July 26, 2025 • 20 mins
Delve into the life and legacy of Joseph Addison (1672-1719), a renowned English essayist, poet, playwright, and politician. Best known for his contribution to The Spectator magazine alongside Richard Steele, Addisons remarkable life is brought to the fore in this engaging narrative. Explore the world of this gentle soul who managed to maintain his gentlemanly demeanor amidst the harsh world of political and literary rivalries. Commemorate the man who, through his persona in the Spectator, is loved by his contemporaries and continues to be respected by generations to come. This summary is brought to you by Pamela Nagami, M.D.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section two of Life and Writings of Addison by Thomas
Babington mac caulay. This librovox recording is in the public domain.
Read by Pamelinagami Part two. 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,
(00:24):
for in that piece we discern a gleam of 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
suspecting that he borrowed, perhaps unconsciously, one of the happiest
(00:48):
touches in his Voyage to Lilliput. 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 court,
which alone is enough to strike an awe into the beholders.
About thirty years before Gulliver's travels appeared, Addison wrote these
(01:11):
lines jam Quayakies in Dermaedia sesse arduus infert pigmaea dom
ducdor quimayestad de weerendus incuesu que grauis reliquos super eminet
omnes molay gigantia mediamque ex surgit in ulnam. The Latin
(01:36):
poems of Addison were greatly and justly admired both at
Oxford and Cambridge, before his name had ever been heard
by the wits who thronged the coffee houses round Rury
Lane Theater. In his twenty second year, he ventured to
appear before the public as a writer of English verse.
He addressed some complimentary lines to Dryden, who, after many
(01:58):
triumphs and many verses, had at length reached a secure
and lonely eminence among the literary men of that age.
Dryden appears to have been much gratified by the young scholars. Praise,
and an interchange of civilities and good offices followed. Addison
was probably introduced by Dryden to Congreeve, and was certainly
(02:19):
presented by Congreeve to Charles Montague, who was then Chancellor
of the 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 William, and
other performances of equal value, that is to say, of
(02:43):
no value at all. But in those days the public
were in the habit of receiving with applause pieces which
would now have little chance of obtaining the Newdigate Prize
or the Setonian 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
(03:05):
flow smoothly, that the accents may fall correctly, that the
rhymes may strike the ear strongly, and that there may
be a pause at the end of every Distick is
an art as mechanical as that of mending a kettle
or shoeing a horse, and may be learned by any
human being who has sense enough to learn anything. But
(03:26):
like other mechanical arts, it was gradually improved by means
of many 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 a
(03:46):
matter of rule and compass, 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 its euphony was concerned,
could not be distinguished from those of Pope himself, and
which very clever writers of the reign of Charles the
(04:08):
second Rochester, for example, or Marvel or Oldham would have
contemplated with admiring despair. Ben Jonson was a great man
whol a very small man, but whole. Coming after Pope
had learned how to manufacture deco syllable verses, and poured
them forth by thousands and tens of thousands, all is
(04:31):
well turned as smooth and as like each other as
the blocks which have passed through mister Brunel's mill in
the dockyard at Portsmouth. Benseroic couplets resembled blocks rudely hewn
out by an unpracticed hand with a blunt hatchet. Take
as a sample his translation of a celebrated passage in
the Eneid. This child our parent Earth stirred up with
(04:54):
spite of all the gods brought forth, And as some write,
she who was last sister of that giant race that
sought to scale Jove's court right swift of pace and
swift or far off wing a monster, vast and dreadful.
