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MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
ox
MILTON AND ADDISON
EDITED FOR SCHOOL USE
ALPHONSO G. NEWCOMER
PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN THK LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR
UNIVERSITY
CHICAGO
SCOTT, FOHESMAN AND COMPANY
c * e . «
• i . . «
• t." < i •
Copyright 1899
Bv SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPACT
ROBERT O. LAVA/ C O M P A N > ,
PRINTERS AND BINDERS, CHICAGO.
PREFACE MPrlN
Julius Caesar and Lord Macaulay have been
much abused writers. They did not mean to
write immortal works, least of all did they mean
to write immortal exercises for the school-room.
But when a man writes — just as he would fight,
on the field of battle or in the political arena —
with what Quintilian describes as "force, point,
and vehemence of style," he must expect the
school-boy to devour his pages. This is right, —
this is not abuse; the abuse is done when live
literature is transformed into dead rhetoric, a
thing for endless exercises in etymologies and con-
structions, until the very name of the author
becomes odious. Perhaps it is late for this com-
plaint ; we flatter ourselves that we are coming to
reason and balance in our methods. Certainly I
should not try to discourage study, and liberal
study, of the mechanics of composition. And
there is no better medium for such study than
Macaulay 's Essays. But I trust that every teacher
to whom the duty of conducting such study falls
will not at the same time forget that literature is
an art which touches life very closely, and has its
springs far back in the human spirit.
20451C
8 PREFACE
With the hope of encouraging this attitude I
have ventured to assume the responsibility of
setting afloat one more annotated text of Macau -
lay. Realizing that, in dealing with the work of
a writer whose affiliations with literature are
chiefly formal (Introduction, 19), there is no
escape from considerations of style, I have frankly
put the matter foremost. But I have tried to
take a broad view of its significance, and in partic-
ular I have tried to do Macaulay justice. Alto-
gether too many pupils have carried away from the
study of him the narrow idea that his great
achievement consisted in using one or two very
patent (but, if they only knew it, very petty) rhetor-
ical devices. It has been the primary aim of my
Introduction to set these matters in their right
perspective. I have not outlined specific methods
of study, which are to be found everywhere by
those who value them, but both Introduction and
Notes contain many suggestions. It seems better
to stop at this. Even the few illustrations I have
used have been preferably drawn from essays not
here printed. No editor should wish to take from
teacher or pupil the profit of investigation or the
stimulus of discovery.
There is another matter in which I should like
to counsel vigilance, and that is the habit of
requiring pupils to trace allusions, quotations, etc.
The practice has been much abused, and a warning
seems especially necessary in the study of a writer
PREFACE 9
like Macaulay, who crowds his pages with instances
and illustrations. It is profitable to follow him in
the process of bringing together a dozen things to
enforce his point, but it is not profitable to reverse
the process and allow ourselves to be led away from
the subject in hand into a multitude of unrelated
matters. Such practices are ruinous to the intel-
lect. We must concentrate attention, not dissi-
pate it. Only when we fail to catch the full
significance of an allusion, should we look it up.
Then we must see to it that we bring back from
our research just what occasioned the allusion, just
what bears on the immediate passage. Other facts
will be picked up by the way and may come use-
ful in good time, but for the purpose of our pres-
ent study we should insist on the vital relation of
every fact contributed.
So earnest am I upon this point that I must
illustrate. At one place Macaulay writes: "Do
we believe that Erasmus and Fracastorius wrote
Latin as well as Dr. Robertson and Sir Walter
Scott wrote English? And are there not in the
Dissertation on India, the last of Dr. Robertson's
works, in Waverley, in Marmion, Scotticisms at
which a London apprentice would laugh?" Why
should we be told (to pick out one of these half-
dozen allusions) that Dr. Robertson's first name was
William, that he lived from 1721 to 1793, and
that he wrote such and such books? With all
respect for the memory of Dr. Robertson, I submit
10 PREFACE
that this is not the place to learn about him and
his histories. Macaulay's allusion to him is not
explained in the least by giving his date. Yet
there is something here to interpret, simple though
it be. Let us put questions until we are sure that
the pupil understands that Dr. Robertson, being a
Scot, could not write wholly idiomatic English —
English, say, of the London type — and that thi3 is
one illustration of the general truth that a man
can write with purity only in his native tongue.
It is such exercises in interpretation that I should
like to see substituted for the disastrous game of
hunting allusions.
I cannot flatter myself that I have achieved con-
sistency in my own notes and glossary. To recur
to the illustration above, I have omitted the name
of Dr. Robertson, because Macaulay seems to tell
us enough about him, while I have added a few
words about Fracastorius in order that he may be
to the reader something more than a name. But
I cannot help suspecting that it is a waste of
energy for any one to try to impress even this name
on his mind, and I should be quite satisfied that a
pupil of mine should never look it up, provided
he had alertness enough to see that Fracastorius
wrote in Latin though he was not a Roman, and
discrimination enough to feel that there are other
allusions of an entirely different character which
must be looked up.
The glossary aims to include only names and
PREFACE 11
terms not familiar or easily found (provided they
need explaining), and also names which, though
easily found, call for some special comment. In
general, when allusions are self -explaining, we
should rest content with our text. In the first
paragraph of the essay on Milton, for example,
one Mr. Lemon is mentioned. Doubtless the
Dictionary of National Biography would tell us
something more about him, but Macaulay tells us
all we need to know. Again, there is a reference
to a fairy story told by Ariosto. But all the neces-
sary details are given and it will be idle to hunt
the story up in order to cite chapter and verse for
it, though of course if one wants to read Ariosto,
let him do so by all means — that is a different
thing. On the other hand, an allusion to the lion
in a certain fable is not made so clear, because
Macaulay takes it for granted that we know the
fable. If we do not, we must look it up. So,
also, with such phrases as "the Ciceronian gloss,"
"the doubts of the Academy," "the pride of the
Portico." I could have wished to insert into
the glossary nothing which an intelligent pupil
could find for himself, though here an editor
must sin a little in excess for the sake of schools
and homes not well equipped with libraries. I
have tried to decide each case upon its merits in
the interest of genuine education, and only those
who have attempted a similar task will understand
its difficulties.
12 PREFACE
The text adopted is that of Lady Trevelyan's
edition, with very slight changes in spelling, punc-
tuation, and capitals. A. G. N.
Stanford University, May, 1899.
CONTENTS
PA«E
Preface ... . 7
Introduction ........ 15
Chronologv and Bibliography . 43
The Essays:
Milton 45
The Life and Writings of Addison . . . 125
Notes . 250
Glossary . 268
INTRODUCTION ■
When, in 1825, Francis Jeffrey, Editor of the
Edinburgh Review, searching for "some clever
l.Macama y ' S Ad-y° l ™g man wh ° WOllld Wfite f ° r
vent in the Edin- us," laid his hands upon Thomas
burgh Review, Ba k ington Macaulay, he did not
know that he was marking a red-letter day in the
calendar of English journalism. Through the two
decades and more of its existence, the Review had
gone on serving its patrons with the respectable
dulness of Lord Brougham and the respectable
vivacity of its editor, and the patrons had appar-
ently dreamed of nothing better until the
momentous August when the young Fellow of
Trinity, not yet twenty-rive, flashed upon its pages
with his essay on Milton. And for the next two
decades the essays that followed from the same pen
became so far the mainstay of the magazine that
booksellers declared it "sold, or did not sell,
according as there were, or were not, articles by
Mr. Macaulay." Yet Jeffrey was not without
some inkling of the significance of the event, for
upon receipt of the first manuscript he wrote to its
author the words so often quoted: "The more I
think, the less I can conceive where you picked
15
16 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
up that style. r ' Thus early was the finger of
criticism pointed toward the one thing that has
always been most conspicuously associated with
Macaulay's name.
English prose, at this date, was still clinging to
the traditions of its measured eighteenth-century
stateliness. But the life had
2. Effect on Prose. .
nearly gone out of it, and the
formalism which sat so elegantly upon Addison
and not uneasily upon Johnson had stiffened into
pedantry, scarcely relieved by the awkward
attempts of the younger journalists to give it spirit
and freedom. It was this languishing prose which
Macaulay, perhaps more than any other one writer,
deserves the credit of rejuvenating with that
wonderful something which Jeffrey was pleased
to call ''style." Macaulay himself would certainly
have deprecated the association of his fame with a
mere synonym for rhetoric, and we should be
wronging him if we did not hasten to add that
style, rightly understood, is a very large and
significant thing, comprehending, indeed, a man's
whole intellectual and emotional attitude toward
those phases of life with which he comes into con-
tact. It is the man's manner of reacting upon the
world, his manner of expressing himself to the
world; and the world has little beyond the man-
ner of a man's expression by which to judge of the
man himself. But a good style, even in its nar-
row sense of a good command of language, of a
INTRODUCTION 1?
masterly and individual manner of presenting
thought, is yet no mean accomplishment, and if
Macaulay had done nothing else than revivify
English prose, which is, just possibly, his most
enduring achievement, he would have little reason
to complain. What he accomplished in this
direction and how, it is our chief purpose here to
explain. In the meantime we shall do well to
glance at his< other achievements and take some
note of his equipment.
Praed has left this description of him: "There
came up a short, manly figure, marvelously upright,
with a bad neckcloth, and one
3. The Man. ,-..». . -, *«
hand in his waistcoat-pocket.
We read here, easily enough, brusqueness, pre-
cision without fastidiousness, and self-confidence.
These are all prominent traits of the man, and
they all show in his work. Add kindness and
moral rectitude, which scarcely show there, and
humor, which shows only in a somewhat unpleasant v y
light, and you have a fair portrait. Now these are
manifestly the attributes of a man who knows
what worldly comfort and physical well-being are,
a man of good digestive and assimilative powers,
well-fed, incapable of worry, born to succeed.
In truth, Macaulay was a man of remarkable
vitality and energy, and though ■ he died too early
— at the beginning of his sixtieth year — he began
his work young and continued it with almost
unabated vigor to the end. But his "work" (as
18 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
we are in the habit of naming that which a man
leaves behind him), voluminous as it is, represents
only one side of his activity. There was the
early-assumed burden of repairing his father's
broken fortunes, and providing for the family of
younger brothers and sisters. The burden, it is
true, was assumed with characteristic cheerfulness
— it could not destroy for him the worldly comfort
we have spoken of — but it entailed heavy responsi-
bilities for a young man. It forced him to seek
salaried positions, such as the post of commissioner
of bankruptcy, when he might have been more
congenially employed. Then there were the many
years spent in the service of the government as a
Whig member of the House of Commons and as
Cabinet Minister during the exciting period of the
Reform Bill and the Anti-Corn-Law League, with
all that such service involved — study of politics,
canvassing, countless dinners, public and private,
speech-making in Parliament and out, reading and
making reports, endless committee meetings, end-
less sessions. There were the three years and a
half spent in India, drafting a penal code. And
there was, first and last, the acquisition of the
knowledge that made possible this varied activity,
— the years at the University, the study of law and
jurisprudence, the reading, not of books, but of
entire national literatures, the ransacking of
libraries and the laborious deciphering of hundreds
of manuscripts in the course of historical
INTRODUCTION 19
research. Perhaps we fall into Macaulay's trick
of exaggeration, but it is not easy to exaggerate the
mental feats of a man who could carry in his
memory works like Paradise Lost and Pilgrim" s
Progress and who was able to put it on record
that in thirteen months he had read thirty clas-
sical authors, most of them entire and many of
them twice, and among them such voluminous
writers as Euripides, Herodotus, Plato, Plutarch,
Livy, and Cicero. Nor was the classical literature
a special field; Italian, Spanish, French, and the
wildernesses of the English drama and the Eng-
lish novel (not excluding the "trashy") were all
explored. We may well be astounded that the
man who could do all these things in a lifetime
of moderate compass, and who was besides such a
tireless pedestrian that he was "forever on his feet
indoors as well as out," could find time to produce
so much literature of his own.
That literature — so to style the body of work
which has survived him — divides itself into at least
five divisions. There are, first,
4. His Work. ' '
the Essays, which he produced
at intervals all through life. There are the
Speeches which were delivered on the floor of
Parliament between his first election in 1830 and
his last in 1852, and which rank very high in that
grade of oratory which is just below the highest.
There is the Indian Penal Code, not altogether his
own work and not literature of course, yet praised
SO MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
by Justice Stephen as one of the most remarkable
and satisfactory instruments of its kind ever
drafted. There -are the Poems, published in
1842, adding little to his fame and not a great
deal to English literature, yet very respectable
achievements in the field of the modern romantic
ballad. Finally, there is the unfinished History of
England from the Accession of James the Second,
his last, his most ambitious, and probably, all
things considered, his most successful work.
The History and Essays comprise virtually all of
this product that the present generation cares to
5. History of read. Upon the History, indeed,
England. Macaulay staked his claim to
future remembrance, regarding it as the great work
of his life. He was exceptionally well equipped
for the undertaking. He had such a grasp of uni-
versal history as few men have been able to secure,
and a detailed knowledge of the period of English
history under contemplation equalled by none.
But he delayed the undertaking too long, and he
allowed his time and energy to be dissipated in
obedience to party calls. Death overtook him in
the midst of his labors. Even thus, it is clear
that he underestimated the magnitude of the task
he had set himself. For he proposed to cover a
period of nearly a century and a half; the four
volumes and a fraction which he completed actually
cover about fifteen years. His plan involved too
much detail. It has been called pictorial history
INTRODUCTION 21
writing, and snch it was. History was to be as
vital and as human as romance. It was to be in
every sense a restoration of the life of the past.
Macaulay surely succeeded in this aim, as his
fascinating third chapter will always testify;
whether the aim were a laudable one, we cannot
stop here to discuss. Historians will continue to
point out the defects of the work, its diffuseness,
its unphilosophical character, perhaps its partisan
spirit. But it remains a magnificent fragment, and
it will be read by thousands who could never be
persuaded to look into dryer though possibly
sounder works. Indeed, there is no higher tribute^
to its greatness than the objection that has some-
times been brought against it, namely, that it
treats a comparatively unimportant era of Eng-
land's history with such fulness and brilliance, and
has attracted to it so manv readers, that the other
eras are thrown sadly out of perspective.
But Macaulay 's name is popularly associated
with that body of Essays which in bulk alone
(always excepting Sainte-
Beuve's) are scarcely exceeded
by the product of any other essay-writer in an
essay-writing age. And the popular judgment
which has insisted upon holding to this sup-
posedly ephemeral work is not far wrong. With
all their faults upon them, until we have something
better in kind to replace them, we cannot consent
to let them go. In one sense, their range is not
22 MACAULAYS ESSAYS
wide, for they fall naturally into but two divisions,
the historical and the critical. To these Mr.
Morison would add a third, the controversial,
comprising the four essays on Mill, Sadler,
Southey, and Gladstone ; but these are comparatively
unimportant. In another sense, however, their
range is very wide. For each one gathers about a
central subject a mass of details that in the hands
of any other writer would be bewildering, while
the total knowledge that supports the bare arrays
of fact and perpetual press of allusions betrays a
scope that, to the ordinary mind, is quite beyond
comprehension.
And the more remarkable must this work appear
when we consider the manner of its production.
Most of the essays were published anonymously in
the Edinburgh Revieiv, a few early ones in
Knight's Quarterly Magazine, five (those on
Atterbury, Bunyan, Goldsmith, Johnson, and
Pitt), written late in life, in the Encyclopaedia
Britannica. The writing of them was always an
avocation with Macanlay, never a vocation. Those
produced during his parliamentary life were usually
written .in the hoars between early rising and
breakfast.. Some were composed at a distance
from his books. He scarcely dreamed of their
living beyond the quarter of their publication, cer-
tainly not beyond the generation for whose enter-
tainment they were written with all the devices to
catch applause and all the disregard of permanent
INTRODUCTION 23
merit which writing for such a purpose invites.
He could scarcely be induced, even after they were
pirated and republished in America, to reissue
them in a collected edition, with his revision and
under his name. These facts should be remem-
bered in mitigation of the severe criticism to which
they are sometimes subjected.
Between the historical and the critical essays we
are not called upon to decide, though the decision
is by no means difficult. Macaulay was essentially
a historian, a story-teller, and the historical essay,
or short monograph on the events of a single period
that usually group themselves about some great
statesman or soldier, he made peculiarly his own.
He did not invent it, as Mr. Morison points out,
but he expanded and improved it until he "left it
complete and a thing of power." Fully a score of
his essays — more than half the total number — are
of this description, the most and the best of them
dealing with English historv. Chief among them
are the essays on Hallam, Temple, the Pitts, Clive,
and "Warren Hastings. The critical essays — upon
Johnson, Addison, Bunyan, and other men of
letters — are in every way as admirable reading as v
the historical. They must take a lower rank only
because Macaulay lacked some of the prime
requisites of a successful critic — broad and deep
sympathies, refined tastes, and nice perception of
the more delicate tints and shadings that count for
almost everything in a work of high art. His
24 MACAULAY r S ESSAYS
critical judgments are likely to be blunt, positive,
and superficial. But they are never actually shal-
low and rarely without a modicum of truth. And
%they are never uninteresting. For, true to his
narrative instinct, he always interweaves biog-
raphy. And besides, the essays have the same
rhetorical qualities that mark with distinction
all the prose he has written, that is to say, the
same masterly method and the same compelling
style. It is to this method and style, that, after
our rapid review of Macaulay's aims and accom-
plishments, we are now ready to turn.
There were two faculties of Macaulay's mind
that set his work far apart from other work in
7. organizing the same field — the faculties of
Faculty. organization and illustration.
He saw things in their right relation and he knew
how to make others see them thus. If he was
describing, he never thrust minor details into the
foreground. If he was narrating, he never "got
ahead of his story." The importance of this is not
sufficiently recognized. Many writers do not know
what organization means. They do not know that
in all great and successful literary work it is nine-
tenths of the labor. Yet consider a moment.
History is a very complex thing: divers events may
be simultaneous in their occurrence; or one crisis
may be slowly evolving from many causes in many
places. It is no light task to tell these things one
after another and yet leave a unified impression, to
INTRODUCTION 25
take np a dozen new threads in succession without
tangling them and without losing the old ones, and
to lay them all down at the right moment and
without confusion. Such is the narrator's task,
and it was at this task that Macaulay proved him-
self a past master. He could dispose of a number
of trivial events in a single sentence. Thus, for
example, runs his account of the dramatist
AVycherley's naval career: "He embarked, was
present at a battle, and celebrated it, on his
return, in a copy of verses too bad for the bell-
man." On the other hand, when it is a question
of a great crisis, like the impeachment of Warren
Hastings, he knew how to prepare for it with
elaborate ceremony and to portray it in a scene of
the highest dramatic power.
This faculty of organization shows itself in what
we technically name structure; and logical and
rhetorical structure may be studied at their very best ,
in his work. His essays are perfect units, made
up of many parts, systems within systems, that
play together without clog or friction. You can
take them apart like a watch and put them
together again. But try to rearrange the parts and
the mechanism is spoiled. Each essay has its
subdivisions, which in turn are groups of para-
graphs. And each paragraph is a unit. Take the
first paragraph of the essay on Milton : the word
manuscript appears in the first sentence, and it
reappears in the last ; clearly the paragraph deals
26 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
with a single very definite topic. And so with all.
Of course the unity manifests itself in a hundred
ways, but it is rarely wanting. Most frequently it
takes the form of an expansion of a topic given in
the first sentence, or a preparation for a topic to
be announced only in the last. These initial and
final sentences — often in themselves both aphoristic
and memorable — serve to mark with the utmost
clearness the different stages in the progress of the
essay.
Illustration is of more incidental service, but as
used by Macaulay becomes highly organic. For
s. illustrating his illustrations are not far-
Facuity. fetched or laboriously worked
out. They seem to be of one piece with his story
or his argument. His mind was quick to detect re-
semblances and analogies. He was ready with a
comparison for everything, sometimes with half a
dozen. For example, Addison's essays, he has
occasion to say, were different every day of the week,
and yet, to his mind, each day like something —
like Horace, like Lucian, like the "Tales of
Scheherezade." He draws long comparisons
between Walpole and Townshend, between Con-
greve and Wycherley, between Essex and Villiers,
between the fall of the Carlovingians and the fall
of the Moguls. He follows up a general statement
with swarms of instances. Have historians been
given to exaggerating the villainy of Machiavelli?
Macaulay can name you half a dozen who did so.
INTRODUCTION 27
Did the writers of Charles's faction delight in mak-
ing their opponents appear contemptible? "The}'
have told us that Pym broke down in a speech,
that Ireton had his nose pulled by Hollis, that the
Earl of Northumberland cudgelled Henry Marten,
that St. John's manners were sullen, that Vane
had an ugly face, that Cromwell had a red nose."
Do men fail when they quit their own province for
another? Newton failed thus ; Bentley failed ; Inigo
Jones failed; Wilkie failed. In the same way he
was ready with quotations. He writes in one of
his letters: "It is a dangerous thing for a man
with a very strong memory to read very much. I
could give you three or four quotations this
moment in support of that proposition ; but I will
bring the vicious propensity under subjection, if I
can." Thus we see his mind doing instantly and
involuntarily what other minds do with infinite
pains, bringing together all things that have a
likeness or a common bearing.
Both of these faculties, for organization and for
illustration, are to be partially explained by his
marvelous memory. As we have
9. Memory. ^
seen, he read everything, and he
seems to have been incaj^able of forgetting any-
thing. The immense advantage which this gave
him over other men is obvious. He who carries
his library in his mind wastes no time in turning
up references. And surveying the whole field of
his knowledge at once, with outlines and details
28 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
all in immediate range, he should be able to see
things in their natural perspective. Of course it
does not follow that a great memory will always
enable a man to systematize and synthesize, but it
should make it easier for its possessor than for other
men, while the power of ready illustration which
it affords him is beyond question.
It is precisely these talents that set Macaulay
among the simplest and clearest of writers, and
10. Clearness and that aCCOUllt for much of his
simplicity. popularity. People found that in
taking up one of his articles they simply read on
and on, never puzzling over the meaning of a
sentence, getting the exact force of every state-
ment, and following the trend of thought with
scarcely a mental effort. And his natural gift of
making things plain he took pains to support by
various devices. He constructed his sentences
after the simplest normal fashion, subject and
verb and object, sometimes inverting for emphasis,
but rarely complicating, and always reducing
expression to the barest terms. He could write,
for example, "One advantage the chaplain had,"
but it is impossible to conceive of his writing,
"Now amid all the discomforts and disadvantages
with which the unfortunate chaplain was sur-
rounded, there was one thing which served to offset
them, and which, if he chose to take the oppor.
tunity of enjoying it, might well be regarded as a
positive advantage." One will search his pages in
INTRODUCTION 89
vain for loose, trailing clauses and involved con-
structions. His vocabulary was of the same simple
nature. He had a complete command of ordinary
English and contented himself with that. He
rarely ventured beyond the most abridged diction-
ary. An occasional technical term might be re-
quired, but he was shy of the unfamiliar. He
would coin no words and he would use no
archaisms. Foreign words, when fairly naturalized,
he employed sparingly. "We shall have no dis-
putes about diction," he wrote to Napier, Jeffrey's
successor; "the English language is not so poor
but that I may very well find in it the means of
contenting both you and myself."
Now all of these things are wholly admirable,
and if they constituted the sum total of Macaulay's
method, as thev certainlv do con-
11. Force. . . * J
stitute the chief features of it, we
should pass our word of praise and have done.
But he did not stop here, and often, unfortun-
ately too often, these things are not thought of at
all by those who profess to speak knowingly of his
wonderful "style." For in addition to clearness he
sought also force, an entirely legitimate object in
itself and one in which he was merely giving way to
his oratorical or journalistic instinct. Only, his
fondness for effect led him too far and into various
mannerisms, some of which it is quite impossible
to approve. There is no question that they are
powerfully effective, as they were meant to be,
30 MACAULAYS ESSAYS
often rightly so, and they are exceedingly interest-
ing to study, but for these very reasons the student
needs to be warned against attaching to them an
undue importance.
Perhaps no one will quarrel with his liking for
the specific and the concrete. This indeed is not
mannerism. It is the natural
12. Concreteness. . , .
working of the imaginative mind,
of the picturing faculty, and is of the utmost value
in forceful, vivid writing. The "ruffs and peaked
beards of Theobald's" make an excellent passing
allusion to the social life of the time of Queen
Elizabeth and James the First. The manoeuvres
of an army become intensely interesting when we
see it "pouring through those wild passes which,
worn by mountain torrents and dark with jungle,
lead down from the table-land of Mysore to the
plains of the Carnatic." A reference to the
reputed learning of the English ladies of the six-
teenth century is most cunningly put in the picture
of "those fair pupils of Ascham and Aylmer who
compared, over their embroidery, the styles of
Isocrates and Lysias, and who, while the horns
were sounding, and the dogs in full cry, sat in the
lonely oriel, with eyes riveted to that immortal
page which tells how meekly the first great martyr
of intellectual liberty took the cup from his weep-
ing gaoler." But when his eagerness for the con-
cretely picturesque leads him to draw a wholly
imaginary picture of how it may have come about
INTRODUCTION 31
that Addison had Steele arrested for debt, we are
quite ready to protest.
His tendency to exaggerate, moreover, and his
love of paradox, belong in a very different
category. Let the reader count
13. Exaggeration. n
the strong words, superlatives,
aniversal propositions, and the like, employed in a
characteristic passage, and he will understand at
once what is meant. In the essay on Frederic the
Great we read: "No sovereign has ever taken
possession of a throne by a clearer title. All the
politics of the Austrian cabinet had, during twenty
years, been directed to one single end — the settle-
ment of the succession. From every person whose
rights could be considered as injuriously affected,
renunciations in the most solemn form had been
obtained." And not content with the ordinary
resources of language, he has a trick of raising
superlatives themselves, as it were, to the second
or third power. "There can be little doubt that
this great empire was, even in its best days, far
worse governed than the worst governed parts of
Europe now are." "What the Italian is to the
Englishman, what the Hindoo is to the Italian,
what the Bengalee is to other Hindoos, that was
Nuncomar to other Bengalees." It is evident that
this habit is a positive vice. He tried to excuse it
on the ground that there is some inevitable loss in
the communication of a fact from one mind to
another, and that over-statement is necessary to
3£ MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
correct the error. But the argument is fallacious.
Macaulay did not have a monopoly of the imagi-
native faculty: other men are as much given to
exaggeration as he, and stories, as they pass from
mouth to mouth, invariably "grow."
His constant resort to antithesis to point his
statements is another vice. "That government,"
14. Antithesis and he writes of the English rule in
Balance. India, "oppressive as the most
oppressive form of barbarian des])otism, was strong
with all the strength of civilization." Again:
"The Puritan had affected formality; the comic
poet laughed at decorum. The Puritan had
frowned at innocent diversions; the comic poet
took under his patronage the most flagitious
excesses. The Puritan had canted; the comic
poet blasphemed." And so on, through a para-
graph. Somewhat similar to this is his practice of
presenting the contrary of a statement before pre-
senting the statement itself, of telling us, for
example, what might have been expected to happen
before telling us what actually did happen. It is
to be noticed that, accompanying this use of
antithesis and giving it added force, there is
usually a balance of form, that is, a more or less
exact correspondence of sentence structure. Given
one of Macaulay 's sentences presenting the first
part of an antithesis, it is sometimes possible to
foretell, word for word, what the next sentence
will be. Such mechanical writing is certainly not
INTRODUCTION 33
to be commended as a model of style. Of course
it is the abuse of these things and not the mere use
of them that constitutes Macaulay's vice.
There are still other formal devices which he
uses so freely that we are justified in calling them
mannerisms. One of the most
15. Minor Devices. . .
conspicuous is the short sentence,
the blunt, unqualified statement of one thing at a
time. No one who knows Macaulay would hesitate
over the authorship of the following: "The shore
was rocky: the night was black: the wind was
furious : the wares of the Bay of Biscay ran high."
The only wonder is that he did not punctuate it
with four periods. He would apparently much
rather repeat his subject and make a new sentence
than connect his verbs. Instead of writing, "He
coaxed and wheedled," he is constantly tempted
to write, "He coaxed, he wheedled," even though
the practice involves prolonged reiteration of one
form. The omission of connectives — rhetorical
"asyndeton" — becomes itself a vice. The ands,
t hens , there/ores, liowevers, the reader must supply
for himself. This demands alertness and helps to
sustain interest ; and while it may occasion a
momentary perplexity, it will rarely do so when the
reader comes to know the style and to read it with
the right swing. But it all goes to enforce what
Mr. John Morley calls the "unlovely staccato" of
the style. It strikes harsh on the ear and on the
brain, and from a piquant stimulant becomes an
C$4 MACAULAYS ESSAYS
intolerable weariness. Separate things get
emphasis, but the nice gradations and relations are
sacrificed.
After all, though we stigmatize these things as
"devices," intimating that they were mechanical
and arbitrary, we must regard
16. Dogmatism.
them as partly temperamental.
Macaulay's mind was not subtle in its working and
was not given to making nice distinctions. He
c°jed chiefly for bold outlines and broad effects.
Troth, to his mind, was sharply defined from false-
hood, right from wrong, good from evil. Every-
thing could be divided from everything else,
labeled, and pigeon-holed. And he was very
certain, in the fields which he chose to enter, that
he knew where to draw the dividing lines. Posi-
tiveness, self-confidence, are written all over his
work. Set for a moment against his method the
method of Matthew Arnold. This is how Arnold
tries to point out a defect in modern English
eociety: "And, owing to the same causes, does
not a subtle criticism lead us to make, even on the
good looks and politeness of onr aristocratic class,
and even of the most fascinating half of that class,
the feminine half, the one qualifying remark, that
in these charming gifts there should perhaps be,
for ideal perfection, a shade more soul?" Note
the careful approach, the constant, anxious qualifi-
cation, working up to a climax in the almost
painful hesitation of "a shade — more — soul."
INTRODUCTION 3.5
Imagine, if you can, Macaulay, the rough rider,
he of the "stamping emphasis," winding into a
truth like that. But indeed it is quite impossible
to imagine Macaulay 'a having any truth at all to
enunciate about so ethereal an attribute as this
same so«l
We have come well into the region of Macaulay's
defects. Clearness, we have seen, he had in a
17. ornament, remarkable degree. Force he also
Rhythm. j ia( j j n a remarkable degree,
though he frequently abused the means of display-
ing it. But genuine beauty, it is scarcely too
much to say, he had not at all. Of course, much
depends upon our definitions. We do not mean to
deny to his writings all elements of charm. The
very ease of his mastery over so many resources of
composition gives pleasure to the reader. Kis
frequent picturesqueness we have granted. He
can be genuinely figurative, though his figures
often incline to showiness. And above all he has
a certain sense for rhythm. He can write long,
sweeping sentences — periods that rise and descend
with the feeling, and that come to a stately or
graceful close. The sentence cited above about
the learning of women in the sixteenth century
may be taken as an example. Or read the sketch
of the Catholic Church in the third paragraph of
the essay on Yon Ranke's History of the Popes, or
the conclusion of the essay on Lord Holland, or
better still the conclusion of the somewhat juvenile
36 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
€8saj on Mitford's Greece, with its glowing trib-
ute to Athens and its famous picture of the "single
naked fisherman washing his nets in the river of
the ten thousand masts." But at best it is the
rhythm of mere declamation, swinging and
pompous. There is no fine flowing movement,
nothing like the entrancing glides of a waltz or the
airy steps of a minuet, but only a steady march to
the interminable and monotonous beat of the
drum. For real music, sweetness, subtle and
involved harmony, lingering cadences, we turn to
any one of a score of prose writers — Sir Thomas
Browne, Addison, Burke, Lamb, De Quincey, Haw-
thorne, Kuskin, Pater, Stevenson — before we turn
to Macaulay. Nor is there any other mere grace
of composition in which he can be said to excel.
There is no blame in the matter. We are only
trying to note dispassionately the defects as well
is. Tempera- as the excellences of a man who
mental Defects. was no t a universal genius. It
would be easy to point out much greater defects
than any yet mentioned, defects that go deeper
than style. One or two indeed we are obliged to
mention. There is the strain of coarseness often
to be noted in his writing, showing itself now in an
abusive epithet, now in a vulgar catch -word, now
in a sally of humor bordering on the ribald. It is
never grossly offensive, but it is none the less
wounding to a delicate sensibility. Then there is
the Philistine attitude, which Mr. Arnold spent so
INTRODUCTION 37
much of his life in combating, the attitude of the
complacent, self-satisfied Englishman, who sees in
the British constitution and the organization of the
British empire the best of all possible governments,
and in the material and commercial progress of the
age the best of all possible civilizations. And
there is the persistent refusal to treat questions of
really great moral significance upon any kind of
moral basis. The absolute right or wrong of an
act Macaulay will avoid discussing if he possibly
can, and take refuge in questions of policy, of sheer
profit and loss. We shall not blame him severely
for even these serious shortcomings. On the first
point we remember that he was deliberately play-
ing to his audience, consciously writing down to
the level of his public. On the second we realize
that he was a practical politician and that he never
could have been such with the idealism of a Car-
lyle or a Ruskin. And on the third we remember
that his own private life was one of affectionate
sacrifice and his public life absolutely stainless.
He could vote away his own income when moral
conviction demanded it. Besides, even when
he was only arguing, "policy" was always on the
side of the right. What blame is left? Only
this — that he should have pandered to any
public, compromising his future fame for an
ephemeral applause, and that he should have so far
wronged the mass of his readers as to suppose that
arguments based upon policy would be more
A
38 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
acceptable to them than arguments based upon
sound moral principles. That he was something of
a Philistine and not wholly a "child of light," may
be placed to his discount but not to his discredit.
The total indictment is small and is mentioned
here only in the interests of impartial criticism.
It remains only to sum up the literary signifi-
cance of Macaulay's work. Nearly all of that
19. Literary work, we must remember, lies
significance. 0ll tside of the field of what we
know as "pure literature." Pure literature —
poetry, drama, fiction — is a pure artistic or imagi-
native product with entertainment as its chief aim.
Though it may instruct incidentally, it does not
merely inform. It is the work of creative genius.
Macaulay's essays were meant to inform. Char-
acters and situations are delineated in them, bnt
not created. History and criticism are often not
literature at all. They become literature only
by revealing an imaginative insight and clothing
themselves in artistic form. Macaulay's essays
have done this ; they engage the emotions as well
as the intellect. They were meant for records,
for storehouses of information ; but they are also
works of art, and therefore they live intact while
the records of equally industrious but less gifted
historians are revised and replaced. Thus by their
artistic quality, style in a word, they are removed
from the shelves of history to the shelves of litera-
ture.
INTRODUCTION 39
It becomes plain, perhaps, why at the outset we
spoke of style. One hears little about Shaks-
pere's style, or Scott's, or Shelley's. Where there
are matters of larger interest — character, dra-
matic situations, passion, lofty conceptions,
abstract truth — there is little room for attention to
so superficial a quality, or rather to a quality that
has some such superficial aspects. But in the
work of less creative writers, a purely literary inter-
est, if it be aroused at all, must centre chiefly in
this. And herein lies Macaulay's significance to
the literary world to-day.
Upon the professional writers of that world,
as distinct from the readers, his influence has been
20. influence on no less than profound, partly for
journalism. eY {\^ t, ut c hi e fly, we think (Mr.
Morley notwithstanding), for good. His name
was mentioned at the beginning of our sketch in
connection with journalism. It is just because
the literary development of our age has moved so
rapidly along this line, that Macaulay's influence
has been so far-reaching. The journalist must
have an active pen. He cannot indulge in medi-
tation while the ink dries. He cannot stop to
arrange and rearrange his ideas, to study the
cadence of his sentences, to seek for the unique or
the suggestive word. What Macaulay did was to
furnish the model of just such a style as would
meet this need — ready, easy, rapid, yet never loose
or obscure. He seems to have found his way by
40 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
instinct to all those expedients which make writing
easy — short, direct sentences, commonplace words,
constant repetition and balance of form, adapted
quotations, and stock phrases from the Bible or
Prayer-Book or from the language of the jjrofes-
sions, politics, and trade. This style he impressed
upon a generation of journalists that was ready to
receive it and keenly alive to its value.
The word journalist is scarcely broad enough to
cover the class of writers here meant. For the
class includes, in addition to the great "press
tribe" from editor to reporter and reviewer, every
writer of popular literature, every one who appeals
to a miscellaneous public, who undertakes to
make himself a medium between special intelli-
gence and general intelligence. And there are
thousands of these writers to-day — in editorial
chairs, on magazine staffs, on political, educa-
tional, and scientific commissions — who are con-
sciously or unconsciously employing the convenient
instrument which Macaulay did so much toward
perfecting seventy-five years ago. The evidence
is on every hand. One listens to a lecture by a
scientist who, it is quite possible, never read a
paragraph of Macaulay, and catches, before long,
words like these: "There is no reversal of
nature's processes. The world has come from a
condition of things essentially different from the
present. It is moving toward a condition of things
sssentially different from the present." Or one
INTRODUCTION 41
turns to an editorial in a daily paper and reads :
"It will be ever thus with all the movements in
this country to which a revolutionary interpreta-
tion can be attached. The mass and body of the
people of the United States are a level-headed,
sober-minded people. They are an upright and a
solvent people. They love their government.
They are proud of their government. Its credit is
dear to them. Enlisted in its cause, party lines
sag loose upon the voters or disappear altogether
from their contemplation." The ear-marks are
very plain to see.
We would not make the mistake of attributing
too many and too large effects to a single cause.
Life and art are very complex matters and the
agencies at work are quite beyond our calculation.
There is always danger of exaggerating the impor-
tance of a single influence. The trend of things is
not easily disturbed — the history of the world never
yet turned upon the cast of a die or the length of a
woman's nose. In spite of Jeffrey's testimony — and
it cannot be lightly brushed aside — we are not ready
to give Macaulay the whole credit for inventing this
style. Nor do we believe that journalism would be
materially different from what it is to-day, even
though Macaulay had never written a line. But it
does not seem too much to admit that the first
vigorous impulse came from him and that the
manner is deservedly associated with his name.
In itself, as has been pointed out, it is not a
42 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
beautiful thing. It is a thing of mannerisms, and
these we have not hesitated to call vices. From
the point of view of literature they are vices T
blemishes on the face of true art. But the style
is useful none the less. The ready writer is not
concerned about beauty, he does not profess to be
an artist. He has intelligence to convey, and the
simplest and clearest medium is for his purpose the
best. He will continue to use this serviceable
medium nor trouble himself about its "unlovely
staccato" and its gaudy tinsel. Meanwhile the
literary artist may pursue his way in search of a
more elusive music and a more iridescent beauty,
satisfied with the tithe of Macaulay's popularity if
only he can attain to some measure of his own ideals.
But Macaulay himself should be remembered for
his real greatness. The facile imitator of the
31. Real Great- tricks of his pen should beware
ness. f t} ie ingratitude of assuming
that these were the measure of his mind. These
vices are virtues in their place, but they are not
high virtues, and they are not the virtues that made
Macaulay great. His greatness lay in the qualities
hat we have tried to insist upon from the first,
([Utilities that are quite beyond imitation, the power
of bringing instantly into one mental focus the accu-
mulations of a prodigious memory, and the range of
vision, the grasp of detail, and the insight into men,
measures, and events, that enabled him to reduce
to beautiful order the chaos of human history.
