Having given directions to Mr. Tickell for the publication of his works, and dedicated them on his deathbed to his friend Mr. Craggs, he died June 17, 1719, at Holland-house, leaving no child but a daughter[192].
Of his virtue it is a sufficient testimony, that the resentment of party has transmitted no charge of any crime. He was not one of those who are praised only after death; for his merit was so generally acknowledged, that Swift, having observed that his election pa.s.sed without a contest, adds, that, if he had proposed himself for king, he would hardly have been refused.
His zeal for his party did not extinguish his kindness for the merit of his opponents: when he was secretary in Ireland, he refused to intermit his acquaintance with Swift.
Of his habits, or external manners, nothing is so often mentioned as that timorous or sullen taciturnity, which his friends called modesty, by too mild a name. Steele mentions, with great tenderness, ”that remarkable bashfulness, which is a cloak that hides and m.u.f.fles merit;” and tells us, ”that his abilities were covered only by modesty, which doubles the beauties which are seen, and gives credit and esteem to all that are concealed.” Chesterfield affirms, that ”Addison was the most timorous and awkward man that he ever saw.” And Addison, speaking of his own deficiency in conversation, used to say of himself, that, with respect to intellectual wealth, ”he could draw bills for a thousand pounds, though he had not a guinea in his pocket.”