artifices of style; he became self-contemplative, correct, capable of knowing and perfecting his own tongue. In the designed reminiscences, the happy allusions, the discreet tone of his own little poems, I find beforehand many traits of the Spectator. Leaving the university, he travelled long in the two most polished countries in the world, France and Italy. He lived at Paris, in the house of the ambassador, in the regular and brilliant society which gave fashion to Europe; he visited Boileau, Malebranche; saw with somewhat malicious curiosity the fine curtsies of the painted and affected ladies of Versailles, the grace and almost stale civilities of the fine speakers and fine dancers of the other sex. He was amused at our complimentary intercourse, and remarked that in France, when a tailor accosted a shoemaker, he congratulated himself on the honour of saluting him. In Italy he admired the works of art, and praised them in a letter,1 whose enthusiasm is rather cold, but very well expressed. You see that he had the fine training which is now given to young men of the higher ranks. And it was not the amusements of Cockneys or the worry of taverns which employed him. His beloved Latin poets followed him everywhere. He had read them over before setting out; he recited their verses in the places which he mentions. 'I must confess, it was not one of the least entertainments that I met with in travelling, to examine these several descriptions, as it were, upon the spot, and to compare the natural face of the country with the landscapes that the poets have given us of it.'3 These were the pleasures of an epicure in literature; there could be nothing more literary and less pedantic than the account which he wrote on his return. Presently this refined and delicate curiosity led him to coins. There is a great affinity,' he says, 'between them and poetry; for they serve as a commentary upon ancient authors; an effigy of the Graces makes a verse of Horace visible. And on this subject he wrote a very agreeable dialogue, choosing for personages wellbred men: 'All three very well versed in the politer parts of learning, and had travelled into the most refined nations of Europe. . . . Their design was to pass away the heat of the summer among the fresh breezes that rise from the river (the Thames), and the agreeable mixture of shades and fountains in which the whole country naturally abounds.' 5 1A Letter to Lord Halifax (1701), i. 29. .. 2 Renowned in verse, each shady thicket grows, Preface to Remarks on Italy, i. 358. Then, with a gentle and well-tempered gaiety, he laughs at pedants who waste life in discussing the Latin toga or sandal, but pointed out, like a man of taste and wit, the services which coins might render to history and the arts. Was there ever a better education for a literary man of the world? He had already for a long time acquired the art of fashionable poetry, I mean the correct verses, which are complimentary, or written to order. In all polished society we look for the adornment of thought; we desire for it rare, brilliant, beautiful dress, to distinguish it from vulgar thoughts, and for this reason we impose upon it rhyme, metre, noble expression; we make for it a store of select terms, true metaphors, suitable images, which are like an aristocratic wardrobe, in which it is hampered but must adorn itself. Men of wit are bound to make verses for it, and in a certain style; others to display their lace, and after a certain pattern. Addison put on this dress, and wore it correctly and easily, passing without difficulty from one habit to another similar, from Latin to English verse. His principal piece, The Campaign,1 is an excellent model of becoming and classical style. Each verse is full, perfect in itself, with a clever antithesis, or a good epithet, or a figure of abbreviation. Countries have noble names; Italy is Ausonia, the Black Sea is the Scythian Sea; there are mountains of dead, and a thunder of eloquence sanctioned by Lucian; pretty turns of oratorical address imitated from Ovid; cannons are mentioned in poetic periphrases as later in Delille.2 The poem is an official and decorative amplification, like that which Voltaire wrote afterwards on Fontenoy. Addison does yet better; he wrote an opera, a comedy, a much admired tragedy on the death of Cato. Such writing was always, in the last century, a passport to employ good style and to enter fashionable society. A young man in Voltaire's time, on leaving college, had to write his tragedy, as now he must write an article on political economy; it was then a proof that he could converse with ladies, as now it is a proof that he can argue with men. He learned the art of being amusing, of touching, of talking of love; he thus escaped from dry or special studies; he could choose among events or sentiments those which will interest or please; he was able to hold his own in good company, to be sometimes agreeable there, never to transgress. Such is the culture which these works gave Addison; it is of slight import Tube behind tube the dreadful entrance keep, Whilst in their wombs ten thousand thunders sleep.... Rise up in hideous views, the guilt of war; ance that they are poor. In them he dealt with passions, humour; he produced in his opera some lively and smiling images; in his tragedy some noble or moving accents; he emerged from reasoning and pure dissertation; he acquired the art of rendering morality visible and truth expressive; he knew how to give ideas a physiognomy, and that an attractive one. Thus was the finished writer perfected by contact with ancient and modern, foreign and national urbanity, by the sight of the fine arts, by experience of the world and study of style, by continuous and delicate choice of all that is agreeable in things and men, in life and art. His politeness received from his character a singular bent and charm. It was not external, simply voluntary and official; it came from the heart. He was gentle and kind, of a refined sensibility, so timid even as to remain quiet and seem dull in a numerous company or before strangers, only recovering his spirits before intimate friends, and confessing that he could not talk well to more than one. He could not endure a sharp discussion; when the opponent was intractable, he pretended to approve, and for punishment, plunged him discreetly into his own folly. He withdrew by preference from political arguments; being invited to deal with them in the Spectator, he contented himself with inoffensive and general subjects, which could interest all whilst shocking none. He would have suffered in making others suffer. Though a very decided and faithful Whig, he continued moderate in polemics; and in a time when conquerors legally attempted to assassinate or ruin the conquered, he confined himself to show the faults of argument made by the Tories, or to rail courteously at their prejudices. Dublin he went first of all to shake