Look how many plumes are placed on her huge corpse,
(05:15):
so many waking eyes stick underneath, and which may stranger
rise in the report. As many tongues she wears compare
with these jagged, misshapen, disticks, the neat fabric Whichhol's machine
produces in unlimited abundance. We take the first lines on
which we open in his version of Tasso. They are
(05:38):
neither better nor worse than the rest o thou, whoever
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 ere thy sight would blissful scenes, explore the current
(05:59):
path 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 the
days of William the Third such versification was rare, and
(06:20):
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 Walsh and others, whose only title to
fame was that they said intolerable meter what might have
been as well said in prose, or what was not
(06:43):
worth saying at all, were honored with marks of distinction
which ought to be reserved for genius. With these Addison
must have ranked if he had not earned true and
lasting glory by performances which very little resembled his juvenile poems.
Dryden was now busied with Virgil and obtained from Addison
(07:04):
a critical preface to the Georgics. In return for this service,
and for other services of the same kind, the veteran poet,
in the PostScript to the translation of the Eneid, complimented
his young friend with great liberality, and indeed with more
liberality than sincerity. He affected to be afraid that his
(07:24):
own performance would not sustain. A comparison with the version
of the Fourth Georgic by the most ingenious mister Addison
of Oxford. After his bees added Dryden, My latter swarm
is scarcely worth a hiving. The time had now arrived
when it was necessary for Addison to choose a calling.
(07:45):
Everything seemed to point his course toward the clerical profession.
His habits were regular, his opinion's orthodox. His college had
large ecclesiastical preferment in its gift, and boasts that it
has given at least one bishop to almost every sea
in England. Doctor Lancelot Addison held an honorable place in
(08:07):
the church and had set his heart on seeing his
son a clergyman. It is clear from some expressions in
the young man's rhymes that his intention was to take orders,
but Charles Montague interfered. Montague first brought himself into notice
by verses well timed and not contemptibly written, but never
(08:28):
we think rising above mediocrity. Fortunately for himself and for
his country, he early quitted poetry, in which he could
never have obtained a rank as high as that of
Dorset or Roscommon, and turned his mind to official and
parliamentary business. It is written that the ingenious person who
undertook to instruct Rascalis Prince of Abyssinia in the art
(08:52):
of flying, ascended an eminence, waved his wings, sprang into
the air, and instantly dropped it to the lake. 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
(09:13):
men like him. When he attempted to soar into the
regions of poetical invention, he altogether failed. But as soon
as he had descended from his ethereal elevation into a
lower and grosser element, his talents instantly raised him above
the mass. He became a distinguished financier, debater, courtier, and
(09:34):
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 in others. A crowd
of wits and poets, who would easily have vanquished him
as a competitor, revered him as a judge and a patron.
(09:58):
In his plans for the encouragement of learning he was
cordially supported by the ablest and most virtuous of his colleagues,
the Lord Keeper's Summers. 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 service. The
(10:22):
Revolution had altered the whole system 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 unprecedented influence
on the public mind. Parliament met annually and sat long.
(10:45):
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 such talents might
be subverted by them. It was therefore a profound and
enlightened policy which led Montague and Somers to attach such
(11:08):
talents to the Whig Party by the strongest ties, both
of interest and of gratitude. It is remarkable that in
a neighboring country we have recently seen similar effects from
similar causes. The Revolution of July eighteen thirty established representative
government in France. The men of letters instantly rose to
(11:30):
the highest importance 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 influence of the literary class in England during the
generation which followed the revolution was great, but by no
(11:52):
means so great as it has lately been in France.
For in England the aristocracy of intellect had to contend
with the powerful and deeply rooted aristocracy of a very
different kind. France had no Somersets and Shrowsbury's to keep
down her Addisons and priors. It was in the year
sixteen ninety nine, when Addison had just completed his twenty
(12:16):
seventh year, that the course of his life was finally determined.
Both the great chiefs of the ministry were kindly disposed
toward him in political opinions. He already was what he
continued to be through life, a firm, though moderate Whig.
