CHAPTER XIX. PROSE WRITERS OF THE FIRST HALF OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. JOSEPH ADDISON. "Give days and nights, sir, to the study of Addison, if you mean to be a good writer, or, what is more worth, an honest man."-Samuel Johnson. "Addison was the best company in the world."—Lady Mary Montagu. "He was not free with his superiors. He was rather mute in his society on some occasions; but when he began to be company he was full of vivacity, and went on in a noble stream of thought and language, so as to chain the attention of every one to him."-Edward Young. "The great satirist who alone knew how to use ridicule without abusing it, who without inflicting a wound effected a great social reform, and who reconciled wit and virtue after a long and disastrous separation, during which wit had been led astray by profligacy, and virtue by fanaticism."-T. B. Macaulay. THE HE writers of prose who were contemporaneous with Pope, developed a new form of English literature, which has exerted a powerful and beneficial influence on the manners and culture of English readers. In the form of a periodical, a scanty supply of news was published, together with a short, lively essay on some moral or critical theme. The aim of the formal dissertations was to inculcate principles of virtue, good taste and politeness. The most illustrious writer in this department of literature was Joseph Addison (1672-1719). This great writer and excellent man was the son of Lancelot Addison, a clergyman of some reputation for learning. In his early years he was sent to the Charter-house, a famous school in London, and there he began his friendship for "Dick" Steele. At fifteen years of age he entered Queen's College, and two years later secured a scholarship at Magdalen College, where he distinguished himself by the style of his scholarship, and by his taste in Latin poetry. His first attempt in English verse (1694) was an Address to Dryden, by which the old poet's friendship was won. A eulogistic poem on William III. attracted the attention of the Court, and gained for the young author a pension of three hundred pounds. He at once began travel in France and Italy, that he might cultivate his tastes; but he was soon deprived of his pension by the death of King William. He returned to London, where he lived in poverty, maintaining that dignified patience and quiet reserve which made his character so estimable. While Addison was living in obscurity, Marlborough won the memorable victory of Blenheim. The Lord Treasurer, Godolphin, eager to see the event celebrated in some worthy manner, was reminded of the young poet. The courtier sought for him, found him in his uncomfortable lodgings in Haymarket, and applied to him to sing the glory of the English hero. The poem known as The Campaign was the result. The verses are stiff and artificial enough; but Addison, abandoning the absurd custom of former poets, who paint a military hero as slaughtering whole squadrons with his single arm, places the glory of a great general on its true basis-the power of conceiving and executing profound intellectual combinations, and calmness and imperturbable foresight in the hour of danger. The praises of Marlborough were none too lofty for the popular demand; the town went wild over one passage, in which the hero was compared to an angel guiding a whirlwind.* * "So when an angel by divine command, With rising tempests shakes a guilty land From the writing of that successful poem, the career of Addison was brilliant and prosperous. He was appointed Under-Secretary of State, and afterwards Chief Secretary for Ireland. Besides these high posts he held other lucrative and honorable offices. The publication of the Campaign had been followed by that of his Travels in Italy, exhibiting proofs not only of his graceful scholarship, but also of his delicate humor, his benevolent morality, and his deep religious spirit. In 1707 he gave to the world his pleasing and graceful opera of Rosamond; and about this time he in all probability sketched the comedy of The Drummer. Although Addison entered upon his literary career as a poet, he won his highest fame by writing prose for the first English periodicals. A short account of Steele and of the early periodical literature may be appropriately given at this point. Sir Richard Steele (1675-1729) was of Irish parentage. He had been the schoolfellow of Addison, upon whom, both at the Charter-house and afterwards during a short stay at Oxford, he seems to have looked with veneration and love. His life was full of the wildest vicissitudes, and his character was one of those which it is equally impossible to hate or to respect. His heart was inordinately tender, his benevolence. deep, his aspirations lofty; but his passions were strong, and his life was passed in sinning and repenting, in getting into scrapes and making projects of reformation. He utterly lacked prudence and self-control. Passionately fond of pleasure, and always ready to sacrifice his own interest for the whim of the moment, he caused himself to be disinherited by enlisting as a private in the Horse-Guards; and when afterwards promoted to a commission, he astonished the town by his wild extravagance, in the midst of which he wrote a moral and religious treatise entitled The Christian Hero, breathing in it the loftiest sentiments of piety and virtue. He was a man of ready though not solid talents; and being an ardent partisan pamphleteer, was rewarded by Government with the place of Gazetteer. This position gave him a monopoly of official news at a time when newspapers were still in their infancy. He determined to profit by the facilities afforded him, and to found a new species of periodical which should contain the news of the day and a series of light and agreeable essays upon topics of universal interest, likely to improve the taste, the manners, and morals of society. It should be remarked that this was a period when literary taste was at its lowest ebb among the middle and fashionable classes of England. The amusements, when not merely frivolous, were either immoral or brutal. Gambling, even among women, was frightfully prevalent. The sports of the men were marked with cruelty and drunkenness. In such a state of things, intellectual pleasures and acquirements were regarded either with wonder or with contempt. The fops and fine ladies actually prided themselves on their ignorance of spelling, and any allusion to books was scouted as pedantry. Such was the disease which Steele desired to cure. He determined to treat it, not with formal doses of moral declamation, but with homœopathic quantities of good sense, good taste, and pleasing morality, disguised under an easy and fashionable style. The Tatler was a small sheet appearing three times a week, at the cost of 1d., each number containing a short essay, generally extending to about two octavo pages, and the rest filled up with news and advertisements. The popularity of the new journal was instant and immense; no tea-table, no coffee-house-in that age of coffee-houses-was without it; and the authors, writing with ease, pleasantry, and knowledge of life, writing as men of the world, and as men about town, rather than as literary recluses, soon gained the attention of the people whom they addressed. The Tatler was published for nearly two years,-from April 12th, 1709, till January 2d, 1711. By that time Steele had lost his position as Gazetteer. His success in writing under the nom de plume of Isaac Bickerstaffe, prompted him to continue his addresses to the public. He soon established the famous Spec1711] tator. This was like the Tatler, with the difference that it appeared six times a week. After reaching five hundred and fifty-five numbers, it was discontinued for about eighteen months, resuming its work in 1714. The Guardian, inferior to either of the other periodicals, though having Addison and Steele for contributors, was begun in 1712, and continued for one hundred and seventy-five numbers. Steele, though he was master of a ready and pleasant pen, was compelled to obtain as much assistance as he could from his friends. Many writers of the time, among them Swift and Berkeley, furnished hints or contributions. But we must return to Addison. His constant and powerful aid was freely given to Steele. He entered warmly into the project, making the most valuable as well as the most numerous contributions. For The Tatler he furnished one-sixth, for The Spectator more than one-half, and for The Guardian one-third of the whole quantity of matter. His papers are signed by one of the four letters, C. L. I. O., either the letters of the name of Clio, or the initials of Chelsea, London, Islington and the Office, the places where the essays were written. For several years four acts of an unfinished drama had been tossed about among Addison's papers. During the suspension of The Spectator he improved the opportunity of completing the work, and in 1713 brought out his tragedy of Cato. It is cold, solemn and pompous, written with scrupulous regard for the classical unities. The story is without special interest. The characters, however, are full of patriotic and virtuous rhetoric. The play was a wonderful success on the stage. Night after night an applauding audience crowded the theatre, whig and tory finding delight |