Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges Part 67

This is your portion, this your native store; Heaven, that but once was prodigal before, To SHAKESPEARE gave as much, she could not give him more.

Maintain your Post: that's all the fame you need, For 'tis impossible you should proceed; Already I am worn with cares and age, And just abandoning th' ungrateful stage: Unprofitably kept at Heaven's expence, I live a Rent-charge upon Providence: But you whom every Muse and Grace adorn, Whom I foresee to better fortune born, Be kind to my remains, and oh defend Against your Judgement your departed Friend!

Let not the insulting Foe my Fame pursue; But shade those Lawrels which descend to You: And take for Tribute what these Lines express; You merit more, nor could my Love do less.

This is a very different manner of welcome to that of our own day.

In Shadwell, Higgons, Congreve, and the comic authors of their time, when gentlemen meet they fall into each other's arms, with "Jack, Jack, I must buss thee"; or, "'Fore George, Harry, I must kiss thee, lad". And in a similar manner the poets saluted their brethren.

Literary gentlemen do not kiss now; I wonder if they love each other better.

Steele calls Congreve "Great Sir" and "Great Author"; says "Well-dressed barbarians knew his awful name", and addresses him as if he were a prince; and speaks of _Pastora_ as one of the most famous tragic compositions.

74 "To Addison himself we are bound by a sentiment 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....

After full inquiry and impartial reflection we have long been convinced that he deserved as much love and esteem as can justly be claimed by any of our infirm and erring race."-MACAULAY.

"Many who praise virtue do no more than praise it. Yet it is reasonable to believe that Addison's profession and practice were at no great variance; since, amidst that storm of faction in which most of his life was pa.s.sed, though his station made him conspicuous, and his activity made him formidable, the character given him by his friends was never contradicted by his enemies. Of those with whom interest or opinion united him, he had not only the esteem but the kindness; and of others, whom the violence of opposition drove against him, though he might lose the love, he retained the reverence."-JOHNSON.

75 "Addison was perfect good company with intimates, and had something more charming in his conversation than I ever knew in any other man; but with any mixture of strangers, and sometimes only with one, he seemed to preserve his dignity much, with a stiff sort of silence."-POPE (_Spence's Anecdotes_).

76 "Milton's chief talent, and indeed his distinguis.h.i.+ng excellence lies in the sublimity of his thoughts. There are others of the modern, who rival him in every other part of poetry; but in the greatness of his sentiments he triumphs over all the poets, both modern and ancient, Homer alone excepted. It is impossible for the imagination of man to disturb itself with greater ideas than those which he has laid together in his first, second, and sixth books."-_Spectator_, No. 279.

"If I were to name a poet that is a perfect master in all these arts of working on the imagination, I think Milton may pa.s.s for one."-Ibid., No. 417.

These famous papers appeared in each Sat.u.r.day's _Spectator_, from January 19 to May 3, 1712. Besides his services to Milton, we may place those he did to Sacred Music.

77 "Addison was very kind to me at first, but my bitter enemy afterwards."-POPE (_Spence's Anecdotes_).

" 'Leave him as soon as you can,' said Addison to me, speaking of Pope; 'he will certainly play you some devilish trick else: he has an appet.i.te to satire.' "-LADY WORTLEY MONTAGU (_Spence's Anecdotes_).

78 Lancelot Addison, his father, was the son of another Lancelot Addison, a clergyman in Westmoreland. He became Dean of Lichfield and Archdeacon of Coventry.

79 "The remark of Mandeville, who, when he had pa.s.sed an evening in his company, declared that he was 'a parson in a tye-wig', can detract little from his character. He was always reserved to strangers, and was not incited to uncommon freedom by a character like that of Mandeville."-JOHNSON, _Lives of the Poets_.

"Old Jacob Tonson did not like Mr. Addison: he had a quarrel with him, and, after his quitting the secretarys.h.i.+p, used frequently to say of him-'One day or other you'll see that man a bishop-I'm sure he looks that way; and indeed I ever thought him a priest in his heart.' "-POPE (_Spence's Anecdotes_).

"Mr. Addison stayed above a year at Blois. He would rise as early as between two and three in the height of summer, and lie abed till between eleven and twelve in the depth of winter. He was untalkative whilst here, and often thoughtful: sometimes so lost in thought, that I have come into his room and stayed five minutes there before he has known anything of it. He had his masters generally at supper with him; kept very little company beside; and had no amour that I know of; and I think I should have known it, if he had had any."-ABBe PHILIPPEAUX of Blois (_Spence's Anecdotes_).

80 "His knowledge of the Latin poets, from Lucretius and Catullus down to Claudian and Prudentius, was singularly exact and profound."-MACAULAY.

81 "Our country owes it to him, that the famous Monsieur Boileau first conceived an opinion of the English genius for poetry, by perusing the present he made him of the _Musae Anglicanae_."-TICKELL (Preface to _Addison's Works_).

82 "It was my fate to be much with the wits; my father was acquainted with all of them. _Addison was the best company in the world._ I never knew anybody that had so much wit as Congreve."-LADY WORTLEY MONTAGU (_Spence's Anecdotes_).