He had addressed the most polished and vigorous of his
early English lines to somers and had dedicated to Montague,
(12:40):
a Latin poem truly Virgilian, both in style and rhyme,
on the Peace of Reisvek. The wish of the poet's
great friends was it should seem to employ him in
the service of the Crown abroad. But an intimate knowledge
of the French language was a qualification indispensable to a diplomatist,
and this qualification Addison had not acquired. It was therefore
(13:04):
thought desirable that he should pass some time on the
continent in preparing himself for official employment. His own means
were not such as would enable him to travel, but
a pension of three hundred pounds a year was procured
for him by the interest of the Lord Keeper. It
seems to have been apprehended that some difficulty might be
(13:25):
started by the rulers of Maudlin College, But the Chancellor
of the Exchequer wrote in the strongest terms to huff
the state. Such was the purport of Montague's letter, could
not at that time spare to the Church such a
man as Addison. Too many posts were already occupied by adventurers, who,
(13:45):
destitute of every liberal art and sentiment, at once pillaged
and disgraced the country which they pretended to serve. It
had become necessary to 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.
(14:06):
I am called, he said, an enemy of the Church,
but I will never do it any other injury than
keeping mister Addison out of it. This interference was successful,
and in the summer of sixteen ninety nine Addison, made
a rich man by his pension, and still retaining his fellowship,
quitted his beloved Oxford and set out on his travels.
(14:31):
He 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.
The Countess, a Whig and a toast, was probably as
gracious as her lord, for Addison long retained an agreeable
(14:54):
recollection of the impression which she at this time made
on him, and in some lively 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 the vices of his youth
(15:17):
by a devotion which had no root in reason and
bore no fruit in charity. The servile literature of France
had changed its character to suit the changed character of
the prince. No book appeared that had not an air
of sanctity. Racine, who was just dead, had passed the
close of his life in writing sacred dramas and darsier
(15:39):
was seeking for the Athanasian mysteries of Plato. Addison described
this state of things in a short, but lively and
graceful letter to Montague. Another letter, written about the same
time to the lord Keeper conveyed the strongest assurances of
gratitude and attachment. The only return I can make to
your Lordship's, said Addison, will be to apply myself entirely
(16:03):
to my business. 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 and profitably of his way of
life at Blois. One of his associates and abbe named Philippo,
(16:27):
gave an account to Joseph Spence. If this account is
to be trusted, Addison studied much, mused, much, talked a little,
had fits of absence, and either had no love affairs
or was too discreet to confide them to the abbe.
A man who, even when surrounded by fellow countrymen and
(16:48):
fellow students, had always been remarkably shy and silent, was
not likely to be loquacious in a foreign tongue and
among foreign companions. But it is clear from Addison's letters,
some of which were long after published in The Guardian,
that while he appeared to be absorbed in his own meditations,
he was really observing French society with that keen and
(17:12):
sly yet not ill natured side glance which was peculiarly
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 Huff of two highly interesting conversations,
(17:34):
one with Malbranche, the other with Boileaut. Malbranche expressed great
partiality for the English, and extolled the genius of Newton,
but shook his head when Hobbs was mentioned, and was
indeed so unjust as to call the author of The
Leviathan a poor, silly creature. Addison's modesty restrained him from
(17:55):
fully relating in his letter the circumstances of his introduction
to boiloins Oh. Boileau, having survived the friends and 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
(18:17):
English literature. 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 literature was to the French of
the age of Louis the fourteenth what German literature was
(18:39):
to our grandfathers. Very few we suspect of the accomplished
men who sixty or seventy years ago used to dine
in Leicester Square with Sir Joshua, or at Stretum with
Missus Thrale had the slightest notion that Villante was one
of the first wits and poets, and lessing beyond all dispute,
(19:00):
the first critic in Europe. Boilloh knew just as little
about the Paradise Lost, and about Absalom and a Hittefel.
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.
