Macaulay r yiacaulay, Thomas Babington '^ Macaulay' s essay on Addison .J^:^^i7 ;^ Macaulay's Essay on Addison Edited with Notes, Glossary, Index of Proper Names, etc., by R. F. Winch, M.A. i London Macmillan and Co., Limited New York : The Macmillan Company 1905 All rights reserved S30(c ifOS GLASGOW : PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD. CONTENTS PAGE Introduction, vii Analysis, ix Chronological Table, xi Essay on Life and Writings of Addison, - - - l Notes, 89 Glossary, 104 Index of PRorER Names, HI Questions, 145 Subjects for Essays, 148 Macaulay's Style, 149 Helps to Further Study, - 150 INTRODUCTION In this famous Essay a great English man of letters gives us his help towards the study of one of his predecessors. He places at our service his wonderful memory, his power of marshalling facts and details in array, his skill in story-telling, his own never-failing interest in the story he has to tell. The Essay is well worth reading because it was Macaulay that wrote it. It is also worthy of study because it is about Addison —the "dear parson in the tye wig," as Thackeray called him, because, without assuming the dress of a clergyman, he became, in his gentle humorous way, a preacher of morals to his age — one of the most loveable characters among literary men, and one of the greatest writers of English prose. Again, it deserves to be studied because it tells us so much about a most interesting period, the age of Queen Anne, the age of the famous London "coffee-houses," when English politics and English literature were more closely connected than they have ever been before or since. But the best way of appreciating Macaulay's Essay and understanding his enthusiasm for Addison is to read some of Addison's own essays and especially the delight- ful Coverley papers in the Spectator. J. H. F. ;: ANALYSIS. PAGE 1-2. Criticism of a lady's book must be courteous and lenient Miss Aikin's Life of Addison a disappointment. 3. A Reviewer need not be guilty of abject idolatry nevertheless Addison's character deserves much love and esteem. 4-6. Parentage, boyhood, and college career of Joseph Addison. 7-10. His classical attainments discussed. — 11-13. Addison's English Poems and translations of the Fourth Georgic, with a digression on the heroic couplet as mastered by Pope. 14-16. Addison's choice of a calling ; he is patronized by Charles Montague, and sent to France in 1699. 17-20. His life in France : he meets Boileau ; reasons for thinking Boileau's praise of Addison's Latin poems to have been sincere. 21-28. Addison leaves France and travels in Italy, Switzer- land, Germany and Holland ; returns to England in 1703. 29-34. The state of parties in England. The Battle of Blen- heim. Addison writes The Campaign. Explanation of the success of that poem. 35-36. Addison publishes The Narrative of his Travels in Italy, and The Opera of Rosamond. 37-39. His political career in England from 1705-1708. 41-44. His character and his friends. '^ 45-46. His career as Chief Secretary in Ireland. ^ 47-53. The Tatler ; Addison's contributions are discussed. 53-55. Changes in the Government. Addison suffers severely in consequence, but is returned to Parliament. 56, He publishes The Whig Examiner. X ANALYSIS. 56-60. In March 1711 the first number of The Spectator appears : the success of that paper. 61-64. The Gtturdian ; Addison's first paper is in No. 67 ; he was preparing Cato ; the production and success of that play. 65-66. Pope's.attitude to Addison. *^ 67-69. Anne died 1714; Whigs return to power; Addison becomes first Secretary to the Lords Justices, then Chief Secretary for Ireland. -'^ 70. Relations between Swift and Addison. 71-72. Addison returns to England ; The Drummer ; The Freeholder. ^^ 72-79. Estrangement between Pope and Addison explained. 80-81. Addison and the Countess-Dowager of Warwick. Addison becomes Secretary of State ; his health fails. 82. He retires with pension, £1500 a year. 83. Estrangement of Steele. 84. The Peerage Bill was attacked by Steele in The Plebeian and defended by Addison in The Old Whig. 85-88. Little Dicky, Last days of Addison. His works en- trusted to Tickell. Visit of Gay. Death and funeral of Addison, 1719. No monument till 1809. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. Chief Events in Chief Contemporary Date. Addison's Life. Events. 1672. Born. War between England and Holland. 1684. Went to Charterhouse. Bunyan's Holy War. 1687. Entered Queen's Coll., Oxford. Declaration of Indulgence. Dryden's Hind ami Pan- ther. Newton's Prin- cipia. 1689. Was elected to Demyship at Declaration of Right. Magdalen College. Locke's Letter on Tol- eration. 1693. Took degree of M.A. ; wrote Party Government advised A ccount of the Greatest English by Sunderland. Poets, Verses to Dryden. 