superiority. But the accomplishment in which Addison excelled his contemporaries was then, as it is now, highly valued and assiduously cultivated at all English seats of learning. Everybody who had been at a public school had written Latin verses; many had written such verses with tolerable success; and were quite able 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 "Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris" was as unintelligible as the hieroglyphics on an obelisk.

Purity of style, and an easy flow of numbers, are common to all Addison's Latin poems. Our favourite piece is the Battle of the Cranes and Pygmies; for in that piece we discern a gleam of the fancy and humour 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 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 lines:

"Jamque acies inter medias sese arduus infert
Pyguiendum 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 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 verse. He addressed some complimentary lines to Dryden, who, after many triumphs and many reverses, 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 scholar's praise; and an interchange of civilities and good offices followed. Addison was probably introduced by Dryden to Congreve, and was certainly presented by Congreve to Charles Montagu, 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 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 Seatonian prize. And the reason is obvious. The heroic couplet was then the favourite 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 strongly, and that there may be a pause at the

end of every distich, 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 any thing. But, 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 matter of rule and compass; and, before long, all artists were on a level. Hundreds of dunces who never Fundered 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 of Pope himself, and which very clever writers of the reign of Charles the Second-Rochester, for example, or Marvel, or Oldham-would have contemplated with admiring despair.

|

Ben Jonson was a great man, Hoole a very small man. had learned how to manufacture decasyllable But Hoole, coming after Pope, 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 through Mr. Brunell's mill, in the dockyard at Portsmouth. Ben's heroic couplets resemble blocks rudely hewn out by | Take as a specimen his translation of a celean unpractised hand, with a blunt hatchet. brated passage in the Eneid :

:

"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,
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.' 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:

"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,
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 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, Walsh, and others, whose only title to fame was that they said in tolerable metre what might have been as well said in prose, or what was not worth saying at all, were honoured with marks of distinction which ought to be reserved for gɩnius. 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 ob- | had sat only two months in eight years. Now tained from Addison a oritical preface to the the press was free, and had begun to exercise Georgics. In return for this service, and for unprecedented influence on the public mind. other services of the same kind, the veteran Parliament met annually and sat long. The poet, in the postscript to the translation of the chief power in the state had passed to the Eneid, complimented his young friend with House of Commons. At such a conjuncture, great liberality, and indeed with more liberality it was natural that literary and oratorical than sincerity. He affected to be afraid that talents should rise in value. There was dan. his own performance would not sustain a com- ger that a government which neglected such parison with the version of the fourth Georgic, talents might be subverted by them. It was, by "the most ingenious Mr. Addison of Ox- therefore, a profound and enlightened policy ford." "After his bees," added Dryden, "my which led Montagu and Somers to attach such latter swarm is scarcely worth the hiving."* talents to the whig party, by the strongest ties both of interest and of gratitude.

The time had now arrived when it was necessary for Addison to chose a calling. Every thing seemed to point his course toward the clerical profession. His habits were regular, his opinions orthodox. His college had large ecclesiastical 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 honourable place in 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 Montagu interfered. Montagu first brought himself into notice by verses, well-timed and not contemptibly written, but never, 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 was in the year 1699, when Addison had It is written that the ingenious person who un- just completed his twenty-seventh year, that the dertook to instruct Rasselas, prince of Abys-course of his life was finally determined. Both sinia, in the art of flying, ascended an eminence, the great chiefs of the ministry were kindly waved his wings, sprang into the air, and in- disposed towards him. In political opinions he stantly dropped into the lake. But it is added already was, what he continued to be through that the wings which were unable to support life, a firm, though moderate whig. He had him through the sky, bore him up effectually as addressed the most polished and vigorous of soon as he was in the water. This is no bad his early English lines to Somers; and had type of the fate of Charles Montagu, and of dedicated to Montagu a Latin poem, truly Vir men like him. When he attempted to soar gilian, both in style and rhythm, on the peace into the regions of poetical invention, he alto- of Ryswick. The wish of the young poet's gether failed; but as soon as he had descended great friends was, it should seem, to employ from his ethereal elevation into a lower and him in the service of the crown abroad. But grosser element, his talents instantly raised him an intimate knowledge of the French language above the mass. He became a distinguished was a qualification indispensable to a diplo financier, debater, courtier, and party leader. matist; and this qualification Addison had not He still retained his fondness for the pursuits acquired. It was, therefore, thought desirable of his early days; but he showed that fondness, that he should pass some time on the Continent not by wearying the public with his own feeble in preparing himself for official employment. performances, but by discovering and encou- His own means were not such as would enable raging literary excellence in others. A crowd him to travel; but a pension of £300 a year of wits and poets, who would easily have was procured for him by the interest of the vanquished him as a competitor, revered him lord keeper. It seems to have been appre as a judge and a patron. In his plans for the hended that some difficulty might be started by encouragement of learning, he was cordially the rulers of Magdalene College. But the supported by the ablest and most virtuous of his chancellor of the exchequer wrote in the strong. colleagues, the lord keeper Somers. Though est terms to Hough. The state-such was the both these great statesinen had a sincere love of purport of Montagu's letter-could not, at that ietters, it was not solely from a love of letters time, spare to the church such a man as Addithat they were desirous to enlist youths of high son. Too many high posts were already occu intellectual qualifications in the public service. pied by adventurers, who, destitute of every The Revolution had altered the whole system of liberal art and sentiment, at once pillaged and government. Before that event, the press had disgraced the country which they pretended to been controlled by censors, and the Parliament serve. It had become necessary to recruit for the that class of which Addison was the representapublic service from a very different class, from tive. The close of the minister's letter was re