(19:21):
Johnson will have it that these praises were insincere. Nothing
says he is better known of Boileoh than that he
had an injudicious and peevish contempt of modern Latin, and
therefore his profession of regard was probably the effect of
his civility rather than approbation. Now nothing is better known
(19:41):
of Boilloh than that he was singularly 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, disdainful and
so of confident spirit rebelled against that authority to which
(20:04):
everything else in France bowed down, he had the spirit
to tell Louis the fourteenth firmly and even rudely, that
his Majesty knew nothing about poetry and admired verses which
were detestable and of Section two.
Section two of Life and Writings of Addison by Thomas
Babington mac caulay. This librovox recording is in the public domain.
Read by Pamelinagami Part two. 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,
(00:24):
for in that piece we discern a gleam of 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
suspecting that he borrowed, perhaps unconsciously, one of the happiest
(00:48):
touches in his Voyage to Lilliput. 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 court,
which alone is enough to strike an awe into the beholders.
About thirty years before Gulliver's travels appeared, Addison wrote these
(01:11):
lines jam Quayakies in Dermaedia sesse arduus infert pigmaea dom
ducdor quimayestad de weerendus incuesu que grauis reliquos super eminet
omnes molay gigantia mediamque ex surgit in ulnam. The Latin
(01:36):
poems of Addison were greatly and justly admired both at
Oxford and Cambridge, before his name had ever been heard
by the wits who thronged the coffee houses round Rury
Lane Theater. In his twenty second year, he ventured to
appear before the public as a writer of English verse.
He addressed some complimentary lines to Dryden, who, after many
(01:58):
triumphs and many verses, had at length reached a secure
and lonely eminence among the literary men of that age.
Dryden appears to have been much gratified by the young scholars. Praise,
and an interchange of civilities and good offices followed. Addison
was probably introduced by Dryden to Congreeve, and was certainly
(02:19):
presented by Congreeve to Charles Montague, who was then Chancellor
of the 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 William, and
other performances of equal value, that is to say, of
(02:43):
no value at all. But in those days the public
were in the habit of receiving with applause pieces which
would now have little chance of obtaining the Newdigate Prize
or the Setonian 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
(03:05):
flow smoothly, that the accents may fall correctly, that the
rhymes may strike the ear strongly, and that there may
be a pause at the end of every Distick is
an art as mechanical as that of mending a kettle
or shoeing a horse, and may be learned by any
human being who has sense enough to learn anything. But
(03:26):
like other mechanical arts, it was gradually improved by means
of many 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 a
(03:46):
matter of rule and compass, 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 its euphony was concerned,
could not be distinguished from those of Pope himself, and
which very clever writers of the reign of Charles the
(04:08):
second Rochester, for example, or Marvel or Oldham would have
contemplated with admiring despair. Ben Jonson was a great man
whol a very small man, but whole. Coming after Pope
had learned how to manufacture deco syllable verses, and poured
them forth by thousands and tens of thousands, all is
(04:31):
well turned as smooth and as like each other as
the blocks which have passed through mister Brunel's mill in
the dockyard at Portsmouth. Benseroic couplets resembled blocks rudely hewn
out by an unpracticed hand with a blunt hatchet. Take
as a sample his translation of a celebrated passage in
the Eneid. This child our parent Earth stirred up with
(04:54):
spite of all the gods brought forth, And as some write,
she who was last sister of that giant race that
sought to scale Jove's court right swift of pace and
swift or far off wing a monster, vast and dreadful.
Look how many plumes are placed on her huge corpse,
(05:15):
so many waking eyes stick underneath, and which may stranger
rise in the report. As many tongues she wears compare
with these jagged, misshapen, disticks, the neat fabric Whichhol's machine
produces in unlimited abundance. We take the first lines on
which we open in his version of Tasso. They are
(05:38):
neither better nor worse than the rest o thou, whoever
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 ere thy sight would blissful scenes, explore the current
(05:59):
path 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 the
days of William the Third such versification was rare, and
(06:20):
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 Walsh and others, whose only title to
fame was that they said intolerable meter what might have
been as well said in prose, or what was not
(06:43):
worth saying at all, were honored with marks of distinction
which ought to be reserved for genius. With these Addison
must have ranked if he had not earned true and
lasting glory by performances which very little resembled his juvenile poems.