:
CHRONOLOGY AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
1800. Macaulay born, Oct. 25, at Rothley Temple,
Leicestershire.
1818. Entered Trinity College, Cambridge. (B. A.,
1822; M. A., 1825.)
1823. Began contributing to Knight's Quarterly Maga-
zine.
1824. Elected Fellow of Trinity.
1825. Began contributing to Edinburgh Review.
1826. Called to the Bar.
1830. Entered Parliament.
1831. Speeches on Reform Bill.
1834. Went to India as member of the Supreme Coun
cil.
1837. Indian Penal Code.
1838. Returned to England. Tour in Italy.
1839. Elected to Parliament for Edinburgh. Secretary
at War.
1842. Lays of Ancient Rome.
1843. Collected edition of Essays.
1848. History of England, vols. i. and ii. (Vols. iii.
and iv. 1855; vol. v. 1861.)
1852. Failure in health.
185T. Made Baron Macaulay of Rothley.
1859. Died Dec. 28. (Interred in Westminster Abbey. )
The standard edition of Macaulay's works is that
edited by his sister, Lady Trevelyan, in eight volumes,
and published at London, 1866 ; reprinted at New York,
by Harper Bros. The authorized biography is that by his
nephew, G. O. Trevelyan, a book which is exceedingly
interesting and which takes high rank among English
43
44 MACAULAY S ESSAYS
biographies. J- Cotter Morison's life in the English
Men of Letters series is briefer, is both biographical and
critical, and is in every way an admirable work. There
are also the articles in the Encyclopcedia Britannica, by
Mark Pattison, and in the Dictionary of National
Biography, by Mr. Leslie Stephen. The best critical
essays are those by Mr. Leslie Stephen in Hours in a
Library, by Mr. John Morley in Miscellanies, and by
Walter Bagehot in Literary Studies.
' r
MILTON
Joayinis Miltoni, Angli, de Doctrind Christiana libri
duo posthumi. A treatise on Christian Doctrine,
compiled from the Holy Scriptures alone. By John
Milton, translated from the original by Charles R.
Sumner, M.A., etc., etc., 1825:
Towards the close of the year 1823, Mr. Lemon,
deputy keeper of the state papers, in the course of
his researches among the presses of his office, met
with a large Latin manuscript. .With it were
5 found corrected copies of the foreign despatches
written by Milton while he filled the office of
Secretary, and several papers relating to the Popish
Trials and the Rye-house Plot. The whole was
wrapped up in an envelope, superscribed To Mr.
io Skinner, Merchant. On examination the large
manuscript proved to be the long lost Essay on
the Doctrines of Christianity, which, according
to Wood and Toland, Milton finished after the
Restoration, and depc%tted with Cyriac Skinner.
is Skinner, it is well known, held the same political
opinions with his illustrious%iend. It is therefore
probable, as Mr. Lemon conjectures, that he may
have fallen under the suspicions of the government
45
46 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
during that persecution of the Whigs which fol-
lowed the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament,
and that, in consequence of a general seizure of
his papers, this work may have been brought to
the office in which it has been found. But what- 5
ever the adventures of the manuscript may have
been, no doubt can exist that it is a genuine relic
of the great poet.
Mr. Sumner, who was commanded by His
Majesty to. edit and translate the treatise, has 10
acquitted himself of his task in a manner honor-
able to his talents and to his character. His ver-
sion is not, indeed, very easy or elegant ; but it is
entitled to the praise of clearness and fidelity.
His notes abound with interesting quotations, and 15
have the rare merit of really elucidating the text.
The preface is evidently the work of a sensible
and candid man, firm in his own religious opin-
ions, and tolerant towards those of others.
The book itself will not add much to the fame 20
of Milton. It is, like all his Latin works, well
written, though not exactly in the style of the
prize essays of Oxford and Cambridge. There is
no elaborate imitation of classical antiquity, no
scrupulous purity, none of the ceremonial clean- 25
ness which characterizes the diction of our academ-
ical Pharisees. The author does not attempt to
polish and brighten his composition into the
Ciceronian gloss and brilliancy. He does not, in
short, sacrifice sense and spirit to pedantic 30
MILTON 47
refinements. The nature of his subject compelled
him to use many words
"That would have made QuintiliaD stare and gasp."
.-But he writes with as much ease and freedom as if
5 Latin were his mother tongue; and, where he is
least happy, his failure seems to arise from the
carelessness of a native, not from the ignorance of
a foreigner. We may apply to him what Denham
with great felicity says of Cowley. He wears the
10 garb, but not the clothes, of the ancients.
Throughout the volume are discernible the
traces of a powerful and independent mind,
emancipated from the influence of authority, and'
devoted to the search of truth. Milton professes
15 to form his system from the Bible alone; and his
digest of scriptural texts is certainly among the
best that have appeared. But he is not always so
happy in his inferences as in his citations.
Some of the heterodox doctrines which he avows
20 seem to have excited considerable amazement,
particularly his Arianism, and his theory on the
subject of polygamy. Yet we can scarcely conceive
that any person could have read the Paradise Lost
without suspecting him of the former ; nor do we
25 think that any reader, acquainted with the history
of his life, ought to be much startled at the latter.
The opinions which he has expressed respecting
the nature of the Deity, the eternity of matter,
and the observ^i^i of the Sabbath, might, we
30 think, have caused more just surprise.
48 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
But we will not go into the discussion of these
points. The book, were it far more orthodox or
far more heretical than it is, would not much edify
or corrupt the present generation. The men of
our time are not to be converted or perverted by 5
■Quartos. A few more days, and this essay will
follow the Defensio Populi to the dust and silence
of the upper shelf. The name of its author, and
the remarkable circumstances attending its publi-
cation, will secure to it a certain degree of atten- 10
tion. For a month or two it will occupy a few
minutes of chat in every drawing-room, and a few
columns in every magazine; and it will then, to
borrow the elegant language of the playbills, be
withdrawn, to make room for the forthcoming is
novelties.
*j>»*We wish, however, to avail ourselves of the
/y interest, transient as it may be, which this work
'/ has excited. The dexterous Capuchins never
choose to preach on the life and miracles of a saint 20
till they have awakened the devotional feelings of
their auditors by exhibiting some relic of him, a
thread of his garment, a lock of his hair, or a drop
of his blood. On the same principle, we intend to
take advantage of the late interesting discovery, 25
and, while this memorial of a great and good man
is still in the hands of all, to say something of his
moral and intellectual qualities. Nor, we are con-
vinced, will the severest of our readers blame us if,
on an occasion like the present, we turn for a
MILTON
short time from the topics of the day, to com- &*^
memorate, in all love and reverence, the genius and
virtues of (John Milton, the poet, the statesman,
the philosopher, the glory of English literature,
5 the champion and the martyr of English liberty} '\s*^
It is by his poetry that Milton is best known;
and it is of his poetry that we wish first to speak,
By the general suffrage of the civilized world, his
place has been assigned among the greatest masters
10 of the art. His detractors, however, though out-
voted, have not been silenced. There are many * '"".
critics, and some of great name, who contrive in V
the same breath to extol the poems and to decry
the poet. The works they acknowledge, consid-
15 ered in themselves, may be classed among the
noblest productions of the human mind. But
they will not allow the author to rank with those
great men who, born in the infancy of civiliza-
tion, supplied, by their own powers, the want of
20 instruction, and, though destitute of models them-
selves, bequeathed to posterity models which defy
imitation. Milton, it is said, inherited what his
predecessors created; he lived in an enlightened
age; he received a finished education; and we
25 must, therefore, if we would form a just estimate
of his powers, make large deductions in consider-
ation of these advantages.
We venture to say, on the contrary, paradoxical ' ^
as the remark may appear, thauf no poet has ever ^f- &
30 had to struggle with more unfavorable circum-
<Sr~-
*iM*tf^<
50 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
stances than Milton. He doubted, as he lias him-
5^ self owned, whether he had not been born "an age
too late." For this notion Johnson has thought
flu-*
fit to make him the butt of much clumsy ridicule. "
\x**' The poet, we believe, understood the nature of his 5
art better than the critic. ^He knew that his poet-
ical genius derived no advantage from the civiliza-
tion which surrounded him, or from the learning
which he had acquired ; and he looked back with
something like regret to the ruder age of simple !io
words and vivid impressions.
We think that, as civilization advances, j^oetry
almost necessarily declines. Therefore, though we
fervently admire those great works of imagination
which have appeared in dark ages, we do not 15
admire them the more because they have appeared
in dark ages. On the contrary, we hold that the *•
most wonderful and splendid proof of genius is a
great poein produced in a civilized age. We can-
not understand why those who believe in that most 20
orthodox article of literary faith, that the earliest
poets are generally the best, should wonder at the
rule as if it were the exception. Surely the uni-
formity of the phenomenon indicates a correspond-
ing uniformity in the. cause. 25 "^
The fact is, that common observers reason from ^.
(^\j> t the progress of the experimental sciences to that of
?*/ , the imitative arts. The improvement of the former'^ ^
f^j/Kj' is gradual and slow. Ages are spent in collecting !&'
materials, ages more in separating and combining so
MILTON 51
them. Even when a system has been formed, ***-t
there is still something to add, to alter, or to
reject. Every generation enjoys the use of a vast >*^~
hoard bequeathed to it by antiquity, and transmits
5 that hoard, augmented by fresh acquisitions, to
future ages. In these pursuits, therefore, the first <z ~?'
speculators lie under great disadvantages, and,
even when they fail, are entitled to praise. ''-Their
pupils, with far inferior intellectual powers, speed-
10 ily surpass them in actual attainments. Every C^^
girl who has read Mrs. Marcet's little dialogues on
Political Economy could teach Montague or Wal-
pole many lessons in finance. Any intelligent man ^
may now, by resolutely applying himself for a few
15 years to mathematics, learn more than the great
Xewton knew after half a century of study and
meditation.
>ut it is not thus with music, with painting, or c—^
with sculpture. Still less is it thus with poetry.
20 The progress of refinement rarely supplies these
arts with better objects of imitation. It may j,^
indeed improve the instruments which are neces- f~^*
sary to the mechanical operations of the musician,
the sculptor,' and the painter. But language, the o-~
25 machine of the poet, is best fitted for his purpose
in its rudest state. XationY, like individuals,
first perceive and then abstract. They advance
from particular images to general terms. Hence
the vocabulary of an enlightened society is philo-
30 sophical, that of a half -civilized people is poetical.
52 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
This change in the language of men is partly the
cause and partly the effect of a corresponding
change in the nature of their intellectual oper-
ations, of a change by which science gains and
poetry loses. Generalization is necessary to the e
advancement of knowledge; but particularity is
indispensable to the creations of the imagination.
In proportion as men know more and think more,
they look less at individuals and more at classes.
They therefore make better theories and worse 10
poems. They give us vague phrases instead of
images, and personified qualities instead of men.
They may be better able to analyze human nature
than their predecessors. But analysis is not the
business of the poet. His office is to portray, not 15
to dissect. He may believe in a moral sense, like
Shaftesbury ; he may refer all human actions to
self-interest, like Helvetius; or he may never
think about the matter at all. His creed on such
subjects will no more influence his poetry, properly 20
so called, than the notions which a painter may
have conceived respecting the lachrymal glands, or
the circulation of the blood, will affect the tears of
his Niobe, or the blushes of his Aurora. If
Shakespeare had written a book on the motives of 25
human actions, it is by no means certain that it
would have been a good one. It is extremely
improbable that it would have contained half so
much able reasoning on the subject as is to bo
found in the Fable of the Bees. But could »
* v -v\-c
^t^kry^^^/^t^^J <x^» *y
MILTON 53
Mandeville have created an^Tagg^ 1 Well as he
knew how to resolve characters into their elements,
would he have been able to combine those elements
in such a manner as to make up a man, a real,
5 living, individual man?
Perhaps no person can be a poet, or can even "^
enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of
mind, if anything which gives so much pleasure
ought to be called unsoundness. By poetry we
io mean not all writing in verse, nor even all good /
writing in verse. Our definition excludes many
metrical compositions which, on other grounds,
deserve the highest praise. By poetry we mean
the art of employing words in such a manner
is as to produce an illusion on the imagination, the
art of doing by means of words what the painter
does by means of colors. Thus the greatest of
poets has described it, in lines universally admired
for the vigor and felicity of their diction, and still
20 more valuable on account of the just notion which
they convey of the art in which he excelled : —
;< As imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
25 A local habitation and a name. "
These are the fruits of the "fine frenzy" which
he ascribes to the poet, — a fine frenzy, doubtless,
but still a frenzy. Truth, indeed, is essential to 2
poetry; but it is the truth of madness. The
54 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
reasonings are just; but the premises are false.
After the first suppositious have been made, every-
thing ought to be consistent; but those first sup-
positions require a degree of credulity which almost
amounts to a partial and temporary derangement 5
of the intellect. Hence of all people children are
the most imaginative. They abandon themselves
without reserve to every illusion. Every image
which is strongly presented to their mental eye
produces on them the effect of reality. No man, 10
whatever his sensibility may be, is ever affected by
Hamlet or Lear, as a little girl is affected by the
story of poor Red Riding-hood. She knows that it
is all false, that wolves cannot speak, that there are
no wolves in England. Yet in spite of her knowl- 15
edge she believes ; she weeps ; she trembles ; she
dares not go into a dark room lest she should feel
the teeth of the monster at her throat. Such is
the despotism of the imagination over unculti- •..
vated minds. jfl^vA^o
I bin a rude state of society me n are ch ildren with
a greater variety of ideas. It is therefore in such
a state of society that we may expect to find the
poetical temperament in its highest perfection. In
an enlightened age there will be much intelligence, 25
much science, much philosophy, abundance of just
classification and subtle analysis, abundance of wit
and eloquence, abundance of verses, and even of
good ones; but little poetry. Men will judge and
compare; but they will not create. They will bo
1
MILTON 55
talk about the old poets, and comment on them,
and to a certain degree enjoy them. But they will
scarcely be able to conceive the effect which
poetry produced on their ruder ancestors, the
5 agony, the ecstasy, the plenitude of belief. The
Greek Ehapsodists, according to Plato, could scarce
recite Homer without falling into convulsions.
The Mohawk hardly feels the scalping-knife while
he shouts his death-song. The power which the
10 ancient bards of "Wales and Germany exercised
over then' auditors seems to modern readers almost
miraculous. Such feelings are very rare in a civil-
ized community, and most rare among those who
participate most in its improvements. They
15 linger longest among the peasantry.
v Poetry produces an illusion on the eye of the ' *
mind, as a magic lantern produces an illusion on
the eye of the body. And, as the magic lantern
j^3 -acts best in a dark room, poetry effects its purpose
/*o most completely in a dark age. As the light of
-<J knowledge breaks in upon its exhibitions, as the -
^ outlines of certainty become more and more defi-
; yy nite, and the shades of probability more and more
. distinct, the hues and lineaments of the phan-
fl£ toms which the poet calls up grow fainter and
fainter. We cannot unite the incompatible ad-
vantages of reality and deception, the clear dis-
' cernment of truth and the exquisite enjoyment, of
fiction.
30 He who, in an enlightened and literary society.
56 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
aspires to be a great poet, must first become a
little child. He must take to pieces the whole
web of his mind. He must unlearn much of that
knowledge which has perhaps constituted hitherto
his chief title to superiority. His very talents will 5
be a hindrance to him. His difficulties will be
proportioned to his proficiency in the pursuits
which are fashionable among his contemporaries;
and that proficiency will in general be proportioned
to the vigor and activity of his mind. And it is 10
well if, after all his sacrifices and exertions, his
works do not resemble a lisping man or a modern
ruin. We have seen in our own time great
talents, intense labor, and long meditation, em-
ployed in this struggle against the spirit of 15
the age, and employed, we will not say absolutely
in vain, but with dubious success and feeble
applause.
If these reasonings be just, no poet has ever
triumphed over greater difficulties than Milton. 20
He received a learned education : he was a pro-
found and elegant classical scholar ; he had studied
all the mysteries of Rabbinical literature; he was
intimately acquainted with every language of mod-
ern Europe from which either pleasure or infor- 25
mation was then to be derived. He was perhaps
the only great poet of later times who has been
distinguished by the excellence of his Latin verse.
The genius of Petrarch was scarcely of the first
order; and his poems in the ancient language, 30
MILTON 57
though much praised by those who have never read
them, are wretched compositions. Cowley, with
all his admirable wit and ingenuity, had little
imagination; nor indeed do we think his classical
5 diction comparable to that of Milton. The author-
ity of Johnson is against us on this point. But
Johnson had studied the bad writers of the middle
ages till he had become utterly insensible to the
Augustan elegance, and was as ill qualified to
10 judge between two Latin styles as a habitual
drunkard to set up for a wine-taster.
, ^ Versification in a dead language is an exotic, a
r far-fetched, costly, sickly imitation of that which
elsewhere may be found in healthful and sponta-
15 neous perfection. The soils on which this rarity
flourishes are in general as ill-suited to the pro-
duction of vigorous native poetry as the flower-
pots of a hot-house to the growth of oaks. That
the author of the Paradise Lost should have
20 written the Epistle to Manso was truly wonderful.
Xever before were such marked originality and
such exquisite mimicry found together. Indeed, in
"all the Latin poems of Milton the artificial manner
indispensable to such works is admirably preserved,
25 while, at the same time, his genius gives to them a
peculiar charm, an air of nobleness and freedom,
which distinguishes them from all other writings of
the same class. They remind us of the amuse-
ments of those angelic warriors who composed the
30 cohort of Gabriel: — *
/
58 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
"About him exercised heroic games
The unarmed youth of heaven. But o'er their heads
Celestial armory, shield, helm, and spear,
Hung high, with diamond flaming and with gold."
We cannot look upon the sportive exercises for 5
which the genius of Milton imgirds itself, without
catching a glimpse of the gorgeous and terrible
panoply which it is accustomed to wear. The
strength of his imagination triumphed over every
obstacle. So intense and ardent was the fire of 10
his mind, that it not only was not suffocated
beneath the weight of fuel, but penetrated the
whole superincumbent mass with its own heat and
radiance.
| It is not our intention to attempt anything like 15
a complete examination of the poetry of Milton.
The public has long been agreed as to the merit
of the most remarkable passages, the incomparable
harmony of the numbers, and the excellence of
that style which no rival has been able to equal and 20
no parodist to degrade, which displa} T s in their
highest perfection the idiomatic powers of the
English tongue, and to which every ancient and
every modern language has contributed something
of grace, of energy, or of music. In the vast field 25
of criticism on which we are entering, innumerable
reapers have already put their sickles. Yet the
harvest is so abundant that the negligent search of
a straggling gleaner may beo^ewarded with a sheaf.
jejei
iBeri
The most striking charafieristic of the poetry of 30
MILTON 59
Milton is the extreme remoteness of the associ-
ations by means of which it acts on the reader.
^tts effect is produced, not so much by what it
expresses, as by what it suggests; not so much by
5 the ideas which it directly conveys, as by other
ideas which are connected with themTl He electri-
fies the mind through conductors. The most
* unimaginative man must understand the Iliad.
Homer gives him no choice, and requires from him
ic no exertion, but takes the wdiole upon himself, and
sets the images in so clear a light that it is impos-
sible to be blind to them. The w r orks of Milton
cannot be comprehended or enjoyed unless the
mind of the reader cooperate w r ith that of the
io writer. ^He does not paint a finished picture, or
play for a mere passive listener. He sketches, and
leaves others to fill up the outline. He strikes the
key-note, and expects his hearer to make out the
melody?)
20 We often hear of the magical influence of poetry.
The expression in general means nothing; but,
applied to the writings of Milton, it is most appro-
priate. His poetry acts like an incantation. Its
merit lies less in its obvious meaning than in its
26 occult power. There would seem, at first sight, to
be no more in his words than in other words. But
they are words of enchantment. No sooner are
they pronounced, than the past is present and the
distant near. New forms of beauty start at once
30 into existence, and all the burial-places of the
60 MACAULAYS ESSAYS
memory give up their dead. Change the structure
of the sentence, substitute one synonym for
another, and the whole effect is destroyed. The "
spell loses its power ; and he who should then hope
to conjure with it would find himself as much 5
mistaken as Cassim in the Arabian tale, when he
stood crying, "Open Wheat," "Open Barley," to
the door which obeyed no sound but "Open
Sesame." The miserable failure of Dry den in his
attempt to translate into his own diction some 10
parts of the Paradise Lost, is a remarkable instance
of this.
In support of these observations we may remark,
that scarcely any passages in the poems of Milton
are more generally known, or more frequently 15
repeated, than those which are little more than
muster-rolls of names. They are not always more
appropriate or more melodious than other names.
But they are charmed names. Every one of them is
the first link in a long chain of associated ideas. 20
Like the dwelling-place of our infancy revisited in
manhood, like the song of our country heard in a
strange land, they produce upon us an effect
wholly independent of their intrinsic value. One
transports us back to a remote period of history. 25
Another places us among the novel scenes and
manners of a distant region. A third evokes all
the dear classical recollections of childhood, the
school-room, the dog-eared Virgil, the holiday, and
the prize. A fourth brings before us the splendid 30
MILTON 61
phantoms of chivalrous romance, the trophied lists,
the embroidered housings, the quaint devices, the
haunted forests, the enchanted gardens, the
achievements of enamoured knights, and the
5 smiles of rescued princesses.
" In none of the works of Milton is his peculiar
manner more happily displayed than in the Allegro
and the Penseroso. It is imnossible to conceive
that the mechanism of language can be brought to
10 a more exquisite degree of perfection. These
poems differ from others as atar of roses differs
from ordinary rose-water, the close-packed essence
from the thin, diluted mixture. They are indeed
not so much poems as collections of hints, from
is each of which the reader is to make out a poem
for himself. Every epithet is a text for a stanza.
•*• The Comus and the Samson Agonistes are works
which, though of very different merit, offer some
marked points of resemblance. Both are lyric
20 poems in the form of plays. There are perhaps no
two kinds of composition so essentially dissimilar
as the drama and the ode. The business of the
dramatist is to keep himself out of sight, and to
let nothing appear but his characters. As soon as
25 he attracts notice to his personal feelings, the illu-
sion is broken. The effect is as unpleasant as that
which is produced on the stage by the voice of
a prompter or the entrance of a scene-shifter.
Hence it was that the tragedies of Byron were his
30 least successful performances. They resemble
42 JTACAULAY'S ESSAYS
those pasteboard pictures invented by the friend of
children, Mr. Newbery, in which a single movable
head goes round twenty different bodies, so that
the same face looks out upon us, successively,
from the uniform of a hussar, the furs of a judge, 5
and the rags of a beggar. In all the characters,
patriots and tyrants, haters and lovers, the frown
and sneer of Harold were discernible in an instant.
But this species of egotism, though fatal to the
drama, is the inspiration of the ode. It is the 10
part of the lyric poet to abandon himself, without
reserve, to his own emotions.
Between these hostile elements many great men
have endeavored to effect an amalgamation, but
never with complete success. The Greek Drama, is
on the model of which the Samson was written,
sprang from the Ode. The dialogue was ingrafted
on the chorus, and naturally partook of its char-
acter. The genius of the greatest of the Athenian
dramatists cooperated with the circumstances 20
under which tragedy made its first appearance.
^Eschylus was, head and heart, a lyric poet. In
his time the Greeks had far more intercourse with
the East than in the days of Homer ; and they had
not yet acquired that immense superiority in war, 25
in science, and in the arts, which, in the follow-
ing generation, led them to treat the Asiatics with
contempt. From the narrative of Herodotus it
should seem that they still looked up, with the
veneration of disciples, to Egypt and Assyria. At 30
MILTON G3
this period, accordingly, it was natural that the
literature of Greece should be tinctured with the
Oriental style. And that style, we think, is dis-
cernible in the works of Pindar and iEschylus.
5 The latter often reminds us of the Hebrew writers.
The book of Job, indeed, in conduct and diction,
bears a considerable resemblance to some of his
dramas. Considered as plays, his works are
absurd; considered as choruses, they are above all
10 praise. If, for instance, we examine the address
of Clytemnestra to Agamemnon on his return, or
the description of the seven Argive chiefs, by the
principles of dramatic writing, we shall instantly
condemn them as monstrous. But if we forget the
15 characters, and think only of the poetry, we shall
admit that it has never been surpassed in energy
and magnificence. Sophocles made the Greek
drama as dramatic as was consistent with its
original form. His portraits of men have a sort of
20 similarity ; but it is the similarity not of a paint-
ing, but of a bas-relief. It suggests a resem-
blance; but it does not produce an illusion.
Euripides attempted to carry the reform further.
But it was a task far beyond his powers, perhaps
25 beyond any powers. Instead of correcting what
was bad, he destroyed what was excellent. He
substituted crutches for stilts, bad sermons for
good odes.
Milton, it is well known, admired Euripides
30 highly; much more highly than, in our opinion,
H4 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
Euripides deserved. Indeed, the caresses which'
this partiality leads our countryman to bestow on
"sad Electra's poet," sometimes remind us of the
beautiful Queen of Fairyland kissing the long ears
of Bottom. At all events, there can be no doubt 5
that this veneration for the Athenian, whether
just or not, was injurious to the Samson Agonistes.
Had Milton taken /Eschylus for his model, he
would have given himself up to the lyric inspir-
ation, and poured out profusely all the treasures of 10
his mind, without bestowing a thought on those
dramatic proprieties which the nature of the Work
rendered it impossible to preserve. In the attempt
to reconcile things in their own nature inconsist-
ent, he has failed, as every one else must have is
failed. We cannot identify ourselves with the
characters, as in a good play. We cannot identify
ourselves with the poet, as in a good ode. The
conflicting ingredients, like an acid and an alkali
mixed, neutralize each other. We are by no means 20
insensible to the merits of this celebrated piece, to
the severe dignity of the style, the graceful and
pathetic solemnity of the opening speech, or the
wild and barbaric melody which gives so striking
an effect to the choral passages. But we think it, as
we confess, the least successful effort of the
genius of Milton.
The Comus is framed on the model of the
Italian Masque, as the Samson is framed on the
model of the Greek Tragedy. It is certainly the so
MILTON 65
noblest performance of the kind which exists in
any language. It is as far superior to the Faith-
ful Shepherdess, as the Faithful Shepherdess is fc
the Aminta or the Aminta to the Pastor Fido.
5 It was well for Milton that he had here no
Euripides to mislead him. He understood and
loved the literature of modern Italy. But
he did not feel for it the same veneration which
he entertained for the remains of Athenian
jo and Roman poetry, consecrated by so many lofty
and endearing recollections. The faults, more-
over, of his Italian predecessors were of a kind to
which his mind had a deadly antipathy. He could
stoop to a plain style, sometimes even to a bald
is style; but false brilliancy w r as his utter aversion.
His Muse had no objection to a russet attire ; but
she turned with disgust from the finery of Guarini,
act tawdry and as paltry as the rags of a chimney-
sweeper on May-day. Whatever ornaments she
20 wears are of massive gold, not only dazzling to the
sight, but capable of standing the severest test of
the crucible.
■}-*- Milton attended in the Comus to the distinction
which he afterward? neglected in the Samson. He
25 made his Masque what it ought to be, essentially
lyrical, and dramatic only in semblance. He has
not attempted a fruitless struggle against a defect
inherent in the nature of that species of compo-
sition; and he has therefore succeeded, wherever
30 success 3 not impossible. The speeches must be
66 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
read as majestic soliloquies ; and he who so reads
them will be enraptured with fheir eloquence, their
sublimity, and their music. The interruptions
of the dialogue, however, impose a constraint
upon the writer, and break the illusion of the 5
reader. The finest passages are those which are
lyric in form as well as in spirit. "I should much
commend," says the excellent Sir Henry AVotton
in a letter to Milton, "the tragical part, if the
lyrical did hot ravish me with a certain Dorique 10
delicacy in your songs and odes, whereunto, I must
plainly confess to you, I have seen yet nothing
parallel in our language." The criticism was
just. It is when Milton escapes from the shackles
of the dialogue, when he is discharged from the is
labor of uniting two incongruous styles, when he is
ac liberty to indulge his choral raptures without
reserve, that he rises even above himself. Then,
like his own good Genius bursting from the earthly
form and weeds of Thyrsis, he stands forth in 20
celestial freedom and beauty; he seems to cry
exultingly,
"Now my task is smoothly done,
I can fly, or I can run,"
to skim the earth, to soar above the clouds, to 25
bat be in the Elysian dew of ihe rainbow, and to
inhale the balmy smells of nard and cassia, which
ihe musky wings of the zephyr scatter through t ;
eedared alleys of the Hesperides-
MILTON 61
There are several of the minor poems of Milton
on which we would willingly make a few remarks.
Still more willingly would we enter into a detailed
examination of that admirable poem, the Paradise
5 Regained, which, strangely enough, is scarcely ever
mentioned except as an instance of the blindness
of the parental affection which men of letters bear
towards the offspring of their intellects. That
Milton was mistaken in preferring this work, excel -
10 lent as it is, to the Paradise Lost, we readily
admit. But we are sure that the- superiority of /\
the Paradise Lost to the Paradise Regained is
not more decided than the superiority of the
Paradise Regained to every poem which has since
is made its appearance. Our limits, however, pre-
vent us from discussing the point at length. We
hasten on to that extraordinary production which
the general suffrage of critics has placed in the
highest class of human compositions.
•so [The only poem of modern times w T hich can bo
/ ^T^mpared with the Paradise Lost is the Divine
Comedv^ The subject of Milton, in some points,
resembled that of Dante; but he has treated it in
Y^ a widely different manner. We cannot, we think,
25 better illustrate our opinion respecting our own
great poet, than by contrasting him with the
father of Tuscan literature.
> ij-f *{* The poetry of Milton differs from that of Dante /
»^s the hieroglyphics of Egypt differed from the *
3M picture-writing of Mexico. The images which
MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
Dante employs speak for themselves; they stand
. simply for what they are. Those of Milton have a
signification which is often discernible only to the
initiated. Their value depends less on what they
X directly represent than on what they remotely sug- a
gest. However strange, however grotesque, may
be the appearance which Dante undertakes to
describe, he never shrinks from describing it. He
gives us the shape, the color, the sound, the smell,
the taste; he counts the numbers; he measures the 10
size. His similes are the illustrations of a travel-
ler. Unlike those of other poets, and especially of
Milton, they are introduced in a plain, business-
like manner ; not for the sake of any beauty in the
objects from which they are drawn; not for the is
sake of any ornament which they may impart to
the poem; but simply in order to make the mean-
ing of the writer as clear to the reader as it is to
himself. The ruins of the precipice which led
from the sixth to the seventh circle of hell were so
like those of the rock which fell into the Adige on
the south of Trent. The cataract of Phlegetlnm
was like that of Aqua Cheta at the monastery of
St. Benedict. The place where the heretics were
confined in burning tombs resembled the vast m
emetery of Aries.
Now let us compare with the exact details of
Dante the dim intimations of Milton. We will
cite a few examples. -The English poet has never
thought of taking the measure of Satan. Wo gives
MILTON 69
us merely a vague idea of vast bulk. In one pas-
sage the fiend lies stretched out, huge in length
floating many a rood, equal in size to the earth-
born enemies of Jove, or to the sea-monster which
6 the mariner mistakes for an island. When he
addresses himself to battle against the guardian
angels, he stands like Teneriffe or Atlas : his
stature reaches the sky. Contrast with these de-
scriptions the lines in which Dante has described
10 the gigantic spectre of Nimrod. "His face seemed
to me as long and as broad as the ball of St~
Peter's at Eome; and his other limbs were in pro-
portion; so that the bank, which concealed him;
from the waist downwards, nevertheless showed so
15 much of him, that three tall Germans would in
vain have attempted to reach to his hair." We
are sensible that we do no justice to the admirable
style of the Florentine poet. But Mr. Cary's-
translation is not at hand; and our version, how-
20 ever rude, is sufficient to illustrate our meaning.
Once more, compare the lazar-house in the
eleventh book of the Paradise Lost with the last
ward of Malebolge in Dante. Milton avoids the
loathsome details, and takes refnge in indistinct
25 but solemn and tremendous imagery: Despair
hurrying from couch to couch to mock the
wretches with his attendance; Death shaking his
dart over them, but, in spite of supplications r
delaying to strike. What says Dante? "There
so was such a moan there as there would be if all fche
5
MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
sick who, between July and September, are in the
hospitals of Yaldichiana, and of the Tuscan
swamps, and of Sardinia, were in one pit together;
and such a stench was issuing forth as is wont to
issue from decayed limbs." 5
JL We will not take upon ourselves the invidious
office of settling precedency between two such
writers. Each in his own department is incom-
parable; and each, we may remark, has wisely, or
fortunately, taken a subject adapted to exhibit his 10
peculiar talent to the greatest advantage. The
Divine Comedy is a personal narrative. [Dante is
the eye-witness and ear-witness of that which he
relates^} He is the very man who has heard the
tormented spirits crying out for the second death ; 15
who has read the dusky characters on the portal
within which there is no hope; who has hidden
his face from the terrors of the Gorgon ; who has
tied from the hooks and the seething pitch of
Barbariccia and Draghignazzo. His own hands 20
^rr; have grasped the shaggy sides of Lucifer. His
^3*,_^own feet have climbed the mountain of expi-
ation. His own brow has been marked by the
purifying angel. The reader would throw aside
such a tale in incredulous disgust, unless it were 25
told with the strongest air of veracity, with a
sobriety even in its horrors, with the greatest pre-
cision and multiplicity in its details. The narra-
tive of Milton in this respect differs from that of
Dante, as the adventures of Amadis differ from so
MILTON 71
those of Gulliver. The author of Amadis would
have made his book ridiculous if he had intro-
duced those minute particulars which give such a
charm to the work of Swift: the nautical observa-
5 tions, the affected delicacy about names, the
official documents transcribed at full length, and
all the unmeaning gossip and scandal of the court,
springing out of nothing, and tending to nothing.
We are not shocked at being told that a man who
10 lived, nobody knows when, saw many very strange
sights, and we can easily abandon ourselves to the
illusion of the romance. But when Lemuel
Gulliver, surgeon, resident at Rotherhithe, tells us
of pygmies and giants, flying islands, and philoso-
15 phizing horses, nothing but such circumstantial
touches could produce for a single moment a
deception on the imagination. __
*\ ^ [^Of all the poets who have introduced into their *** ■'~
/ works the agency of supernatural beings, Milton
so has succeeded best?] Here Dante decidedly yields
to him; and as this is a point on which many
rash and ill-considered judgments have been pro-
nounced, we feel inclined to dwell on it a little
longer. The most fatal error which a poet can
25 possibly commit in the management of his machin-
ery, is that of attempting to philosophize too
much. ^Milton has been often censured for ascrib-
ing to spirits many functions of which spirits
must be incapable..] But these objections, though
so sanctioned by eminent names, originate, we ven-
72 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
ture to say, in profound ignorance of the art of
poetry.
What is spirit? What are our own mind's, the
portion of spirit with which we are best acquainted?
We observe certain phenomena. We cannot 5
explain them into material causes. We therefore
infer that there exists something which is not
material. But of this something we have no idea.
We can define it only by negatives. We can
reason about it only by symbols. We use the 10
word ; but we have no image of the thing ; and the
business of poetry is with images, and not with
words. The poet uses words indeed; but they are
merely the instruments of his art, not its objects.
They are the materials which he is to dispose in 15
such a manner as to present a picture to the mental
eye. And if they are not so disposed, they are no
more entitled to be called poetry than a bale of
canvas and a box of colors to be called a painting.
Logicians may reason about abstn. ions. But 20
the great mass of men must have images. The
strong tendency of the multitude in all ages and
nations to idolatry can be explained on no other
principle. The first inhabitants of Greece, there
is reason to believe, worshipped one invisible 25
Deity. But the necessity of having something
more definite to adore produced, in a few centu-
ries, the innumerable crowd of gods and god-
desses. In like manner the ancient Persians
thought it impious to exhibit the Creator under a 30
MILTON rS
human form. Yet even these transferred to the
Sim the worship which, in speculation, they con-
sidered due only to the Supreme Mind. The his-
tory of the Jews is the record of a continued
5 struggle between pure Theism, supported by the
most terrible sanctions, and the strangely fascinat-
ing desire of having some visible and tangible
object of adoration. Perhaps none of the second-
ary causes which Gibbon has assigned for the
10 rapidity with which Christianity spread over the
world, while Judaism scarcely ever acquired a
proselyte, operated more powerfully than this feel-
ing. God, the uncreated, the incomprehensible,
the invisible, attracted few worshippers. A philos-
15 opher might admire so noble a conception; but c ^^,
the crowd turned away in disgust from words -^^^J
which presented no image to their minds. It was
before Deity, embodied in a human form, walking
among men, partaking of their infirmities, leaning
20 on their bosoms, weeping over their graves, slum-
bering in the manger, bleeding on the cross, that
the prejudices of the Synagogue, and the doubts
of the Academy, and the ]:>ride of the Portico, and
the fasces of the Lictor, and the swords of thirty
-5 legions, were humbled in the dust. Soon after
Christianity had achieved its triumph, the prin-
ciple which had assisted it began to corrupt it. It
became a new Paganism. Patron saints assumed
the offices of household gods. St. George took
30 the place of Mars. St. Elmo consoled the-
74 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
mariner for the loss of Castor and* Pollux.
The Virgin Mother and Cecilia succeeded to
Venus and the Muses. The fascination of
sex and loveliness was again joined to that
of celestial dignity; and the homage of 5
chivalry was blended with that of religion,
lieformers have often made a stand against these
feelings; but never with more than apparent and
partial success. The men who demolished the
images in cathedrals have not always been able to 10
demolish those which were enshrined in then*
minds. It would not be difficult to show that in
politics the same rule holds good. Doctrines, we
fire afraid, must generally be embodied before they
•can excite a strong public feeling. The multitude is
is more easily interested for the most unmeaning
badge, or the most insignificant name, than for the
most important principle.
From these considerations, we infer that no poet
who should affect that metaphysical accuracy for 20
the want of which Milton has been blamed, would
escape a disgraceful failure. Still, however, there
was another extreme which, though far less dan-
gerous, was also to be avoided. The imaginations
of men are in a great measure under the control of 25
their opinions. The most exquisite art of jjoetical
coloring can produce no illusion when it is em-
ployed to represent that which is at once perceived
to be incongruous and absurd. ^Milton wrote in
an age of philosophers and theologians. Tt was so
MILTON 75
necessary, therefore, for him to abstain from giv-
ing such a shock to their understandings as might
break the charm which it was his object to throw
over their imaginations. This is the real expla-
5 nation of the indistinctness and inconsistency with
which lie has often been reproached./ Dr. John-
son acknowledges that it was absolutely necessary
that the spirits should be clothed with material
forms. "But," says he, "the poet should have
10 secured the consistency of his system by keeping
immateriality out of sight, and seducing the reader
to drop it from his thoughts." This is easily
said; but what if Milton could not seduce his
readers to drop immateriality from their thoughts?
is What if the contrary opinion had taken so full a
possession of the minds of men as to leave no
room even for the half-belief which poetry
requires? Such we suspect to have been the case.
