English Literature
satirical, often coarse, and seldom rise above doggerel. Unlike his friend
Addison, Swift saw, in the growing polish and decency of society, only a
mask for hypocrisy; and he often used his verse to shock the new-born
modesty by pointing out some native ugliness which his diseased mind
discovered under every beautiful exterior.
That Swift is the most original writer of his time, and one of the greatest
masters of English prose, is undeniable. Directness, vigor, simplicity,
mark every page. Among writers of that age he stands almost alone in his
disdain of literary effects. Keeping his object steadily before him, he
drives straight on to the end, with a convincing power that has never been
surpassed in our language. Even in his most grotesque creations, the reader
never loses the sense of reality, of being present as an eyewitness of the
most impossible events, so powerful and convincing is Swift's prose. Defoe
had the same power; but in writing _Robinson Crusoe_, for instance, his
task was comparatively easy, since his hero and his adventures were both
natural; while Swift gives reality to pygmies, giants, and the most
impossible situations, as easily as if he were writing of facts.
Notwithstanding these excellent qualities, the ordinary reader will do well
to confine himself to _Gulliver's Travels_ and a book of well-chosen
selections. For, it must be confessed, the bulk of Swift's work is not
wholesome reading. It is too terribly satiric and destructive; it
emphasizes the faults and failings of humanity; and so runs counter to the
general course of our literature, which from Cynewulf to Tennyson follows
the Ideal, as Merlin followed the Gleam,[191] and is not satisfied till the
hidden beauty of man's soul and the divine purpose of his struggle are
manifest.
JOSEPH ADDISON (1672-1719)
In the pleasant art of living with one's fellows, Addison is easily a
master. It is due to his perfect expression of that art, of that new social
life which, as we have noted, was characteristic of the Age of Anne, that
Addison occupies such a large place in the history of literature. Of less
power and originality than Swift, he nevertheless wields, and deserves to
wield, a more lasting influence. Swift is the storm, roaring against the
ice and frost of the late spring of English life. Addison is the sunshine,
which melts the ice and dries the mud and makes the earth thrill with light
and hope. Like Swift, he despised shams, but unlike him, he never lost
faith in humanity; and in all his satires there is a gentle kindliness
which makes one think better of his fellow-men, even while he laughs at
their little vanities.
Two things Addison did for our literature which are of inestimable value.
First, he overcame a certain corrupt tendency bequeathed by Restoration
literature. It was the apparent aim of the low drama, and even of much of
the poetry of that age, to make virtue ridiculous and vice attractive.
Addison set himself squarely against this unworthy tendency. To strip off
the mask of vice, to show its ugliness and deformity, but to reveal virtue
in its own native loveliness,--that was Addison's purpose; and he succeeded
so well that never, since his day, has our English literature seriously
followed after false gods. As Macaulay says, "So effectually did he retort
on vice the mockery which had recently been directed against virtue, that
since his time the open violation of decency has always been considered
amongst us a sure mark of a fool." And second, prompted and aided by the
more original genius of his friend Steele, Addison seized upon the new
social life of the clubs and made it the subject of endless pleasant essays
upon types of men and manners. _The Tatler_ and _The Spectator_ are the
beginning of the modern essay; and their studies of human character, as
exemplified in Sir Roger de Coverley, are a preparation for the modern
novel.
LIFE. Addison's life, like his writings, is in marked contrast to that of
Swift. He was born in Milston, Wiltshire, in 1672. His father was a
scholarly English clergyman, and all his life Addison followed naturally
the quiet and cultured ways to which he was early accustomed. At the famous
Charterhouse School, in London, and in his university life at Oxford, he
excelled in character and scholarship and became known as a writer of
graceful verses. He had some intention, at one time, of entering the
Church, but was easily persuaded by his friends to take up the government
service instead. Unlike Swift, who abused his political superiors, Addison
took the more tactful way of winning the friendship of men in large places.