Dryden was now busied with Virgil and obtained from Addison
(07:04):
a critical preface to the Georgics. In return for this service,
and for other services of the same kind, the veteran poet,
in the PostScript to the translation of the Eneid, complimented
his young friend with great liberality, and indeed with more
liberality than sincerity. He affected to be afraid that his
(07:24):
own performance would not sustain. A comparison with the version
of the Fourth Georgic by the most ingenious mister Addison
of Oxford. After his bees added Dryden, My latter swarm
is scarcely worth a hiving. The time had now arrived
when it was necessary for Addison to choose a calling.
(07:45):
Everything seemed to point his course toward the clerical profession.
His habits were regular, his opinion's orthodox. His college had
large ecclesiastical preferment in its gift, and boasts that it
has given at least one bishop to almost every sea
in England. Doctor Lancelot Addison held an honorable place in
(08:07):
the church and had set his heart on seeing his
son a clergyman. It is clear from some expressions in
the young man's rhymes that his intention was to take orders,
but Charles Montague interfered. Montague first brought himself into notice
by verses well timed and not contemptibly written, but never
(08:28):
we think rising above mediocrity. Fortunately for himself and for
his country, he early quitted poetry, in which he could
never have obtained a rank as high as that of
Dorset or Roscommon, and turned his mind to official and
parliamentary business. It is written that the ingenious person who
undertook to instruct Rascalis Prince of Abyssinia in the art
(08:52):
of flying, ascended an eminence, waved his wings, sprang into
the air, and instantly dropped it to the lake. 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
(09:13):
men like him. When he attempted to soar into the
regions of poetical invention, he altogether failed. But as soon
as he had descended from his ethereal elevation into a
lower and grosser element, his talents instantly raised him above
the mass. He became a distinguished financier, debater, courtier, and
(09:34):
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 in others. A crowd
of wits and poets, who would easily have vanquished him
as a competitor, revered him as a judge and a patron.
(09:58):
In his plans for the encouragement of learning he was
cordially supported by the ablest and most virtuous of his colleagues,
the Lord Keeper's Summers. 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 service. The
(10:22):
Revolution had altered the whole system 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 unprecedented influence
on the public mind. Parliament met annually and sat long.
(10:45):
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 such talents might
be subverted by them. It was therefore a profound and
enlightened policy which led Montague and Somers to attach such
(11:08):
talents to the Whig Party by the strongest ties, both
of interest and of gratitude. It is remarkable that in
a neighboring country we have recently seen similar effects from
similar causes. The Revolution of July eighteen thirty established representative
government in France. The men of letters instantly rose to
(11:30):
the highest importance 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 influence of the literary class in England during the
generation which followed the revolution was great, but by no
(11:52):
means so great as it has lately been in France.
For in England the aristocracy of intellect had to contend
with the powerful and deeply rooted aristocracy of a very
different kind. France had no Somersets and Shrowsbury's to keep
down her Addisons and priors. It was in the year
sixteen ninety nine, when Addison had just completed his twenty
(12:16):
seventh year, that the course of his life was finally determined.
Both the great chiefs of the ministry were kindly disposed
toward him in political opinions. He already was what he
continued to be through life, a firm, though moderate Whig.
He had addressed the most polished and vigorous of his
early English lines to somers and had dedicated to Montague,
(12:40):
a Latin poem truly Virgilian, both in style and rhyme,
on the Peace of Reisvek. The wish of the poet's
great friends was it should seem to employ him in
the service of the Crown abroad. But an intimate knowledge
of the French language was a qualification indispensable to a diplomatist,
and this qualification Addison had not acquired. It was therefore
(13:04):
thought desirable that he should pass some time on the
continent in preparing himself for official employment. His own means
were not such as would enable him to travel, but
a pension of three hundred pounds a year was procured
for him by the interest of the Lord Keeper. It
seems to have been apprehended that some difficulty might be
(13:25):
started by the rulers of Maudlin College, But the Chancellor
of the Exchequer wrote in the strongest terms to huff
the state. Such was the purport of Montague's letter, could
not at that time spare to the Church such a
man as Addison. Too many posts were already occupied by adventurers, who,
(13:45):
destitute of every liberal art and sentiment, at once pillaged
and disgraced the country which they pretended to serve. It
had become necessary to 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.