It was impossible for the poet to adopt altogether
80 the material or the immaterial system. He there-
fore took his stand on the debatable ground. He
left the whole in ambiguity. He has doubtless,
by so doing, laid himself open to the charge of
inconsistency. But, though philosophically in the
25 wTong, we cannot but believe that he was poetic-
ally in the right. This -task, which almost any
other writer would have found impracticable, was
easy to him. The peculiar art which he pos-
sessed of communicating his meaning circuitously
30 through a long succession of associated ideas, and
76 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
of intimating more than he expressed, enabled him
to disguise those incongruities which he could not
avoid.
Poetry which relates to the beings of another
world ought to be at once mysterious and pictur- 5
esque. That of Milton is so. That of Dante is
picturesque indeed beyond any that ever was
written. Its effect approaches to that produced by
the pencil or the chisel. But it is picturesque to
the exclusion of all mystery. This is a fault on 10
the right side, a fault inseparable from the plan of
Dante's poem, which, as we have already observed,
rendered the utmost accuracy of description
necessary. Still it is a fault. The supernatural
agents excite an interest; but it is not the interest 15
which is proper to supernatural agents. We feel
that we could talk to the ghosts and demons, with-
out any emotion of unearthly awe. We could, like
Don Juan, ask them to supper, and eat heartily in
their company. (^Dante's angels are good men with 20
wings. His devils are spiteful, ugly execution-
ers. His dead men are merely living men in
strange situations. The scene which passes
between the poet and Farinata is justly celebrated.
Still, Fariuata in the burning tomb is exactly 23
what Farinata would have been at an auto daf$.
Nothing can be more touching than the first inter-
view of Dante and Beatrice. Yet what is it, but
a lovely woman chiding, with sweet austere com-
posure, the lover for whose affection she is grate- so
MILTON 77
ful, but whose vices she reprobates? The feelinga
which give the passage its charm would suit the
streets of Florence as well as the summit of the
Mount of Purgatory.
5 The spirits of Milton are unlike those of almost all
other writers, His tiends, in particular, are wonder-
ful creations. They are not metaphysical abstrac-
tions. They are not wicked men. They are not ugly
beasts. They have no horns, no tails, none of the
10 fee-faw-fum of Tasso and Klopstock. They have
just enough in common with human nature to be
intelligible to human beings. Their characters are,
like then* forms, marked by a certain dim resem-
blance to those of men, but exaggerated to gigantic
15 dimensions, and veiled in mysterious gloom?]
Perhaps the gods and demons of ^Eschylus may
best bear a comparison with the angels and devils
of Milton. The style of the Athenian had, as we
have remarked, something of the Oriental charac-
20 ter; and the same peculiarity may be traced in hie
mythology. It has nothing of the amenity and
elegance which we generally find in the supersti-
tions of Greece. All is rugged, barbaric, ami
colossal. The legends of .Eschylus seem to har-
25 monize less with the fragrant groves and graceful
porticoes in which his countrymen paid their vows
to the God of Light and Goddess of Desire, than
with those huge and grotesque labyrinths of eternal
granite in which Egypt enshrined her mystic
30 Osiris, or in which Hindostan still bows down to
78 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
her seven-headed idols. His favorite gods are
those of the elder generation, the sons of heaven
and earth, compared with whom Jupiter himself
was a stripling and an upstart, the gigantic Titans,
and the inexorable Furies. Foremost among bis 5
creations of this class stands Prometheus, half
fiend, half redeemer, the friend of man, the sullen
and implacable enemy of heaven. Prometheus
bears undoubtedly a considerable resemblance to
the Satan of Milton. In both we find the same 10
impatience of control, the same ferocity, the same
unconquerable pride. In both characters also are
mingled, though in very different proportions,
some kind and generous feelings. Prometheus,
however, is hardly superhuman enough. He talks 15
too much of his chains and his uneasy posture ; he
is rather too much depressed and agitated. His
resolution seems to depend on the knowledge which
he possesses that he holds the fate of his torturer
in his hands, and that the hour of his release will 20
surely come. But Satan is a creature of anothei
sphere. The might of his intellectual nature is
victorious over the extremity of pain. Amidst
agonies which cannot be conceived without horroi ,
he deliberates, resolves, and even exults. Again.-: 25
the sword of Michael, against the thunder of
Jehovah, against the flaming lake, and the marl
burning with solid fire, against the prospect of an
eternity of unintermitted misery, his spirit hears
up unbroken, resting on its own innate energies, ao
MILTON
requiring no support from anything external, nor
even from hope itself.
To return for a moment to the parallel which
we have been attempting to draw between Milton
5 and Dante, we would add that the poetry of these
great men has in a considerable degree taken its
character from their moral qualities. They arc
not egotists. They rarely obtrude their idiosyn-
crasies on their readers. They have nothing in
10 common with those modern beggars for fame who
extort a pittance from the compassion of the inex-
- perienced by exposing the nakedness and sores of
their minds. Yet it would be difficult to name
two writers whose works have been more com-
15 pletely, though undesignedly, colored by their
personal feelings.
The character of Milton was peculiarly distin-
I guished by loftiness of spirit ; that of Dante by
\ intensity of feeling. In every line of the Divine
20 Comedy we discern the asjDerity which is produced
by pride struggling with misery. There is perhaps
no work in the world so deejay and uniformly
sorrowful. The melancholy of Dante was no fan-
tastic caprice. It was not, as far as at this dis-
25 tance of time can be judged, the effect of external
circumstances. It was from within. Neither love
nor glory, neither the conflicts of earth nor the hope
of heaven, could dispel it. It turned every conso-
lation and every pleasure into its own nature. It
.so resembled that noxious Sardinian soil of which the
80 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
intense bitterness is said to have been perceptible
even in its honey. His mind was, in the noble
language of the Hebrew poet, "a land of dark-
ness, as darkness itself, and where the light was as
darkness." The gloom of his character discolors g
all the passions of men and all the face of nature,
and tinges with its own livid hue the flowers of
Paradise and the glories of the eternal throne.
All the portraits of him are singularly character-
istic. No person can look on the features, no 1)1 e 10
even to ruggedness, the dark furrows of the cheek,
the haggard and woful stare of the eye, the sullen
and contemptuous curve of the lip, and doul-
that they belong to a man too proud and too se.
sitive to be happy. id
Milton was, like Dante, a statesman and a
lover; and, like Dante, he had been unfortunate
in ambition and in love. He had survived his
health and his sight, the comforts of his home, and
the prosperity of his party. Of the great men by so
whom he had been distinguished at his entrance
into life, some had been taken away from the evil
to come; some had carried into foreign climates
their unconquerable hatred of oppression; some
were pining in dungeons; and some had poured 29
forth their blood on scaffolds. Venal and licen-
tious scribblers, with just sufficient talent to
clothe the thoughts of a pandar in the style of a
bellman, were now the favorite writers of the
.Sovereign and of the public.. It was a loathsome so
BOLTON 81
herd, which could be compared to nothing so fitly
as to the rabble of Comas, grotesque monsters, half
bestial, half human, dropping with wine, bloated
with gluttony, and reeling in obscene dances.
5 Amidst these that fair Muse was placed, like the
chaste lady of the Masque, lofty, spotless, and
serene, to be chattered at, and pointed at, and
gri nned at, by the whole rout of Satyrs and
. Goblins. If ever despondency and asperity could
10 be excused in any man, they might have been
excused in Milton. But the strength of his mind
overcame every calamity. Xeither- blindness, nor
gout, nor age, nor penury, nor domestic afflic-
tions, nor political disappointments, nor abuse,
15 nor proscription, nor neglect, had power to disturb
his sedate and majestic ])atience. His spirits do
not seem to have been high, but they were singu-
larly equable. His temper was serious, perhaps
stern; but it was a temper which no sufferings
20 could render sullen or fretful. Such as it was
when, on the eve of great events, he returned from
his travels in the prime of health and manly
beauty, loaded with literary distinctions, and glow-
ing with patriotic hopes, such it continued to be
as when, after having experienced every calamity
which is incident to our nature, old, poor, sight-
less, and disgraced, he retired to his hovel to die.
Hence it was that, though he wrote the Para-
dise Lost at a time of life when images of beauty
80 and tenderness are in general beginning to fade,
62 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
even from those minds in which they have not
been effaced by anxiety and disappointment, he
adorned it with all that is most lovely and delight-
ful in the physical and in the moral world.
Neither Theocritus nor Ariosto had a finer or a 5
more healthful sense of the pleasantness of exter-
nal objects, or loved better to luxuriate amidst
sunbeams and flowers, the songs of nightingales,
the juice of summer fruits, and the coolness of
shady fountains. His conception of love unites all 10
the voluptuousness of the Oriental harem, and all
the gallantry of the chivalric tournament, with all
the pure and quiet affection of an English fireside.
His poetry reminds us of the miracles of Alpine
scenery. Nooks and dells, beautiful as fairyland, 15
are embosomed in its most rugged and gigantic
elevations. The roses and myrtles bloom un-
chilled on the verge of the avalanche.
Traces, indeed, of the peculiar character of
Milton may be found in all his works ; but it is 20
most strongly displayed in the Sonnets. Those
remarkable poems have been undervalued by critics
who have not understood their nature. They have
no epigrammatic point. There is none of the
ingenuity of Filicaja in the thought, none of the 25
hard and brilliant enamel of Petrarch in the style.
They are simple but majestic records of the feel-
ings of the poet; as little tricked out for the pub-
lic eye as his diary would have been. A victory,
an expected attack upon the city, a momentary tit 30
MILTON
of depression or exultation, a jest thrown out
against one of his books, a dream which for a
short time restored to him that beautiful face over
which the grave had closed forever, led him to
5 musings which, without effort, shaped themselves
into verse. The unity of sentiment and severity '
of style which characterize these little pieces
remind us of the Greek Anthology, or perhaps
still more of the Collects of the English Liturgy.
10 The noble poem on the Massacres of Piedmont is
strictly a collect in verse.
The Sonnets are more or less striking, according
as the occasions which gave birth to them are more
or less interesting. But they are, almost without
15 exception, dignified by a sobriety and greatness of
mind to which we know not where to look for a
parallel. It would, indeed, be scarcely safe to
draw any decided inferences as to the character of
a writer from passages directly egotistical. But
20 the qualities which we have ascribed to Milton,
though perhaps most strongly marked in those
parts of his works which treat of his personal feel-
ings, are distinguishable in every page, and impart
to all his writings, prose and poetry, English,
ac Latin, and Italian, a strong family likeness.
His public conduct was such as was to be ex-
pected from a man of a spirit so high and of an in-
tellect so powerful. He lived at one of the most
memorable eras in the history of mankind; at the
so very crisis of the great conflict between Oromasdes
84 MAC AUL AY'S ESSAYS
and Arimanes, liberty and despotism, reason and
])rejndice. That great battle was fought for no
single generation, for no single land. The destinies
of the human race were staked on the same cast
with the freedom of the English people. Then were, 5
first proclaimed those mighty principles which
have since worked their way into the depths of the
American forests, which have roused Greece from
the slavery and degradation of two thousand years,
and which, from one end of Europe to the other, 10
have kindled an unquenchable fire in the hearts of
the oppressed, and loosed the knees of the oppress-
ors with an unwonted fear.
I Of those principles, then struggling for their
infant existence, Milton was the most devoted and is
eloquent literary champion. We need not say how
much we admire his public conduct. But we can-
not disguise from ourselves that a large portion of
his countrymen still think it unjustifiable. The
civil war, indeed, has been more discussed, and is 9
less understood, than any event in English his-
tory. The friends of liberty labored under the
disadvantage of which the lion in the fable com-
plained so bitterly. Though they were the con-
querors, their enemies were the painters. As
body, the Roundheads had done their utmost to
decry and ruin literature; and literature wns even
with them, as, in the long run, it always is with
its enemies. The best book on their side of the
question is the charming narrative of Mrs. »
MILTON
Hutchinson. May's History of the Parliament is
good; but it breaks off at the most interesting
crisis of the struggle. The performance of Lud-
low is foolish and violent ; and most of the later
« writers who have espoused the same cause, Old-
mixon, for instance, and Catherine Macanlay,
have, to say the least, been more distinguished by
zeal than either by candor or by skill. On the
other side are the most authoritative and the most
10 popular historical works in our language, that of
Clarendon, and that of Hume. The former is not
only ably written and full of valuable information,
but has also an air of dignity and sincerity which
makes even the prejudices and errors with which
15 it abounds respectable. Hume, from whose fasci-
nating narrative the great mass of the reading
public are still contented to take their opinions,
hated religion so much that he hated liberty for
having been allied with religion, and has plea*
a the cause of tyranny with the dexterity of an^Rjj
cate, while affecting the impartiality of a judg
ij. The public conduct of Milton must be approved
or condemned, according as the resistance of the
people to Charles the First shall appear to be justi-
-'" riable or criminal. We shall therefore make no
apology for dedicating a fe w page s to the discus-
sion of that interesting and most important
question. We shall not argue it on general
grounds. We shall not recur to those primary prin-
30 ciples from which the claim of any government to
$6 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
the obedience of its subjects is to be deduced. We
are entitled to that vantage-ground; but we will
relinquish it. We are, on this point, so confident
of superiority, that we are not unwilling to imitate
the ostentatious generosity of those ancient 5
knights, who vowed to joust without helmet or
shield against all enemies, and to give their antago-
nists the advantage of sun and wind. We will
take the naked constitutional question. We con-
fidently affirm, that every reason which can be 10.
urged in favor of the Revolution of 1688 may be
urged with at least equal force in favor of what is
called the Great Rebellion.
3 In one respect only, w r e think, can the warmest
admirers of Charles venture to say that he was a is
better sovereign than his son. He was not, in
name and profession, a Papist; we say in name
and profession, because both Charles himself and
his creature Laud, while they abjured the innocent
badges of Popery, retained all its worst vices, a 20
complete subjection of reason to authority, a weak
preference of form to substance, a childish passion
for mummeries, an idolatrous veneration for the
priestly character, and, above all, a merciless
intolerance. This, however, we waive. We will as
concede that Charles was a good Protestant; but
we say that his Protestantism does not make the
slightest distinction between his case and that of
James.
H The principles of the Revolution have often been ao
MILTON 8?
a —iv misrepresented, and never more than in
the course of the present year. There is a certain
class of men who, while they profess to hold in
reverence the great names and great actions of
5 former times, never look at them for any other
purpose than in order to find in them some excuse
for existing abuses. In every venerable precedent
they pass by what is essential, and take only what
is accidental: they keep out of sight what is
10 beneficial, and hold up to public imitation all that
is defective. If, in any part of any great example,
there be anything unsound, these flesh-flies detect
it with an unerring instinct, and dart upon it with
a ravenous delight. If some good end has been
15 attained in spite of them, they feel, with their
prototype, that
"' Their labor must be to pervert that end,
And out of good still to find means of evil "
U To the blessings which England has derived
20 from the Eevolution these people are utterly
insensible. The expulsion of a tyrant, the solemn
recognition of popular rights, liberty, security,
toleration, all go for nothing with them. One
sect there w r as, which, from unfortunate temporary
86 causes, it was thought necessary to keep under
r-lose restraint. One part of the empire there was
so unhappily circumstanced, that at that time its
misery was necessary to our happiness, and its
slavery to our freedom. These are the parts of the
88 MACAU LAVS ESSAYS
Revolution which the politicians of whom we
speak love to contemplate, and which seem to
them not indeed to vindicate, but in some degree
to palliate, the good which it has produced. Talk
to them of Naples, of Spain, or of South America. 5
They stand forth zealots for the doctrine of Divine
Right, which has now come back tc us, like a
thief from transportation, under the alias of
Legitimacy. But mention the miseries of Ireland.
Then William is a hero. Then Somers and 10
Shrewsbury are great men. Then the Revolu-
tion is a glorious era. The very same persons
who, in this country, never omit an opportunity of
reviving every wretched Jacobite slander respect-
ing the Whigs of that period, have no sooner 15
crossed St. George's Channel, than they begin to
fill their bumpers to the glorious and immortal
memory. They may truly boast that they look not
at men, but at measures. So that evil be done,
they care not who does it ; the arbitrary Charles or 20
the liberal William, Ferdinand the Catholic or
Frederic the Protestant. On such occasions their
deadliest opponents may reckon upon their candid
construction. The bold assertions of these people
have of late impressed a large portion of the public 25
with an opinion that James the Second was expelled
simply because he was a Catholic, and that the
Revolution was essentially a Protestant Revolution.
(, Hut this certainly was not the case; nor can any
person who has acquired more knowledge of the 30
MILTON
history of those time? than is to be found in Gold-
smith's Abridgment, believe that, if James had
held his own religions opinions without wishing to
make proselytes, or if, wishing even to make
5 proselytes, he had contented himself with
exerting only his constitutional influence for that
purpose, the Prince of Orange would ever have
been invited over. Our ancestors, we suppose,
knew their own meaning; and, if we may believe
10 them, their hostility was primarily not to popery,
but to tyranny. They did not drive out a tyrant
because he was a Catholic; but they excluded
Catholics from the crown, because they thought
them likely to be tyrants. The ground on which
15 they, in their famous resolution, declared the
throne vacant, was this, "that James had broken
the fundamental laws of the kingdom." Every
man, therefore, who approves of the Revolution of
1688 must hold that the breach of fundamental
20 laws on the part of the sovereign justifies resist-
ance. The question, then, is this: Had Charles
the First broken the fundamental laws of Eng-
land?
*] Xo person can answer in the negative unless he
25 refuses credit, not merely to all the accusations
brought against Charles by his opponents, but to
the narratives of the warmest Royalists, and to the
confessions of the King himself. If there be any
truth in any historian of any party who has related
30 the events of that reign, the conduct of Charles,.
90 MACAULAYS ESSAYS
from his accession to the meeting of the Long
Parliament, had been a continued course of oppres-
sion and treachery. Let those who applaud the
Revolution and condemn the Rebellion mention
one act of James the Second to which a parallel is 5
not to be found in the history of his father. Let
them lay their ringers on a single article in the
• Declaration of Right, presented by the two Houses
to William and Mary, which Charles is not
acknowledged to have violated.. He had, accord- 10
ing to the testimony of his own friends, usurped
the functions of the legislature, raised taxes with-
out the consent of parliament, and quartered
troops on the people in the most illegal and vex-
atious manner. Not a single session of parliament 15
had passed without some unconstitutional attack
on the freedom of debate. The right of petition
was grossly violated ; arbitrary judgments, exorbi-
tant fines, and unwarranted imprisonments, were
grievances of daily occurrence. If these things do 30
not justify resistance, the Revolution was treason ;
if they do, the Great Rebellion was laudable.
\ But, it is said, why not adopt milder measures?
Why, after the King had consented to so many
reforms and renounced so many oppressive preroga- 25
tives, did the parliament continue to rise in their
demands at the risk of provoking a civil war? The
ship-money had been given up. The Star Cham-
ber had been abolished. Provision had hern
made for the frequent convocation and secure so
MILTON" 91
deliberation of parliaments. Why not pursue an
end confessedly good by peaceable and regular
means'/ We recur again to the analogy of the
Revolution. Why was James driven from the
throne? Why was he not retained upon condi-
tions? He too had offered to call a free parlia-
ment, and to submit to its decision all the matters
in dispute. Yet we are in the habit of praising our
forefathers, who preferred a revolution, a disputed
10 succession, a dynasty of strangers, twenty years of
foreign and intestine war, a standing army, and a
national debt, to the rule, however restricted, of a
tried and proved tyrant. The Long Parliament
acted on the same principle, and is entitled to the
is same praise. They could not trust the King. He
had, no doubt, passed salutary laws; but what
assurance was there that he wo aid not break them?
He had renounced oppressive prerogatives ; but
where w r as the security that he would not resume
so them? The nation had to deal with a man whom
no tie could bind, a man who made and broke
promises with equal facility, a man whose honor
had been a hundred times pawned, and never
redeemed.
xrj Here, indeed, the Long Parliament stands on
still stronger ground than the Convention of 1688.
No action of James can be compared to the con-
duct of Charles with respect to the Petition of
Right. The Lords and Commons present him
30 with a bill in whjeh the constitutional limits of
92 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
his power are marked out. He hesitates: he
evades ; at last he bargains to give his assent for
five subsidies. The bill receives his solemn assent :
the subsidies are voted; but no sooner is the
tyrant relieved than he returns at once to all the 5
arbitrary measures which he had bound himself to
abandon, and violates all the clauses of the very
Act which he had been paid to pass.
d ™ For more than ten years the people had seen the
rights which were theirs by a double claim, by 10
immemorial inheritance, and by recent purchase,
infringed by the perfidious King who had recog-
nized them. At length circumstances compelled
Charles to summon another parliament: another
chance was given to our fathers: were they to 15
throw it away as they had thrown away the for-
mer? Were they again to be cozened by le Roi le
veut? Were they again to advance their money on
pledges which had been forfeited over and over
again? Were they to lay a second Petition of 20
Eight at the foot of the throne, to grant another
lavish aid in exchange for another unmeaning-
ceremony, and then to take their departure, till,
after ten years more of fraud and oppression,
their prince should again require a supply, and ag
again repay it with a perjury? They were com-
pelled to choose whether they would trust a
tyrant or conquer him. We think that they
chose wisely and nobly.
v The advocates of Charles, like the advocates of so
MILTON 93
other malefactors against whom overwhelming
evidence is produced, generally decline all contro-
versy about the facts, and content themselves with
calling testimony to character, lie had so many
5 private virtues ! And had James the Second no
private virtues? Mas Oliver Cromwell, his bitter-
est enemies themselves being judges, destitute of
private virtues? And what, after all, are the
virtues ascribed to Charles? A religious zeal, not
I more sincere than that of his son, and fully as
weak and narrow-minded, and a few of the ordi-
nary household decencies which half the tombstones
in England claim for those who lie beneath them.
A good father ! A good husband ! Ample apolo-
15 gies indeed for fifteen years of persecution, tyranny,
and falsehood !
i UVe charge him with having broken his corona-
tion oath ; and we are told that he kept his mar-
riage vow ! AVe accuse him of having given up his
20 people to the merciless inflictions of the most hot-
headed and hard-hearted of prelates ; and the
defence is that he took his little son on his knee,
and kissed him! We censure him for having
violated the articles of the Petition of Right, after
as having, for good and valuable consideration,
promised to observe them ; and we are informed
that he was accustomed to hear prayers at six
o'clock in the morning! It is to such consider-
ations as these, together with his Vandyke dress,
his handsome face, and his peaked beard, that he
94 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
owes, we verily believe, most of his popularity
with the present generation.
* For ourselves, we own that we do not under-
stand the common phrase, a good man, but a bad
king. We can as easily conceive a good man and 5
an unnatural father, or a good man and a treacher-
ous friend. We cannot, in estimating the charac-
ter of an individual, leave out of our consideration
his conduct in the most important of all human
relations ; and if in that relation we find him to 10
have been selfish, cruel, and deceitful, we shall
take the liberty to call him a bad man, in spite of
all his temperance at table, and all his regularity
,at chapel.
We cannot refrain from adding a few words 15
respecting a topic on which the defenders of
Charles are fond of dwelling. If, they say, he
governed his people ill, he at least governed them
after the example of his predecessors. If he vio-
lated their privileges, it was because those privi- 20
leges had not been accurately defined. No act of
oppression has ever been imputed to him which
has not a parallel in the annals of the Tudors.
This point Hume has labored, with an art which is
as discreditable in a historical work as it would bt
admirable in a forensic address. The answer is
short, clear, and decisive. Charles had assented
to the Petition of Right. He had renounced
the oppressive powers said to have been exercised
by his predecessors, and he had renounced u
H al
MILTON
them for money. He was not entitled to set up
his antiquated claims against his own recent
release.
■> These arguments are so obvious that it may
5 seem superfluous to dwell upon them. But those
who have observed how much the events of that
time are misrepresented and misunderstood, will
not blame us for stating the case simply. It is a
case of which the simplest statement is the
10 strongest.
The enemies of the Parliament, indeed, rarely
choose to take issue on the great points of the
question. They content themselves with exposing
some of the crimes and follies to which public
is commotions necessarily give birth. They bewail
the unmerited fate of Strafford. They execrate
the lawless violeuce of the army. They laugh at
the Scriptural names of the preachers. Major-
generals fleecing their districts; soldiers revelling
20 on the spoils of a ruined peasantry; upstarts,
enriched by the public plunder, taking possession
of the hospitable firesides and hereditary trees of
the old gentry; boys smashing the beautiful win-
dows of cathedrals ; Quakers riding naked through
25 the market-place; Fifth-monarchy men shoutiiiL'
for King Jesus; agitators lecturing from the tops
of tubs on the fate of Agag; — all these, they tell
us, were the offspring of the Great Rebellion.
/Be it so. AVe are not careful to answer in this
30 matter. These charges, were they infinitely more
96 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
important, would not alter our opinion of an event
which alone has made us to differ from the slaves
who crouch beneath despotic sceptres. Many
evils, no doubt, were produced by the civil war.
They were the price of our liberty. Has the acqni- 5
sition been worth the sacrifice? It is the nature of
the Devil of tyranny to tear and rend the body
which he leaves. Are the miseries of continued
possession less horrible than the struggles of the
tremendous exorcism? lfl
^ If it were possible that a people brought up
under an intolerant and arbitrary system could
subvert that system without acts of cruelty and
folly, half the objections to despotic power would
be removed. We should, in that case, be compelled is
to acknowledge that it at least produces no perni-
cious effects on the intellectual and moral charac-
ter of a nation. We deplore the outrages which
accompany revolutions. But the more violent the
outrages, the more assured we feel that a revolution ~'<»
was necessary. The violence of those outrages
will always be proportioned to the ferocity and
ignorance of the people; and the ferocity and
ignorance of the people will be proportioned to the
oppression and degradation under which they have as
been accustomed to live. Thus it was in our civil
war. The heads of the church and state reaped
only that which they had sown. The government
had prohibited free discussion; it had done its
best to keep the people unacquainted with their so
MILTON 9?
duties and their rights. The retribution was just
and natural. If our rulers suffered from popular
ignorance, it was because they had themselves
taken away the key of knowledge. If they were
5 assailed with blind fury, it was because they had
exacted an equally blind submission.
/ f It is the character of such revolutions that we
always see the worst of them at first. Till men
have been some time free, they know not how to
10 use their freedom. 'The natives of wine countries
are generally sober. In climates where wine is a
rarity intemperance abounds. A newly liberated
people may be compared to a northern army
encamped on the Rhine or the Xeres. It is said
15 that, when soldiers in such a situation first find
themselves able to indulge without restraint in
such a rare and expensive luxury, nothing is to be
seen but intoxication. Soon, however, plenty
teaches discretion; and, after wine has been for a
20 few months their daily fare, they become more
temperate than they had ever been in their own
country. In the same manner, the final and per-
manent fruits of libertv are wisdom, moderation,
and mercy. Its immediate effects are often atro-
25 eious crimes, conflicting errors, scepticism on points
the most clear, dogmatism on points the most
mysterious. It is just at this crisis that its ene-
mies love to exhibit it. They pull down the
affolding from the half-finished edifice; they
so point to the flying dust, the falling bricks, the
98 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
comfortless rooms, the frightful irregularity of the
whole appearance; and then ask in scorn where
the promised splendor and comfort is to be found.
If such miserable sophisms were to prevail there
would never be a good house or a good government 5
in the world.
Ariosto tells a pretty story of a fairy, who, by
some mysterious law of her nature, was condemned
to appear at certain seasons in the form of a foul
and poisonous snake. Those who injured her 10
during the period of her disguise were forever
excluded from participation in the blessings which
she bestowed. But to those who, in spite of her
loathsome aspect, pitied and protected her, she
afterwards revealed herself in the beautiful and is
celestial form which was natural to her, accom-
panied their steps, granted all their wishes, filled
their houses with wealth, made them happy in
love and victorious in war. Such a spirit is
Liberty. At times she takes the form of a hateful 20
reptile. She grovels, she hisses, she stings. But
woe to those who in disgust shall venture to crush
her ! And happy are those who, having dared to
receive her in her degraded and frightful shape,
shall at length be rewarded by her in the time of 25
her beauty and her glory!
' There is only one cure for the evils which newly
acquired freedom produces; and that cure is free-
dom. When a prisoner first leaves his cell he
cannot bear the lii>ht of days he is unable to so
MILTON 99
discriminate colors, or recognize faces. But the
remedy is, not to remand him into his dungeon y
but to accustom him to the rays of the sun. The
blaze of truth and liberty may at first dazzle and
5 bewilder nations which have become half blind in
the house of bondage. But let them gaze on, and
they will soon be able to bear i^ In a few years
men learn to reason. The extreme violence of
opinions subsides. Hostile theories correct each
10 other. The scattered elements of truth cease to
contend, and begin to coalesce. And at length a
system of justice and order is educed out of the
chaos.
t-Many politicians of our time are in the habit of
15 laying it down as a self-evident proposition, that
no people ought to be free till they are fit to use
their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool
in the old story, who resolved not to go into the
water till he had learned to swim. If men are to
20 wait for liberty till they become wise and good in
slavery, they may indeed wait forever.
^ Therefore it is that we decidedly approve of the-
conduct of Milton and the other wise and good
men who, in spite of much that was ridiculous and
25 hateful in the conduct of their associates, stood
firmly by the cause of Public Liberty. We are
not aware that the poet has been charged with
personal participation in any of the blamable
■■xcesses of that time. The favorite topic of his
» enemies is the line of conduct which lie pursued
100 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
with regard to the execution of the King. Of
that celebrated proceeding we by no means
approve. Still we must say, in justice to the
many eminent persons who concurred in it, and in
justice more particularly to the eminent person 5
who defended it, that nothing can be more absurd
than the imputatrbns which, for the last hundred
and sixty years, it has been tjie fashion to cast
upon the Regicides. We 'have, throughout,
abstained from appealing to firsfr principles. We 10
will not appeal to them now. We recur again to
the parallel case of the Revolution^ What essen-
tial distinction can be drawn between the execu-
tion of the father and the deposition of the son?
What constitutional maxim is there which applies 15
to the former and not to the latter? The King
can do no wrong. If so, James was as innocent as
Charles could have been. The minister only
ought to be responsible for the acts of the Sover-
eign. If so, why not impeach Jeffreys and retain 20
James? The person of a King is sacred. Was
the person of James considered sacred at the
Boyne? To discharge cannon against an army in
which a king is known to be posted is to approach
pretty near to regicide. Charles, too, it should 35
always be remembered, was put to death by men
who had been exasperated by the hostilities of
several years, and who had never been bound to
him by any other tie than that which was common
to them with all their fellow-citizens. Those wh<
MILTON 101
drove James from his throne, who seduced his,
army, who alienated his friend^ «vho first wa-
prisoned him in his palace,; and .then (gorxted him
out of It, who broke in upon his very slumbers Oy
5 imperious messages, who pursued him with fire
and sword from one part of the empire to another,
who hanged, drew, and quartered his adherents/
and attainted his innocent heir, were his nephew
and his two daughters. AVhen we reflect on all
10 these things, we are at a loss to conceive how the
same persons who, on the fifth of Xovember, thank
God for wonderfully conducting his servant
William, and for making all opposition fall before
him until he became our King and Governor, can,
io on the thirtieth of January, contrive to be afraid
that the blood of the Royal Martyr may be visited
on themselves and their children.
7 "We disapprove, we repeat, of the execution of
Charles; not because the constitution exempts
20 the King from responsibility, for we know that all
such maxims, however excellent, have their excep-
tions ; nor because we feel any peculiar interest in
his character, for we think that his sentence
describes him with perfect justice as "a tyrant, a
25 traitor, a murderer, and a public enemy;'- but
because we are convinced that the measure wag
most injurious to the cause of freedom. He
whom it removed was a captive and a hostage: his
heir, to whom the allegiance of every Royalist was
30 instantly transferred, was at large. The Presby-
102 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
terians could never have been perfectly reconciled
to the father , they had no such rooted enmity to
the son. The groat body of the people, also, con-
templated that j:>roceedmg with feelings which,
however unreasonable, no government could safely 5
venture to outrage.
* But though we think the conduct of the Regi-
cides blamable, that of Milton appears to us in a
very different light. The deed was done. It
could not be undone. The evil was incurred ; and 10
the object was to render it as small as possible.
We censure the chiefs of the army for not yielding
to the popular opinion; but we cannot censure
Milton for wishing to change that opinion. The
very feeling which would have restrained us from 15
•committing the act, would have led us, after it had
been committed, to defend it against the ravings
•of servility and sujoerstition. For the sake of public
liberty we wish that the thing had not been clone
while the people disapproved of it. But, for the 20
sake of public liberty, we should also have wis lied
the people to approve of it when it was done. If
anything more were wanting to the justification of
Milton, the book of Salmasius would furnish it.
That miserable performance is now with justice 25
considered only as a beacon to word-catchers who
wish to become statesmen. The celebrity of the
man who refuted it, the "iEneae magni dextra,"
gives it all its fame with the present generation.
In that age the state of things was different. It 3c
MILTOX 103
was not then fully understood how vast an interval
separates the mere classical scholar from the polit-
ical philosopher. Nor can it be doubted that a
treatise which, bearing the name of so eminent a
5 critic, attacked the fundamental principles of all
free governments, must, if suffered to remain
unanswered, have produced a most pernicious
effect on the public mind.
L We wish to add a few words relative to another
10 subject, on which the enemies of Milton delight to
dwell, — his conduct during the administration of
the Protector. That an enthusiastic votary of
liberty should accept office under a military usurper
seems, no doubt, at first sight, extraordinary.
15 But all the circumstances in which the country
was then placed were extraordinary. The ambi-
tion of Oliver was of no vulgar kind. He never
seems to have coveted despotic power. He at first
fought sincerely and manfully for the Parliament,
20 and never deserted it till it had deserted its duty.
If he dissolved it by force, it was not till he found
that the few members who remained after so many
deaths, secessions, and expulsions, were desirous to
appropriate to themselves a power which they held
as only in trust, and to inflict upon England the
curse of a Venetian oligarchy. But even when
thus placed by violence at the head of affairs, he
did not assume unlimited power. He gave the
country a constitution far more perfect than any
so which had at that time been known in the world.
104 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
He reformed the representative system in a manner
which has extorted praise even from Lord Claren-
don. For himself he demanded indeed the first
place in the commonwealth; but with powers
scarcely so great as those of a Dutch stadtholder 5
or an American president. He gave the Parlia-
ment a voice in the appointment of ministers, and
left to it the whole legislative authority, not even
reserving to himself a veto on its enactments ; and
he did not require that the chief magistracy should 10
be hereditary in his family. Thus far, we think,
if the circumstances of the time and the opportu-
nities which he had of aggrandizing himself be
fairly considered, he will not lose by comparison
with Washington or Bolivar. Had his moderation 15
been met by corresponding moderation, there is no
reason to think that he would have overstepped the
line which he had traced for himself. But when
he found that his parliaments questioned the
authority under which they met, and that he was 20
in danger of being deprived of the restricted power
which was absolutely necessary to his personal
safety, then, it must be acknowledged, he adopted
a more arbitrary policy.
*\ Yet, though we believe that the intentions of 25
Cromwell were at first honest, though we believe
that be was driven from the noble course which
lie had marked out for himself by the almost irre-
sistible force of circumstances, though we admire,
in common with all men of all parties, the ability 30
MILTON 105
and energy of his splendid administration, we are
not pleading for arbitrary and lawless power, even
in his hands. "We know that a good constitution
is infinitely better than the best despot. But we
5 suspect, that at the time of which we speak, the
violence of religious and political enmities rendered
a stable and happy settlement next to impossible.
The choice lay, not between Cromwell and liberty,
but between Cromwell and the Stuarts. That
10 Milton chose well, no man can doubt who fairly
compares the events of the protectorate with those
of the thirty years which succeeded it, the darkest
and most disgraceful in the English annals.
Cromwell was evidently laying, though in an
15 irregular manner, the foundations of an admirable
system. Xever before had religious liberty and
the freedom of discussion been enjoyed in a greater
degree. Xever had the national honor been better
upheld abroad, or the seat of justice better filled at
20 home. And it was rarely that any opposition
which stopped short of open rebellion provoked the
resentment of the liberal and magnanimous
usurper. The institutions which he had estab-
lished, as set down in the Instrument of Govern-
25 ment and the Humble Petition and Advice, were
excellent. His practice, it is true, too often
departed from the theory of these institutions.
But had he lived a few years longer, it is probable
that his institutions would have survived him, and
30 that his arbitrary practice would have died with
106 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
him. His power had not been consecrated by
ancient prejudices. It was upheld only by his
great personal qualities. Little, therefore, was to
be dreaded from a second protector, unless he were
also a second Oliver Cromwell. The events which 5
followed his decease are the most complete vindi-
cation of those who exerted themselves to uphold
his authority. His death dissolved the whole
frame of society. The army rose against the
Parliament, the different corps of the army against 10
each other. Sect raved against sect. Party
plotted against party. The Presbyterians, in their
eagerness to be revenged on the Independents,
sacrificed their own liberty, and deserted all their
old principles. Without casting one glance on the 15
past, or requiring one stipulation for the future,
they threw down their freedom at the feet of the
most frivolous and heartless of tyrants.
jf Then came those days, never to be recalled
without a blush, the days of servitude without 20
loyalty, and sensuality without love; of dwarfish
talents and gigantic vices; the paradise of cold
hearts and narrow minds; the golden age of the
coward, the bigot, and the slave. The King
cringed to his rival that he might trample on his 23
people, sank into a viceroy of France, and pocketed
with complacent infamy her degrading insults and
her more degrading gold. The caresses of harlots,
and the jests of buffoons, regulated the policy of
the state. The government had just ability &
MILTON 10?
enough to deceive, and just religion enough to
persecute. The principles of liberty were the scoff
of every grinning courtier, and the Anathema
Maranatha of every fawning dean. In every high
5 place, worship was paid to Charles and James,
Belial and Moloch; and England propitiated those
obscene and cruel idols with the blood of her best
and bravest children. Crime succeeded to crime,
and disgrace to disgrace, till the race, accursed of
10 God and man, was a second time driven forth, to
wander on the face of the earth, and to be a by-
word and a shaking of the head to the nations.
Q Most of the remarks which we have hitherto
made on the public character of Milton, apply to
15 him only as one of a large body. We shall proceed
to notice some of the peculiarities which distin-
guished him from his contemporaries. And for
that purpose it is necessary to take a short survey
of the parties into which the political world was at
20 that time divided. We must premise that our
observations are intended to apply only to those
who adhered, from a sincere preference, to one or
to the other side. In days of public commotion
every faction, like an Oriental army, is attended
25 by a crowd of camp-followers, a useless and heart-
less rabble, who prowl round its line of march in
the hope of picking up something under its pro-
tection, but desert it in the day of battle, and
often join to exterminate it after a defeat. Eng-
30 land, at the time of which we are treating,
108 MACAULAYS ESSAYS
abounded with fickle and selfish politicians, who
transferred their support to every government as
it rose; who kissed the hand of the King in 1640,
and spat in his face in 1649; who shouted with
equal glee when Cromwell was inaugurated in 5
Westminster Hall, and when he was dug up to be
hanged at Tyburn; who dined on calves' heads, or
stuck up oak-branches, as circumstances altered,
without the slightest shame or repugnance. These
we leave out of the account. We take our esti- io
mate of parties from those who really deserve to be
called partisans.
fi We would speak first of the Puritans, the most
remarkable body of men, perhaps, which the
world has ever produced. The odious and ridicu- 15
lous parts of their character lie on the surface.