1694. Translation of Fourth Georgic. Triennial Bill passed. 1695. Address to King William. Siege of Namur byWilliam III. 1697. Verses on the Peace of Rysioick Dryden's Virgil. (Latin). 1698. Fellow of Magdalen College. First Partition Treaty. 1699. Went to France to Blois. Bentley's Dissertation on Pygmaeo-gerano-machia. the Epistles of Phalaris. 1700. Went to Paris, met Boileau. Second Partition Treaty. In December embarked from 1701. Marseilles for a tour in Italy Grand Alliance, and Switzerland. 1702. In Austria, Germany, and Death of William HI. Holland. Accession of Anne. 1703. Returned to England. Re- Queen Anne's Bounty. Tnarks on Italy. The Great Storm. John Philips' The Splendid Shilling. xii CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 1704. Wrote The Campaign. Battle of Blenheim. 1705. Attended Lord Halifax to Regency Bill passed. Hanover. 1706. Under-Secretary of State. Battle of Ramilliea. Rosamond. 1707. The, Present State of the War. Union with Scotland. 1708. M.P. for Lostwithiel. Battle of Oudenarde. 1709. Chief Secretary for Ireland Battle of Malplaquet. (under Wharton). The Tatler. 1710. The miig Examiner. Impeachmentof Dr. Sache- verell. 1711. The Spectator. Pope's Essay on Criticism. 1712. Made Pope's acquaintance. Vo\)q'b Rape of the Lock. 1713. Produced Cato. Treaty of Utrecht. 1714. Chief Secretar}^ for Ireland Death of Queen Anne. (under Sunderland). Accession of George I. 1715. Rupture with Pope. The Free- Jacobite Rebellion. holder. 1716. Married the Countess of War- Flight of Pretender to wick. France. 1717. Secretary of State. Triple Alliance. 1719. Died and was buried in West- Peerage Bill. Defoe's Rob- minster Abbey. inson Crusoe. THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. The Life of Joseph Addison. By Lucy Aikin, 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1843. Some reviewers are of opinion that a lady who dares to publish a book renounces by that act the franchises apper- taining to her sex, and can claim no exemption from the utmost rigour of critical procedure. From that opinion we dissent. "We admit, indeed, that . in a country which boasts of many female writers, eminently qualified by their talents and acquirements to influence the public mind, it would be of most pernicious consequence that inaccurate history or unsound philosophy should be suffered to pass uncensured, merely because the offender chanced to be a lady. But we 10 conceive that, on such occasions, a critic wouid do well to imitate the courteous Knight who found himself compelled by duty to keep the lists against Bradamante. He, we are told, defended successfully the cause of which he was the champion ; but, before the fight began, exchanged Balisarda for a less deadly sword, of which he carefully blunted the point and edge. Nor are the immunities of sex the only immunities which Miss Aikin may rightfully plead. Several of her works, and especially the very pleasing Memoirs of the Beign of James 20 the First, have fully entitled her to the privileges enjoyed 5 A 2 LIFE AND WRITINGS OP ADDISON. by good writers. One of those privileges we hold to be this, that such writers, when, either from the unlucky choice of a subject, or from the indolence too often produced by success, they happen to fail, shall not be subjected to the severe disci- pline which it is sometimes necessary to inflict upon dunces and impostors, but shall merely be reminded by a gentle touch, like that with which the Laputan flapper roused his dreaming lord, that it is high time to wake. Our readers will probably infer from what we have said 10 that Miss Aikin's book has disappointed us. The truth is, that she is not well acquainted with her subject. No person who is not familiar with the political and literary history of England during the reigns of William the Third, of Anne, and of George the First, can possibly write a good life of Addison. Now, we mean no reproach to Miss Aikin, and many will think that we pay her a compliment, when we say that her studies have taken a difi'erent direction. She is better acquainted with Shakspeare and Raleigh, than with Congreve and Prior ; and is far more at home among the 20 rufi's and peaked beards of Theobald's, than among the Steenkirks and flowing periwigs which surrounded Queen Anne's tea table at Hampton. She seems to have written about the Elizabethan age, because ^hr h?d read much about it ; she seems, on the other hand, t^ have read a little about the ag: of Addison, because she had determined to write about it. The coiisequence is ths.t she has had ub describe men aT^r" things without having either a correct or a vivid i« • of them, and that she has often fallen into errors of a very serious kind.