the hand of Swift, his great and fallen adversary. Insulted bitterly by Dennis and Pope, he refused to employ against them his influence or his wit, and praised Pope to the end. What could be more touching, when we have read his life, than his essay on kindness? we perceive that he is unconsciously speaking of himself: At 'There is no society or conversation to be kept up in the world without goodnature, or something which must bear its appearance, and supply its place. For this reason mankind have been forced to invent a kind of artificial humanity, which is what we express by the word good-breeding. . . . The greatest wits I have conversed with are men eminent for their humanity. . . . Good-nature is generally born with us; health, prosperity, and kind treatment from the world are great cherishers of it where they find it.'1 It so happens that he is involuntarily describing his own charm and his own success. It is himself that he is unveiling; he was very prosFerous, and his good fortune spread itself around him in affectionate sentiments, in constant discretion, in calm cheerfulness. At college he was distinguished; his Latin verses made him a fellow at Oxford; he 1 Spectator, No. 169. spent ten years there in grave amusements and the studies which pleased From the age of twenty-two, Dryden, the prince of literature, praised him splendidly. When he left Oxford, the ministers gave him a pension of three hundred pounds to finish his education, and prepare him for public service. On his return from his travels, his poem on Blenheim placed him in the first rank of the Whigs. He became a member of Parliament, twice Secretary for Ireland, Under-Secretary of State, Secretary of State. Party hatred spared him; amid the almost universal defeat of the Whigs, he was re-elected; in the furious war of Whigs and Tories, both united to applaud his tragedy of Cato; the most cruel pamphleteers respected him; his uprightness, his talent, seemed exalted by common consent above discussion. He lived in abundance, activity, and honours, wisely and usefully, amid the assiduous admiration and constant affection of learned and distinguished friends, who could never have too much of his conversation, amid the applause of all the good men and all the cultivated minds of England. If twice the fall of his party seemed to destroy or retard his fortune, he maintained his position without much effort, by reflection and coolness, prepared for all that might happen, accepting mediocrity, confirmed in a natural and acquired calmness, accommodating himself without yielding to men, respectful to the great without degrading himself, free from secret revolt or internal suffering. These are the sources of his talent; could any be purer or finer? could anything be more engaging than worldly polish and elegance, without the factitious ardour and the complimentary falseness of the world? And will you look for a more amiable conversation than that of a good and happy man, whose knowledge, taste, and wit are only employed to give you pleasure? III. Your interlocutor is as grave This pleasure will be useful to you. as he is polite; he would and can instruct as well as amuse you; his education has been as solid as it has been elegant; he even confesses in the Spectator that he prefers the serious to the funny style. He is naturally reflective, silent, attentive. He has studied literature, men, and things, with the conscientiousness of a scholar and an observer. When he travelled in Italy, it was in the English style, noting the difference of manners, the peculiarities of the soil, the good and ill effects of various governments; storing himself with concise reminiscences, circumstantial mementoes on taxes, buildings, minerals, atmosphere, harbours, administration, and I cannot say how many other things.' An English lord, who travels in Holland, goes simply into a cheese-shop, in order to see for himself all the stages of the manufacture; he returns, like Addison, provided with exact statistics, complete notes: this mass of verified information is the foundation of the common sense of English 1 See, for instance, his chapter on the Republic of San Marino. men. Addison added to it experience of business, having been successively, or at the same time, a journalist, a member of Parliament, a statesman, hand and heart in all the fights and chances of party. Mere literary education only makes good talkers, able to adorn and publish ideas which they do not possess, and which others furnish for them. If writers wish to invent, they must look to events and men, not to books and drawing-rooms; the conversation of special men is more useful to them than the study of perfect periods; they cannot think for themselves, but in so far as they have lived or acted. Addison knew how to act and live. When we read his reports, letters, and discussions, we feel that politics and government have given him half his mind. To exercise patronage, to handle money, to interpret the law, to divine the motives of men, to foresee the changes of public opinion, to be compelled to judge rightly, quickly, and twenty times a day, on present and great interests, under the inspection of the public and the espionnage of enemies; all this nourished his reason and sustained his discourses. Such a man might judge and counsel his fellows; his judgments were not amplifications arranged by a process of the brain, but observations controlled by experience: he might be listened to on moral subjects as a physician was on physical subjects; we could feel that he spoke with authority, and that we were instructed. After having listened a little, people felt themselves better; for they recognised in him from the first a singularly elevated soul, very pure, so much attached to uprightness that he made it his constant and his dearest pleasure. He naturally loved beauty, kindness and justice, science and liberty. From an early age he had joined the Liberal party, and he continued in it to the end, hoping the best of human virtue and reason, noting the wretchedness into which people fell who abandoned their dignity with their independence. He followed the lofty discoveries of the new physical sciences, so as to raise still more the idea which he had of God's work. He loved the deep and serious emotions which reveal to us the nobility of our nature and the infirmity of our condition. He employed his talent and all his writings in giving us the notion of what we are worth, and of what we are to be. Of two "Tis liberty that crowns Britannia's isle, And makes her barren rocks and her bleak mountains smile.' About the Republic of San Marino he writes: 'Nothing can be a greater instance of the natural love that mankind has for liberty, and of their aversion to an arbitrary government, than such a savage mountain covered with people, and the Campania of Rome, which lies in the same country, almost destitute of inhabitants.'—Remarks on Italy, i. 406. |