He that runs may read them ; nor have there been
wanting attentive and malicious observers to point
them out. For many years after the Restoration,
they were the theme of unmeasured invective and 20
derision. They were exposed to the utmost licen-
tiousness of the press and of the stage, at the time
when the press and the stage were most licentious.
They were not men of letters; they were, as a
body, unpopular; they could not defend them- 25
selves; and the public would not take them
under its protection. They were therefore aban-
doned, without reserve, to the tender mercies of
the satirists and dramatists. The ostentatious
simplicity of their dress, their sour aspect, their :*o
rm- r ■* *-»■**■..
MILTON 109
nasal twang, their stiff posture, their long graces,
their Bebrew names, the Scriptural phrases which
they introduced on every occasion, their contempt
of human learning, their detestation of polite
5 amusements, were indeed fair game for the
laughers. Hut it is not from the laughers alone
that the philosophy of history is to be learned.
And he who approaches this subject should care-
fully guard against the influence of that potent
10 ridicule which has already misled so many excel-
lent writers.
li Ecco il fonte del riso, ed ecco il rio
Che mortali perigli in se contiene:
Hor qui tener a fren nostro desio,
15 Ed esser cauti molto a noi conviene."
P I Those who roused the people to resistance; wlio
directed their measures through a long series of
eventful years ; who formed, out of the most un-
promising materials, the finest army that Europe
20 had ever seen; who trampled down King, Church,
and Aristocracy; who, in the short intervals of
domestic sedition and rebellion, made the name of
England terrible to every nation on the face of the
earth, were no vulgar fanatics. Most of their
25 absurdities were mere external badges, like the
- _ ns of freemasonry, or the dresses of friars. We
regret that these badges were not more attract-.
ive. We regret that a body to whose courage and
talents mankind has owed inestimable obligations
30 had not the lofty elegance which distinguished seme
Y.
V.
110 :,IACAULAY'S ESSAYS
of the adherents of Charles the First, or the easy
good-breeding for which the Court of Charles the
Second was celebrated. But, if we must make our
choice, we shall, like Bassanio in the play, turn
from the specious caskets which contain only the 5
Death's head and the Fool's head, and fix on the
plain leaden chest which conceals the treasure.
Q V, iJThe Puritans were men whose minds had
U ^derived a peculiar character from the daily con-
templation of superior beings and eternal interests. 10
j.Jfot content with acknowledging, in general terms,
^ an overruling Providence, they habitually ascribed
every event to the will of the Great Being, for
whose power nothing was too vast, for whose
inspection nothing was too minute.** To know 15
him, to serve him, to enjoy him, was with them
the great end of existence. 1 ! They rejected with
contempt the ceremonious homage which other
sects substituted for the pure worship of the soul.
'.Instead of catching occasional glimpses of the 20
Deity through an obscuring veil, they asjrired to
gaze full on his intolerable brightness, and to com-
mune with him face to face. C. .Hence originated
their contempt for terrestrial distinctions .T- The
difference between the greatest and the meanest of 25
mankind seemed to vanish, when compared with
the boundless interval which separated the whole
race from him on whom their own eyes were con-
stantly fixed. % They recognized no title t<> supe-
riority but his favor; and, confident of that favor, w
MILTON 111
they despised all the accomplishments and all the
dignities of the world./. If they were unacquainted
with the works of philosophers and poets, they
were deeply read in the oracles of God. #.If their
5 names were not found in the registers of heralds,
they were recorded in the Book of Life. If their
steps were not accompanied by a splendid train of
menials, legions of ministering angels had charge
over them. * Their palaces were houses not made
10 with hands ; their o^adems crowns of glory which,
should never fade away. On the rich and the
eloquent, on nobles and priests, they looked down
with contempt ; for they esteemed themselves rich
in a more precious treasure, and eloquent in a
15 more sublime language, nobles by the right of an
earlier creation, and priests by the imposition of a
mightier hand. ^The very meanest of them was a
being to whose fate a mysterious and terrible
importance belonged, on whose slightest action
20 the spirits of light and darkness looked with
anxious interest, who had been destined, before
heaven and earth Were created, to enjoy a felicity
which should continue when heaven and earth
should have passed away. "Events which short-
25 sighted politicians ascribed to t earthly causes, had
been ordained on his account.' fc For his sake em-
pires had risen, and flourished and decayed. For
his sake the Almighty had proclaimed his will by
the pen of the Evangelist arid the harp of the
30 prophet. -He had been wrested by no common
112 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
It
deliverer from the grasp of no common foe. He
had been ransomed by the sweat of no vulgar
agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice, it was
for him that the sun had been darkened, that the
rocks had been rent, that the dead had risen, that 5
all nature had shuddered at the sufferings of her
expiring God.
3 Thus the Puritan was made up of two different
men, the one all self-abasement, penitence, grati-
tude, passion; the other proud, calm, inflexible, 10
sagacious. He prostrated himself in the dust
before his Maker ; but he set his foot on the neck
of his king. In his devotional retirement, he
prayed with convulsions, and groans, and tears.
He was half maddened by glorious or terrible 15
illusions. He heard the lyres of angels or the
tempting whisj^ers of fiends. He caught a gleam
of the Beatific Vision,' or woke screaming from
dreams of everlasting fire. Like Vane, he thought
himself intrusted with the sceptre of the millennial 20
year. Like Fleetwood, he cried in the bitterness
of his soul. that God had hid his face from him.
But when he took his seat in the council, or girt
on his sword for war, these tempestuous workings
of the soul had left no perceptible trace behind 25
them. People who saw nothing of the godly
but their uncouth visages, and heard nothing from
them but their groans and their whining hymns,
might laugh at them. But those had little reason to
laugh who encountered them in the hall of debate 30
MILTON 113
or in the field of battle. These fanatics brought
to civil and military affairs a coolness of judgment
and an immutability of purpose which some writers
have thought inconsistent with their religious
s zeal, but which were in fact the necessary eiV>
of it. The intensity of their feelings en one sub-
ject made them tranquil on every other. One
overpowering sentiment had subjected to itself pity
and hatred, ambition and fear. Death had lost its
10 terrors and pleasure its charms. They had their
smiles and their tears, their raptures and their sor-
rows, but not for the things of this world. Enthu-
siasm had made them Stoics, had cleared their
minds from every vulgar passion and prejudice,
15 and raised them above the influence of danger and
of corruption. It sometimes might lead them to
pursue unwise ends, but never to choose unwise
means. They went through the world, like Sir
Artegal's iron man Talus with his flail, crushing
20 and trampling down oppressors, mingling with
human beings, but having neither part nor lot in
human infirmities; insensible to fatigue, to pleas-
ure, and to pain; not to be pierced by any weapon,
to be withstood by any barrier.
Co V Such we believe to have been the character of
the Puritans. We perceive the absurdity oi their
manners. Wc dislike the sullen gloom of their
domestic habits. We acknowledge that the tone oi
their minds was often injured by straining after
so things too high for mortal reach; and we knew
1U MAUAULAY'S ESSAYS
that, in spite of their hatred of Popery, they too
often fell into the worst vices of that bad system,
intolerance and extravagant austerity; that they
had their anchorites and their crusades, their
Dunstans and their De Montforts, their Dominies 5
and their Escobars. Yet, when all circumstances
are taken into consideration, we do not hesitate to
pronounce them a brave, a wise, an honest, and a
useful body.
»5 The Puritans espoused the cause of civil liberty 10
mainly because it was the cause of religion. There
was another party, by no means numerous, but
distinguished by learning and ability, which acted
with them on very different principles. AVe speak
of those whom Cromwell was accustomed to call is
the Heathens, men who were, in the phraseology
of that time, doubting Thomases or careless
Gallios with regard to religious subjects, but
passionate worshippers of freedom. Heated by
the study of ancient literature, they set up their 20
country as their idol, and proposed to themselves
the heroes of Plutarch as their examines. They
seem to have borne some resemblance to the Brisso-
tines of the French Revolution, But it is not
very- easy to draw the line of distinction between 25
them ai d their devout associates, whose tone ami
manne they sometimes found it convenient to
affect, and sometimes, it is probable, imperceptibly
adopted.
7 We now come to the Royalists. We shall 30
MILTON 115
attempt to speak of them, as we have spoken of
their antagonists, with perfect candor. We shall
not charge upon a whole party the profligacy and
baseness of the horse-boys, gamblers, and bravoes,
5 whom the hope of license and plunder attracted
from all the dens of Whitefriars to the standard of
Charles, and who disgraced their associates by
excesses which, under the stricter discipline of the.
Parliamentary armies, were never tolerated. We
in will select a more favorable specimen. Thinking
as we do that the cause of the King was the cause
of bigotry and tyranny, we yet cannot refrain from
looking with complacency on the character of the
honest old Cavaliers. We feel a national pride in
15 comparing them with the instruments which the
despots of other countries are compelled to em-
ploy, with the mutes who throng their antecham-
bers, and the Janissaries who mount guard at their
gates. Our royalist countrymen were not heart-
20 less, dangling com*tiers, bowing at every step, and
simpering at every word. They were not mere
machines for destruction, dressed up in uniforms,
caned into skill, intoxicated into valor, defending
without love, destroying without hatred. There
25 was a freedom in their subserviency, a nobleness in
their very degradation. The sentiment of indi-
vidual independence was strong within them.
They were indeed misled, but by no base or selfish
motive. Compassion^ and romantic honor, the
so prejudices of childhood, and the venerable names
116 MACAULAYS ESSAYS
of history, threw over them a spell potent as that
of Duessa; and, like the Red-Cross Knight, they
thought that they were doing battle for an injured
beauty, while they defended a false and loathsome
sorceress. In truth, they scarcely entered at all E
into the merits of the political question. It was
not for a treacherous king or an intolerant church
that they fought, but for the old banner which had
waved in so many battles over the heads of their
fathers, and for the altars at which they had 10
received the hands of their brides. Though noth
ing could be more erroneous than their political
opinions, they possessed, in a far greater degree
than their adversaries, those qualities which are
the grace of private life. With many of the vices is
of the Round Table, they had also many of its
virtues, — courtesy, generosity, veracity, tenderness,
and respect for women. They had far more both
of profound and of polite learning than the Puri-
tans. Their manners were more engaging, their ao
tempers more amiable, their tastes more elegant,
and their households more cheerful.
*1 \JVIilton did not strictly belong to any of the classes
which we have described, ijle was not a Puritan.
* Jle was not a free -thinker M lie was not a Royalist. •;-
Sln his character the noblest qualities of every
party were combined in harmonious union* & From
the Parliament and from the Court, from the con-
venticle and from the Gothic cloister, from tin-
gloomy and sepulchral circles of the Roundheads,
MILTON 111
and from the Christmas revel of the hospitable
Cavalier, his nature selected and drew to itself
whatever was great and good, while it rejected all
the base and pernicious ingredients by which th<
5 liner elements were defiled. "J Like the Puritans, he
lived
"As ever in his great task-master's eve
Like them, he kept his mind continually fixed on
an Almighty Judge and an eternal reward. 1 / And
10 hence he acquired their contempt of external
circumstances, their fortitude, their tranquillity,
their inflexible resolution f* But not the coolest
sceptic or the most profane scoffer was more per-
fectly free from the contagion of their frantic
15 delusions, then' savage manners, their ludicrous
jargon, their scorn of science, and their aversion
to pleasure../ Hating tyranny with a perfect
hatred, he had nevertheless all the estimable and
ornamental qualities which were almost entirely
20 monopolized by the party of the tyrant./'- There
was none who had a stronger sense of the value of
literature, a finer relish for every elegant amuse-
ment, or a more chivalrous delicacy of honor and
love. *!,■ Though his opinions were democratic, his
25 tastes and his associations were such as harmonize
best with monarchy and aristocracy. f r He was
- under the influence of all the feelings by which the
gallant Cavaliers were misled/- But of those feel-
ings he was the master and not the slave.- * Like
30 the hero of Homer, he enjoyed all the pleasures of
118 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
fascination; but he was not fascinated. ' He
listened to the song of the Sirens; yet he glided
by without being seduced to their fatal shore.
) "He tasted the cup of Circe; but he bore about him
a sure antidote against the effects of its bewitching 5
sweetness, l^ The illusions which captivated his
imagination never impaired his reasoning powers.
jThe statesman was proof against the splendor, the
solemnity, and the romance which enchanted the
poet. ' -I Any 'person who will contrast the senti- 10
ments expressed in his treatises on Prelacy with
the exquisite lines on ecclesiastical architecture
and music in the Penseroso, which was published
about the same time, will understand our meaning.
This is an inconsistency w r hich, more than any- 15
thing else, raises his character in our estimation,
because it shows how many private tastes and feel-
ings he sacrificed, in order to do what he con-
sidered his duty to mankind.*^ It is the very
struggle of the noble Othello!'* His heart relents ; 20
but his hand is firm/ 5 He does naught in hate,
but all in honor. ^ He kisses the beautiful deceiver
before he destroys her.
That from which the public character of Milton
derives its great and peculiar splendor, still 25
remains to be mentioned. If he exerted himself to
overthrow a forsworn king and a persecuting hier-
archy, he exerted himself in conjunction with
others. But the glory of the battle which he
fought for the species of freedom which is the most so
MILToN 119
valuable, and which was thou t lie least understood,
the freedom of the human mind, is all his own.
Thousands and tens of thousands among his con-
temporaries raised their voices against ship-money
5 and the Star Chamber. But there Mere few
indeed who discerned the more fearful evils of
moral and intellectual slavery, and the benefits
which would result from the liberty of the press
and the unfettered exercise of private judgment.
10 These were the objects which Milton justly con-
ceived to be the most important. (He was desirous
that the people should think for themselves as well
as tax themselves, and should be emancipated from
the dominion of prejudice as well as from that of
15 Charles."/ He knew that those who, with the best
intentions, overlooked these schemes of reform,
and contented themselves with pulling down the
King and imprisoning the malignants, acted like
the heedless brothers in his own poem, who, in
20 their eagerness to disperse the train of the sorcerer,
neglected the means of liberating the captive.
They thought only of conquering when they
should have thought of disenchanting.
"Oh, ye mistook! Ye should have snatched his wand
■25 And bound him fast. Without the rod reversed,
And backward mutters of dissevering power,
We cannot free the lady that sits here
Bound in strong fetters fixed and motionless.'"
$ J To reverse the rod, to spell the charm backward,
so to break the ties which bound a stupefied peopL
120 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
the seat of enchantment, was the noble aim of
Milton. To this all his public conduct was
directed. For this he joined the Presbyterians;
for this he forsook them. He fought their peril-
ous battle ; but he turned away with disdain from 5
their insolent triumph. He saw that they, like
those whom they had vanquished, were hostile to
the liberty of thought. He therefore joined the
Independents, and called upon Cromwell to bre"ak
the secular chain, and to save free conscience from 10
the paw of the Presbyterian wolf. With a view to
the same great object, he attacked the licensing
system, in that sublime treatise which every states-
man should wear as a sign upon his hand and as
frontlets between his eyes. His attacks were, in 15
general, directed less against particular abuses
than against those deeply seated errors on which
almost all abuses are founded, the servile worship
of eminent men and the irrational dread of inno-
vation. 20
That he might shake the foundations of these
debasing sentiments more effectually, he always
selected for himself the boldest literary services.
He never came up in the rear, when the outworks
had been carried and the breach entered. He 25
pressed into the forlorn hope.- At the beginning
of the changes, he wrote with incomparable energy
and eloquence against the bishops. But, when
his opinion seemed likely to prevail, he passed on
to other subjects, and abandoned prelacy to the 3o
MILTON L21
crowd of writers who now hastened to insult a
falling party. There is no more hazardous enter-
prise than that of bearing the torch of truth into
those dark and infected recesses in which no light
5 has ever shone. But it was the choice and the
pleasure of Milton to penetrate the noisome vapors,
and to brave the terrible explosion. Those who
most disapprove of his opinions must respect the
hardihood with which he maintained them. He,
10 in general, left to others the credit of expounding
and defending the popular parts of his religious
and political creed. He took his own stand upon
those which the great body of his countrymen
reprobated as criminal, or derided as paradoxical.
15 He stood up for divorce and regicide. He attacked
the prevailing systems of education. His radiant
and beneficent career resembled that of the god of
light and fertility : —
"Nitor in adversum; nee me, qui ceetera, vincit
20 Impetus, et rapido contrarius evehor orbi."
• It is to be regretted that the prose writings of
Milton should, in our time, be so little read. As
compositions, they deserve the attention of every
man who wishes to become acquainted with the
23 full power of the English language. They abound
with passages compared with which the finest
declamations of Burke sink into insignificance.
They are a perfect field of cloth of gold. The
style is stiff with gorgeous embroidery. Not even
122 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
in the earlier books of the Paradise Lost has the
great poet ever risen higher than in those parts of
his controversial works in which his feelings,
excited by conflict, find a vent in bursts of
devotional and lyric rapture. It is, to borrow his ■
own majestic language, "a sevenfold chorus of
hallelujahs and harping symphonies."
^L We had intended to look more closely at these
performances, to analyze the peculiarities of the
diction, to dwell at some length on the sublime 10
wisdom of the Areopagitica and the nervous rhet-
oric of the Iconoclast, and to point out some of
those magnificent passages which occur in the
Treatise of Keformation, and the Animadversions
on the Remonstrant. But the length to which 15
our remarks have already extended renders this
impossible.
We must conclude. And yet we can scarcely
tear ourselves away from the subject. The days
immediately following the publication of this relic 20
of Milton appear to be peculiarly set apart, and
consecrated to his memory. And we shall scarcely
be censured if, on this his festival, we be found
lingering near his shrine, how worthless soever
may be the offering which we bring to it. While «
this book lies on our table, we seem to be contem-
poraries of the writer. We are transported a
hundred and fifty years back. We can almost
fancy that we are visiting him in his small lodg-
ing; that wo see him Bitting at the old organ so
MILTON" 123
beneath the faded green hangings; that we can
catch the quick twinkle of his eyes, rolling in vain
to find the day; that we are reading in the lines
of his noble countenance the proud and mournful
5 history of his glory and his affliction. We image
to ourselves the breathless silence in which we
should listen to his slightest word ; the passionate
veneration with which we should kneel to kiss his
hand and weep upon it; the earnestness with
1 which we should endeavor to console him, if
indeed such a spirit could need consolation, for the
neglect of an age unworthy of his talents and his
virtues ; the eagerness with which we should con-
test with his daughters, or with his Quaker friend
15 El wood, the privilege of reading Homer to him, or
of -taking down the immortal accents which flowed
from his lips.
^ These are perhaps foolish feelings. Yet we
cannot be ashamed of them ; nor shall we be sorry
so if what we have written shall in any degree excite
them in other minds. We are not much in the
habit of idolizing either the living or the dead.
And we think that there is no more certain
indication of a weak and ill-regulated intellect
25 than that propensity which, for want of a better
name, we will venture to christen Boswellisni.
But there are a few characters which have stood
the closest scrutiny and the severest tests, which
have been tried in the furnace and have proved
pure, which have been weighed in the balance and
12-f MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
have not been found wanting, which have been
declared sterling by the general consent of man-
kind, and which are visibly stamped with the
image and superscription of the Most High.
These great men we trust that we know how to 5
prize; and of these was Milton. The sight of his
books, the sound of his name, are pleasant to us.
His thoughts resemble those celestial fruits and
flowers which the Virgin Martyr of Massinger sent
down from the gardens of Paradise to the earth, 10
and which were distinguished from the productions
of other soils, not only by superior bloom and
sweetness, but by miraculous efficacy to invigorate
and to heal. They are powerful, not only to
delight, but to elevate and purify. Xor do we 15
envy the man who can study either the life or the
writings of the great poet and patriot, without
aspiring to emulate, not indeed the sublime works
with which his genius has enriched our literature,
but the zeal with which he labored for the public 90
good, the fortitude with which he endured every
private calamity, the lofty disdain with which he
looked down on temptations and dangers, the
deadly hatred which he bore to bigots and tyrants,
and the faith which he so sternly kept with his ,;.
country and with his fame.
THE JLTFE AND WRITINGS
OF ADDISON
The Life of Joseph Addison. By Lucy Aikin. 2 vols.,
8va London: 1843.
Some reviewers are of opinion that a lady who
dares to publish a book renounces by that act the
franchises appertaining to her sex, and can claim
no exemption from the utmost rigor of critical
5 procedure. From that opinion we dissent. We
admit, indeed, that in a country which boasts of
many female writers, eminently qualified by their
talents and acquirements to influence the public
mind, it would be of most pernicious consequence
10 that inaccurate history or unsound philosophy
should be suffered to pass uncensured, merely
because the offender chanced to be a lady. But
we conceive that, on such occasions, a critic would
• well to imitate the courteous knight who found
imself compelled by duty to keep the lists against
Bradamante. He, we are told, defended sin
fully the cause of which he was the champion; but
before the fight began, exchanged Balisarda for a
126
126 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
less deadly sword, of which he carefully blunted
the point and edge.
Xor are the immunities of sex the only immu-
nities which Miss Aikin may rightfully plead.
Several of her works, and especially the very 5
pleasing Memoirs of the Reign of James the First,
have fully entitled her to the privileges enjoyed by
good writers. One of those privileges we hold to
be this, that such writers, when, either from the
unlucky choice of a subject, or from the indo- 10
lence too often produced by success, they happen to
fail, shall not be subjected to the severe discipline
which it is sometimes necessary to inflict upon
dunces and impostors, but shall merely be re-
minded by a gentle touch, like that with which 15
the Laputan flapper roused his dreaming lord,
that it is high time to wake.
Our readers will probably infer from what we
have said that Miss Aikin's book has disappointed
us. The truth is, that she is not well acquainted 20
with her subject. No person who is not familiar
with the political and literary history of England
during the reigns of William the Third, of Anne,
and of George the First, can possibly write a good
life of Addison. Now, we mean no reproach to 25
Miss Aikin, and many will think that we pay her a
compliment, when we say that her studies have
taken a different direction. She is better acquainted
with Shakespeare and Raleigh, than with Con-
greve and Prior ; and is fur more at home among 30
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 127
the ruffs and peaked beards of Theobald's than
among the Steenkirks and flowing periwigs which
surrounded Queen Anne's tea-table at Hampton.
She seems to have written about the Elizabethan
5 age, because she had read much about it ; she
seems, on the other hand, to have read a little
about the age of Addison, because she had deter-
mined to write about it. The consequence is that
she has had to describe men and things without
10 having either a correct or a vivid idea of them, and
that she has often fallen into errors of a very
serious kind. The reputation which Miss Aikin
has justly earned stands so high, and the charm of
Addison's letters is so great, that a second edition
15 of this w T ork may probably be required. If so, we
hope that every paragraph will be revised, and
that every date and fact about which there can be
the smallest doubt will be carefully verified.
To Addison himself we are bound by a sentiment
20 as much like affection as any sentiment can be,
which is inspired by one who has been sleeping a
hundred and twenty years in Westminster Abbey.
We trust, however, that this feeling will not betray
us into that abject idolatry which we have often
25 had occasion to reprehend in others, and which
seldom fails to make both the idolater and the idol
ridiculous. A man of genius and virtue is but a
man. All his powers cannot be equally developed;
nor can we expect from him perfect self-knowl-
30 edge. We need not, therefore, hesitate to admit
128 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
that Addison has left us some compositions which
do not rise above mediocrity, some heroic poems
hardly equal to Parnell's, some criticism as super-
ficial as Dr. Blair's, and a tragedy not very much
better than Dr. Johnson's. Jt is praise enough to 5
say of a writer that, in a high department of
literature, in which many eminent writers have
distinguished themselves, he has had no equal;
and this may with strict justice be said of Addison.
As a man, he may not have deserved the ado- 10
ration which he received from those who, bewitched
by his fascinating society, and indebted for all the
comforts of life to his generous and delicate friend-
ship, worshijyped him nightly in his favorite temple
at Button's. But, after full inquiry and impartial 15
reflection, we have long been convinced that he
deserved as much love and esteem as can be justly
claimed by any of our infirm and erring race.
Some blemishes may undoubtedly be detected in his
character; but the more carefully it is examined, 20
the more it will appear, to use the phrase of the old
anatomists, sound in the noble parts, free from all
taint of perfidy, of cowardice, of cruelty, of ingrati-
tude, of envy. Men may easily be named in whom
some particular good disposition has been more 23
conspicuous than in Addison. But the just har-
mony of qualities, the exact temper between the
stern and the humane virtues, the habitual ob-
vance of every law, not only of moral rectitude,
but of moral grace and dignify, distinguish him so
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 129
from all men who have been tried by equally
strong temptations, and about whose conduct we
possess equally full information.
His father was the Reverend Lancelot Addison,
5 who, though eclipsed by his more celebrated son,
made some figure in the world, and occupies with
credit two folio pages in the Biographia Britan-
nica. Lancelot was sent up as a poor scholar from
"Westmoreland to Queen's College, Oxford, in the
10 time of the Commonwealth; made some progress
in learning; became, like most of his fellow-stu-
dents, a violent Royalist; lampooned the heads of
the university, and was forced to ask pardon on
his bended knees. When he had left college he
is earned a humble subsistence by reading the liturgy
of the fallen church to the families of those sturdy
squires whose manor-houses were scattered over
the Wild of Sussex. After the Restoration his
loyalty was rewarded with the post of chaplain to
2C the garrison of Dunkirk. When Dunkirk was
sold to France he lost his employment. But
Tangier had been ceded by Portugal to England as
part of the marriage portion of the Infanta Cathar-
ine; and to Tangier Lancelot Addison was sent.
25 A more miserable situation can hardly be con-
ceived. It was difficult to say whether the unfortu-
nate settlers were more tormented by the heats or
by the rains, by the soldiers within the wall or by
the Moors without it. One advantage the chaplain
90 had. He enjoyed an excellent opportunity of
130 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
studying the history and manners of Jews and
Mahometans; and of this opportunity he appears
to have made excellent use. On his return to
England, after some years of banishment, he pub-
lished an interesting volume on the Polity and 5
Religion of Barbary, and another on the Hebrew
Customs and the State of Rabbinical Learning.
He rose to eminence in his profession, and became
one of the royal chaplains, a Doctor of Divinity,
Archdeacon of Salisbury, and Dean of Lichfield. 10
It is said that he would have been made a bishop
after the Revolution if lie had not given offence to
the government by strenuously opposing, in the
Convocation of 1689, the liberal policy of William
and Tillotson. is
In 1672, not long after Dr. Addison's return
from Tangier, his son Joseph was born. Of
Joseph's childhood we know little. He learned
his rudiments at schools in his father's neighbor-
hood, and was then sent to the Charter House. 20
The anecdotes which are popularly related about
his boyish tricks do not harmonize very well with
what we know of his riper years. There remains
a tradition that he was the ringleader in a barring
out, and another tradition that he ran away from 25
school and hid himself in a wood, where he fed on
berries and slept in a hollow tree, till after a long
search he was discovered and brought home. If
these stories be true, it would be curious to know
by what moral discipline so mutinous and enter- 80
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 131
prising a lad was transformed into the gentlest and
most modest of men.
"We have abundant proof that, whatever Joseph's
pranks may have been, he pursued his studies
5 vigorously and successfully. At fifteen he was
not only fit for the university, but carried thither
a classical taste and a stock of learning which
would have done honor to a Master of Arts. He
was entered at Queen's College, Oxford; but he
10 had not been many months there when some of his
Latin verses fell by accident into the hands of Dr.
Lancaster, Dean of Magdalene College. The
young scholar's diction and versification were
already such as veteran professors might envy.
15 Dr. Lancaster was desirous to serve a boy of such
promise; nor was an opportunity long wanting.
The Revolution had just taken place; and nowhere
had it been hailed with more delight than at
Magdalene College. That great and opulent cor-
20 poration had been treated by James and by his
chancellor with an insolence and injustice which,
even in such a prince and in such a minister, may
justly excite amazement, and which had done
more than even the prosecution of the bishops to
s» alienate the Church of England from the throne.
A president, duly elected, had been violently ex-
pelled from his dwelling: a Papist had been set
over the society by a royal mandate : the Fellows,
who, in conformity with their oaths, had refused
so to submit to this usurper, had been driven forth
132 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
from their quiet cloisters and gardens, to die of
want or to live on charity. But the day of redress
and retribution speedily came. The intruders were
ejected : the venerable House was again inhabited
by its old inmates : learning flourished under the 5
rule of the wise and virtuous Hough; and with
learning was united a mild and liberal spirit too
often wanting in the princely colleges of Oxford.
In consequence of the troubles through which the
society had passed, there had been no valid elec- 10
tion of new members during the year 1688. In
1689, therefore, there was twice the ordinary num-
ber of vacancies; and thus Dr. Lancaster found
it easy to procure for his young friend admittance
to the advantages of a foundation then generally is
esteemed the wealthiest in Europe.
At Magdalene Addison resided during ten years.
He was at first one of those scholars who are called
Demies, but was subsequently elected a fellow.
His college is still proud of his name ; his portrait 20
still hangs in the hall ; and strangers are still told
that his favorite walk was under the elms which
fringe the meadow on the banks of the Cherwell.
It is said, and is highly probable, that he was dis-
tinguished among his fellow -students by the deli- 25
cacy of his feelings, by the shyness of his manners,
and by the assiduity with which he often prolonged
his studies far into the night. It is certain that
his reputation for ability and learning stood high.
Many years later the ancient doctors of Magdalene n
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 133
continued to talk in their common room of his
boyish compositions, and expressed their Borrow
that no copy of exercises so remarkable had been
preserved. It is proper, however, to remark that
5 Miss Aikin has committed the error, very par-
donable in a lady, of overrating Addison's classical
attainments. In one department of learning,
indeed, his proficiency was such as it is hardly pos-
sible to overrate. His knowledge of the Latin
10 poets, from Lucretius and Catullus down to Clau-
dian and Prudentius, was singularly exact and pro-
found. He understood them thoroughly, entered
into their spirit, and had the finest and most
discriminating perception of all their peculiarities
is of style and melody; nay, he copied their manner
with admirable skill, and surpassed, we think, all
their British imitators who had preceded him,
Buchanan and Milton alone excepted. This is high
praise ; and beyond this we cannot with justice go.
20 It is clear that Addison's serious attention during
his residence at the university was almost entirely
concentrated on Latin poetry, and that, if he did
not wholly neglect other provinces of ancient
literature, he vouchsafed to them only a cursory
25 glance. He does not appear to have attained more
than an ordinary acquaintance with the political
and moral writers of Eome; nor was his own
Latin prose by any means equal to his Latin verse.
His knowledge of Greek, though doubtless such as
so was in his time thought respectable at Oxford, was
134 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
evidently less than that which many lads now carry
away every year from Eton and Rugby. A mi-
nute examination of his works, if we had time to
make such an examination, would fully bear out
these remarks. We will briefly advert to a few of 5
the facts on which our judgment is grounded.
Great praise is due to the Notes which Addison
appended to his version of the second and third
books of the Metamorphoses. Yet those notes,
while they show him to have been, in his own 10
domain, an accomplished scholar, show also how
confined that domain was. They are rich in
apposite references to Virgil, Statius, and Clau-
dian; but they contain not a single illustration
drawn from the Greek poets. Now, if in the is
whole compass of Latin literature there be a pas-
sage which stands in need of illustration drawn
from the Greek poets, it is the story of Pentheus in
the third book of the Metamorphoses. Ovid was
indebted for that story to Euripides and Theoc- 20
ritus, both of whom he has sometimes followed
minutely. But neither to Euripides nor to Theoc-
ritus does Addison make the faintest allusion ; and
we, therefore, believe that we do not wrong him
by supposing that he had little or no knowledge of 25
their works.
His travels in Italy, again, abound with classical
quotations, happily introduced; but scarcely one
of those quotations is in prose. lie draws more
illustrations from Ausonius and Manilius than from 30
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 135
Cicero. Even his notions of the political and mili-
tary affairs of the Romans seem to be derived from
poets and poetasters. Spots made memorable by
events which have changed the destinies of the
5 world, and which have been worthily recorded by
great historians, bring to his mind only scraps of
some ancient versifier. In the gorge of the Apen-
nines he naturally remembers the hardships which
Hannibal's army endured, and proceeds to cite,
10 not the authentic narrative of Polybius, not the
picturesque narrative of Livy, but the languid
hexameters of Silius Italicus. On the banks of
the Rubicon he never thinks of Plutarch's lively
description, or of the stern conciseness of the
15 Commentaries, or of those letters to Atticus which
so forcibly express the alternations of hope and
fear in a sensitive mind at a great crisis. His only
authority for the events of the civil war is Lucan.
All the best ancient works of art at Rome and
20 Florence are Greek. Addison saw them, how-
ever, without recalling one single verse of Pindar,
of Callimachus, or of the Attic dramatists; but
they brought to his recollection innumerable pas-
sages of Horace, Juvenal, Statius, and Ovid.
25 The same may be said of the Treatise oi^
Medals. In that pleasing work we find about
three hundred passages extracted with great judg-
ment from the Roman poets ; but we do not recol-
lect a single passage taken from any Roman orator
30 or historian; and we are confident that not a line
136 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
is quoted from any Greek writer. ]STo person, who
had derived all his information on the subject of
medals from Addison, would suspect that the .
Greek coins were in historical interest equal, and
in beauty of execution far superior, to those of a
Rome.
If it were necessary to find any further proof
that Addison's classical knowledge was confined
within narrow limits, that proof would be fur-
nished by his Essay on the Evidences of Christi- 10
anity. The Roman poets throw little or no light
on the literary and historical questions which he is
under the necessity of examining in that essay.
He is, therefore, left completely in the dark; and
it is melancholy to see how helplessly he gropes his is
way from blunder to blunder. He assigns, as
grounds for his religious belief, stories as absurd as
that of the Cock-Lane ghost, and forgeries as rank
as Ireland's Vortigern; puts faith in the lie about
the Thundering Legion; is convinced that Tiber- 20
ins moved the senate to admit Jesns among the
gods; and pronounces the letter of Agbarus, King
of Edessa, to be a record of great authority. Nor
were these errors the effects of superstition ; for to
superstition Addison was by no means prone. The 25
truth is, that he was writing about what he did not
understand.
Miss Aikin has discovered a letter from which it
appears that, while Addison resided at Oxford, he
was one of several writers whom the booksellers so
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 137
engaged to make an English version of Herodotus ;
and she infers that he must have been a good
Greek scholar. We can allow very little weight to
this argument, when we consider that his fellow-
5 laborers were to have been Boyle and Blackmore.
Boyle is remembered chiefly as the nominal author
of the worst book on Greek history and philology
that ever was printed; and this book, bad as it is,
Boyle was unable to produce without help. Of
10 Blackmore 's attainments in the ancient tongues,
it may be sufficient to say that, in his prose, he has
confounded an aphorism with an apophthegm, and
tha.t when, in his verse, he treats of classical sub-
jects, his habit is to regale his readers with four
is false quantities to a page.
It is probable that the classical acquirements of
Addison were of as much service to him as if they
had been more extensive. The world generally
gives its admiration, not to the man who does
20 what nobody else even attempts to do, but to the
man who does best what multitudes do well.
Bentley was so immeasurably superior to all the
other scholars of his time that few among them
could discover his superiority. But the accom-
25 plishment in which Addison excelled his contem-
poraries was then, as it is now, highly valued and
assiduously cultivated at all English seats of learn-
ing. Everybody who had been at a public school
had written Latin verses ; many had written such
30 verses with tolerable success, and were quite able
138 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
to appreciate, though by no means able to rival,
the skill with which Addison imitated Virgil. His
lines on the Barometer and the Bowling Green
were applauded by hundreds, to whom the Disser-
tation on the Epistles of Phalaris was as unintel- 5
ligible as the hieroglyphics on an obelisk.
Purity of style, and an easy flow of numbers,
are common to all Addison's Latin poems. Our
favorite piece is the Battle of the Cranes and
Pygmies ; for in that piece we discern a gleam of 10
the fancy and humor which many years later
enlivened thousands of breakfast -tables. Swift
boasted that he was never known to steal a hint ;
and he certainly owed as little to his predecessors
as any modern writer. Yet we cannot help sus- is
pecting that he borrowed, perhaps unconsciously,
one of the happiest touches in his Voyage of Lilli-
put from Addison's verses. Let our readers judge.
"The Emperor," says Gulliver, "is taller by
about the breadth of my nail than any of his 20
court, which alone is enough to strike an awe into
the beholders."
About thirty years before Gulliver's Travels
appeared, Addison wrote these lines : —
"Jamque acies inter medias sese arduus infert 25
Pygmeadum ductor, qui, majestate verendus,
Incessuque gravis, reliquos supereminet omnes
Mole gigantea, mediamque exsurgit in ulnam."
The Latin poems of Addison were greatly and
justly admired both at Oxford and Cambridge, 30
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISOX 139
before his name had ever been heard by the wits
who thronged the coffee-houses round Drury-Lane
Theatre. In his twenty-second year he ventured
to appear before the public as a writer of English
5 verse. He addressed some complimentary lines to
Drvden, who, after many triumphs and many
reverses, had at length reached a secure and lonely
eminence among the literary men of that age.
Drvden appears to have been much gratified by the
10 young scholar's praise; and an interchange of
civilities and good offices followed. Addison was
probably introduced by Dry den to Congreve, and
was certainly presented by Congreve to Charles
Montague, who was then Chancellor of the
is Exchequer, and leader of the "Whig party in the
House of Commons.
At this time Addison seemed inclined to devote
himself to poetry. He published a translation of
part of the fourth Georgic, Lines to King
20 William, and other performances of equal value ;
that is to say, of no value at all. But in those
days, the public was in the habit of receiving with
applause jneces which would now have little chance
of obtaining the Xewdigate prize or the Seatonian
35 prize. And the reason is obvious. The heroic
couplet was then the favorite measure. The art
of arranging words in that measure, so that the
lines may flow smoothly, that the accents may fall
correctly, that the rhymes may strike the ear
.so strongly, and that there may be a pause at the end'
140 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
of every distich, is an art as mechanical as that of
mending a kettle or shoeing a horse, and may be
learned b} r any human being who has sense enough
to learn anything. But, like other mechanical
arts, it was gradually improved by means of many 5
experiments and many failures. It was reserved
for Pope to discover the trick, to make himself
complete master of it, and to teach it to everybody
else. From the time when his Pastorals appeared,
heroic versification became matter of rule and com- in
pass ; and, before long, all artists were on a level.
Hundreds of dunces who never blundered on one
happy thought or expression were able to write
reams of couplets which, as far as euphony was
concerned, could not be distinguished from those is
of Pope himself, and which very clever writers of
the reign of Charles the Second, — Rochester, for
Example, or Marvel, or Oldham, — would have con-
templated with admiring despair.
