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shire, and had been welcomed to his domain in very tolerable verse by one of the neighboring squires, the poetical fox-hunter, William Somerville. 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.

Not long after his marriage he reached the height of civil greatness. The Whig Government had, during some time, been torn by internal dissensions. 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 accompanied by Walpole and Cowper. Sunderland proceeded 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- 30 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 5 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 succeeded by his friend Craggs, a young man whose

natural parts, though little improved by cultiva15 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 Walpole.

As yet there was no Joseph Hume. The ministers, 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 reëstablished 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

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seemed to be before him, and he meditated many works, a tragedy on the death of Socrates, a translation of the Psalms, a treatise on the evidences of Christianity. Of this last performance, a part, which we could well spare, has come down to us.

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 generally 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 15 Countess Dowager and her magnificent diningroom, 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 clares 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 himself as one who, in evil times, had braved martyrdom 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 30 as himself into trouble, and though they did not absolutely neglect him, doled out favors 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 Undersecretary 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 complaints, to content himself with a share in the pat

ent of Drury Lane Theatre. Steele himself says, in 15 his celebrated letter to Congreve, that Addison, by

his preference of Tickell, "incurred the warmest resentment of other gentlemen;" and everything seems to indicate that, of those resentful gentlemen, Steele was himself one.

While poor Sir Richard was bruoding over what he considered as Addison's unkindness, a 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 supported, and, in truth, devised by the Prime 30 Minister.

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We are satisfied that the bill was most pernicious; 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. Nor was this strange.

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 creating 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 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.

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