*Miss Aikin makes this compliment altogether uning, by saying that it was paid to a translation of the second Georgic, (i. 30.)

me

It is remarkable that, in a neighbouring country, we have recently seen similar effects from similar causes. The Revolution of July, 1830, established representative government in France. The men of letters instantly rose to 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 means so great as it has lately been in France. For, in England, the aristocracy of intellect had to contend with a powerful and deeply rooted aristocracy of a very different kind. France has no Somersets and Shrewsburies to keep down her Addisons and Priors.

markable. "I am called," he said, "an enemy | Hobbes was mentioned, and was indeed so of the church. But I will never do it any other injury than keeping Mr. Addison out of it.”

unjust as to call the author of the "Leviathan" a poor silly creature. Addison's modesty restrained him from fully relating, in his letter, the circumstances of his introduction to BoiBoileau, 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 in accessible to strangers. Of the English and of 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 XIV. what German literature was to our own 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 Streatham with Mrs. Thrale, had Louis XIV. was at this time expiating the the slightest notion that Wieland was one of vices of his youth by a devotion which had no the first wits and poets, and Lessing, beyond root in reason, and bore no fruit in charity. all dispute, the first critic in Europe. Boileau The servile literature of France had changed knew just as little about the "Paradise Lost," its character to suit the changed character of and about "Absalom and Ahitophel;" but he the prince. No book appeared that had not an had read Addison's Latin poems, and admired air of sanctity. Racine, who was just dead, them greatly. They had given him, he said, had passed the close of his life in writing sa- quite a new notion of the state of learning and cred dramas; and Dacier was seeking for the taste among the English. Johnson will have Athanasian mysteries of Plato. Addison de- it that these praises were insincere. "Noscribed this state of things in a short but lively thing," says he, "is better known of Boileau and graceful letter to Montagu. Another letter, than that he had an injudicious and peevish written about the same time to the lord keeper, contempt of modern Latin; and therefore his conveyed the strongest assurances of gratitude profession of regard was probably the effect and attachment. "The only return I can make of his civility rather than approbation." Now, to your lordship," said Addison, "will be to nothing is better known of Boileau than that apply myself entirely to my business." With he was singularly sparing of compliments. this view he quitted Paris and repaired to Blois; We do not remember that either friendship or a place where it was supposed that the French fear ever induced him to bestow praise on any language was spoken in its highest purity, and composition which he did not approve. On where not a single Englishman could be found. literary questions, his caustic, disdainful, and Here he passed some months pleasantly and self-confident spirit rebelled against that auprofitably. Of his way of life at Blois, one of thority to which every thing else in France his associates, an abbé named Philippeaux, bowed down. He had the spirit to tell Louis gave an account to Joseph Spence. If this XIV. firmly, and even rudely, that his majesty account is to be trusted, Addison studied much, knew nothing about poetry, and admired verses mused much, talked little, had fits of absence, which were detestable. What was there in and either had no love affairs, or was too dis- Addison's position that could induce the sacreet to confide them to the abbé. A man who, tirist, whose stern and fastidious temper had even when surrounded by fellow-countrymen been the dread of two generations, to turn syand fellow-students, had always been remark-cophant for the first and last time? Nor was ably shy and silent, was not likely to be loqua- Boileau's contempt of modern Latin either .ncious in a foreign tongue, and among foreign | judicious or peevish. He thought, indeed, that companions. But it is clear from Addison's no poem of the first order would ever be letters, some of which were long after publish- written in a dead language. And did he think ed in the “Guardian," that while he appeared amiss? Has not the experience of centuries to be absorbed in his own meditations, he was confirmed his opinion? Boileau also thought really observing French society with that keen it probable that, in the best modern Latin, a and sly, yet not ill-natured side-glance which writer of the Augustan age would have de was peculiarly his own. tected 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, 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 Frederick the Great understood French! Yet is it not notorious that Frederick the Great,