Ben Jonson was a great man, Hoole a very 20
small man. But Hoole, coming after Pope, had
learned how to manufacture decasyllable verses,
and poured them forth by thousands and tens of
thousands, all as well turned, as smooth, and as
like each other as the blocks which have passed 25
through Mr. Brunei's mill in the dockyard at
Portsmouth. Ben's heroic couplets resemble
blocks rudely hewn out by an unpractised hand
with a blunt hatchet. Take as a specimen his
translation of a celebrated passage in the ^Eneid : — so
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 141
"This child our parent earth, stirred up with spite
Of all the gods, brought forth, and, as some write,
She was last sister of that giant race
That sought to scale Jove's court, right swift of pace,
5 And swifter far of wing, a monster vast
And dreadful. Look, how many plumes are placed
On her huge corpse, so many waking eyes
Stick underneath, and, which may stranger rise
In the report, as many tongues she wears."
10 Compare with these jagged misshapen distichs
the neat fabric which Hoole's machine produces in
unlimited abundance. We take the first lines on
which we open in his version of Tasso. They are
neither better nor worse than the rest : —
15 "O thou, whoe'er thou art, whose steps are led,
By choice or fate, these lonely shores to tread,
No greater wonders east or west can boast
Than yon small island on the pleasing coast.
If e'er thy sight would blissful scenes explore,
20 The current pass, and seek the further shore."
Ever since the time of Pope there has been a
glut of lines of this sort; and we are now as little
disposed to admire a man for being able to write
them, as for being able to write his name. But in
2o the days of William the Third such versification
was rare; and a rhymer who had any skill in it
passed for a great poet, just as in the dark ages a
person who could write his name passed for a great
clerk. Accordingly, Duke, Stepney, Granville,
30 Walsh, and others whose only title to fame was
142 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
that they said in tolerable metre what might have
been as well said in prose, or what was not worth
saying at all, were honored with marks of distinc-
tion which ought to be reserved for genius. With
these Addison must have ranked, if he had not 5
earned true and lasting glory by performances
which very little resembled his juvenile poems.
Dry den was now busied with Virgil, and ob-
tained from Addison a critical preface to the
Georgics. In return for this service, and for 10
other services of the same kind, the veteran poet,
in the postscript to the translation of the iEneid,
complimented his young friend with great liber-
ality, and indeed with more liberality than sin-
cerity. He affected to be afraid that his own 15
performance would not sustain a comparison with
the version of the fourth Georgic, by "the most
ingenious Mr. Addison of Oxford." "After his
bees," added Dryden, "my latter swarm is scarcely
worth the hiving. " 20
The time had now arrived when it was necessary
for Addison to choose a calling. Everything
seemed to point his course towards the clerical pro-
fession. His habits were regular, his opinions
orthodox. His college had large ecclesiastical 25
preferment in its gift, and boasts that it has given
at least one bishop to almost every see in England.
Dr. Lancelot Addison held an honorable place in
the church, and had set his heart on se*eing his
son a clergyman. It is clear, from some expressions 30
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 143
in the young man's rhymes, that his infcemiun was
to take orders. But Charles Montague interfered.
Montague had first brought himself into notice by
verses, well-timed and not contemptibly written,
5 but never, we think, rising above mediocrity.
Fortunately for himself and for his country, he
early quitted poetry, in which he could never have
attained a rank as high as that of Dorset or Roch-
ester, and turned his mind to official and par-
10 liamentary business. It is written that the
ingenious person who undertook to instruct
Rasselas, prince of Abyssinia, in the art of flying,
ascended an eminence, waved his wings, sprang
into the air, and instantly dropped into the lake.
15 But it is added that the wings, which were unable
to support him through the sky, bore him up
effectually as soon as he was in the water. This
is no bad type of the fate of Charles Montague,
and of men like him. When he attempted to soar
20 into the regions of poetical invention, he alto-
gether failed; but, as soon as he had descended
from that ethereal elevation into a lower and
grosser element, his talents instantly raised him
above the mass. He became a distinguished finan-
25 cier, debater, courtier, and party leader. He still
retained his fondness for the pursuits of his early
days ; but he showed that fondness not by wearying
the public with his own feeble performances, but
by discovering and encouraging literary excellence-
30 in others. A crowd of wits and poets, who would
144 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
easily have vanquished him as a competitor,
revered him as a judge and a patron. In his plans
for the encouragement of learning, he was cor-
dially supported by the ablest and most virtuous
of his colleagues, the Lord Chancellor Somers. 5
Though both these great statesmen had a sincere
love of letters, it was not solely from a love of
letters that they were desirous to enlist youths of
high intellectual qualifications in the public serv-
ice. The Revolution had altered the whole sys- 10
tern of government. Before that event the press
had been controlled by censors, and the parliament
had sat only two months in eight years. Now the
press was free, and had begun to exercise unprece-
dented influence on the public mind. Parliament 15
met annually, and sat long. The chief power in
the state had passed to the House of Commons.
At such a conjuncture, it was natural that literary
and oratorical talents should rise in value* There
was danger that a government which neglected 20
such talents might be subverted by them. It was,
therefore, a profound and enlightened policy which
led Montague and Somers to attach such talents to
the Whig party, by the strongest ties both of inter-
est and of gratitude. 25
" It is remarkable that, in a neighboring country,
we have recently seen similar effects follow from
similar causes. The Revolution of July 1830
established representative government in France.
The men of letters instantly rose to the highest im- so
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON U5
portance in the state. At the present moment
most of the persons whom we see at the head both
of the Administration and of the Opposition, have
been professors, historians, journalists, poets. The
5 influence of the literary class in England, during
the generation which followed the Revolution, was
great, but by no means so great as it has lately
been in France. For, in England, the aristocracy
of intellect had to contend with a powerful and
10 deeply rooted aristocracy of a very different kind.
France had no Somersets and Shrewsburies to keep
down her Addisons and Priors. w
It was in the year 1699, when Addison had just
completed his twenty -seventh year, that the course
*- 5 of his life was finally determined. Both the great
chiefs of the Ministry were kindly disposed
towards him. In political opinions he already
was, what he continued to be through life, a firm,
though a moderate Whig. He had addressed the
20 most polished and vigorous of his early English
lines to Somers, and had dedicated to Montague a
Latin poem, truly Yirgilian, both in style and
rhythm, on the peace of Ryswick. The wish of
the young poet's great friends was, it should seem,
25 to employ him in the service of the crown abioad.
But an intimate knowledge of the French language
was a qualification indispensable to a diplomatist;
and tbi qualification Addison had not acquired.
It was, tin refoie, thought desirable that he should
30 pass some time on the Continent in preparing him-
146 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
self for official employment. His own means were
not such as would enable him to travel ; but a pen-
sion of three hundred pounds a year was procured
for him by the interest of the Lord Chancellor.
It seems to have been apprehended that some diffi- 5
culty might be started by the rulers of Magdalene
College. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer
wrote in the strongest terms to Hough. The state
— such was the purport of Montague's letter —
could not, at that time, spare to the church such 10
a man as Addison. ( Too many high civil posts
were already occupied by adventurers, who, desti-
tute of every liberal art and sentiment, at once
pillaged and disgraced the country which they pre-
tended to serve. It had become necessary to 15
recruit for the public service from a very different
class, from that class of which Addison was the
representative. The close of the Minister's letter
was remarkable. "I am called," he said, "an
enemy of the church. But I will never do it any 20
other injury than keeping Mr. Addison out of it."
This interference was successful; and, in the
summer of 1699, Addison, made a rich man by his
pension, and still retaining his fellowship, quitted
his beloved Oxford, and set out on his travels. He 25
crossed from Dover to Calais, proceeded to Paris,
and was received there with great kindness and
politeness by a kinsman of his friend Montague,
Charles Earl of Manchester, who had just been
appointed Ambassador to the Court of France. 30
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 147
The countess, a Whig and a toast, was probably as
gracious as her lord ; for Addison long retained an
agreeable recollection of the impression which she
at this time made on him, and, in some lively
5 lines written on the glasses of the Kit Cat Club,
described the envy which her cheeks, glowing with
the genuine bloom of England, had excited among
the painted beauties of Versailles.
Louis the Fourteenth was at this time expiating
10 the vices of his youth by a devotion which had no
root in reason, and bore no fruit of charity. The
servile literature of France had changed its charac-
ter to suit the changed character of the prince.
No book appeared that had not an air of sanctity.
is Racine, who was just dead, had passed the close of
his life in writing sacred dramas ; and Dacier was
seeking for the Athanasian mysteries in Plato.
Addison described this state of things in a short
but lively and graceful letter to Montague.
20 Another letter, written about the same time to the
Lord Chancellor, conveyed the strongest assurances
of gratitude and attachment. "The only return I
can make to your Lordship," said Addison, "will
be to apply myself entirely to my business."
25 With this view he quitted Paris and repaired to
Blois, a place where it was supposed that the
French language was spoken in its highest purity,
and where not a single Englishman could be
found. Here he passed some months pleasantly
30 and profitably. Of his way of life at Blois, one of
148 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
his associates, an abbe named Philippeaux, gave an
account to Joseph Spence. If this account is to
he trusted, Addison studied much, mused much,
talked little, had fits of absence, and either had no
love affairs, or was too discreet to confide them to 5
the abbe. A man who, even when surrounded by
fellow-countrymen and fellow-students, had always
been remarkably shy and silent, was not likely to
be loquacious in a foreign tongue, and among for-
eign companions. But it is clear from Addison's 10
letters, some of which were long after published in
the Guardian, that, while he appeared to be ab-
sorbed in his own meditations, he was really
observing French society with that keen and sly,
yet not ill-natured side-glance, which was pecul- is
iarly his own.
From Blois he returned to Paris; and, having
now mastered the French language, found great
pleasure in the society of French philosophers and
poets. He gave an account in a letter to Bishop 2c
Hough, of two highly interesting conversations,
<one with Malebranche, the other with Boileau.
Malebranche expressed great partiality for the Eng-
lish, and extolled the genius of Newton, but shook
his head when Hobbes was mentioned, and was 25
indeed so unjust as to call the author of the
Leviathan a poor silly creature. Addison's mod-
esty restrained him from fully relating, in his
letter, the circumstances of his introduction to
Boileau. Boileau, having survived the friends m
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 149
Mid rivals of his youth, old, deaf, and melancholy,
lived in retirement, seldom went either to Court or
to the Academy, and was almost inaccessible to
strangers. Of the English and of English liter-
5 ature he knew nothing. He had hardly heard the
name of Dryden. Some of our countrymen, in the
warmth of their patriotism, have asserted that this
ignorance must have been affected. We own that
we see no ground for such a supposition. English
10 literature was to the French of the age of Louis
the Fourteenth what German literature was to our
own grandfathers. Very few, we suspect, of the ac-
complished men who, sixty or seventy years ago,
used to dine in Leicester Square with Sir Joshua,
15 or at Streatham with Mrs. Thrale, had the slight-
est notion that TVieland was one of the first wits
and poets, and Lessing, beyond all dispute, the
first critic in Europe. Boileau knew just as little
about the Paradise Lost and about Absalom and
20 Achitophel; but he had read Addison's Latin
poems, and admired them greatly. They had
given him, he said, quite a new notion of the state
of learning and taste among the English. John-
son will have it that these praises were insincere.
25 "Nothing," says he, "is better known of Boileau
than that he had an injudicious and peevish con-
tempt of modern Latin ; and therefore his profes-
sion of regard was probably the effect of his civility
rather than approbation." Now, nothing is bettei
30 known of Boileau than that he was singularly
150 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
sparing of compliments. We do not remember
that either friendship or fear ever induced him to
bestow praise on any composition which he did not
approve. On literary questions, his caustic, dis-
dainful, and self-confident spirit rebelled against 5
that authority to which everything else in France
bowed down. He had the spirit to tell Louis the
Fourteenth firmly and even rudely, that his maj-
esty knew nothing about poetry, and admired
verses which were detestable. What was there in i°
Addison's position that could induce the satirist,
whose stern and fastidious temper had been the
dread of two generations, to turn sycophant for the
first and last time? Nor was Boileau's Contempt
of modern Latin either injudicious or peevish. 15
He thought, indeed, that no poem of the first
order would ever be written in a dead language.
And did he think amiss? Has not the experience
of centuries confirmed his opinion? Boileau also
thought it probable that, in the best modern 20
Latin, a writer of the Augustan age would have
detected ludicrous improprieties. And who can
think otherwise? What modern scholar can
honestly declare that he sees the smallest impurity
in the style of Livy? Yet is it not certain that, 25
in the style of Livy, Pollio, whose taste had been
formed on the banks of the Tiber, detected the
inelegant idiom of the Po? Has any modern
scholar understood Latin better than Frederic the
Great understood French? Yet is it not notorious 38
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 151
that Frederic the Great, after reading, speaking,
writing French, and nothing but French, during
more than half a century, after unlearning his
mother tongue in order to learn French, after liv-
5 ing familiarly during many years with French
associates, could not, to the last, compose in
French, without imminent risk of committing
some mistake which would have moved a smile in
the literary circles of Paris? Do we believe that
10 Erasmus and Fracastorius wrote Latin as well as
Dr. Robertson and Sir Walter Scott wrote Eng-
lish? And are there not in the Dissertation on In-
dia, the last of Dr. Robertson's works, inWaverley,
in Marmion, Scotticisms at which a London
15 ajDprentice would laugh? But does it follow,
because we think thus, that we can find nothing to
admire in the noble alcaics of Gray, or in the play-
ful elegiacs of Vincent Bourne? Surely not. Xor
was Boileau so ignorant or tasteless as to be incapa-
20 ble of appreciating good modern Latin. In the
very letter to which Johnson alludes, Boileau says,
"Xe croyez pas pourtant que je veuille par la
bl amer les vers Latins que vous m'avez envoy es
d'un de vos illustres academiciens. Je les ai
25 trouves fort beaux, et dignes de Vida et de San-
nazar, mais non pas d'Horace et de Virgile."
Several poems in modern Latin have been praised
by Boileau quite as liberally as it was his habit to
praise anything. He says, for example, of the
30 Pure Fraguier's epigrams, that Catullus seems to
152 MAC AULA Y'S ESSAYS
have come to life again. But the best proof that
Boileau did not feel the undiscerning contempt for
modern Latin verses which has been imputed to
him, is that he wrote and published Latin verses
in several metres. Indeed, it happens, curiously 5
enough, that the most severe censure ever pro-
nounced by him on modern Latin is conveyed in
Latin hexameters. We allude to the fragment
which begins : —
"Quid numeris iterum me balbutire Latinis, 10
Longe Alpes citra natum de patre Sicambro,
Musa, jubes?"
For these reasons we feel assured that the praise
which Boileau bestowed on the Machince Gesticul-
antes, and the Germio-Pygmceomachia, was 15
sincere. He certainly opened himself to Addison
with a freedom which was a sure indication of
esteem. Literature was the chief subject of con-
versation. The old man talked on his favorite
theme much and well, — indeed, as his young 20
hearer thought, incomparably well. Boileau had
undoubtedly some of the qualities of a great critic.
He wanted imagination ; but he had strong sense.
His literary code was formed on narrow principles ;
but in applying it he showed great judgment and 25
penetration. In mere style, abstracted from the
ideas of which style is the garb, his taste was
excellent. He was well acquainted with the great
Greek writers, and, though unable fully to appreci-
ate their creative genius, admired the majestic 30
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 153
simplicity of their maimer, and had learned from
them to despise bombast and tinsel. It is easy, we
think, to discover in the Spectator and the Guard-
ian traces of the influence, in part salutary and
5 in part pernicious, which the mind of Boileau had
on the mind of Addison.
While Addison was at Paris, an event took
place which made that capital a disagreeable
residence for an Englishman and a Whig.
10 Charles, second of the name, King of Spain, died,
and bequeathed his dominions to Philip, Duke of
Anjou, a younger son of the Dauphin. The King
of France, in direct violation of his engagements,
both with Great Britain and with the States
15 General, accepted the bequest on behalf of his
grandson. The house of Bourbon was at the sum-
mit of human grandeur. England had been out-
witted, and found herself in a situation at once
degrading and perilous. The people of France,
20 not presaging the calamities by which they were
destined to expiate the perfidy of their sovereign,
went mad with pride and delight. Every man
looked as if a great estate had just been left him.
"The French conversation," said Addison, "begins
25 to grow insupportable ; that which was before the
vainest nation in the world, is now worse than
ever." Sick of the arrogant exultation of the
Parisians, and probably foreseeing that the peace
between France and England could not be of long
30 duration, he set off for Italy.
154 MAC AULA Y'S ESSAYS
In December, 1700, he embarked at Marseilles.
As he glided along the Lignrian coast, he was
delighted by the sight of myrtles and olive-trees,
which retained their verdure under the winter
-solstice. Soon, however, he encountered one of 5
the black storms of the Mediterranean. The
captain of the ship gave up all for lost, and con-
fessed himself to a capuchin who happened to be
on board. The English heretic, in the meantime,
fortified himself against the terrors of death with 10
devotions of a very different kind. How strong an
impression this perilous voyage made on him
appears from the ode, "How are thy servants
blest, Lord!" which was long after published in
the Spectator. After some days of discomfort and 15
clanger, Addison was glad to land at Savona, and
to make his way, over mountains where no road
had yet been hewn out by art, to the city of
Genoa.
At Genoa, still ruled by her own doge, and by 20
the nobles whose names were inscribed on her
Book of Gold, Addison made a short stay. He
admired the narrow streets overhung by long lines
of towering palaces, the walls rich with frescoes,
the gorgeous temple of the Annunciation, and the 25
tapestries whereon were recorded the long glories
of the house of Doria. Thence he hastened to
Milan, where he contemplated the Gothic magnifi-
cence of the cathedral with more wonder than
pleasure. He passed Lake Benacus while a gale so
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 155
was blowing, and saw the waves raging as they
raged when Virgil looked upon them. At Venice,
then the gayest spot in Europe, the traveller spent
the Carnival, the gayest season of the year, in the
5 midst of masks, dances, and serenades. Here he
was at once diverted and provoked by the absurd
dramatic pieces which then disgraced the Italian
stage. To one of those pieces, however, he was
indebted for a valuable hint. He was present
10 when a ridiculous play on the death of Cato was
performed. Cato, it seems, was in love with a
daughter of Scipio. The lady had given her heart
to Caesar. The rejected lover determined to de-
stroy himself. He appeared seated in his library, a
15 dagger in his hand, a Plutarch and a Tasso before
him; and, in this position, he pronounced a
soliloquy before he struck the blow. We are sur-
prised that so remarkable a circumstance as this
should have escaped the notice of all Addison's
20 biographers. There cannot, we conceive, be the
smallest doubt that this scene, in spite of its ab-
surdities and anachronisms, struck the traveller's
imagination, and suggested to him the thought of
bringing Cato on the English stage. It is well
25 known that about this time he began his tragedy,
and that he finished the first four acts before he
returned to England.
On his way from Venice to Rome, he was drawn
some miles out of the beaten road by a wish to see
30 the smallest independent state in Europe. On a
^ nf t
150 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
rock where the snow still lay, though the Italian
spring was now far advanced, was perched the
little fortress of San Marino. The roads which
led to the secluded town were so bad that few
travellers had ever visited it, and none had ever 5
published an account of it. Addison could not
suppress a good-natured smile at the simple man-
ners and institutions of this singular community.
But he observed, with the exultation of a "Whig,
that the rude mountain tract which formed the 10
territory of the republic swarmed with an honest,
healthy, and contented peasantry, while the rich
plain which surrounded the metropolis of civil and
spiritual tyranny was scarcely less desolate than
the uncleared wilds of America. 15
At Eome Addison remained on his first visit only
long enough to catch a glimpse of St. Peter's and
of the Pantheon. His haste is the more extra-
ordinary because the Holy Week was close at hand.
He has given no hint which can enable us to pro- 20
nounce why he chose to fly from a spectacle which
every year allures from distant regions persons of
far less taste and sensibility than his. Possibly,
travelling, as he did, at the charge of a government
distinguished by its enmity to the Church of 25
Rome, he may have thought that it would be im-
prudent in him to assist at the most magnificent
rite of that church. Many eyes would be upon
him, and he might find it difficult to behave in
such a manner as to give oft'ence neither to his 30
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 15?
patrons in England, nor to those among whom he
resided. Whatever his motives may have been, he
turned his back on the most august and affecting
ceremony which is known among men, and posted
5 along the Appian way to Xaples.
Xaples was then destitute of what are now, per-
haps, its chief attractions. The lovely bay and the
awful mountain were indeed there; but a farm-
house stood on the theatre of Herculaneum, and
10 rows of vines grew over the streets of Pompeii.
The temples of Psestum had not indeed been hid-
den from the eye of man by any great convulsion
of nature; but, strange to say, their existence was
a secret even to artists and antiquaries. Though
15 situated within a few hours' journey of a great
capital, where Salvator had not long before
painted, and where Vico was then lecturing, those
noble remains were as little known to Europe as
the ruined cities overgrown by the forests of Yuca-
20 tan. What was to be seen at ^Naples Addison saw.
He climbed Vesuvius, explored the tunnel of
Posilipo, and wandered among the vines and
almond-trees of Capreae. But neither the wonders
of nature, nor those of art, could so occupy his
25 attention as to prevent him from noticing, though
cursorily, the abuses of the government and the
misery of the people. The great kingdom which
had just descended to Philip the Fifth, was in a
state of paralytic dotage. Even Castile and Ara-
30 gon were sunk in wretchedness. Yet, compared
158 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
with the Italian dependencies of the Spanish
crown, Castile and Aragon might be called pros-
perous. It is clear that all the observations which
Addison made in Italy tended to confirm him in
the political opinions which he had adopted at 5
home. To the last he always spoke of foreign
travel as the best cure for Jacobitism. In his
Freeholder the Tory fox-hunter asks what travel-
ling is good for, except to teach a man to jabber
French and to talk against passive obedience. 10
From Naples, Addison returned to Rome by sea,
along the coast which his favorite Virgil had cele-
brated. The felucca passed the headland where
the oar and trumpet were placed by the Trojan
adventurers on the tomb of Misenus, and anchored 15
at night under the shelter of the fabled promontory
of Circe. The voyage ended in the Tiber, still
overhung with dark verdure, and still turbid with
yellow sand, as when it met the eyes of ^Eneas.
From the ruined port of Ostia, the stranger hur- 20
ried to Rome ; and at Rome he remained during
those hot and sickly months, when, even in the
Augustan age, all who could make their escape fled
from mad dogs and from streets black with funer-
als, to gather the first figs of the season in the 25
country. It is probable that, when he, long after,
poured forth in verse his gratitude to the Provi-
dence which had enabled him to breathe unhurt
in tainted air, he was thinking of the August and
September which he passed at Rome. 20
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 159
N
It was not till the latter end of October that he
tore himself away from the masterpieces of ancient
and modern art which are collected in the city so
long the mistress of the world. He then journeyed
5 northward, passed through Sienna, and for a
moment forgot his prejudices in favor of classic
architecture as he looked on the magnificent
cathedral. At Florence he spent some days with
the Duke of Shrewsbury, who, cloyed with the
10 pleasures of ambition, and impatient of its' pains,
fearing both parties, and loving neither, had deter-
mined to hide in an Italian retreat talents and
accomplishments which, if they had been united
with fixed principles and civil courage, might have
15 made him the foremost man of his age. These
days, we are told, passed pleasantly; and we can
easily believe it. For Addison was a delightful
companion when he was at his ease ; and the duke,
though he seldom forgot that he was a Talbot, had
20 the invaluable art of putting at ease all who came
near him.
Addison gave some time to Florence, and espe-
cially to the sculptures in the Museum, which he
preferred even to those of the Vatican. He then
25 pursued his journey through a country in which
the ravages of the last war were still discernible,
and in which all men were looking forward with
dread to a still fiercer conflict. Eugene had
already descended from the Rhaetian Alps, to dis-
30 pute with Catinat the rich plain of Lombardy.
160 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
The faithless ruler of Savoy was still reckoned
among the allies of Louis. England had not yet
actually declared war against France: but Man-
chester had left Paris ; and the negotiations which
produced the Grand Alliance against the house of 5
Bourbon were in progress. Under such circum-
stances, it was desirable for an English traveller to
reach neutral ground without delay. Addison
resolved to cross Mont Cenis. It was December;
and the road was very different from that which 10
now reminds the stranger of the power and genius
of Napoleon. The winter, however, was mild;
and the passage was, for those times, easy. To
this journey Addison alluded when, in the ode
which we have already quoted, he said that for 15
him the Divine goodness had warmed the hoary
Alpine hills.
It was in the midst of the eternal snow that he
composed his Epistle to his friend Montague, now
Lord Halifax. That Epistle, once widely re- 20
nowned, is now known only to curious readers, and
will hardly be considered by those to whom it is
known as in any perceptible degree heightening
Addison's fame. It is, however, decidedly superior
to any English composition which he had previously 25
published. Nay, we think it quite as good as any
poem in heroic metre which appeared during the
interval between the death of Dryden and the
publication of the Essay on Criticism. It con-
tains passages as good as the second-rate passages bo
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 161
of Pope, and would have added to the reputation
of Parnell or Prior.
But, whatever be the literary merits or defects of
the Epistle, it undoubtedly does honor to the prin-
5 ciples and spirit of the author. Halifax had now
nothing to give. He had fallen from power, had
been held up to obloquy, had been impeached by
the House of Commons, and, though his peers had
dismissed the impeachment, had, as it seemed,
10 little chance of ever again filling high office. The
Epistle, written at such a time, is one among many
proofs that there was no mixture of cowardice or
meanness in the suavity and moderation which dis-
tinguished Addison from all the other public men
15 of those stormy times.
At Geneva, the traveller learned that a partial
change of ministry had taken place in England, and
that the Earl of Manchester had become Secretary of
State. Manchester exerted himself to serve his
20 young friend. It was thought advisable that an
English agent should be near the person of Eugene
in Italy ; and Addison, whose diplomatic education
was now finished, was the man selected. He was
preparing to enter on his honorable functions,
25 when all his prospects were for a time darkened by
the death of "William the Third.
Anne had long felt a strong aversion, personal,
political, and religious, to the Whig party. That
aversion appeared in the first measures of her
so reign. Manchester was deprived of the seals,
162 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
after he had held them only a few weeks. Neither
Somers nor Halifax was sworn of the Privy Coun-
cil. Addison shared the fate of his three patrons.
His hopes of employment in the public service
were at an end ; his pension was stopped ; and it 5
was necessary for him to support himself by his
own exertions. He became tutor to a young Eng-
lish traveller, and appears to have rambled with
his pupil over great part of Switzerland and Ger-
many. At this time he wrote his pleasing treatise 10
on Medals. It was not published till after his
death; but several distinguished scholars saw the
manuscript, and gave just praise to the grace of the
style, and to the learning and ingenuity erinced by
the quotations. 15
From Germany, Addison repaired to Holland,
where he learned the melancholy news of his
father's death. After j)assing some months in the
United Provinces, he returned about the close of
the year 1703 to England. He was there cordially 20
received by his friends, and introduced by them
into the Kit Cat Club, a society in which were col-
lected all the various talents and accomplishments
which then gave lustre to the Whig party.
Addison was, during some mouths after his 25
return from the Continent, hard pressed by pecun-
iary difficulties. But it was soon in the power of
his noble patrons to serve him effectually. A
political change, silent and gradual, but of the
highest importance, was in daily progress. The so
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON
accession of Anne had been hailed by the Tories
with transports of joy and hope ; and for a time it
seemed that the Whigs had fallen never to rise
again. The throne was surrounded by men sup-
5 posed to be attached to the prerogative and to the
church ; and among these none stood so high in
the favor of the sovereign as the Lord -Treasurer
Godolphin and the Captain-General Marlborough.
The country gentlemen and country clergymen
10 had fully expected that the policy of these min-
isters would be directly opposed to that which had
been almost constantly followed by William; that
the landed interest would be favored at the expense
of trade; that no additions would be made to the
is funded debt; that the privileges conceded to
Dissenters by the late king would be curtailed, if
not withdrawn ; that the war with France, if there
must be such a war, would, on our part, be almost
entirely naval; and that the government would
20 avoid close connections with foreign powers, and,
above all, with Holland.
But the country gentlemen and country clergy-
men were fated to be deceived, not for the last
time. The prejudices and passions which raged
25 without control in vicarages, in cathedral closes,
and in the manor-houses of fox-hunting squires,
were not shared by the chiefs of the ministry.
Those statesmen saw that it was both for the pub-
lic interest, and for their own interest, to adopt a
30 Whig policy, at least as respected the alliances of
164 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
the country and the conduct of the war. Bat, if
the foreign policy of the Whigs were adopted, it
was impossible to abstain from adopting also their
financial policy. The natural consequences fol-
lowed. The rigid Tories were alienated from the 5
government. The votes of the Whigs became nec-
essary to it. The votes of the Whigs could be
secured only by further concessions ; and further
concessions the Queen was induced to make.
At the beginning of the year 1 704, the state of 10
parties bore a close analogy to the state of parties
in 1826. In 1826, as in 1704, there was a Tory
ministry divided into two hostile sections. The
position of Mr. Canning and his friends in 1826
corresponded to that which Marlborough and is
Godolphin occupied in 1704. Nottingham and
Jersey were in 1704 what Lord Eldon and Lord
Westmoreland were in 1826. The Whigs of 1704
were in a situation resembling that in which the
Whigs of 1826 stood. In 1704, Somers, Halifax, 20
Sunderland, Cowper, were not in office. There
was no avowed coalition between them and the
moderate Tories. It is probable that no direct
communication tending to such a coalition had
yet taken place ; yet all men saw that such a coali- 25
tion was inevitable, nay, that it was already half
formed. Such, or nearly such, was the state of
things when tidings arrived of the great battle
fought at Blenheim on the 13th August, 1704.
By the Whigs the news was hailed with transports m
LIFE AXD WRITINGS OF ADDISON 165
of joy and pride. No fault, no cause of quarrel,
could be remembered by them against the com-
mander whose genius had, in one day, changed the
face of Europe, saved the Imperial throne, hum-
6 bled the house of Bourbon, and secured the Act of
Settlement against foreign hostility. The feeling
of the Tories was very different. They could not
indeed, without imprudence, openly express regret
at an event so glorious to their country ; but their
io congratulations were so cold and sullen as to give deep
disgust to the victorious general and his friends.
Godolphin was not a reading man. Whatever
time he could spare from business he was in the
habit of spending at Xewmarket or at the card-
is table. But he was not absolutely indifferent to
poetry ; and he was too intelligent an observer not
to perceive that literature was a formidable engine
of political warfare, and that the great Whig leaders
had strengthened their party and raised their char-
so acter by extending a liberal and judicious patronage
to good writers. He was mortified, and not with-
out reason, by the exceeding badness of the poems
which appeared in honor of the battle of Blenheim.
One of those poems has been rescued from oblivion
25 by the exquisite absurdity of three lines : —
"Think of two thousand gentlemen at least,
And each man mounted on his capering beast ;
Into the Danube they were pushed by shoals.''
Where to procure better verses the treasurer did
30 not know. He understood how to negotiate a
166 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
loan, or remit a subsidy ; he was also well versed in
the history of running horses and fighting cocks ;
but his acquaintance among the poets was very
small. He consulted Halifax ; but Halifax affected
to decline the office of adviser. He had, he said, 5
done his best, when he had power, to encourage
men whose abilities and acquirements might do
honor to their country. Those times were over.
Other maxims had prevailed. Merit was suffered
to pine in obscurity ; and the public money was 10
squandered on the undeserving. "I do know,"
he added, "a gentleman who would celebrate the
battle in a manner worthy of the subject, but I
will not name him." Godolphin, who was an
expert at the soft answer which turneth away 75
wrath, and who was under the necessity of paying
court to the Whigs, gently replied that there was
too much ground for Halifax's complaints, but
that what was amiss should in time be rectified,
and that in the meantime the services of a man 20
such as Halifax had described should be liberally
rewarded. Halifax then mentioned Addison;
but, mindful of the dignity as well as of the
pecuniary interest of his friend, insisted that the
minister should apply in the most courteous man- 25
ner to Addison himself; and this Godolphin prom-
ised to do.
Addison then occupied a garret up three pair
of stairs, over a small shop in the Hay market. In
this humble lodging he was surprised, on the so
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 167
morning which followed the conversation between
Qodolphin and Halifax, by a visit from no less a
person than the Right Honorable Henry Boyle,
then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and afterwards
5 Lord Carleton. This high-born minister had been
sent by the Lord-Treasurer as ambassador to the
needy poet. Addison readily undertook the pro-
posed task, a task which, to so good a Whig, was
probably a pleasure. When the poem was little
10 more than half finished, he showed it to Godol-
phin, who was delighted with it, and particularly
with the famous similitude of the Angel. Addison
was instantly appointed to a commissionership
worth about two hundred pounds a year, and was
is assured that this appointment was only an earnest
of greater favors.
The Campaign came forth, and was as much
admired by the public as by the minister. It
pleases us less on the whole than the Epistle to
20 Halifax. Yet it undoubtedly ranks high among
the poems which appeared during the interval
between the death of Dryden and the dawn of
Pope's genius. The chief merit of the Campaign,
we think, is that which was noticed by Johnson,
25 the manly and rational rejection of fiction. The
first great poet whose works have come down to us
sang of war long before war became a science or -a
trade. If, in his time, there was enmity between
two little Greek towns, each poured forth its
30 crowd of citizens, ignorant of discipline, and
168 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
armed with implements of labor rudely turned into
weapons. On each side appeared conspicuous a
few chiefs, whose wealth had enabled them to pro-
cure good armor, horses, and chariots, and whose
leisure had enabled them to practise military exer- 5
cises. One such chief, if he were a man of great
strength, agility, and courage, would probably be
more formidable than twenty common men ; and
the force and dexterity with which he flung his
spear might have no inconsiderable share in decid- m
ing the event of the day. Such were probably the
battles with which Homer was familiar. But
Homer related the actions of men of a former
generation, of men who sprang from the gods, and
communed with the gods face to face ; of men, one 15
of whom could with ease hurl rocks which two
sturdy hinds of a later period would be unable even
to lift. He therefore naturally represented their
martial exploits as resembling in kind, but far sur-
passing in magnitude, those of the stoutest and 20
most expert combatants of his own age. Achilles,
clad in celestial armor, drawn by celestial coursers,
grasping the spear which none but himself could
raise, driving all Troy and Lycia before him, and
choking Scamander with dead, was only a magnifi- 25
cent exaggeration of the real hero, who, strong,
fearless, accustomed to the use of weapons, guarded
by a shield and helmet of the best Sidonian fabric,
and whirled along by horses of Thessalian breed,
struck down with his own right arm, foe after foe. so
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 169
In all rude societies similar notions are found.
There are at this day countries where the Life-
guardsman Shaw would be considered as a much
greater warrior than the Duke of Wellington.
5 Bonaparte loved to describe the astonishment with
which the Mamelukes looked at his diminutive
figure. Mourad Bey, distinguished above all his
fellows by his bodily strength, and by the skill
with which he managed his horse and his sabre,
10 could not believe that a man who was scarcely five
feet high, and rode like a butcher, could be the
greatest soldier in Europe.
Homer's descriptions of war had therefore as
much truth as poetry requires. But truth was
is altogether wanting to the performances of those
who, writing about battles which had scarcely any-
thing in common with the battles of his times,
servilely imitated his manner. The folly of Silius
Italicus, in particular, is positively nauseous. He
20 undertook to record in verse the vicissitudes of a
great struggle between generals of the first order ;
and his narrative is made up of the hideous wounds
which these generals inflicted with their own
hands. Asdrubal flings a spear, which grazes the
25 shoulder of the consul Xero ; but Xero sends his
spear into Asdrubal's side. Fabius slays Thnris
and Butes and Maris and Arses, and the long-
haired Adherbes, and the gigantic Thylis, and
Sapharus and Monaesus, and the trumpeter Mor-
30 inus. Hannibal runs Perusinus through the groin
170 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
with a stake, and breaks the backbone of Telesinus
with a huge stone. This detestable fashion was
copied in modern times, and continued to prevail
down, to the age of Addison. Several versifiers
had described William turning thousands to flight 5
by his single prowess, and dyeing the Boyne with
Irish blood. Nay, so estimable a writer as John
Philips, the author of the Splendid Shilling, repre-
sented Marlborough as having won the battle of
Blenheim merely by strength of muscle and skill in 10
fence. The following lines may serve as an
example : —
"Churchill, viewing where
The violence of Tallard most prevailed,
Came to oppose his slaughtering arm. With speed 15
Precipitate he rode, urging his way
O'er hills of gasping heroes, and fallen steeds
Rolling in death. Destruction, grim with blood,
Attends his furious course. Around his head
The glowing balls play innocent, while he 20
With dire impetuous sway deals fatal blows
Among the flying Gauls. In Gallic blood
He dyes his reeking sword, and strews the ground
With headless ranks. What can they do? Or how
Withstand his wide-destroying sword?" 25
Addison, with excellent sense and taste,
departed from this ridiculous fashion. He
reserved his praise for the qualities which made
Marlborough truly great, — energy, sagacity, mili-
tary science. But, above all, the poet extolled the so
firmness of that mind which, in the midst of con-
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 171
fusion, uproar, and slaughter, examined and dis-
posed everything - with the serene wisdom of a
higher intelligence.
Here it was that he introduced the famous com-
5 parison of Marlborough to an Angel guiding the
whirlwind. We will not dispute the general jus-
tice of Johnson's remarks on this passage. But
we must point out one circumstance which appears
to have escaped all the critics. The extraordinary
10 effect which this simile produced when it first
appeared, and which to the following generation
seemed inexplicable, is doubtless to be chiefly
attributed to a line which most readers now
regard as a feeble parenthesis : —
15 "Such as, of late, o'er pale Britannia passed."
Addison spoke, not of a storm, but of the storm.
The great tempest of November, 1703, the only
tempest which in our latitude has equalled the
•20 rage of a tropical hurricane, had left a dreadful
recollection in the minds of all men. No other
tempest was ewer in this country the occasion of a
parliamentary address or of a public fast. Whole
fleets had been cast away. Large mansions had
25 been blown down. One prelate had been buried
beneath the ruins of his palace. London and Bris-
tol had presented the appearance of cities just
sacked. Hundreds of families were still in mourn-
ing. The prostrate trunks of large trees, and the
30 ruins of houses, still attested, in all the southern
172 MACAULAYS ESSAYS
counties, the fury of the blast. The popularity
which the simile of the Angel enjoyed among
Addison's contemporaries, has always seemed to us
to be a remarkable instance of the advantage
which, in rhetoric and poetry, the particular has 5
over the general.