83 Mr. Addison To Mr. Wyche.

"DEAR SIR,

"My hand at present begins to grow steady enough for a letter, so the properest use I can put it to is to thank ye honest gentleman that set it a shaking. I have had this morning a desperate design in my head to attack you in verse, which I should certainly have done could I have found out a rhyme to rummer. But though you have escaped for ye present, you are not yet out of danger, if I can a little recover my talent at Crambo. I am sure, in whatever way I write to you, it will be impossible for me to express ye deep sense I have of ye many favours you have lately shown me. I shall only tell you that Hambourg has been the pleasantest stage I have met with in my travails. If any of my friends wonder at me for living so long in that place, I dare say it will be thought a very good excuse when I tell him Mr. Wyche was there. As your company made our stay at Hambourg agreeable, your wine has given us all ye satisfaction that we have found in our journey through Westphalia. If drinking your health will do you any good, you may expect to be as long lived as Methusaleh, or, to use a more familiar instance, as ye oldest hoc in ye cellar. I hope ye two pair of legs that was left a swelling behind us are by this time come to their shapes again. I can't forbear troubling you with my hearty respects to ye owners of them, and desiring you to believe me always,

"Dear Sir,

"To Mr. Wyche, His Majesty's Resident at Hambourg, "May, 1703."

-From the _Life of Addison_, by Miss Aikin, vol. i, p. 146.

84 It is pleasing to remember that the relation between Swift and Addison was, on the whole, satisfactory, from first to last. The value of Swift's testimony, when nothing personal inflamed his vision or warped his judgement, can be doubted by n.o.body.

"Sept. 10, 1710.-I sat till ten in the evening with Addison and Steele.

"11.-Mr. Addison and I dined together at his lodgings, and I sat with him part of this evening.

"18.-To-day I dined with Mr. Stratford at Mr. Addison's retirement near Chelsea.... I will get what good offices I can from Mr.

Addison.

"27.-To-day all our company dined at Will Frankland's, with Steele and Addison, too.

"29.-I dined with Mr. Addison," &c.-_Journal to Stella._

Addison inscribed a presentation copy of his _Travels_ "To Dr.

Jonathan Swift, the most agreeable companion, the truest friend, and the greatest genius of his age."-SCOTT. From the information of Mr.

Theophilus Swift.

"Mr. Addison, who goes over first secretary, is a most excellent person; and being my most intimate friend, I shall use all my credit to set him right in his notions of persons and things."-_Letters._

"I examine my heart, and can find no other reason why I write to you now, besides that great love and esteem I have always had for you. I have nothing to ask you either for my friend or for myself."-Swift to Addison (1717), SCOTT'S _Swift_, vol. xix, p. 274.

Political differences only dulled for a while their friendly communications. Time renewed them; and Tickell enjoyed Swift's friends.h.i.+p as a legacy from the man with whose memory his is so honourably connected.

85 "Addison usually studied all the morning; then met his party at b.u.t.ton's; dined there, and stayed five or six hours, and sometimes far into the night. I was of the company for about a year, but found it too much for me: it hurt my health, and so I quitted it."-POPE (_Spence's Anecdotes_).

86 "When he returned to England (in 1702), with a meanness of appearance which gave testimony of the difficulties to which he had been reduced, he found his old patrons out of power, and was, therefore, for a time, at full leisure for the cultivation of his mind."-JOHNSON, _Lives of the Poets_.

87 "Mr. Addison wrote very fluently; but he was sometimes very slow and scrupulous in correcting. He would show his verses to several friends; and would alter almost everything that any of them hinted at as wrong. He seemed to be too diffident of himself; and too much concerned about his character as a poet; or (as he worded it) too solicitous for that kind of praise, which, G.o.d knows, is but a very little matter after all!"-POPE (_Spence's Anecdotes_).

88 "As to poetical affairs," says Pope, in 1713, "I am content at present to be a bare looker-on.... Cato was not so much the wonder of Rome in his days, as he is of Britain in ours; and though all the foolish industry possible has been used to make it thought a party play, yet what the author once said of another may the most properly in the world be applied to him on this occasion:-

"Envy itself is dumb-in wonder lost; And factions strive who shall applaud him most.

"The numerous and violent claps of the Whig party on the one side of the theatre were echoed back by the Tories on the other; while the author sweated behind the scenes with concern to find their applause proceeding more from the hands than the head.... I believe you have heard that, after all the applauses of the opposite faction, my Lord Bolingbroke sent for Booth, who played Cato, into the box, and presented him with fifty guineas in acknowledgement (as he expressed it) for defending the cause of liberty so well against a perpetual dictator"-POPE'S "Letter to SIR W. TRUMBULL".

_Cato_ ran for thirty-five nights without interruption. Pope wrote the Prologue, and Garth the Epilogue.

It is worth noticing how many things in _Cato_ keep their ground as habitual quotations, e.g.:-

" ... big with the fate Of Cato and of Rome."

"'Tis not in mortals to command success, But we'll do more, Semp.r.o.nius, we'll deserve it."

"Blesses his stars, and thinks it luxury."

"I think the Romans call it Stoicism."

"My voice is still for war."

"When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, The post of honour is a private station."

Not to mention:-