(14:06):
I am called, he said, an enemy of the Church,
but I will never do it any other injury than
keeping mister Addison out of it. This interference was successful,
and in the summer of sixteen ninety nine Addison, made
a rich man by his pension, and still retaining his fellowship,
quitted his beloved Oxford and set out on his travels.
(14:31):
He 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.
The Countess, a Whig and a toast, was probably as
gracious as her lord, for Addison long retained an agreeable
(14:54):
recollection of the impression which she at this time made
on him, and in some lively 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 the vices of his youth
(15:17):
by a devotion which had no root in reason and
bore no fruit in charity. The servile literature of France
had changed its character to suit the changed character of
the prince. No book appeared that had not an air
of sanctity. Racine, who was just dead, had passed the
close of his life in writing sacred dramas and darsier
(15:39):
was seeking for the Athanasian mysteries of Plato. Addison described
this state of things in a short, but lively and
graceful letter to Montague. Another letter, written about the same
time to the lord Keeper conveyed the strongest assurances of
gratitude and attachment. The only return I can make to
your Lordship's, said Addison, will be to apply myself entirely
(16:03):
to my business. 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 and profitably of his way of
life at Blois. One of his associates and abbe named Philippo,
(16:27):
gave an account to Joseph Spence. If this account is
to be trusted, Addison studied much, mused, much, talked a little,
had fits of absence, and either had no love affairs
or was too discreet to confide them to the abbe.
A man who, even when surrounded by fellow countrymen and
(16:48):
fellow students, had always been remarkably shy and silent, was
not likely to be loquacious in a foreign tongue and
among foreign companions. But it is clear from Addison's letters,
some of which were long after published in The Guardian,
that while he appeared to be absorbed in his own meditations,
he was really observing French society with that keen and
(17:12):
sly yet not ill natured side glance which was peculiarly
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 Huff of two highly interesting conversations,
(17:34):
one with Malbranche, the other with Boileaut. Malbranche expressed great
partiality for the English, and extolled the genius of Newton,
but shook his head when Hobbs was mentioned, and was
indeed so unjust as to call the author of The
Leviathan a poor, silly creature. Addison's modesty restrained him from
(17:55):
fully relating in his letter the circumstances of his introduction
to boiloins Oh. Boileau, having survived the friends and 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
(18:17):
English literature. 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 literature was to the French of
the age of Louis the fourteenth what German literature was
(18:39):
to our grandfathers. Very few we suspect of the accomplished
men who sixty or seventy years ago used to dine
in Leicester Square with Sir Joshua, or at Stretum with
Missus Thrale had the slightest notion that Villante was one
of the first wits and poets, and lessing beyond all dispute,
(19:00):
the first critic in Europe. Boilloh knew just as little
about the Paradise Lost, and about Absalom and a Hittefel.
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.
(19:21):
Johnson will have it that these praises were insincere. Nothing
says he is better known of Boileoh than that he
had an injudicious and peevish contempt of modern Latin, and
therefore his profession of regard was probably the effect of
his civility rather than approbation. Now nothing is better known
(19:41):
of Boilloh than that he was singularly 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, disdainful and
so of confident spirit rebelled against that authority to which
(20:04):
everything else in France bowed down, he had the spirit
to tell Louis the fourteenth firmly and even rudely, that
his Majesty knew nothing about poetry and admired verses which
were detestable and of Section two.
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