Soon after the Campaign, was published Addi-
son's Narrative of his Travels in Italy. The first
effect produced by this narrative was disappoint-
ment. The crowd of readers who expected politics 10
and scandal, speculations on the projects of Victor
Amadeus, and anecdotes about the jollities of con-
vents and amours of cardinals and nuns, were con-
founded by finding that the writer's mind was
much more occupied by the war between the 15
Trojans and Rutulians than by the war between
France and Austria; and that he seemed to have
heard no scandal of later date than the gallantries
of the Empress Faustina. . In time, however, the
judgment of the many was overruled by that of 20
the few; and, before the book was reprinted, it
was so eagerly sought that it sold for five times the
original price. It is still read with pleasure : the
style is pure and flowing ; the classical quotations
and allusions are numerous and happy ; and we are 25
now and then charmed by that singularly humane
and delicate humor in which Addison excelled all
men. Yet this agreeable work, even when con-
sidered merely as the history of a literary tour,
may justly be censured on account of its faults of 30
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISOX 173
omission. We have already said that, though rich
in extracts from the Latin poets, it contains
scarcely any references to the Latin orators and
historians. We must add, that it contains little,
5 or rather no, information respecting the history
and literature of modern Italy. To the best of our
remembrance, Addison does not mention Dante,
Petrarch, Boccaccio, Boiardo, Berni, Lorenzo de'
Medici, or Machiavelli. He coldly tells us that at
10 Ferrara he saw the tomb of Ariosto, and that at
Venice he heard the gondoliers sing verses of
Tasso. But for Tasso and Ariosto he cared far
less than for Valerius Flaccus and Sidonius Apol-
linaris. The gentle flow of the Ticin brings a line
is of Silius to his mind. The sulphurous steam of
Albula suggests to him several passages of Martial.
But he has not a word to say of the illustrious dead
of Santa Croce; he crosses the wood of Ravenna
without recollecting the Spectre Huntsman; and
20 wanders up and down Rimini without one thought
of Francesca. At Paris he had eagerly sought an
introduction to Boileau ; but he seems not to have
been at all aware that at Florence he was in the
vicinity of a poet with whom Boileau could not
25 sustain a comparison, of the greatest lyric poet of
modern times, Vincenzio Filicaja. This is the
more remarkable, because Filicaja was the favorite
poet of the accomplished Somers, under whose
protection Addison travelled, and to whom the
30 account of the Travels is dedicated. The truth is.
174 MAC AULA Y'S ESSAYS
that Addison knew little, and cared less, about the
literature of modern Italy. His favorite models
were Latin. His favorite critics were French.
Half the Tuscan poetry that he had read seemed to
him monstrous, and the other half tawdry. 5
His Travels were followed by the lively oj)era of
Rosamond. This piece was ill set to music, and
therefore failed on the stage, but it completely suc-
ceeded in print, and is indeed excellent in its kind.
The smoothness with which the verses glide, and 10
the elasticity with which they bound, is, to onr
ears at least, very pleasing. We are inclined to
think that if Addison had left heroic couplets to
Pope, and blank verse to Rowe, and had employed
himself in writing airy and spirited songs, his rep 11- 15
tation as a poet would have stood far higher than
it now does. Some years after his death, Rosa-
mond was set to new music by Doctor Arne ; and
was performed with complete success. Several
passages long retained their popularity, and were 90
daily sung, during the latter part of George the
Second's reign, at all the harpsichords in England.
While Addison thus amused himself, his pros-
pects, and the prospects of his party, were con-
stantly becoming brighter and brighter. In the 35
spring of 1705 the ministers were freed from the
restraint imposed by a House of Commons in
which Tories of the most perverse class had the
ascendency. The elections were favorable to the
Whigs. The coalition which had been tacitly and bo
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 1 i 5
gradually formed was now openly avowed. The
fireat Seal was given to Cowper. Somers and
Halifax were sworn of the Council. Halifax was
sent in the following year to carry the decorations
5 of the order of the garter to the Electoral Prince of
Hanover, and was accompanied on this honorable
mission by Addison, who had just been made
Undersecretary of State. The Secretary of State
under whom Addison first served was Sir Charles
io Hedges, a Tory. But Hedges was soon dismissed
to makeM'oom for the most vehement of Whigs,
Charles, Earl of Sunderland. In every department
of the state, indeed, the High Churchmen were
compelled to give place to their opponents. At the
15 close of 1707, the Tories who still remained in
office strove to rally, with Harley at their head.
But the attempt, though favored by the Queen,
. who had always been a Tory at heart, and who had
now quarrelled with the Duchess of Marlborough,
20 was unsuccessful. The time was not yet. The
Captain General was at the height of popularity
and glory. The Low Church party had a majority
in Parliament. The country squires and rectors,
though occasionally uttering a savage growl, were
25 for the most part in a state of torpor, which lasted
till they were roused into activity, and indeed into
madness, by the prosecution of Sacheverell. Har-
ley and his adherents were compelled to retire.
The victory of the Whigs was complete. At the
30 general election of 1708, their strength in the
176 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
House of Commons became irresistible ; and before
the end of that year, Somers was made Lord Presi-
dent of the Council, and Wharton Lord Lieutenant
of Ireland.
Addison sat for Malmsbury in the House of Com- 5
mons which was elected in 1708. But the House of
Commons was not the field for him. The bashful-
ness of his nature made his wit and eloquence use-
less in debate. He once rose, but could not
overcome his diffidence, and ever after remained 10
silent. Nobody can think it strange that a great
writer should fail as a speaker. But many, prob-
ably, will think it strange that Addison's failure as
a speaker should have had no unfavorable effect on
his success as a politician. In our time, a man of 15
high rank and great fortune might, though speak-
ing very little and very ill, hold a considerable
post. But it would now be inconceivable that a
mere adventurer, a man who, when out of office,
must live by his pen, should in a few years become 20
successively Undersecretary of State, Chief Secre-
tary for Ireland, and Secretary of State, without
some oratorical talent. Addison, without high
birth, and with little property, rose to a post which
dukes, the heads of the great houses of Talbot, 25
Russell, and Bentinck, have thought it an honor
to fill. 'Without opening his lips in debate, he
rose to a post the highest that Chatham or Fox
€ver reached. And this he did before he had been
nine years in Parliament. We must look for the n
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 177
explanation of this seeming miracle to the peculiar
circumstances in which that generation was placed.
During the interval which elapsed between the
time when the Censorship of the Press ceased, and
5 the time when parliamentary proceedings began to-
be freely reported, literary talents were, to a public
man, of much more importance, and oratorical
talents of much less importance, than in our time.
At present, the best way of giving rapid and wide
10 publicity to a fact or an argument is to introduce
that fact or argument into a speech made in Parlia-
ment. If a political tract were to appear superior
to the Conduct of the Allies, or to the best num-
bers of the Freeholder, the circulation of such a
15 tract would be languid indeed when compared with
the circulation of every remarkable word uttered in
the deliberations of the legislature. A speech made
in the House of Commons at four in the morning
is on thirty thousand tables before ten. A speech
20 made on the Monday is read on the Wednesday by
multitudes in Antrim and Aberdeenshire. The
orator, by the help of the shorthand writer, has to
a great extent superseded the pamphleteer. It
was not so in the reign of Anne. The best speech
25 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 impor-
30 tance in a country governed by parliaments, and
178 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
indeed at that time governed by triennial parlia-
ments. The pen was, therefore, a more formida-
ble political engine than the tongne. Mr. Pitt
and Mr. Fox contended only in Parliament. But
Walpole and Pulteney, the Pitt and Fox of an 5
earlier period, had not done half of what was neces-
sary, when they sat clown amidst the acclama-
tions 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.^ 10
Their works are now forgotten. But it is certain
that there were in Grn)) Street few more assidu-
ous scribblers of Thoughts, Letters, Answers,
Remarks, than these two great chiefs of parties.
Pulteney, when leader of the Opposition, and 15
possessed of thirty thousand a year, edited the
Craftsman. Walpole, though not a man of liter-
ary habits, was the author of at least ten pam-
phlets, and retouched and corrected many more.
These facts sufficiently show of how great impor- 20
tance literary assistance then was to the contending
parties. St. John was certainly, in Anne's reign,
the best Tory speaker; Cowper was probably the
best Whig speaker. But it may well be doubted
whether St. John did so much for the Tories as 25
Swift, and whether Cowper did so much for the
Whigs as Addison. When these things are duly
considered, it will not be thought strange that
Addison should have climbed higher in the state
than any other Englishman has ever, by means m
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 179
merely of literary talents, been able to climb.
Swift would, in all probability, have climbed as
high, if he had not been encumbered by his cas-
sock and his pudding sleeves. As far as the hom-
5 age of the great went, Swift had as much of it as if
he had been Lord-Treasurer.
To the influence which Addison derived from his
literary talents was added all the influence which
arises from character. The world, always ready to
10 think the worst of needy political adventurers, was
forced to make one exception. Restlessness, vio-
lence, audacity, laxity of principle, are the vices
ordinarily attributed to that class of men. But
faction itself could not deny that Addison had,
is through all changes of fortune, been strictly faith-
ful 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
20 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
25 to bashf ulness.
l He was undoubtedly one of the most popular
men of his time ; and much of his popularity he
owed, we believe, to that very timidity which his
friends lamented. That timidity often prevented
so him from exhibiting his talents to the best advan
180 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
tage. But it propitiated Nemesis. It averted that
envy which would otherwise have been excited by
fame so splendid, and by so rapid an elevation.
No man is so great a favorite with the public as he
who is at once an object of admiration, of respect, 5
and of pity; and such were the feelings which
Addison inspired. Those who enjoyed the privi-
lege of hearing his familiar conversation, declared
with one voice that it was superior even to his
writings. The brilliant Mary Montague said, that 10
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 15
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 Addi-
son was at once the most polite, and the most 20
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 25
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 the softness of heart which 30
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 181
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
5 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 changed his tone, "assented with civil
leer," and lured the flattered coxcomb deeper and
10 deeper into absurdity. That such was his practice
we should, we think, have guessed from his works.
The Tatters criticisms on Mr. Softly's sonnet, and
the Spectator's dialogue with the politician who is
so zealous for the honor of Lady Q — p — t — s, are
is excellent specimens of this innocent mischief.
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 com-
pany, as soon as he saw an unknown face, his lips
ao were sealed, and his manners became constrained.
Xone 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
25 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 nec-
essary to be alone with him, and to hear him, in
30 his own phrase, think aloud. "There is no such
182 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
thing," be used to say, "as real conversation, but
between two persons."
This timidity, a timidity surely neither ungrace-
ful nor unamiable, led Addison into the two most
serious faults which can with justice be imputed to 5
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 10
from being a mark of ill-breeding, that it was
almost essential to the character of a fine gentle-
man. 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 15
other statesman or writer of Queen Anne's reign,
we should no more think of saying that he some-
times took too much wine, than that he wore a
long wig and a sword.
To the excessive modesty of Addison's nature we 20
must ascribe another fault which generally arises
from a very different cause. He became a little
too fond of seeing himself surrounded by a small
circle of admirers, to whom he was as a king, or
rather as a god. All these men were far inferior 25
to him in ability, and some of them had very seri-
ous faults. Nor did those faults escape his obser-
vation; for, if ever there was an eye which saw
through and through men, it was the eye of Addi-
son. But with the keenest observation, and tin- 30
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 183
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 benevo-
lence, slightly tinctured with contempt. He was
5 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 AVarburton by Hurd. It
10 was not in the power of adulation to turn such a
head, or deprave such a heart, as Addison's. But
it must in candor, 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
15 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
2$ not improbable that his career would have been
prosperous and honorable, 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
25 vice and misery to another, ruined his fortune by
follies, attempted to repair it by crimes, and at
length closed a wicked and unhappy life by self-
murder. Yet, to the last, the wretched man,
gambler, lampooner, cheat, forger, as he was,
so retained his affection and veneration for Addison,
184 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
and recorded those feelings in the last lines which
he traced before he hid himself from infamy under
London Bridge.^
Another of Addison's favorite companions was
Ambrose Philips, a good Whig and a middling 5
poet, who had the honor of bringing into fashion a
species of composition which has been called, after
his name, Namby Pamby. But the most remark-
able members of the little senate, as Pope long
afterwards called it, were Richard Steele and 10
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 15
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 20
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 prin-
ciples weak. His life was spent in sinning and
repenting; in inculcating what was right, and 25
doing what was wrong. In speculation, he was a
man of piety and honor ; in practice he was much
of the rake and a little of the swindler. He was,
however, so good-natured that it was not easy to be
seriously angry with him, and that even rigid M
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 185
moralists felt more inclined to pity than to blame
him, when lie diced himself into a spunging-house
or drank himself into a fever. Addison regarded
Steele with kindness not immingled with scorn,
5 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
io 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 dis-
honesty, provoked Addison to repay himself by the
is help of a bailiff. We 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
20 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 indigna-
tion, when what he has earned hardly, and lent
with great inconvenience to himself, for the pur-
25 pose of relieving a friend in distress, is squandered
with insane profusion. We will illustrate our
meaning by an example which is not the less
striking because it is taken from fiction. Dr.
Harrison, in Fielding's Amelia, is represented as
30 the most benevolent of human beings; yet he
186 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS ,
takes in execution, not only the goods, bat the
person of his friend Booth. Dr. Harrison resorts
to this strong measure because he has been in-
formed that Booth, while pleading poverty as an
excuse for not paying just debts, has been buying 5
fine jewellery, and setting up a coach. Xo person
who is well acquainted with Steele's life and cor-
respondence can doubt that he behaved quite as ill
to Addison as Booth was accused of behaving to
Dr. Harrison. The real history, we have little 10
doubt, was something like this : — A letter comes to
Addison, imploring help in pathetic 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 15
butcher for a shoulder of mutton. Addison is
moved. He determines to deny himself some
medals which are wanting to his series of the
Twelve Caesars ; to put off buying the new edition
of Bayle's Dictionary; and to wear his old sword 20
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 gentle-
men and ladies assembled. The fiddles are play-
ing. The table is groaning under champagne, 85
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, ao
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON
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
5 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.
At the close of 1708 Wharton became Lord
i« Lieutenant of Ireland, and appointed Addison
Chief Secretary. Addison was consequently under
the necessity of quitting London for Dublin.
Besides the chief secretaryship, which was then
worth about two thousand pounds a year, he
is 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.
Wharton and Addison had nothing in common
ao bnt Whiggism. The Lord Lieutenant was not
only licentious and corrupt, but was distinguished
from other libertines and jobbers by a callous im-
pudence which presented the strongest contrast to
the Secretary's gentleness and delicacy. Many
25 parts of the Irish administration at this time
appear to have deserved serious blame. But
against Addison there was not a murmur. He
long afterwards asserted, what all the evidence
which we have ever seen tends to prove, that
so his diligence and integrity gained the friend-
188 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS •
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 5
borongh 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; io
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 is
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 20
to which he owes his high and permanent rank
among British writers. As yet his fame rested on
performances which, though highly respectable,
were not built for duration, and which would, if
he had produced nothing else, have now been 25
almost forgotten ; on some excellent Latin verses ;
on some English verses which occasionally rose
above mediocrity ; and on a book of travels, agree-
ably written, but not indicating any extraordinary
powers of mind. These works showed him to^be a 80
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 189
man of taste, sense, and learning. The time had
come when he was to prove himself a man of
genius, and to enrich our literature with composi-
tions which will live as long as the English lan-
5 guage.
In the spring of 1709 Steele formed a literary
project, of which he was far indeed from foresee-
ing the consequences. Periodical papers had
during many years been published in London.
10 Most of these were political ; but in some of them
questions of morality, taste, and love-casuistry had
been discussed. The literary merit of these works
was small indeed ; and even then* names are now
known only to the curious.
is Steele had been appointed Gazetteer by Sunder-
land, at the request, it is said, of Addison, and,
thus had access to foreign intelligence earlier and
more authentic than was in those times within the
reach of an ordinary news-writer. This circum-
20 stance seems to have suggested to him the scheme
of publishing a periodical paper on a new plan. It
was to appear on the days on which the post left
London for the country, which were, in that
generation, the Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Satur-
25 days. It was to contain the foreign news, accounts
of theatrical representations, and the literary gossip
of "Will's and of the Grecian. It was also to con-
tain remarks on the fashionable topics of the day,
compliments to beauties, pasquinades on noted
w sharpers, and criticisms on popular preachers.
190 AIACAULAY'S ESSAYS
The aim of Steele does not appear to have been at
first higher than this. He was not ill-qualified to
conduct the work which he had planned. His
public intelligence he drew from the best sources.
He knew the town, and had paid dear for his 5
knowledge. He had read much more than the
dissipated men of that time were in the habit of
reading. He was a rake among scholars, and a
scholar among rakes. His style was easy and not
incorrect; and though his wit and humor were of 10
no high order, his gay animal spirits imparted to
his compositions an air of vivacity which ordinary
readers could hardly distinguish from comic
genius. His writings have been well compared to
those light wines which, though deficient in body 15
and flavor, are yet a pleasant small drink, if not
kept too long, or carried too far.
Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, Astrologer, was an
imaginary person, almost as well known in that
age as Mr. Paul Pry or Mr. Samuel Pickwick in ao
ours. Swift had assumed the name of BickerstafT
in a satirical pamphlet against Partridge, the
maker of almanacs. Partridge had been fool
enough to publish a furious reply. Bickerstaff
had rejoined in a second pamphlet still more 25
diverting than the first. All the wits had
combined to keep up the joke, and the town was
long in convulsions of laughter. Steele deter-
mined to employ the name which this controversy
had made popular; and in April, 1700, it was 30
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 191
announced that Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, Astrolo-
ger, was about to publish a paper called the Tatler.
Addison had not been consulted about this
scheme; but as soon as he heard of it he deter -
5 mined to give his assistance. The effect of that
assistance cannot be better described than in
Steele's own words. "I fared," he said, ''like a
distressed prince who calls in a powerful neighbor
to his aid. I was undone by my auxiliary. AVhen
10 I had once called him in, I could not subsist with-
out dependence on him." "The jDaper," he says
elsewhere, "was advanced indeed. It was raised
to a greater thing than I intended it."
It is probable that Addison, when he sent across
is St. George's Channel his first contributions to the
Tatler, had no notion of the extent and variety of
his own powers. He was the possessor of a vast
mine, rich with a hundred ores. But he had
been acquainted only with the least precious part
20 of his treasures, and had hitherto contented him-
self with producing sometimes copper and some-
times lead, intermingled with a little silver. All
at once, and by mere accident, he had lighted on
an inexhaustible vein of the finest gold.
25 The mere choice and arrangement of his words
would have sufficed to make his essays classical. For
never, not even by Dryden, not even by Temple,
had the English language been written with such
sweetness, grace, and facility. But this was the
30 smallest part of Addison's praise. Had he clothed
102 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
his thoughts in the half French style of Horace
Walpole, or in the half Latin style of Dr. John-
son, or in the half German jargon of the present
day, his genius would have triumphed over all
faults of manner. As a moral satirist he stands 5
unrivalled. If ever the best Tatlers and Spec-'
tators were equalled in their own kind, we should
be inclined to guess that it must have been by the
lost comedies of Menander.
In wit, properly so called, Addison was not 10
inferior to Cowley or Butler. No single ode of
Cowley contains so many happy analogies as are
crowded into the lines to Sir Godfrey Kneller ; and
we would undertake to collect from the Spectators
as great a number of ingenious illustrations as can 15
be found in Hudibras. The still higher faculty of
invention Addison possessed in still larger meas-
ure. The numerous fictions, generally original,
often wild and grotesque, but always singularly
graceful and happy, which are found in his essays, 20
fully entitle him to the rank of a great poet, a
rank to which his metrical compositions give him
no claim. / As an observer of life, of manners, of
all the shades of human character, he stands in the
first class. And what he observed he had the art 25
of communicating in two widely different ways.
He could describe virtues, vices, habits, whims as
well as Clarendon. But he could do something
better. He could call human beings into exist-
ence, and make them exhibit themselves. If we 30
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON W3
wish to find anything more vivid than Addison's
best portraits, we must go either to Shakespeare or
to Cervantes.
But what shall we say of Addison's humor, of
s his sense of the ludicrous, of his power of awaken-
ing that sense in others, and of drawing mirth from
incidents which occur every day, and from little
peculiarities of temper and manner, such as may
be found in every man? We feel the charm: we
10 give ourselves up to it ; but we strive in vain to
analyze it.
Perhaps the best way of describing Addison's
peculiar pleasantry is to compare it with the pleas-
antry of some other great satirists. The three
15 most eminent masters of the art of ridicule during
the eighteenth century, were, we conceive, Addi-
son, Swift, and Voltaire. Which of the three had
the greatest power of moving laughter may be
questioned. But each of them, within his own
80 domain, was supreme.
Voltaire is the prince of buffoons. His merri-
ment is without disguise or restraint. He gam-
bols ; he grins ; he shakes his sides ; he points the
finger; he turns up the nose; he shoots out the
25 tongue. The manner of Swift is the very opposite
to this. He moves laughter, but never joins in it.
He appears in his works such as he appeared in
society. All the company are convulsed with
merriment, while the Dean, the author of all the
30 mirth, preserves an invincible gravity, and even
194 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
sourness of aspect, and gives utterance to the most
eccentric and ludicrous fancies, with the air of a
man reading the commination service.
The manner of Addison is as remote from that
of Swift as from that of Voltaire. He neither 5
laughs out like the French wit, nor, like the Irish
wit, throws a double portion of severity into his
countenance while laughing inwardly; but pre-
serves a look peculiarly his own, a look of demure
serenity, disturbed only by an arch sparkle of the 10
eye, an almost imperceptible elevation of the brow,
an almost imperceptible curl of the lip. His tone
is never that either of a Jack Padding or of a
cynic. It is that of a gentleman, in whom the
quickest sense of the ridiculous is constantly 15
tempered by good nature and good breeding.
We own that the humor of Addison is, in our
opinion, of a more delicious flavor than the humor
of either Swift or Voltaire. Thus much, at least,
is certain, that both Swift and Voltaire have been 20
successfully mimicked, and that no man has yet
been able to mimic Addison.^) The letter of the
Abbe Coyer to Pansophe is Voltaire all over, and
imposed, during a long time, on the Academicians
of Paris. There are passages in Arbuthnot's 25
satirical works which we, at least, cannot distin-
guish from Swift's best writing. But of the many
eminent men who have made Addison their
model, though several have copied his mere diction
with happy effect, none have been able to catch 30
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 195
the tone of his pleasantry. In the World, in the
Connoisseur, in the Mirror, in the Lounger, there
are numerous papers written in obvious imitation
of his Tatlers and Spectators. Most of these
5 papers have some merit ; many are very lively and
amusing; but there is not a single one which
could be passed off as Addison's on a critic of the
smallest perspicacity.
But that which chiefly distinguishes Addison
10 from Swift, from Voltaire, from almost all the
other great masters of ridicule, is the grace, the
nobleness, the moral purity, which we find even in
his merriment. Severity, gradually hardening and
darkening into misanthropy, characterizes the
15 works of Swift. The nature of Voltaire was,
indeed, not inhuman; but he venerated nothing.
Neither in the masterpieces of art nor in the purest
examples of virtue, neither in the Great First Cause
nor in the awful enigma of the grave, could he see
20 anything but subjects for drollery. The more
solemn and august the theme, the more monkey-
like was his grimacing and chattering. The
mirth of Swift is the mirth of Mephistopheles ; the
mirth of Voltaire is the mirth of Puck. If, as
25 Soame Jenyns oddly imagined, a portion of the
happiness of seraphim and just men made perfect
be derived from an exquisite perception of the
ludicrous, their mirth must surely be none other
than the mirth of Addison; a mirth consistent
30 with tender compassion for all that is frail, and
196 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
with profound reverence for all that is sublime.
Nothing great, nothing amiable, no moral duty,
no doctrine of natural or revealed religion, has ever
been associated by Addison with any degrading
idea. His humanity is without a parallel in liter- 5
ary history. The highest proof of virtue is to
possess boundless power without abusing it. No
kind of power is more formidable than the power
of making men ridiculous; and that power Addi-
son possessed in boundless measure. How grossly 10
that power was abused by Swift and by Voltaire is
well known. But of Addison it may be confidently
affirmed that he has blackened no man's character,
nay, that it would be difficult, if not impossible,
to find in all the volumes which he has left us a 15
single taunt which can be called ungenerous or
unkind. Yet he had detractors, whose malignity
might have seemed to justify as terrible a revenge
as that which men, not superior to him in genius,
wreaked on Bettesworth and on Franc de Pompig- 20
nan. He was a politician; he was the best writer
of his party ; he lived in times of fierce excitement,
in- times when persons of high character and station
stooped to scurrility such as is now practised only
by the basest of mankind. Yet no provocation 25
and no example could induce him to return railing
for railing.
Of the service which his Essays rendered to
morality it is difficult to speak too highly. It is
true, that, when the Tatl&r appeared, that age of 30
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 107
outrageous profaneness and licentiousness which
followed the Restoration had passed away.
Jeremy Collier had shamed the theatres into some-
thing which, compared with the excesses of Ether -
5 ege and Wycherley, might be called decency. Yet
there still lingered in the public mind a pernicious
notion that there was some connection between
genius and profligacy; between the domestic vir-
tues and the sullen formality of the Puritans.
10 That error it is the glory of Addison to have dis-
pelled. He taught the nation that the faith" and
the morality of Hale and Tillotson might be found
in company with wit more sparkling than the wit
of Congreve, and with humor richer than the
15 humor of Yanbrugh. So effectually, indeed, did
he retort on vice the mockery which had recently
been directed against virtue, that, since his time,
the open violation of decency has always been con-
sidered among us as the mark of a fool. And this
20 revolution, the greatest and most salutary ever
effected by any satirist, he accomplished, be it
remembered, without writing one personal lam-
poon.
In the early contributions of Addison to the
25 Tatter, his peculiar powers were not fully ex-
hibited. Yet from the first, his superiority to all
his coadjutors was evident. Some of his later
Tatlers are fully equal to anything that he ever
wrote. Among the portraits, we most admire
30 Tom Folio, Ned Softly, and the Political Uphol-
198 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
sterer. The proceedings of the Court of Honor,
the Thermometer of Zeal, the story of the Frozen
Words, the Memoirs of the Shilling, are excellent
specimens of that ingenious and lively species of
fiction in which Addison excelled all men. There s
is one still better paper of the same class. But
though that paper, a hundred and thirty-three
years ago, was probably thought as edifying as one
of Smalridge's sermons, we dare not indicate it to
the squeamish readers of the nineteenth century. 10
During the session of Parliament which com-
menced in November, 1709, and which the im-
peachment of Sacheverell has made memorable,
Addison appears to have resided in London. The
Tatler was now more popular than any periodical 15
paper had ever been; and his connection with it
was generally known. It was not known, how-
ever, that almost everything good in the Tatler was
his. The truth is, that the fifty or sixty numbers
which we owe to him were not merely the best, 20
but so decidedly the best that any five of them are
more valuable than all the two hundred numbers
in which he had no share.
He required, at this time, all the solace which
he could derive from literary success. The Queen 25
had always disliked the Whigs. She had during
some years disliked the Marlborough family. But,
reigning by a disputed title, she could not venture
directly to oppose herself to a majority of both
Houses of Parliament; and, engaged as she was in a?
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 199
a war on the event of whicli her own crown was
staked, she conld not venture to disgrace a great
and successful general. But at length, in the year
1710, the causes which had restrained her from
5 showing her aversion to the Low Church party
ceased to operate. The trial of Sacheverell pro-
duced an outbreak of public feeling scarcely less
violent than the outbreaks which we can ourselves
remember in 1820, and in 1831. The country
w gentlemen, the country clergymen, the rabble of
the towns, were all, for once, on the same side.
It was clear that, if a general election took place
before the excitement abated, the Tories would
have a majority. The services of Marlborough
is had been so splendid that they were no longer
necessary. The Queen's throne was secure from
all attack on the part of Louis. Indeed, it seemed
much more likely that the English and German
armies would divide the spoils of Versailles and
so Marli than that a Marshal of France would bring
back the Pretender to St. James's. The Queen,
acting by the advice of Harley, determined to dis-
miss her servants. In June the change com-
menced. Sunderland was the first who fell. The
85 Tories exulted over his fall. The Whigs tried,
during a few weeks, to persuade themselves that
her majesty had acted only from personal dislike to
the Secretary, and that she meditated no further
alteration. But, early in August, Godolphin was
to surprised by a letter from Anne, which directed
200 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
him to break his white staff. Even after this
event, the irresolution or dissimulation of Harley
kept up the hopes of the Whigs during another
month; and then the ruin became rapid and vio-
lent. The Parliament was dissolved. The 5
ministers were turned out. The Tories were
called to office. The tide of popularity ran vio-
lently in favor of the High Church party. That
party, feeble in the late House of Commons, was
now irresistible. The power which the Tories had 10
thus suddenly acquired, they used with blind and
stupid ferocity. The howl which the whole pack
set up for prey and for blood appalled even him
who had roused and unchained them. When, at
this distance of time, we calmly review the conduct 15
of the discarded ministers, we cannot but feel a
movement of indignation at the injustice with
which they were treated. No body of men had
ever administered the government with more
energy, ability, and moderation; and their success 20
had been proportioned to their wisdom. They
had saved Holland and Germany. They had
humbled France. They had, as it seemed, all but
torn Spain from the house of Bourbon. They had
made England the first power in Europe. At 95
home they had united England and Scotland.
They had respected the rights of conscience and
the liberty of the subject. They retired, leaving
their country at the height of prosperity and
glory. And yet they were pursued to their retrofit ao
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 20]
by such a roar of obloquy as was never raised
against the government which threw away thirteen
colonies, or against the government which sent a
gallant army to perish in the ditches of Walcheren.
5 None of the AVhigs suffered more in the general
wreck than Addison. He had just sustained some
heavy pecuniary losses, of the nature of which we
are imperfectly informed, when his secretaryship
was taken from him. He had reason to believe
10 that he should also be deprived of the small Irish
office which he held by patent. He had just
resigned his fellowship. It seems probable that
he had already ventured to raise his eyes to a great
lady, and that, while his political friends were in
is power, and while his own fortunes were rising, he
had been, in the phrase of the romances which
were then fashionable, permitted to hope. But
Mr. Addison the ingenious writer, and Mr. Addi-
son the chief secretary, were, in her ladyship's
so opinion, two very different persons. All these
calamities united, however, could not disturb the
serene cheerfulness of a mind conscious of inno-
cence, and rich in its own wealth. He told his
friends, with smiling resignation, that they ought
25 to admire his philosophy ; that he had lost at once
his fortune, his place, his fellowship, and his mis-
tress ; that he must think of turning tutor again ;
and yet that his spirits were as good as ever.
He had one consolation. Of the unpopularity
30 which his friends had incurred, he had no share.
202 " MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
Such was the esteem with which he was regarded
that, while the most violent measures were taken
for the purpose of forcing Tory members on Whig
corporations, he was returned to Parliament with-
out even a contest. Swift, who was now in Lon- 5
don, and who had already determined on quitting
the Whigs, wrote to Stella in these remarkable
words: "The Tories carry it among the new mem-
bers six to one. Mr. Addison's election has
passed easy and undisputed; and I believe if he 10
had a mind to be king he would hardly be
refused."
The good will with which the Tories regarded
Addison is the more honorable to him, because it
had not been purchased by any concession on his lb
part. During the general election he published a
political journal, entitled the Whig Examiner.
Of that journal it may be sufficient to say that
Johnson, in spite of his strong political prejudices,
pronounced it to be superior in wit to any of 20
Swift's writings on the other side. When it ceased
to appear, Swift, in a letter to Stella, expressed his
exultation at the death of so formidable an
antagonist. "He might well rejoice," says John-
son, "at the death of that which he could not have 25
killed." "On no occasion," he adds, "was the
genius of Addison more vigorously exerted, and on
none did the superiority of his powers more evi-
dently appear."
The only use which Addison appears to have so
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 203
made of the favor with which he was regarded by
the Tories was to save some of his friends from the
general ruin of the Whig party. He felt himself
to be in a situation which made it his duty to take
5 a decided part in politics. But the case of Steele
and of Ambrose Philips was different. For
Philips, Addison even condescended to solicit,
with what success we have not ascertained. Steele
held two places. He was Gazetteer, and he was
10 also a Commissioner of Stamps. The Gazette was
taken from him. But he was suffered to retain
his place in the Stamp Office, on an implied under-
standing that he should not be active against the
new government; and he was, during more than
15 two years, induced by Addison to observe this
armistice with tolerable fidelity.
Isaac Bickers taff accordingly became silent upon
politics, and the article of news which had once
formed about one-third of his paper, altogether
so disappeared. The Tatler had completely changed
its character. It was now nothing but a series of
essays on books, morals, and manners. Steele
therefore resolved to bring it to a close, and to
commence a new work on an improved plan. It
25 was announced that this new work would be pub-
lished daily. The undertaking was generally
regarded as bold, or rather rash ; but the event
amply justified the confidence with which Steele
relied on the fertility of Addison's genius. On
30 the second of January, 1711, appeared the last
204 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
Tatler. At the beginning of March following
appeared the first of an incomparable series of
papers, containing observations on life and liter-
ature by an imaginary spectator.
The Spectator himself was conceived and drawn 5
by Addison; and it is not easy to doubt that the
portrait was meant to be in some features a like-
ness of the painter. The Spectator is a gentleman
who, after passing a studious youth at the univer-
sity, has travelled on classic ground, and has 10
bestowed much attention on curious points of
antiquity. He has, on his return, fixed his resi-
dence in London, and has observed all the forms of
life which are to be found in that great city ; has
daily listened to the wits of Will's, has smoked is
with the philosophers of the Grecian, and has
mingled with the parsons at Child's, and with the
politicians at the St. James's. In the morning, he
often listens to the hum of the Exchange ; in the
evening, his face is constantly to be seen in the pit 20
of Drury Lane Theatre. But an insurmountable
bashf ulness prevents him from opening his mouth
except in a small circle of intimate friends.
These friends were first sketched by Steele.
Four of the club, the templar, the clergyman, the 25
soldier, and the merchant, were uninteresting fig-
ures, fit only for a background. But the other
two, an old country baronet and an old town rake,
though not delineated with a very delicate pencil,
had some good strokes. Addison took the rude 30
LIFE AND "WRITINGS OF ADDISON 205
outlines into his own hands, retouched them,
colored them, and is in truth the creator of the Sir
Roger de Coverley and the "Will Honeycomb with
whom we are all familial'.
5 The plan of the Spectator must be allowed to be
both original and eminently happy. Every valu-
able essay in the series may be read with pleasure
separately ; yet the five or six hundred essays form
a whole, and a whole which has the interest of a
10 novel. It must be remembered, too, that at that
time no novel, giving a lively and powerful picture
of the common life and manners of England, had
appeared. Richardson was working as a composi-
tor. Fielding was robbing birds' nests. Smollett
is was not yet born. The narrative, therefore, which
connects together the Spectator's essays, gave to
our ancestors their first taste of an exquisite and
untried pleasure. That narrative was indeed con-
structed with no art or labor. The events were
20 such events as occur every day. Sir Roger comes
up to town to see Eugenio, as the worthy baronet
always calls Prince Eugene, goes with the Specta-
tor on the water to Spring Gardens, walks among
the tombs in the Abbey, and is frightened by the
25 Mohawks, but conquers his apprehension so far as
to go to the theatre when the Distressed Mother is
acted. The Spectator pays a visit in the summer
to Coverley Hall, is charmed with the old house,
the old butler, and the old chaplain, eats a jack
30 caught by Will Wimble, rides to the assizes, and
206 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
hears a point of law discussed by Tom Touchy.
At last a letter from the honest butler brings to the
club the news that Sir Roger is dead. Will
Honeycomb marries and reforms at sixty. The
club breaks up; and the Spectator resigns his &
functions. Such events can hardly be said to form
a plot ; yet they are related with such truth, such
grace, such wit, such humor, such pathos, such
knowledge of the human heart, such knowledge of
the ways of the world, that they charm us on the 10
hundredth perusal. We have not the least doubt
that if Addison had written a novel, on an exten-
sive plan, it would have been superior to any that
we possess. As it is, he is entitled to be con-
sidered not only as the greatest of the English is
essayists, but as the forerunner of the great Eng-
lish novelists.
We say this of Addison alone; for Addison is
the Spectator. About three-sevenths of the work
are his; and it is no exaggeration to say, that his 20
worst essay is as good as the best essay of any of
his coadjutors. His best essays approach near to
absolute perfection; nor is their excellence more
wonderful than their variety. His invention never
seems to flag; nor is he ever under the necessity of 2b
repeating himself, or of wearing out a subject.
There are no dregs in his wine. He regales us
after the fashion of that prodigal nabob who held
that there was only one good glass in a bottle. As
soon as we have tasted the first sparkling foam of 30
LIFE AND WHITINGS OF ADDISON 207
a jest, it is withdrawn, and a fresh draught of
nectar is at our lips. On the Monday, we have an
allegory as lively and ingenious as Lncian'a Auc-
tion of Lives ; on the Tuesday, an Eastern apologue
s as richlv colored as the Tales of Scheherezade ; on
the Wednesday, a character described with the
skill of La Bruyere; on the Thursday, a scene
from common life, equal to the best chapters in
the Vicar of Wakefield; on the Friday, some sly
10 Horatian pleasantry on fashionable follies, — on
hoops, patches, or puppet-shows; and on the
Saturday, a religious meditation, which will bear a
comparison with the finest passages in Massillon.
It is dangerous to select where there is so much
1 5 that deserves the highest praise. We will venture,
however, to say, that any person who wishes to
form a just notion of the extent and variety of
Addison's powers, will do well to read at one sit-
ting the following papers : The two Visits to the
20 Abbey, the visit to the Exchange, the Journal of
the Retired Citizen, the Vision of Mirza, the
Transmigrations of Pug the Monkey, and the
Death of Sir Roger de Coverley.
The least valuable of Addison's contributions to
25 the Spectator are, in the judgment of our age, his
critical papers. Yet his critical papers are always
luminous, and often ingenious. The very worst
of them must be regarded as creditable to him,
when the character of the school in which he had
30 been trained is fairly considered. The best of
208 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
them were much too good for his readers. In
truth, he was not so far behind our generation as
he was before his own. No essays in the Spectator
were more censured and derided than those in
which he raised his voice against the contempt 5
with which our fine old ballads were regarded, and
showed the scoffers that the same gold which,
burnished and polished, gives lustre to the iEneid
and the Odes of Horace, is mingled with the rude
dross of Chevy Chase. 10
It is not strange that the success of the Spectator
should have been such as no similar work has ever
obtained. The number of copies daily distributed
was at first three thousand. It subsequently
increased, and had risen to near four thousand 15
when the stamp tax was imposed. That tax was
fatal to a crowd of journals. The Spectator, how-
ever, stood its ground, doubled its price, and,
though its circulation fell off, still yielded a large
revenue both to the state and to the authors. For 20
particular papers, the demand was immense; of
some, it is said, twenty thousand copies were
required. But this was not all. To have the
Spectator served up every morning with the bohea
and rolls was a luxury for the few. The majority 25
were content to wait till essays enough had
appeared to form a volume. Ten thousand copies .
of each volume were immediately taken off, and
new editions were 'called for. It must be remem-
bered, that the population of England was then so
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 209
hardly a third of what it now is. The number of
Englishmen who were in the habit of reading, was
probably not a sixth of what it now is. A shop-
keeper or a farmer who found any pleasure in
5 literature, was a rarity. Nay, there was doubtless
more than one knight of the shire whose country
seat did not contain ten books, receipt-books and
books on farriery included. In these circumstan-
ces, the sale of the Spectator must be considered as
10 indicating a popularity quite as great as that of the
most successful works of Sir Walter Scott and Mr.
Dickens in our own time.