This interference was successful; and in the summer of 1699, Addison, made a rich man by his pension, and still retaining his fellow-leau. ship, quitted his beloved Oxford, and set out on his travels. He crossed from Dover to Calais, proceeded to Paris, and was received there with great kindness and politeness by a kinsman of his friend Montagu, 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 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.

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 Hough, of two highly interesting conversations, one with Malebranche, the other with Boileau. Malebranche expressed great partiality for the English, and extolled the genius of Newton, but shook his head when

after reading, speaking, writing French, and Charles, second of the name, King of Spain, nothing but French, during more than half a died; and bequeathed his dominions to Philip, century-after unlearning his mother tongue Duke of Anjou, a younger son of the dauphin. in order to learn French, after living familiarly The King of France, in direct violation of his during many years with French associates-engagements both with Great Britain and with the states-general, accepted the bequest on be. half of his grandson. The house of Bourbon was at the summit of human grandeur. Eng. land had been outwitted, and found herself in

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 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? But does it follow, because we think thus, that we can find nothing to admire in the noble alcaics of Gray, or in the playful elegiacs of Vincent Bourne? Surely not. Nor was Boileau so ignorant or tasteless as to be incapable of appreciating good modern Latin. In the very letter to which Johnson alludes, Boileau says "Ne croyez pas pourtant que je veuille par là blâmer les vers Latins que vous m'avez envoyés d'un de vos ilustres académiciens. Je les ai trouvés fort beaux, et dignes de Vida et de Sannazar, 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 any thing. He says, for example, of Père Fraguier's epigrams, that Catullus seems to 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 enough, that the most severe censure ever pronounced by him on moden Latin, is conveyed in Latin hexameters. We allude to the fragment which begins

"Quid numeris iterum me balbutire Latinis, Longe Alpes citra natum de patre Sicambro, Musa, jubes 7"

For these reasons we feel assured that the praise which Boileau bestowed on the Machine Gesticulantes, and the Gerano-Pygmæomachiu, was sincere. He certainly opened himself to Addison with a freedom which was a sure indication of esteem. Literature was the chief subject of conversation. The old man talked on his favourite theme much and well; indeed, as his young 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 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 appreciate their creative genius, admired the majestic simplicity of their manner, and had learned from them to despise bombast and tinsel. It is easy, we think, to discover, in the "Spectator" and the "Guardian," traces of the influence, in part salutary and 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.

situation at once degrading and perilous. The people of France, not presaging the cala mities 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 ieft him. "The French conversation," said Addison, "begins 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 duration, he set off for Italy.

In December, 1700, he embarked at Mar seilles. As he glided along the Ligurian coast, he was delighted by the sight of myrties and olive-trees, which retained their verdure under the winter solstice. Soon, however, he en countered one of the black storms of the Mediterranean. The captain of the ship gave up all for lost, and confessed himself to a capuchin who happened to be on board. The English heretic, in the mean time, fortified himself against the terrors of death with devotions of a very different kind. How strong an impres sion this perilous voyage made on him, appears from the ode-"How are thy servants blest, O Lord!" which was long after published in the Spectator. After some days of discomfort and danger, Addison was glad to land at Savena, 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 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 An nunciation, and the tapestries whereon were recorded the long glories of the house of Doria. Thence he hastened to Milan, where he con templated the Gothic magnificence of the cathe dral with more wonder than pleasure. He passed lake Benacus while a gale was blow ing, 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 midst of masques, dances, and se renades. 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 when a ridi culous play on the death of Cato was perform ed. Cato, it seems, was in love with a daughter

* It is strange that Addison should, in the first line of bis travels, have misdated his departure from Marseilles by a whole year, and still more strange that this slip of the pen, which throws the whole narrative into inextricable confusion, should have been repeated in a succession of editions, and never detected by Tickell or by Hurd.