At the close of 1712 the Spectator ceased to
appear. It was probably felt that the shortfaced
15 gentleman and his club had been long enough
before the town ; and that it was time to withdraw
them, and to replace them by a new set of charac-
ters. In a few weeks the first number of the
Guardian was published. But the Guardian was
20 unfortunate both in its birth and in its death. It
began in dulness and disappeared in a tempest of
faction. The original plan was bad. Addison
contributed nothing till sixty-six numbers had
appeared ; and it was then impossible to make the
25 Guardian what the Spectator had been. Nestor
Ironside and the Miss Lizards were people to whom
even he could impart no interest. He could only
furnish some excellent little essays, both serious
and comic; and this he did.
30 Why Addison gave no assistance to the Guard-
210 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
ian during the first two months of its existence,
is a question which has puzzled the editors and
biographers, but which seems to us to admit of a
very easy solution. He was then engaged in bring-
ing his Cato on the stage. 5
The first four acts of this drama had been lying
in his desk since his return from Italy. His
modest and sensitive nature shrank from the risk of
a public and shameful failure; and, though all
who saw the manuscript were loud in praise, some 10
thought it possible that an audience might become
impatient even of very good rhetoric, and advised
Addison to print the play without hazarding a
representation. At length, after many fits of
apprehension, the poet yielded to the urgency of is
his political friends, who hoped that the public
would discover some analogy between the followers
of Caesar and the Tories, between Sempronius and
the apostate Whigs, between Cato, straggling to
the last for the liberties of Rome, and the band of 20
patriots who still stood firm round Halifax and
Wharton.
Addison gave the play to the managers of Drury
Lane Theatre, without stipulating for any advan-
tage to himself. They, therefore, thought them- 25
selves bound to spare no cost in scenery and
dresses. The decorations, it is true, would not
have pleased the skilful eye of Mr. Macready.
Juba's waistcoat blazed with gold lace; Marcia'a
hoop was worthy of a duchess on the birthday : and so
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 211
( ato wore a wig worth fifty guineas. The pro-
logue was written by Pope, and is undoubtedly a
dignified and spirited composition. The part of
the hero was excellently played by Booth. Steele
5 undertook to pack a house. The boxes were in a
blaze with the stars of the Peers in Opposition.
The pit was crowded with attentive and friendly
listeners from the Inns of Court and the literary
coffee-houses. Sir Gilbert Heathcote, Governor of
10 the Bank of England, was at the head of a power-
ful body of auxiliaries from the city, warm men
and true Whigs, but better known at Jonathan's
and Garraway's than in the haunts of wits and
critics.
is These precautions were quite superfluous. The
Tories, as a body, regarded Addison with no un-
kind feelings. Nor was it for their interest, pro-
fessing, as they did, profound reverence for law
and prescription, and abhorrence both of popular
20 insurrections and of standing armies, to appropri-
ate to themselves reflections thrown on the great
military chief and demagogue, who, with the sup-
port of the legions and of the common people,
subverted all the ancient institutions of his coun-
25 try. Accordingly, every shout that was raised by
the members of the Kit Cat was echoed by the
High Churchmen of the October; and the curtain
at length fell amidst thunders of unanimous
applause.
30 The delight and admiration of the town were
212 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
described by the Guardian in terms which we
might attribute to partiality, were it not that the
Examiner, the organ of the ministry, held similar
language. The Tories, indeed, found much to
sneer at in the conduct of their opponents. 5
Steele had on this, as on other occasions, shown
more zeal than taste or judgment. The honest
citizens who marched under the orders of Sir
Gibby, as he was facetiously called, probably knew
better when to buy and when to sell stock than 10
when to clap and when to hiss at a play, and
incurred some ridicule by making the hypocritical
Sempronius their favorite, and by giving to his
insincere rants louder plaudits than they bestowed
on the temperate eloquence of Cato. Wharton, 15
too, who had the incredible effrontery to applaud
the lines about flying from prosperous vice and
from the power of impious men to a private station,
did not escape the sarcasms of those who justly
thought that he could fly from nothing more 20
vicious or impious than himself. The epilogue,
which was written by Garth, a zealous Whig, was
severely and not unreasonably censured as ignoble
and out of place. But Addison was described,
even by the bitterest Tory writers, as a gentleman 25
of wit and virtue, in whose friendship many per-
sons of both parties were happy, and whose name
ought not to be mixed up with factious squabbles.
Of the jests by which the triumph of the Whig
party was disturbed, the most severe and happy 30
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 213
was Bolingbroke's. Between two acts lie 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 a
5 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
10 thirty years ago, the London season was thought to
be far advanced. During a whole month, how-
ever, Cato was performed to overflowing houses,
and brought into the treasury of the theatre twice
the gains of an ordinary spring. In the summer
15 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
enacted during several days. The gownsmen
20 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
2.1 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 dia-
logue and declamation, and, among plays fashioned
30 on the French model, must be allowed to rank
214 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
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 5
plays of Racine. Be this as it may, we have little
doubt that Cato did as much as the Tatters, Spec-
tators, and Freeholders united, to raise Addison's
fame among his contemporaries. \
The modesty and good nature of the successful 10
dramatist had tamed even the malignity of faction.
But literary envy, it should seem, is a fiercer pas-
sion than party spirit. It was by a zealous AYhig
that the fiercest attack on the Whig tragedy was
made. John Dennis published Remarks on Cato, 15
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 defence, and nothing would
have been easier than to retaliate ; for Dennis had 20
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 25
unrivalled. Addison, however, serenely conscious
of his superiority, looked with pity on his assail-
ant, whose temper, naturally irritable and gloomy,
had been soured by want, by controversy, and by
literary failures. 30
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 215
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 -
5 five. But his powers had expanded to their full
maturity ; and his best j^oem, 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,
10 indeed, have been discerned by an eye less pene-
trating 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 cor-
15 dial 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
20 admonition, and promised to profit by it. The
two writers continued to exchange civilities, coun-
sel, and small good offices. Addison publicly
extolled Pope's miscellaneous pieces, and Pope
furnished Addison with a prologue. This did not
25 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
30 but be welcome to a nature which was implacable
21G MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
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 5
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. 10
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 is
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 20
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 25
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, 30
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 217
even in self-defence, 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
5 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 would answer them
like a gentleman; and he took care to communi-
10 cate 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
15 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
20 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
25 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
so be ruinous to himself. But he has sent me word
218 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
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 Eng-
lishman, which, as it was not supported by contri- 5
butions 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 10
Whigs stood by him gallantly, but were tillable 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 15
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 30
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 Eng-
lishman and the eighth volume of the Spectator, 25
between Steele without Addison and Addison with-
out Steele. The Englishman is forgotten: the
eighth volume of the Spectator contains, perhaps,
the finest essays, both serious and playful, in the
English language. 30
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 219
Before this volume was completed, the death of
Anne produced an entire change in the administra-
tion of public affairs. The blow fell suddenly.
It found the Tory party distracted by internal
5 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 death-bed before the white
staff had been given, and her last public act was to
10 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 coun-
15 cil, 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
20 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
25 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 despatches
220 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
are, without exception, remarkable for unpretend-
ing 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 5
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 10
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 15
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 intui-
tion. One paper must be signed by the chief of 20
the department ; another by his deputy ; to a third
the royal sign-manual is necessary. One commu-
nication 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 25
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 be- 80
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 221
came, for the first time, Secretary to the Lords
Justices.
George the First took possession of his kingdom
without opposition. A new ministry was formed,
5 and a new Parliament favorable to the WhigB
chosen. Sunderland was appointed Lord Lieuten-
ant of Ireland; and Addison again went to Dublin
as Chief Secretary.
At Dublin Swift resided; and there was much
10 speculation about the way in which the Dean and
the Secretary would behave towards each other.
The relations which existed between these remark-
able men form an interesting and pleasing portion
of literary history. They had early attached them-
li- selves 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
20 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. Addi-
25 son, 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
30 widely. The Whig statesmen loaded Addison
222 MACAULAYS ESSAYS
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 5
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 pre-
vented Halifax and Somers from serving him, 10
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 is
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 ecclesias-
tical dignity of no great value, on condition of
fixing his residence in a country which he de- 20
tested.
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 25
compact like that between the hereditary guests in
the Iliad : —
'Ey^ea 6' aAATjAwv aAetojuefla Kai 5t' o/xiKov
IIoAAoi p.ci> yap e/uol Tpcies *AeiTdi r tiriKovpoi.
Kreivttv, ov ks 0eo? ye nopy Kai iro<rai Kiyettt, 80
JIoAAol 8' av coi 'A\atoi, ivaipip.ev ov Ace Svvrjai-
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 223
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
5 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
10 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
15 could not venture to ride along the strand for his
health without the attendance of armed servants.
Many whom he had formerly served now libelled
and insulted him. At this time Addison arrived.
He had been advised not to show the smallest civil-
20 ity to the Dean of St. Patrick's. He had an-
swered, 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
25 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
30 resumed their habits of friendly intercourse.
224 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
Those associates of Addison whose political
opinions agreed with his shared his good fortune.
He took Tickell with him to Ireland. He pro-
cured for Budgell a lucrative place in the same
kingdom. Ambrose Philips was provided for in 5
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 10
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 is
name of the author was not announced; the piece
was coldly received; and some critics have ex-
pressed 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 man- 20
ner ; 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 25
Rebellion was still raging in Scotland, Addison
published the first number of a paper called the
Freeholder. Among his political works the Free-
holder is entitled to the first place. Even in the
Spectator there are few serious papers nobler than x
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 225
the character of his friend Lord Somers, and cer-
tainly no satirical papers superior to those in which
the Tory fox-hunter is introduced. This charac-
ter is the original of Squire AVestern, and is drawn
5 with all Fielding's force, and with a delicacy of
which Fielding was altogether destitute. As none
of Addison's works exhibits stronger marks of his
genius than the Freeholder, so none does more
honor to his moral character. It is difficult to
10 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 Tory-
ism. The High Street had been repeatedly lined
is with bayonets in order to keep down the disaffected
gownsmen; and traitors pursued by the messen-
gers of the government had been concealed in the
garrets of several colleges. Yet the admonition
which, even under such circumstances, Addison
20 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
25 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
so necessary to blow the trumpet. He accordingly
220 MACAULAYS ESSAYS
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 English-
man, as his Crisis, as his Letter to the Bailiff of b
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 Free-
holder appeared, the estrangement of Pope and io
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 is
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, Momen-
tilla, Crispissa, and Umbriel, and resolved to inter- bo
weave 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 25
it. Pope afterward 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 so
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 227
with great skill and success. But does it neces-
sarily 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
5 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 thou-
10 sand pound prize, we should not admit that we had
counselled 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 Addi-
son's advice good advice. It rested on a sound
is principle, the result of long and wide experience.
The general rule undoubtedly is that, when a suc-
cessful 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
20 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
25 which he had expanded and remodelled 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
30 nobody else has ever done?
228 MACAULAYS ESSAYS
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 5
tried to dissuade Robertson from writing the His-
tory of Charles the Fifth. Xay, 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 10
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 15
Iliad, he met Addison at a coffee-house. Philips
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. 20
"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 25
second book might have the advantage of Addi-
son's revision. Addison readily agreed, looked
over the second book, and sent it back with warm
commendations.
Tick ell's version of the first book appeared soon 80
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 229
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
5 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, pro-
10 nounced 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
is 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 w T ith an ass's head
instead of his own, Peter Quince exclaims, "Bless
20 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
25 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
30 soon firmly believed, that there was a deep con-
230 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
spiracy 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 5
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. 10
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 15
construe the Iliad ; and he was a better versifier
than his friend. We are not aware that Pope pre-
tended to have discovered any turns of expression
peculiar to Addison. Had such turns of ex-
pression been discovered, they would be sufficiently 20
accounted for by supposing Addison to have cor-
rected 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 25
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. 30
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 231
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
s fame, and capable of stooping to base and
wicked arts for the purpose of injuring his com-
petitors, would his vices have remained latent
so long? He was a writer of tragedy: had he
ever injured Eowe? He was a writer of com-
10 edy:,had he not done ample justice to Congreve,
and given valuable help to Steele? He was a
pamphleteer : have not his good nature and gener-
osity been acknowledged by Swift, his rival in
fame and his adversary in politics?
15 That Tickell should have been guilty of a villany
seems to us highly improbable. That Addison
should have been guilty of a villany seems to us
highly improbable. But that these two men
should have consjrired together to commit a villany
20 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
25 coffin of Addison: —
"Or dost thou warn poor mortals left behind,
A task well suited to tlry gentle mind ?
Oh, if sometimes thy spotless form descend,
To me thine aid, thou guardian genius, lend,
30 "When rage misguides me, or when fear alarms,
23 2 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
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." 5
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 10
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 15
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 20
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 25
with it ; and he lied with more than usual effront-
ery 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 m
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON ->33
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
5 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
10 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
15 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
20 cover for a vile intrigue by which he is to be dis-
graced 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.
Whether Pope's malignity at length provoked
25 Addison to retaliate for the first and last time,
cannot now be known with certainty. We have
only Pope's story, which runs thus. A pamphlet
appeared containing some reflections which stung
Pope to the quick. What those reflections were,
30 and whether they were reflections of which he had
234 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
a right to complain, we have now no means of
deciding. The Earl of Warwick, a foolish and
vicious lad, who regarded Addison with the feel-
ings with which such lads generally regard their
best friends, told Pope, truly or falsely, that this 5
pamphlet had been written by Addison's direction.
When we consider what a tendency stories have to
grow, in passing even from one honest man to
another honest man, and when we consider that to
the name of honest man neither Pope nor the Earl 10
of Warwick had a claim, we are not disposed to
attach much importance to this anecdote.
It is certain, however, that Pope was furious.
He had already sketched the character of Atticus
in prose. In his anger he turned this prose into 15
the brilliant and energetic lines which everybody
knows by heart, or ought to know by heart, and
sent them to Addison. One charge which Pope
has enforced with great skill is probably not with-
out foundation. Addison was, we are inclined to 20
believe, too fond of presiding over a circle of
humble friends. Of the other imputations which
these famous lines are intended to convey, scarcely
one has ever been proved to be just, and some are
certainly false. That Addison was not in the 25
habit of "damning with faint praise" appears
from innumerable passages in his writings, and
from none more than from those in which he
mentions Pope. And it is not merely unjust, but
ridiculous, to describe a man who made the fortune s~
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 235
of almost every one of his intimate friends, as "so
obliging that he ne'er obliged."
That Addison felt the sting of Pope's satire
keenly,, we cannot doubt. That he was conscious
5 of one of the weaknesses with which he was re-
proached is highly probable. But his heart, we
firmly believe, acquitted him of the gravest part of
the accusation. He acted like himself. As a
satirist he was, at his own weapons, more than
10 Pope's match, and he would have been at no loss
for topics. A distorted and diseased body,
tenanted by a yet more distorted and diseased
mind; spite and envy thinly disguised by senti-
ments as benevolent and noble as those which Sir
is Peter Teazle admired in Mr. Joseph Surface; a
feeble, sickly licentiousness; an odious love of
filthy and noisome images ; these were things
which a genius less powerful than that to which
we owe the Spectator could easily have held up to
20 the mirth and hatred of mankind. Addison had,
moreover, at his command, other means of venge-
ance which a bad man would not have scrupled
to use. He was powerful in the state. Pope was
a Catholic; and, in those times, a minister would
25 have found it easy to harass the most innocent
Catholic by innumerable petty vexations. Pope,
near twenty years later, said that "through the
lenity of the government alone he could live with
comfort." "Consider," he exclaimed, "the injury
so that a man of high rank and credit may do to a
236 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
private person, under penal laws and many other
disadvantages." It is pleasing to reflect that the
only revenge which Addison took was to insert in
the Freeholder a warm encomium on the transla-
tion of the Iliad, and to exhort all lovers of learn- 5
ing to put down their names as subscribers.
There could be no doubt, he said, from the speci-
mens already published, that the masterly hand of
Pope would do as much for Homer as Dryden had
done for Virgil. From that time to the end of his 10
life, he always treated Pope, by Pope's own
acknowledgment, with justice. Friendship was,
of course, at an end.
One reason which induced the Earl of Warwick
to play the ignominious part of talebearer on this 15
occasion, may have been his dislike of the mar-
riage which was about to take place between his
mother and Addison. The Countess Dowager, a
daughter of the old and honorable family of the
Middletons of Chirk, a family which, in any 30
country but ours, would be called noble, resided at
Holland House. Addison had, during some years,
occupied at Chelsea a small dwelling, once the
abode of Nell Gwynn. Chelsea is now a district of
London, and Holland House may be called a town 25
residence. But, in the days of Anne and George
the First, milkmaids and sportsmen wandered
between green hedges, and over fields bright with
daisies, from Kensington almost to the shore of the
Thames. Addison and Lady Warwick were conn- 30
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 237
try neighbors, and became intimate friends. The
great wit and scholar tried to allure the young
lord from the fashionable amusements of beating
watchmen, breaking windows, and rolling women
5 in hogsheads down Holborn Hill, to the study of
letters and the practice of virtue. These well-
meant exertions did little good, however, either to
the disciple or to the master. Lord Warwick
grew up a rake; and Addison fell in love. The
10 mature beauty of the countess has been celebrated
by poets in language which, after a very large
allowance has been made for flattery, would lead us
to believe that she was a fine woman ; and her rank
doubtless heightened her attractions. The court-
15 ship was long. The hopes of the lover appear to
have risen and fallen with the fortunes of his
party. His attachment was at length matter of
such notoriety that, when he visited Ireland for the
last time, Kowe addressed some consolatory verses
20 to the Chloe of Holland House. It strikes us as a
little strange that, in these verses, Addison should
be called Lycidas, a name of singularly evil omen
for a swain just about to cross St. George's
Channel.
25 At length Chloe capitulated. Addison was
indeed able to treat with her on equal terms. He
had reason to expect preferment even higher than
that which he had attained. He had inherited
the fortune of a brother who died Governor of
30 Madras. He had purchased an estate in Warwick-
238 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
shire, and had been welcomed to his domain in
very tolerable verse by one of the neighboring
squires, the poetical fox-hunter, William Somer-
ville. In August, 1716, the newspapers announced
that Joseph Addison, Esquire, famous for many 5
excellent works, both in verse and prose, had
espoused the Countess Dowager of Warwick.
He now fixed his abode at Holland House, a
house which can boast of a greater number of
inmates distinguished in political and literary his- 10
tory than any other private dwelling in England.
His portrait still hangs there. The features are
pleasing; the complexion is remarkably fair; but
in the expression we trace rather the gentleness of
his disposition than the force and keenness of his 15
intellect.
Xot long after his marriage he reached the
height of civil greatness. The Whig Government
had, during some time, been torn by internal dis-
sensions. Lord Townshend led one section of the 20
Cabinet, Lord Sunderland the other. At length,
in the spring of 1717, Sunderland triumphed.
Townshend retired from office, and was accom-
panied by Walpole and Cowper. Sunderland pro-
ceeded to reconstruct the Ministry; and Addison 25
was appointed Secretary of State. It is certain that
the Seals were pressed upon him, and were at first
declined by him. Men equally versed in official
business might easily have been found; and his
colleagues knew that they could not expect assist- ao
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 239
ance from him in debate. He owed his elevation
to his popularity, to his stainless probity, and to
his literary fame.
But scarcely had Addison entered the Cabinet
s when his health began to fail. From one serious
attack he recovered in the autumn; and* his
recovery was celebrated in Latin verses, worthy of
his own pen, by Vincent Bourne, who was then at
Trinity College, Cambridge. A relapse soon took
10 place; and, in the following spring, Addison was
prevented by a severe asthma from discharging the
duties of his post. He resigned it, and was suc-
ceeded by his friend Craggs, a young man whose
natural parts, though little improved by cultiva-
15 tion, were quick and showy, whose graceful person
and winning manners had made him generally
acceptable in society, and who, if he had lived,
would probably have been the most formidable of
all the rivals of AValpole.
20 As yet there was no Joseph Hume. The minis-
ters, therefore, were able to bestow on Addison a
retiring pension of fifteen hundred pounds a year.
In what form this pension was given we are not
told by the biographers, and have not time to
25 inquire. But it is certain that Addison did not
vacate his seat in the House of Commons.
Rest of mind and body seemed to have reestab-
lished his health; and he thanked God, with
cheerful piety, for having set him free both from
30 his office and from his asthma. Many years
240 MACAULAYS ESSAYS
seemed to be before him, and he meditated many
works, a tragedy on the death of Socrates, a trans-
lation of the Psalms, a treatise on the evidences of
Christianity. Of this last performance, a part,
which we conld well spare, has come down to ns. 5
But the fatal complaint soon returned, and
gradually prevailed against all the resources of
medicine. It is melancholy to think that the last
months of such a life should have been overclouded
both by domestic and by political vexations. A 10
tradition which began early, which has been gener-
ally received, and to which we have nothing to
oppose, has represented his wife as an arrogant
and imperious woman. It is said that, till his
health failed him, he was glad to escape from the is
Countess Dowager and her magnificent dining-
room, blazing with the gilded devices of the house
of Rich, to some tavern where he could enjoy a
laugh, a talk about Virgil and Boileau, and a
bottle of claret with the friends of his happier 20
days. All those friends, however, were not left to
him. Sir Richard Steele had been gradually
estranged by various causes. He considered him-
self as one who, in evil times, had braved martyr-
dom for his political principles, and demanded, 25
when the Whig party was triumphant, a large
compensation for what he had suffered when it was
militant. The Whig leaders took a very different
view of his claims. They thought that he had, by
his own petulance and folly, brought them as well ao
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 241
as himself into trouble, and though they did not
absolutely neglect him, doled out fa\rors to him
with a sparing hand. It was natural that he
should be angry with them, and especially angry
5 with Addison. But what above all seems to have
disturbed Sir Richard, was the elevation of Tickell,
who. at thirty, was made by Addison Undersecre-
tary of State ; while the editor of the Tatler and
Spectator, the author of the Crisis, the member
10 for Stockbridge who had been persecuted for firm
adherence to the house of Hanover, was, at near
fifty, forced, after many solicitations and com-
plaints, to content himself with a share in the pat-
ent of Drury Lane Theatre. Steele himself says, in
is his celebrated letter to Congreve, that Addison, by
his preference of Tickell, "incurred the warmest
rasentment of other gentlemen;" and everything
seems to indicate that, of those resentful gentle-
men, Steele was himself one.
ao While poor Sir Richard was brooding over what
he considered as Addison's unkindness, a new
cause of quarrel arose. The Whig party, already
divided against itself, was rent by a new schism.
The celebrated bill for limiting the number of peers
25 had been brought in. The proud Duke of Somer-
set, first in rank of all the nobles whose origin
permitted them to sit in Parliament, was the
ostensible author of the measure. But it was sup-
ported, and, in truth, devised by the Prime
Minister.
242 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
We are satisfied that the bill was most perni-
cious ; and we fear that the motives which induced
Sunderland to frame it were not honorable to
him. But we cannot deny that it was supported by
many of the best and wisest men of that age. 5
Nor was this strange. The royal prerogative
had, within the memory of the generation then
in the vigor of life, been so grossly abused,
that it was still regarded with a jealousy which,
when the peculiar situation of the House of 10
Brunswick is considered, may perhaps be called
immoderate. The particular prerogative of creat-
ing peers had, in the opinion of the Whigs, been
grossly abused by Queen Anne's last Ministry ; and
even the Tories admitted that her majesty in 15
swamping, as it has since been called, the Upper
House, had done what only an extreme case could
justify. The theory of the English constitution,
according to many high authorities, was that three
independent powers, the sovereign, the nobility, 20
and the commons, ought constantly to act as checks
on each other. If this theory were sound, it
seemed to follow that to put one of these powers
under the absolute control of the other two was
absurd. But if the number of peers were un- 25
limited, it could not well be denied that the Upper
House was under the absolute control of the Crown
and the Commons, and was indebted only to their
moderation for any power which it might be
suffered to retain. 90
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 243
Steele took part with the Opposition, AddisoD
with the ministers. Steele, in a paper called the
Plebeian, vehemently attacked the bill. Sunder-
land called for help on Addison, and Addison
5 obeyed the call. In a paper called the Old WJiig,
he answered, and indeed refuted Steele's argu-
ments. It seems to us that the premises of both
the controversialists were unsound, that, on those
premises, Addison reasoned well and Steele ill, and
10 that consequently Addison brought out a false
conclusion, while Steele blundered upon the truth.
In style, in wit, and in politeness, Addison main-
tained his superiority, though the Old Whig is by
no means one of his happiest performances.
15 At first, both the anonymous opponents observed
the laws of propriety. But at length Steele so far
forgot himself as to throw an odious imputation on
the morals of the chiefs of the administration.
Addison replied with severity, but, in our opinion,
so with less severity than was due to so grave an
offence against morality and decorum ; nor did he,
in his just anger, forget for a moment the laws of
good taste and good breeding. One calumny which
has been often repeated, and never yet contradicted,
25 it is our duty to expose. It is asserted in the
Biographic. Britannica, that Addison designated
Steele as "little Dicky." This assertion was
repeated by Johnson, who had never seen the Old
Whig, and was therefore excusable. It has also
30 been repeated by Miss Aikin, who has seen the Old
244 MACAULAYS ESSAYS
Whig, and for whom therefore there is less excuse.
Now, it is true that the words "little Dicky" occur
in the Old Whig, and that Steele's name was
Richard. It is equally true that the words "little
Isaac" occur in the Duenna, and that Newton's 5
name was Isaac. But we confidently affirm that
Addison's little Dicky had no more to do with
Steele, than Sheridan's little Isaac with Newton
If we apply the words "little Dicky" to Steele, we
deprive a very lively and ingenious passage, not 10
only of all its wit, but of all its meaning. Little
Dicky was the nickname of Henry N orris, an
actor of remarkably small stature, but of great
humor, who played the usurer Gomez, then a most
popular part, in Dry den's Spanish Friar. 15
The merited reproof which Steele had received,
though softened by some kind and courteous
expressions, galled him bitterly. He replied with
little force and great acrimony ; but no rejoinder
appeared. Addison was fast hastening to his 20
grave; and had, we may well suppose, little dis-
position to prosecute a quarrel with an old friend.
His complaint had terminated in dropsy. He
bore up long and manfully. But at length he
abandoned all hope, dismissed his physicians, and 25
calmly prepared himself to die.
His works he intrusted to the care of Tickell,
and dedicated them a very few days before his
death to Craggs, in a letter written witli the sweet
iind graceful eloquence of a Saturday's Spectator, so
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 245
In this, his last composition, he alluded to his
approaching end in words so manly, so cheerful,
and so tender, that it is difficult to read them
without tears. At the same time he earnestly
5 recommended the interests of Tickell to the care
of Craggs.
Within a few hours of the time at which this
dedication was written, Addison sent to beg Gay,
who was then living by his wits about town, to
10 come to Holland House. Gay went, and was
received with great kindness. To his amazement
his forgiveness was implored by the dying man.
Poor Gay, the most good-natured and simple of
mankind, could not imagine what he had to for-
15 give. There was, however, some wrong, the
remembrance of which weighed on Addison's
mind, and which he declared himself anxious to
repair. He was in a state of extreme exhaustion ;
and the parting was doubtless a friendly one on
20 both sides. Gay supposed that some plan to
serve him had been in agitation at Court, and had
been frustrated by Addison's influence. Nor is
this improbable. Gay had paid assiduous court
to the royal family. But in the Queen's days he
25 had been the eulogist of Bolingbroke, and was still
connected with many Tories. It is not strange
that Addison, while heated by conflict, should
have thought himself justified in obstructing the
preferment of one whom he might regard as a
30 political enemy. Neither is it strange that, when
246 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
reviewing his whole life, and earnestly scrutinizing
all his motives, he should think that he had acted
an unkind and ungenerous part, in using his
power against a distressed man of letters, who was
as harmless and as helpless as a child. 5
One inference may be drawn from this anecdote.
It appears that Addison, on his death-bed, called
himself to a strict account, and was not at ease till
he had asked pardon for an injury which it was
not even suspected that he had committed, for an 10
injury which would have caused disquiet only to a
very tender conscience. Is it not then reasonable
to infer that, if he had really been guilty of form-
ing a base conspiracy against the fame and fortunes
of a rival, he would have expressed some remorse 15
for so serious a crime? But it is unnecessary to
multiply arguments and evidence for the defence,
when there is neither argument nor evidence for
the accusation.
The last moments of Addison were perfectly 20
serene. His interview with his son-in-law is uni-
versally known. "See," he said, "how a Chris-
tian can die." The piety of Addison was, in
truth, of a singularly cheerful character. The
feeling which predominates in all his devotional 25
writings is gratitude. God was to him the allwise
and allpowerful friend who had watched over his
cradle with more than maternal tenderness; who
had listened to his cries before they could form
themselves in prayer ; who had preserved his youth 30
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 247
from the snares of vice ; who had made his cup
run over with worldly blessings ; who had doubled
the value of those blessings by bestowing a thank-
ful heart to enjoy them, and dear friends to
5 partake them; who had rebuked the waves of
the Ligurian gulf, had purified the autumnal air
of the Campagna, and had restrained the ava-
lanches of Mont Cenis. Of the Psalms, his
favorite was that which represents the Ruler of all
10 things under the endearing image of a shepherd,
whose crook guides the flock safe, through gloomy
and desolate glens, to meadows well watered and
rich with herbage. On that goodness to which he
ascribed all the happiness of his life, he relied in
is the hour of death with the love that casteth out
fear. He died on the seventeenth of June, 1719.
He had just entered on his forty-eighth year.
His body lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber,
and was borne thence to the Abbey at dead of
20 night. The choir sang a funeral hymn. Bishop
Atterbury, one of those Tories who had loved and
honored the most accomplished of the Whigs, met
the corpse, and led the procession by torchlight,
round the shrine of Saint Edward and the graves
25 of the Plantagenets, to the Chapel of Henry the
Seventh. On the north side of that chapel, in the
vault of the house of Albemarle, the coffin of
Addison lies next to the coffin of Montague. Yet
a few months, and the same mourners passed again
30 along the same aisle. The same sad anthem was
248 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS
again chanted. The same vanlt was again opened ;
and the coffin of Craggs was placed close to the
coffin of Addison.
Many tributes were paid to the memory of Addi-
son ; but one alone is now remembered. Tickell 5
bewailed his friend in an elegy which would do
honor to the greatest name in our literature, and
which unites the energy and magnificence of Dry-
den to the tenderness and purity of Cowper. This
fine poem was prefixed to a superb edition of Addi- 10
son's works, which was published in 1721, by
subscription. The names of the subscribers
proved how widely his fame had been spread.
That his countrymen should be eager to possess his
writings, even in a costly form, is not wonderful, is
But it is wonderful that, though English literature
was then little studied on the continent, Spanish
grandees, Italian prelates, marshals of France,
should be found in the list. Among the most
remarkable names are those of the Queen of ao
Sweden, of Prince Eugene, of the Grand Duke of
Tuscany, of the Dukes of Parma, Modena, and
Guastalla, of the Doge of Genoa, of the Regent
Orleans, and of Cardinal Dubois. We ought to
add that this edition, though eminently beautiful, 25
is in some important points defective ; nor, indeed,
do we yet possess a complete collection of Addi-
son's writings.
It is strange that neither his opulent and noble
widow, nor any of his powerful and attached 30
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON '249
friends, should have thought of placing even a
simple tablet, inscribed with his name, on the walls
of the Abbey. It was not till three generations
had laughed and wept over his pages, that the
5 omission was supplied by the public veneration.
At length, in our own time, his image, skilfully
graven, appeared in Poet's Corner. It represents
him, as we can conceive him, clad in his dressing-
gown, and freed from his wig, stepping from his
10 parlor at Chelsea into his trim little garden, with
the account of the Everlasting Club, or the Loves
of Hilpa and Shalum, just finished for the next
day's Spectator, in his hand. Such a mark of
national respect was due to the unsullied states -
15 man, to the accomplished scholar, to the master
of pure English eloquence, to the consummate
painter of life and manners. It was due, above all,
to the great satirist, who alone knew how to use
ridicule without abusing it, who, without inflicting
20 a wound, effected a great social reform, and who
reconciled wit and virtue, after a long and disas-
trous separation, during which wit had been led
astray by profligacy, and virtue by fanaticism.
NOTES
Although these notes are critical, they include few questions in regard
to Macaulay's structure and style. It is deemed that the Introduction
affords a sufficient starting-point for studies in that direction. Expla-
nations of names, etc., must be sought in the Glossary.
MILTON
This is the first of a long series of essays which Macau-
lay contributed to the Edinburgh Review. It appeared in
August, 1S25, immediately establishing his fame. In the
preface to his collected essays he said of it that it "con-
tained scarcely a paragraph such as his matured judgment
approved,'' and that even after revision it remained " over-
loaded with gaudy and ungraceful ornament." The revi-
sion did not involve any remodeling, but only the removal
of some blemishes caused by haste. A few of these changes
will be noted below. In spite of Macaulay's depreciation,
sincere and warranted, the essay remains a wonderful
achievement for a man of twenty-four years. The critical
tone is youthful, but in grasp of history and in authorita-
tive judgment on historical matters there is no sign of
juvenility.
There are biographies of Milton in the English Men of
Letters series (by Mark Pattison), in Great Writers (by
Richard Garnett), in Classical Writers (by Stopford A.
Brooke), and there is the great six-volume Life by Masson.
Of Milton's works, Masson's editions, large and small, are
the best. The Globe edition is the most convenient.
Page 45: Title. Joannis, etc. All the articles in the Edin-
burgh Review were, and still are, unsigned reviews of books,
printed speeches, etc, and have prefixed to them the name
of the book reviewed. The magazine, though now nearly
one hundred years old, has not changed its form in any
respect ; the very title-page remains word for word as in
251
252 NOTES
the first number, except that it now bears the imprint of
London instead of Edinburgh. The so-called reviews, how-
ever, are often much more than reviews. Macaulay in partic-
ular would not confine himself within such narrow limits,
but made the publication of a book a pretext for writing
a finished essay on the theme suggested by it. Note in this
essay the point at which he leaves the book he is review-
ing 1 and launches into his general theme. When the entire
essay has been read and outlined, it will be interesting to
discuss the question how far Mr. J. Cotter Morison is jus-
tified in classifying it with the historical rather than with
the critical essays. See Introduction, 6.
45 : 9. Mr. Skinner, Merchant. Macaulay errs in follow-
ing the conjectures of Mr. Lemon and others. Cyriack
Skinner, to whom Milton indited two sonnets, was proba-
bly not a merchant. The Latin Treatise was copied out by
one Daniel Skinner, an amanuensis of Milton's, was sent to
Elzevir, the Amsterdam printer, but, not being published
for political reasons, was probably returned to Daniel Skin-
ner's father, who was a merchant. See Masson's Life of
Milton, vol. vi., p. 791, or Ency. Brit. xvi. 328.
46: 20. The book itself. Could we not almost determine
the date of Macaulay's essay from the internal evidence of
this paragraph?
46: 28. Polish and brighten . . gloss and brilliancy. One
example of "overloading with gaudy ornament." Find
others.
47: 3. Quintilian stare. See Milton's Sonnet XI. There
are other quotations from Milton's sonnets in this essay.
47: 8. We may apply. The sentence was originally
written : "What Denham with great felicity says of Cowley,
may be applied to him." Why did Macaulay, in revising,
invert it?
47: 9. The garb.
Horace's wit and Virgil's state
He did not steal, but emulate,
And when he would like them appear,
Their garb, but not their clothes, did wear.
— From Denham's Elegy on Cowley.
NOTES 253
47: 19. Some of the. Was it well to make a new para-
graph here I
47: 29. Observation. Some editors have changed this to
observance, but Macaulay wrote observation, and it must stand.
It is certainly a matter for surprise that he was either
ignorant of, or cai'eless about, the distinction between
these forms that has held pretty well ever since Shaks-
pere's time. See Century Did., "observance," syn. The
very translation which he was reviewing has always, in
this connection, either celebration or observance.
40: 1U. His detractors. It is not Macaulay's way to
speak thus in genex*al terms without having something
very specific in mind. And the specific instances are
usually given. A little search will show that one is- given
here. With this clue it may be woi'th while to try to find
just where it has been intimated that Milton only "in-
herited what his predecessors created."
40: 28. Paradoxical . . appear. Show that the phrase
is pleonastic.
50 : 2. An age too late. Paradise Lost, ix. 44. The same
doubt had been expressed in a tract, " Reason of Church
Government," written more than twenty years before Par-
adise Lost.
50: 12. As civilization advances. In mature life, Macau-
lay was inclined to discountenance such philosophical
speculation as totally worthless. Is the theory here ad-
vanced in regard to poetry tenable? Is there not a fallacy
in the premise that " the earliest poets are generally the
best "? Assuming that there were lesser poets before the
best, what is likely to have become of their work? Read
Johnson's Hansel as, chapter x., and see how much of this is
original with Macaulay, how much is opposed to Johnson,
and how much is in agreement with him.
52: 24. Niobe . . Aurora. Here again Macaulay has
in mind specific passages in English poetry. Can you find
them?
54: 6. Children. "He had a favorite theory, on which
he often insisted, that children were the only true poets,
and this because of the vividness of their impressions, . .
as if the force of the impression were everything, and its
254 NOTES
character nothing - . By this rule, wax-work should be finer
art than the best sculpture in stone." — J. Cotter Morison.
56: 13. Great talent*. A sly thrust at Wordsworth.
Consider the respective ages of the two men and draw
your conclusion as to one trait of Macaulay's character.
56: 19. Nopoet. Introduction, 13.
58: 1. About him. Macaulay boasted that if all the
copies of Paradise Lost were destroyed, he could reproduce
most of the poem from memory. A comparison of the
lines here quoted with the original (iv. 551) will show what
accuracy might have been expected in the reproduction.
The lines, as Macaulay first printed them, were even more
inaccurate.
58: 27. Put their sickles. Eeaders familiar with the
Bible will note in these essays a surprisingly large number
of Biblical echoes.
59: 30. Burial-places of the memory. One of the most
striking and beautiful figures in these essays. A late
writer on style, Mr. Walter Raleigh, has made it more
vivid perhaps, but not more beautiful, when he writes:
"The mind of man is peopled like some silent city, with
a sleeping company of reminiscences, associations, impres-
sions, attitudes, emotions, to be awakened into fierce
activity at the touch of words."
60: 9. The miserable failure. Does this last sentence add
to the beauty of the paragraph? To the force of the argu-
ment? Which is the more probable — that the instance
grew out of the argument, or the argument out of the in.
stance? Dryden, by the way, is said to have had Milton's
"somewhat contemptuous consent" to try to "tag his
verses."
62: 2. Mr. Newbery. A good example of Macaulay's
love of specific details. Most writers would have omitted
the name of the inventor. It is also one of the "journal-
istic" ear-marks. Mr. Newbery may have been well
known to the British public in 1825, — it might not be easy,
even if it were worth while, to find out anj r thing about him
now. The curious reader will find several Newberys in
the Diet, of Nat. Biog., and one of them wrote story-books
for children, but he died in 1767, and the curious reader is
NOTES 255
not certainly wiser. In like manner, in Macaulay's essay
on Robert Montgomery, there are allusions to " Romanis's
fleecy hosiery, Pack wood's razor straps, and Rowlands
Kalydor."
64 : 3. Sad Electro's poet. Later in life, Macaulay
changed his mind about Euripides, liking- him then better
than Sophocles.
65: 18. Hags of a chimney-sweeper. This figure had been
used by Macaulay in his essay on Petrarch, published the
year before, in Knight's Quarterly Magazine. Comparing Pe-
trarch's worst poems with his best, he says: " They differ
from them as a Ma} r -day procession of chimney-sweepers
differs from the Field of Cloth of Gold. They have the
gaudiness but not the wealth." It is interesting to note
that there is an allusion to the Field of Cloth of Gold also in
the present essay.
66: 10. Dorique delicacy. The Doric dialect was consid-
ered less pure and elegant than the Attic, and " Doric dia-
lect " is to-day almost equivalent to "slang." However,
Mr. Stedman, thinking of Theocritus, calls the Tenny-
sonian idyllic effects Dorian ( Victorian Poets, p. 227) . And
the Doric order of architecture combined "great solidity
with extreme delicacy and artistic taste."
69: 11. Ball of St. Peter's. Inferno, xxxi. 51. Literally,
the pine-cone of St. Peter's. "This pine-cone, of bronze,
was set originally upon the summit of the Mausoleum of
Hadrian. . . . It was, in the sixth century, taken down
and carried off to adorn a fountain ... in front of the
old basilica of Saint Peter." — C. E. Norton: Travel and Study
in Italy. The cone is now in the gardens of the Vatican. It
is eleven feet high — which would make the giant
seventy.
69: 18. Mr. Cary's translation. We have many transla-
tions now, notably Longfellow's, but Mr. Cary's (1805-14;
has held its own remarkably well.
77: 10. Fee-faw-fum. For example, Tasso's Jerusalem,
Delivered, iv. 4-8 ; Klopstock's Messias, ii.
79: 10. Modern beggars for fame. This time the thrust
is at Byron. Compare the allusion to the "sneer of
Harold," on p. 62.
250 NOTES
80: 16. A statesman and a lover. Milton was, we admit,
a statesman, and Dante was a lover, but we are reluctant
to admit much more.
80: 28. Style of a hellman. A somewhat vulgar com-
parison. Macaulay seems to have liked it — compare the
Introduction, 7.
81: 12. Neither blindness. For the style, see Romans viii.
38, 39. It is interesting to compare the form in which this
sentiment reappears in the History of England, written fif-
teen or more years later: "A mightier poet, tried at once
by pain, danger, poverty, obloquy, and blindness, medi-
tated, undisturbed by the obscene tumult which raged all
around him, a song so sublime and so holy that it would
not have misbecome the lips of those ethereal Virtues
whom he saw, with that inner eye which no calamity
could darken, flinging down on the jasper pavement their
crowns of quotation in amai*anth and gold." (Chap, iii.)
82: 9. Juice of summer fruits. Macaulay rarely fails to
give a curiously utilitarian twist to his finest descriptions
of nature. Note, too, several sentences below, how his
love of antithesis pursues him even into his appreciation
of scenery. In the next essay, as he follows Addison on
his travels, among the things of note are "verdure under
the winter solstice," "the smallest independent state in
Europe," bad roads, rich plains, a healthy peasantry,
simple manners and institutions. Clearly the modern
natiu-e worship had taken no strong hold upon him. Con-
sider his life-interests and environment. See Introduc-
tion, 16, 18; and compare Emerson's statement: "The
brilliant Macaulay, who expresses the tone of the English
governing classes of the day, explicitly teaches that good
means good to eat, good to wear, material commodity."
84: 13. Unwonted fear. The original reads "strange
and unwonted fear." Why was " strange " expunged?
84: 23. Lion. La Fontaine's Fables, iii. 10; iEsop, 63
(219).
87: 2. The present year. In 1825 the Catholic Associa-
tion agitated for emancipation, and Canning succeeded in
passing through the House a bill for the relief of the Cath-
olics. For Macaulav's attitude in the matter, if it cannot
NOTES 25?
be gathered from the pages that follow here, see Tre-
. i. 141. What double purpose does this digres-
sion upon the Revolution of 1688 serve? And what has it
all to do with Milton?
87: IT. Theirlabor. It should be an easy matter to guess
the source of this quotation. That done, it is scarcely
worth while to look it up further.
88: 4. To palliate. The subtle sarcasm of this must
not be overlooked. The entire paragraph may require
and close study before it yields its full meaning. The
most important thing, of conrse, is its general drift and its
bearing on the larger theme of the principles behind the
English Revolution. This should be fairly clear at one
reading. But this will be much reinforced by a knowledge
of the historical details used as illustrations. Macaulay
passes so rapidly, in his analogies and illustrations, from
one thing to another, from the Rebellion to the Revolu-
tion, and from Ireland at the time of the Revolution to the
Catholic countries after the restoration of the Bourbons in
the present century, that one must have some grasp of
general history to follow him. Take note that after the
downfall of Napoleon, the Bourbon kings were reestab-
lishing themselves. With the terrible lesson of the French
Revolution behind them, they changed their phrase of
"divine right" into something milder, as "legitimacy."'
Promising, and even granting, popular constitutions, they
repeatedlv broke their pledges. Ferdinand IV. of Naples
(Ferdinand I. of the Two Sicilies) did thus ; Ferdinand VII.
of Spain did thus; and out of the despotism of the latter
grew the revolt of the South American possessions. Now.
these peoples were suffering for revolting against Catholic
kings ; the Irish, two centuries ago, had suffered for adher-
ing to a Catholic king, and their descendants are suffering
still. Yet, in the eyes of a certain class of people, it is all
one. Macaulay is really arraigning all who would justify
abuses, whether the abuses take the form of imperial des-
potism or religious persecution. If the arraignment is a
little hot-headed, we remember that Macaulay was young,
and that he was writing for a Whig journal.
88: 21. Ferdinand, the Catholic. It is pretty clear that
258 NOTES
Maeaulay means, not Ferdinand V., who is commonly sur-
named " The Catholic,'' but Ferdinand VII. " Fi-ederic
the Protestant " seems to be dragged in chiefly to fill out
the antithesis, though Frederick William III. of Prussia
was also intolerant of liberal ideas and neglected to set up
the constitutional system of government which he had
promised.
9-4: 24. Hume . . address. This is precisely the
charge sometimes brought against Maeaulay.
95: 16. Unmerited fate of Strafford. A discussion of
this and of other events in the time of Charles I. mav
be found in Macaulay's essay on Hallam's Constitutiotial
History.
95 : 25. Shouting for King Jesus. There is no intentional
irreverence here, but there is certainly a breach of good
taste. The offence lies not so much in what is said as in
the way in which it is said.
102: 28. ^Eneos magnidextra. ^Eneas, compelled to slay
the brave youth, Lausus (Vergil, uEn. x. 830), tries to con-
sole the dying youth, saying: " This at least, ill-starred as
you are, shall solace the sadness of your death : it is great
iEneas's hand that brings you low." The aptness of the
comparison is evident, and affords a good illustration of
Macaulay's analogic faculty (Introduction, 8).
106: 19. Then came those days. Whatever we may think
of this passage as history, which should be above all dis-
passionate, we cannot withhold our admiration for it as
literature. Rhetoric it may be, but it is rhetoric touched
and sublimed by an almost Hebraic fervor. On the other
hand, the fourth paragraph following has in it a decided
ring of insincerity, so that what is meant to be eloquence
is only cheap grandiloquence.
108: 7. Calves' heads . . oak-branches. The Calves'
Head Club was instituted in ridicule of Charles I. At its
dinners a dish of calves' heads represented the king and
his friends. Oak-branches were worn by Royalists on the
birthday of Charles II. in memory of the time when, .after
the battle of Worcester, he concealed himself in an oak
at Boseobel. See Clarendon's History of the Rebellion,
siii, 84.
NOTES . 259
109: 12. Ecco il
" See here the streani%f laughter, see the spring/
Quoth they, "of danger and of deadly pain,
Here fond desire must byvfair governing
Be rxiled, our lust bridled with wisdom's rein."
— Tasso: Jerusalem Delivered, xv. 57 (Fairfax's translation.)
116: 24. He was not a Puritan. Compare Masson's Life,
vi. 840.
120: 9. Called upon Cromwell. Sonnet xvi.
121: 19. Kitorin advermm. Apollo's speech, telling how
he must drive the chariot of the sun against the eastward
movement of the universe: "Against this I must contend;
nor does the force which overcomes all else overcome me,
but I am borne in an opposite direction to the wheeling
world." Ovid, Metam. ii. 72.
123: 26. Bosioellism. In the first essay on William Pitt ;
this becomes "Lues Boswelliana, or disease of admiration."
In the essay on Hastings, it appears as "Furor BiograpJdcus."
124: 6. Of these was Milton. If Milton suffered severely
at the hands of Dr. Johnson in the eighteenth century, he
has had no lack of valiant champions in the nineteenth.
Conspicuous among them, besides Macaulay, were Thomas
de Quincey and Walter Savage Landor.
THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON
Of the thirty-six essays contributed by Macaulay to the
Edinburgh Review, this was the thirty-fourth. It appeared in
July, 1843, and represents him at the maturity of his powers.
It cannot quite rank, however, with such essays as those on
Clive and Hastings, because the author is not so much at
home in criticism as in history. Let the reader, in compar-
ing it with the essay on Milton, note all the evidences he
can find of the growth of Macaulay's mind and art. It will
be profitable to read in connection with it the essays upou
Addison by Johnson (Liven of the Poets) and Thackeray
(English Humorists) Mr. Courthope's Life of Addison, in
the English Men of Letters series, should be read, if possi-
ble, if only to correct some of the mistakes or exaggerations
260 NOTES
of Macaulay's essay. Perhaps, too, in order to avoid car-
rying away from the prolonged study of one man a false
estimate of his importance, it will be well to keep in mind
the words written by a late critic, Mr. Gosse, in his History
"/ Eighteenth Century Literature: " With some modification,
what has been said of Addison may be repeated of Steele,
whose fame has been steadily growing while the exagger-
ated reputation of Addison has been declining." "The
time has probably gone by when either Addison or Steele
could be placed at the summit of the literary life of their
time. Swift and Pope, each in his own w r ay, distinctly sur-
passed them."
127 : 24. Ahject idolatry. This is still another reference
to what Macaulay elsewhere calls Boswellism, or disease of
admiration. How near he comes to falling himself a victim
to it in the present essay, the reader must not fail to judge.
133 : 29. His knowledge of Greek. Note just what is said,
and do not get the idea that Addison knew no Greek.
Macaulay has a way of making his sentences seem to say
more than is in their words.
136: 10. Evidences of Christianity. The essay is entitled
"Of the Christian Religion." Gibbon had long before
brought the same charge of superficialitj 7 against the essay.
136: 21. Moved the senate to admit. This is either one
of Macaulay's exaggerations, or else "moved the senate"
must be understood in a strictly parliamentary sense.
What Addison wrote ("Of the Christian Religion," i. 7) is
this: " Tertullian . . . tells . . . that the Emperor
Tiberius, having received an account out of Palestine in
Syria of the Divine Person who had appeared in that coun-
try, paid him a particular regard, and threatened to punish
•anyhow should accuse the Christians; nay. that the em-
peror would have adopted him among the deities whom they
worshipped, had not the senate refused to come into his
proposal."
137: 12. Confounded an aphorism. This is very boldly
borrowed, without acknowledgment, from the account of
Blackmore in Johnson's Lives. Macaulay is not always fair
to Johnson. As to the second charge against Blackmore. if
Macaulay found four false quantities on one page (he seems
NOTES 201
to refer to the pronunciation of Latin proper names in an Eng-
lish poem, and not to Latin verses) he would probably con-
sider that to be a sufficient basis for making the statement.
l'.iH: 28. Exmrgit. Again Macaulay seems to be quoting
from memory, for Addison wrote astturgtt, following Vergil,
Qeorgit g 3, 355. The translation of the lines is : " Now into
mid-ranks strides the lofty leader of the Pygmies, of awful
majesty and venerable port, overtopping all the rest with
his gigantic bulk, and towering to half an ell. "
142: 18. After his bees. The figure was suggested by the
subject-matter of a portion of the fourth Georgic — the hiv-
ing and care of bees. It is made more appropriate too by
the familiar legend, told of many poets and particularly of
Pindar, that bees swarmed upon their lips in infancy, por-
tending the sweetness of their future songs.
119: 12. The accomplished men. See BoswelVs Johnson.
119:23. Johnson will have it. In his life of Addison. It
is interesting to see how Macaulay delights in setting his
opinion against the great Doctor s. In his biographical
essay upon him, however, he is generous enough, though, as
Mr. Morison says, his "appreciation is inadequate."
loO: 16. No poem . . in dead language. Macaulay,
in his various essays, repeats freely his ideas and illustra-
tions. Turn to his essay on Frederic the Great, and in the
passage beginning at about the eleventh paragraph, will be
found this same discussion, together with the account of
Frederic the Great's accomplishments in French, and an
allusion to " Newdigate and Seatonian poetry." It is a
good example of the working of the psychologic law of asso-
ciation. And any one familiar with the essays can turn to
a dozen such examples.
151: 22. Ne croyez. "Do not think, however, that I
mean by this to condemn the Latin verses of one of your
illustrious scholars which you have sent me. I find them
excellent, worthy indeed of Vida or Sannazaro, though not
of Horace and Vergil."
152: 10. Quid numeris. "Why, O Muse, dost thou bid
me, a Frank, born far this side of the Alps, again to stam-
mer in Latin verse ? "
153: 7. .4ji event. This union of France and Spain left
262 NOTES
the other countries of Europe at a great disadvantage, and
led to the Grand Alliance against France and Spain, and
the long War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714).
154: 29. More wonder than pleasure. Not, perhaps, until
Ruskin's Stones of Venice (1851-53) was Gothic architecture
fully appreciated by the English.
155: 17. Soliloquy. For the famous soliloquy in Ad-
dison's Tragedy of Cato, see Act V., Sc. I.
158: 8. Tory fox-hunter. Addison's Freeholder, No. 22.
158: 15. Tomb of Misenua. Mneid VI., 233.— Circe. Mn.
VII., 10.
162: 7. He became tutor. Probably incorrect. See Glos-
sary, Somerset.
164: 13. The position of Mr. Canning. That is, the posi-
tion of a moderate Tory, favoring the measures and reforms
advocated by the Whigs.
167 : 12. Famous similitude. Containing the famous line,
"Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm."
169: 2. Life-guardsman. Members of the Life Guards
must be six feet tall. As to Shaw, of. note on Mr. Nbw-
bert, 62: 2.
173:19. Spectre Huntsman. Macaulay may be thinking
of Byron's verse, " The spectre huntsman of Onesti's line."
(Don Juan, iii., 106). " Ravenna's immemorial wood," says
Byron, "Boccaccio's lore and Dryden's lay made haunted
ground to me." Addison should have known the story from
Boccaccio's tale. Dryden's versification of it, Theodore and
Honoria, was only published in 1700, while Addison was
abroad, and it is not likely he had read it before visiting
Ravenna, though he might well havo read it before writing
up his travels. However, Macaulay fails to consider that
not all memories respond to suggestions so readily as his
own. Atone place in his journal, for instance, he tells how
he visited Louis the Fourteenth's bedroom, and — " I thought
of all St. Simon's anecdotes about that room and bed."
173: 25. Greatest lyric poet. This is extravagant praise.
177: 4. The Censorship of the Press. This practically
ceased in 1679, when the statute for the regulation of
printing, which was passed just after the Restoration,
expired.
NOTES 263
178:12. In Grub street. Does this mean that Walpole
and Pulteney lived in Grub street?
179: 27. Popularity . . timidity. One of Macaulay's
paradoxes.
181: 4. He had one hahit. "He [Macaulay] too fre-
quently resorts to vulgar gaudiness. For example, there is
in one place a certain description of an alleged practice of
Addison's. Swift had said of Esther Johnson that 'whether
from easiness in general, or from her indifference to persons,
or from her despair of mending them, or from the same
practice which she most liked in Mr. Addison, I cannot
determine; but when she saw any of the company very
warm in a wrong opinion, she was more inclined to confirm
them in it than to oppose them. It prevented noise, she
said, and saved time.' Let us behold what a picture Macau-
lay draws on the strength of this passage. 'If his first
attempts to set a presuming dunce right were ill-received,'
Macaulay says of Addison, ' he changed his tone, " assented
with civil leer,'* and lured the flattered coxcomb deeper and
deeper into absurdity.' To compare this transformation of
the simplicity of the original into the grotesque heat and
overcharged violence of the copy, is to see the homely
maiden of a country village transformed into the painted
flaunter of the city."— John Morlet. Macaulay's quota-
tion, " assented with civil leer," is from Pope's well-known
line:
" Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer."
181: 12. Criticisms . . dialogue. Ta tier, 163; Spectator,
568.
18-4: 12. Steele. "The character of Steele, with his
chivalry and his derelictions, his high ideal and his broken
resolves, has been a favorite one with recent biographers.
who prefer his rough address to the excessive and meticu-
lous civility of Addison. It is permissible to love them
both, and to see in each the complement of the other. It is
proved that writers like Macaulay and even Thackeray have
overcharged the picture of Steele's delinquencies, and have
exaggerated the amount of Addison's patronage of his
friend. But nothing can explain away Steele's careless
in money matters or his inconsistency in questions of moral
264 NOTES
detail. He was very quick, warm-hearted and impulsive,
while Addison had the advantage of a cold and phlegmatic
constitution. Against the many eulogists of the younger
man we may place Leigh Hunt's sentence : ' I prefer open-
hearted Steele with all his fault9 to Addison with all his
essays.' "— Gosse: History of Eighteenth Centura Literature
(1889). See also Aitken's Life of Steele, II., 345 and else where.
185:14. Provoked Addison. Landor"s "Imaginary Con-
versation between Steele and Addison " will be interesting
reading in this connection.
186: 10. The real history. See Introduction, 12.
191: 23. By mere accident. As a matter of fact, critics
are pretty well agreed that Steele led the way everywhere,
though in certain respects Addison often outshone him.
In the words of Mr. Aitken, Steele's biographer, "the
world owes Addison to Steele."
192: 3. Half German jargon. Carlyle had for some
years, like Coleridge before him, been acting as a medium
between German philosophy and literature and English.
Of course Macaulay is ridiculing Carlyle' s uncouth style.
Landor, another stickler for pure English, said upon the
appearance of Carlyle's Frederick that he was convinced he
(Landor) wrote two dead languages — Latin and English.
196: 18. Revenge . . wreaked. Who Bettesworth
and De Pompignan were is not important. Can it be deter-
mined from the text who "wreaked revenge" upon them?
200: 1. White staff. Official badge of the Lord High
Treasurer.
200: 15. We calmly review. Calmly, perhaps, but not
impartially. Macaulay's Whig prejudices are vei*y apparent.
201: 25. Lost his fortune. It is very probable, however,
that Addison was still what might be called " independently
rich."
207: 19. The following papers. Nos. 26, 329, 69, 317, 159,
343, 517.
208: 16. The stamp tax. A Tory measure of 1712 virtu-
ally aimed at tbe freedom of the press.
210: 4. Easy solution. Macaulay's essays are full of
these easy solutions. They are usually mere guesses, but it
must be admitted that they are usually sensible ones.
NOTES
211: 11. From the city. That is, from the mercantile
portion of the city— the original city of London.
213: 30. The French model. This refers to dramas of
the so-called Classical school, which adhered closely to
certain conventional rules— the three "unities," for in-
stance, of time, place and action. The Shaksperean drama
is constructed with far greater freedom.
215: 1. But among. Why is this long paragraph allowed
to stand as a unit, when it could easily be subdivided ? And
why are some short paragraphs (the ninth preceding, for
example) allowed to stand, when they could easily be com-
bined with the others I
215: 28. Malice. Toward whom ?
221 : 27. The Swift of 1708. 1708 was the date of one of
Swift's best poems, Baucis and Philemon, and of the attack
upon astrology in the pamphlet against Partridge, the alma-
nac-maker, which Macaulay has already mentioned. In 1738,
the year of his last published writing (long after the death
pf Addison, be it noted), he was an old man on the verge of
insanity.
222: 27. Iliad. VI., 226. Diomedes speaks to Glaucus :
" So let us shun each other's spears, even among the throng;
Trojans are there in multitudes and famous allies for me to
slay, whoe'er it be that God vouchsafeth me, and my feet
overtake; and for thee are there Achaians in multitude, to
slay whome'er thou canst." — Leaf : s translation.
232: 17. All stiletto and mask . For Macaulay's portrait
of Pope, as of Steele, many allowances must be made.
233: 26. Cannot . . certainty. See Courthope's
Addison, chapter vii.
234: 16. Energetic lines. The " Epistle to Dr. Arbuth-
not " (Prologue to the Satires), lines 193-214.
236: 22. Holland House. Macaulay has celebrated this
mansion of social fame in one of his most ambitious periods
— the concluding paragraph of the essay on Lord Holland, a
strange compound of artificiality of form and undeniable
sincerity of feeling.
237: 19. Consolatory verses. Not, of course, because he
was to visit Ireland for the last time, but because he had to
visit Ireland at all.
266 NOTES
244 : 11. Little Dicky was the nickname. In the article as
originally printed in the Edinburgh Review this sentence
stands : " Little Dicky was evidently the nickname of some
comic actor who played the usurer Gomez," etc. Macaulay,
having discovered later that his guess was entirely right,
inserted the name of the actor into the revised essay. But
it may be noticed that, in the face of this positive informa-
tion, his preceding argument and " confident affirmation,"
which he allowed to remain as written, now fall a little flat.
247: 10. Shepherd, whose crook. It is a little hard to
forgive Macaulay for yielding so often to the temptation to
paraphrase the most beautiful and most exalted passages in
literature. The echoes from Comus in his essay on Milton
will be remembered. And in his essay on Boswell's Life of
Johnson he has ventured thus to lay hands on one of the
sublimest utterances in Dante— Cacciaguida's prophecy of
Dante's banishment:
" Thou shall nave proof how savoreth of salt
The bread of others, and how hard a road
The going down and up another's stairs."
To have such pure poetry as this, which remains poetry
still in Longfellow's perfect translation, turned into mere
rhetoric, into "that bread which is the bitterest of all food,
those stairs which are the most toilsome of all paths," jars
cruelly upon the sensibilities of all to whom the original has
become familiar and sacred.
248 : 24. We ought to add. Here the journalist and re-
viewer most inopportunely intrudes upon the eulogist. As
to the eulogy itself, the catalogue of dignitaries in the pre-
ceding sentence has no such impressiveness for the demo-
cratic reader as it may have had for English readers of fifty
years ago. In fact it is a little ridiculous, and throws a
curious light either on Macaulay's estimate of his readers,
or, what is equally probable, upon the limitations of his own
nature. To see that nature at its best we must turn back
to the revelation of a worthier feeling in the touching
description of Addison's dedication of his works to his friend
Craggs.
GLOSSARY
For the principle followed In compiling this Glossary, and on the use of
reference books generally, see Preface.
Act. At Oxford, the occasion of the
conferring of degrees, at which
formerly miracle and mystery
plays were enacted. After 1669
the Act was performed in the
Sheldonian Theater, and London
companies frequently went down
to give performances. 213:15.
Act of Settlement. The agree-
ment by which the Hanoverians
and not the Stuarts (whom Louis
XIV. favored) were to succeed
Queen Anne. 165:6.
Ag'barus or Ab'garus. Ruler of
Edessa in Mesopotamia. Euse-
bius supposed him to have been
the author of a letter written to
Christ, found in the church at
Edessa. The letter is believed by
Gibbon and others to be spurious.
136:2-2.
Am'adis of Gaul. The hero of a
famous mediaeval romance. Also
thenameof the romance. 70:30.
Aminta. An Italian pastoral drama
by Tasso, 1573. 65:4.
Anathema >L>.rana'tha. Com-
monly interpreted as an intense
form of anathema, i.e., a thing ac-
cursed. Seel. Cor., xvi., 22. 107:3.
Arima'nestor Ahr'iman). SeeOito
MA8DE8. 84:1.
Ar'tegal, Sir. The impersonation of
Justice in the fifth book of Spen-
ser's Fairy Queen. 113:19.
Athalie'. A tragedy by the French
dramatist Racine. 214:1.
Balisarda. In Ariosto\s Orlando
Fuiioso, the enchanted sword of
Orlando (cp. Arthur's Excalibur),
which finally falls into the hands
of Rogero. In Rogero's fight with
Bradaniante, it is exchanged for
another sword (xlv., 68). 125:
18.
Bena'cus. The largest lake of
Northern Italy and noted for
storms. It is now called Garda.
Vergil (Georgics 2, 160) tells of
" Benacus, swelling with billows
and boisterous turmoil, like a
sea." 154:30.
Bentley, Richard. A noted English
classical scholar. His " Disserta-
tion on the Epistltsof Phalaris"
(1697, 1699), which Porson, another
noted scholar, called ''the immor-
tal dissertation," was written to
prove the spuriousness of those
epistles. 137:22.
Biographia Britannica. Published
1747-66. Long a standard work;
superseded of course now, espe-
cially by the Dictionary of National
Biography. 129:7.
Blenheim. In Bavaria. The scene
of the great defeat of the French
(1704) by the allies under Marl-
borough and Prince Eugene. 164:
29.
Book of Gold. The name given to
the list of Genoese nobles and citi-
zens of property which w;t.s made
at the time Andrea Doria deliv-
S567
268
GLOSSARY
ered Genoa from French domina-
tion (1528). 154:22.
Boyle, Charles. He attempted,
with the help of others, to defend
the genuineness of the " Epistles
of Phalaris" against the famous
scholar Bentley. Swift's Battle
of the Books is founded on the
incident. See Macaulay's sketch of
Attertaury in the Ency. Brit.
137:5.
Bradaman'te. In Ariosto's Orlando
Fvtrioso, a woman of great prow-
ess, finally overcome by Bogero,
whom she marries. 125 :16.
Brunei, Sir Marc Isambard. A civil
engineer who in 1806 completed
machinery for making ships'
blocks. 140:26.
Button's. A London coffee-house,
probably established by an old
servant of Addison's. 128:15.
Captain General. See Marlbor-
ough. 175:21.
Catharine of Braganza. The In-
fanta of Portugal. Married Charles
II. of England in 1662. 129:23.
Cat'inat, Nicholas. Commander of
the French army in Northern
Italy in the War of the Spanish
Succession. 159:30.
Charter House (a corruption of
Chartreuse). Originally a Carthu-
sian monastery in London; later
an endowed hospital and school
for boys. Pictured by Thackeray,
in The Newcomes, under the name
of Grey Friars. 130 :20.
Child's. A coffee-house, frequented
by churchmen. 204:17.
Cinna. A tragedy by the French
dramatist Corneille. 214:2.
Clarendon, Earl of (Edward Hyde).
The chief adviser of Charles I. dur-
ing the Civil War. The great his-
tory of the Rebellion which he left
was not published till 1704. 85:11,
Cock Lane Ghost. See Boswell's
Johnson, June25,1763. 136:18.
Collier, Jeremy. An English clergy-
man. He attacked the contem-
porary theater in his Immorality
and Profaneness of the English
Stage, 1693. 197 :3.
Conduct of the Allies. A famous
Tory pamphlet written by Swift;
1711. 177:13.
Congreve, 126:29; Wycherlcy,
197:5; Etherege, 197:4; Van-
brugh, 197:15. For the Restora-
tion drama and dramatists, see
Macaulay's essay on Leigh Hunt's
edition of the dramatists; also
his History, Chapters II. and III.
Corporation. In English politics,
a body of men governing a town
and selecting its member of Par-
liament. 202:4.
Defensio Popull. Properly Pio
Populo Anglicano Defensio. Mil-
ton's most famous Latin work,
1651. See Salmasius. 48:7.
demy', or demi. At Magdalen
College, Oxford, a student upon
a scholarship, who will succeed to
the next vacant fellowship. 132:19.
Dominic, Saint. The founder of the
Dominican order of monks. A
religious zealot, and friend of De
Montfort the elder in the crusade
against the Albigenses, 1208.
114:5.
Don Ju'an. In the Spanish and
Italian plays on this theme, Don
Juan jeeringly invites the statue
or the ghost of the man he had
killed to supper. It comes and
drags him to hell. 76:19.
Duenna, The. One of Sheridan's
comedies. 244:5.
Dunstan, Saint. Archbishop of
Canterbury in the tenth century.
Often described as a mystic. One
legend relates that he once seiztd
GLOSSARY
869
the devil by the nose with a pair
of red-hot tongs. 114. 5.
Elizabethan age In literature,
the term commonly includes the
reigns of both Elizabeth and James
I. 127:4.
Erasmus. A famous Dutch theolog-
ical scho'ar. His works, after the
fashion of the time (1500), were
written 1n Latin. 151:10.
Escobar y Mendo za, Antonio.
A Spanish Jesuit who taught that
purity of intention may justify
even criminal acts. 114:6.
Etherege. See Congreve. 197:4.
Eugene, Prince. The Austrian gen-
eral in the War of the Spanish
Succession. 205 :22.
Faithful Shepherdess. A pastoral
drama by John Fletcher, c. 1609.
65:2.
Fausti na. The profligate wife of
the Roman emperor, Marcus
Aurelius. 172:19.
Fleetwood, Charles. An English
Parliamentary general, son-in-
law of Cromwell. He died in ob-
scurity long after the Restoration.
112:21.
Fraeasto'rlus. The Latin form of
Fracastorio. An Italian physician
of the 16th century, who wrote
Latin poems on pathological sub-
jects. 151:10.
Frances ca da Rim ini. Made im-
mortal in the most famous Canto
(Inf.v.) of Dante's Divine Comedy.
173:21.
Freeholder. A political paper pub-
lished by Addison. December, 1715
to June, 1716. 158:8.
Galllo. See Acts xviii., 12-17. 114:18.
Gazetteer. The editor of the state
newspaper, the Gazette, estab-
lished by Charles II. 189:15.
Ger'ano-Pygmeeoma'chla, or Pyg-
maeo-Geranomachia. (BattU of the
Pygmiexund Orana. i A Latin poem
by Addison. 152:15.
Godolphin, Earl of. Lord High
Treasurer during the early part of
Anne's reign. As a financier,
he raised the funds to support
Marlborough in his prosecution
of the war on the continent.
163:8.
Grand Alliance. The alliance
formed in 1701 between the Holy
Roman Empire. England, and the
Netherlands against France and
Spain. 160:5.
Grecian, The. A London coffee-
house of the eighteenth century.
The Learned Club met there.
189:27.
Guardian. A periodical published
by Steele and Addison. 1713. 153 :3.
Gwynn, Nell. An English actress,
and mistress of Charles II.
236:24.
Halifax. See Montague. 160:20.
Hampton Court. A royal palace
on the Thames. 127:3
Harley, Edward. An English Tory
statesman and High Churchman.
Before 1690 he had been a Whig.
175:16.
Holland House. See Note on,
236:22.
Hough, John. Bishop of Worces-
ter. Elected president of Magda-
len College, 1687. 132:6.
Hume, Joseph. An English politi- \
cian and Member of Parliament
from 1812-55. He was noted for
his watchfulness against abuses
in public expenditure. 85:11.
Inns of Court. The name of four
legal societies of London, and of
the premises which they occupy —
the Inner Temple, the Middle
270
GLOSSARY
Temple, Lincoln's Inn, and Gray's
Inn. 211 ;8.
Ireland, William Henry. A writer
of plays which he pretended to
have discovered, and attributed to
Shakspere. Vortigern and Eow-
ena was played at Drury Lane,
1796, and its complete failure re-
sulted in exposure. 136:19.
Jack Pudding. A clown in English
folk-lore. 194:13.
Jonathan's and Garraway's. Lon-
don coffee-houses frequented by
merchants and stock-jobbers.
The promoters of the South Sea
Bubble met at Garraway's. 21 1 : 12
Kit-Cat Club. A club of Whig
politicians and wits. 147:5.
Lapu'tan flapper. See Gulliver's
Travels, iii. 2. 126:16.
Machi'nae Gesticulan'tes. (Puppet
Show.) A Latin poem by Addison.
152:14.
Malebol ge. (Evil Pits.) Dante.
Inferno, cantos 18-30. 69 :23.
Manchester, Earl of. Ambassador
to France just before the War of
the Spanish Succession. 146:29.
Marcet,Mrs. Jane. She published in
1818 Conversations, on Political Econ-
omy, a much-praised book in its
time. 51:11.
Marlborough, Duke of (John
Churchill). One of the most fa-
mous of England's great com-
manders. He was the leading
spirit of the Grand Alliance.
163:8.
Marli. Marly -le-Roy, a village ten
miles from Paris, noted for a
chateau of Louis XIV. 199:20.
Montague, or Montagu, Charles,
Earl of Halifax (1661-1715). See
Essay on Addison, pp. 139, 143.
51:12.
Montfort, Simon de. Two of the
name, father and son, were com-
manders in tbe 13th century. The
son, in a struggle with Henry III.,
defeated and captured him, and
virtually originated the House of
Commons. 114:5.
Mourad Bey. Commander of the
Mamelukes at their defeat by Na-
poleon in the Battle of the Pyra-
mids. 169:7.
New'dlgate prize. An annual prize
for English verse, founded at Ox-
ford by Sir Roger Newdigate.
139 V4
Newmarket Heath, in Cambridge-
shire. Annual horse-races have
been held there since the time of
James I. 165:14.
October Club. A club of extreme
Tories, named for its celebrated
October ale. 211:27.
Oromas'des (or Ormuzd, Ormazd,
Ahura Mazda). The Wise or
Good Spirit in the Zoroastrian
mythology, who will ultimately
triumph over Ahriman. the Evil
One. 83:30.
Pastor Fido. An Italian pastoral
drama by Guarini.c. 1583. 65:4.
peripetia. A Greek technical
term, signifying a sudden change
or reverse of fortune, on which the
plot of a tragedy turns; the de
nouement. 216:20.
Prior, Matthew. An English poet.
After the death of Anne and the
rise of the Whig ministry, he wa^
imprisoned under suspicion of
high treason (1715-17). 126:30.
Ravenna, Wood of. The Pineta or
pine forest on the shore near Ra-
venna. See Dante, Purg. xxvili,
20. 173:18.
GLOSSARY
271
Rich, Heniy. Earl of Holland.
from whom Holland House took
its name. 240:18.
Sachev ere'.l, Henry. An English
High Church clergyman and vio-
lent Tory. lie was impeached for
preaching against the Whig min-
istry. The trial grew into a party
struggle, which resulted in the
overthrow of the Whigs in 1710.
17 5:87.
St. James's Coffee-House. The
resort of politicians. 204:18.
Salmastus. Claudius. The Latinized
name of n French scholar whose
book in defense of the policy of
Charles I. called forth Milton's
Pro Papula Defensio. 102 :24.
Santa Cro'ce, Church of . In Flor-
ence. Michelangelo, Galileo, and
others are buried there. 173:18.
Satirist . . Age. Sensational jour-
nals of Macaulay's time. 232:8.
Saul. A tragedy by the Italian poet
Alfieri. 214:1.
Savoy, Duke of. See Victor Ama-
DKUa 160:1.
Seatonian prize. An annual prize
for sacred poetry, founded at Cam-
bridge by the will (1741) of Thos.
Seaton, hymn writer. 139:24.
Shrewsbury, Duke of (Charles Tal-
bot'. One of the noblemen who
invited the Prince of Orange to
England in 1688. On the death of
Anne in 1714 he became Lord High
Treasurer. 88:11.
Silius Ital'lcus. A Roman writer
Of a dull heroic poem in seventeen
books. 135:12.
Sinai ridge, George. Bishop of
Bristol in the time of Queen Anne.
Dr. Johnson praised his sermons
for their "style." 198:9.
Somen, John. A leading Whig
statesman in the time of William
III. and Anne. He helped to draw
up the Declaration of Bights
which was presented to William
and Mary. He secured for Addi-
son a pension. 88:10.
Somerset. Charles Seymour, si xtb
Duke of Somerset. Called " the
Proud " — ■ hardly distinguished
otherwise. He refused to employ
Addison as tutor to his son. possi-
bly because future patronage
would be expected of him. 145:11.
Spectator. A paper published daily
by Steele, Addison and others,
Mar., 1711. to Dec. 1712; continued
by Addison in 1714. 153:3.
Spence, Joseph (1699-1768>. An
English critic who left a volume
of criticism and anecdotes. 148 :2.
Squire Western. A character in
Fielding's Tom Jones. 225:4.
Sumner, Rev. Charles R. Libra-
rian to George IV., and after-
wards Bishop of Winchester. 45 :
Title.
Surface, Joseph. A hypocrite in
Sheridan's School for Scandal.
235:15.
Talus. An attendant on Sir Arte-
gal. See Spenser's Fairy Queen . v
1,12. 113: 19.
Tangier', or Tangiers. A seaport
of Morocco. 129 :22.
Tatler. A periodical published by
Steele, and Addison, 1709-11. 181:
12.
Teazle, Sir Peter. A character in
Sheridan's School for Scandal. 235 :
15.
Temple, Sir William. An English
statesman and author. Macaulay
has an essay upon him. 191 :27.
Theobald's. A country-seat in
Hertfordshire. The residence of
Lord Burleigh. Used as a palace
by James I. 127:1.
Thundering Legion. A legion of
Christian soldiers under M
272
GLOSSARY
Aurelius, whose prayers for rain,
according to legend, were answered
by a thunderstorm which de-
stroyed their enemies. Addison
sneaks of the event in his essay
"Of the Christian Religion," -Vii.
3. 136:20.
Toland, John. An English deist
who published a life of Milton in
1698. 45:13
i'own Talk. A paper established
by Steele, Dec. 17, 1715. But nine
numbers were issued. 226:3.
Vanbrugh', See Cosgreve. 197:
15.
Vane, Sir Henry. An English Re-
publican statesman, with a " dash
of the fanatic." One of the Fifth
Monarchy men. Beheaded 1662.
Milton's 17th sonnet is addressed
to him. 112:19.
Victor Amade'us II., Duke of Sa-
voy. He abandoned Louis and
joined the Alliance in 1703. 172 :11.
Walpole, Horace (1717-97). The au-
thor of The Castle of Otranto and
many memoirs and letters. 192 :1.
Walpole, Sir Robert (1676-1743).
Not to be confounded with his
son Horace, For an account of
him. see Macaulay's first essay en
the Earl of Chatham and his essay
on Horace Walpole. 5a: 12.
Wild of Sussex. Commonly called
" Weald.'" The Weald is a name
given to a district comprising
portions of the counties of Kent
and Sussex in southeastern Eng-
land. It is not certain whether
the word is to be traced to the
Anglo-Saxon iceahl, •' forest,"
modern " wold," or whether it is
an irregular form of wild. 129:18.
Will's. A well-known London cof-
fee-house in the time of Drydeu
and Addison, known also as " The
Wits' CofTee-House." The resort
of poets and wits. 189:27.
Wood, Anthony a. An industrious
antiquary whose books on the
antiquities and the great men of
the University of Oxford have for
more than two centuries been a
mine of information. 45:13.
Wych erley. See Congreve. 197 :
5.
Xeres' (whence our word sherry).
A town in southwestern Spain.
famous for its exportation of
wines. Macaulay seems 10 think
it is a river. 97 :i4.
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