His lines to Dryden won that literary leader's instant favor, and one of
his Latin poems, "The Peace of Ryswick" (1697), with its kindly
appreciation of King William's statesmen, brought him into favorable
political notice. It brought him also a pension of three hundred pounds a
year, with a suggestion that he travel abroad and cultivate the art of
diplomacy; which he promptly did to his own great advantage.
From a literary view point the most interesting work of Addison's early
life is his _Account of the Greatest English Poets_ (1693), written while
he was a fellow of Oxford University. One rubs his eyes to find Dryden
lavishly praised, Spenser excused or patronized, while Shakespeare is not
even mentioned. But Addison was writing under Boileau's "classic" rules;
and the poet, like the age, was perhaps too artificial to appreciate
natural genius.
While he was traveling abroad, the death of William and the loss of power
by the Whigs suddenly stopped Addison's pension; necessity brought him
home, and for a time he lived in poverty and obscurity. Then occurred the
battle of Blenheim, and in the effort to find a poet to celebrate the
event, Addison was brought to the Tories' attention. His poem, "The
Campaign," celebrating the victory, took the country by storm. Instead of
making the hero slay his thousands and ten thousands, like the old epic
heroes, Addison had some sense of what is required in a modern general, and
so made Marlborough direct the battle from the outside, comparing him to an
angel riding on the whirlwind:
'T was then great Marlbro's mighty soul was proved,
That, in the shock of charging hosts unmoved,
Amidst confusion, horror, and despair,
Examined all the dreadful scenes of war;
In peaceful thought the field of death surveyed,
To fainting squadrons sent the timely aid,
Inspired repulsed battalions to engage,
And taught the doubtful battle where to rage.
So when an angel by divine command
With rising tempests shakes a guilty land,
(Such as of late o'er pale Britannia past,)
Calm and serene he drives the furious blast;
And, pleased th' Almighty's orders to perform,
Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm.
That one doubtful simile made Addison's fortune. Never before or since was
a poet's mechanical work so well rewarded. It was called the finest thing
ever written, and from that day Addison rose steadily in political favor
and office. He became in turn Undersecretary, member of Parliament,
Secretary for Ireland, and finally Secretary of State. Probably no other
literary man, aided by his pen alone, ever rose so rapidly and so high in
office.
The rest of Addison's life was divided between political duties and
literature. His essays for the _Tatler_ and _Spectator_, which we still
cherish, were written between 1709 and 1714; but he won more literary fame
by his classic tragedy _Cato_, which we have almost forgotten. In 1716 he
married a widow, the Countess of Warwick, and went to live at her home, the
famous Holland House. His married life lasted only three years, and was
probably not a happy one. Certainly he never wrote of women except with
gentle satire, and he became more and more a clubman, spending most of his
time in the clubs and coffeehouses of London. Up to this time his life had
been singularly peaceful; but his last years were shadowed by quarrels,
first with Pope, then with Swift, and finally with his lifelong friend
Steele. The first quarrel was on literary grounds, and was largely the
result of Pope's jealousy. The latter's venomous caricature of Addison as
Atticus shows how he took his petty revenge on a great and good man who had
been his friend. The other quarrels with Swift, and especially with his old
friend Steele, were the unfortunate result of political differences, and
show how impossible it is to mingle literary ideals with party politics. He
died serenely in 1719. A brief description from Thackeray's _English
Humorists_ is his best epitaph:
A life prosperous and beautiful, a calm death; an immense fame and
affection afterwards for his happy and spotless name.
WORKS OF ADDISON. The most enduring of Addison's works are his famous
_Essays_, collected from the _Tatler_ and _Spectator._ We have spoken of
him as a master of the art of gentle living, and these essays are a
perpetual inducement to others to know and to practice the same fine art.
To an age of fundamental coarseness and artificiality he came with a
wholesome message of refinement and simplicity, much as Ruskin and Arnold
spoke to a later age of materialism; only Addison's success was greater
than theirs because of his greater knowledge of life and his greater faith
in men. He attacks all the little vanities and all the big vices of his
time, not in Swift's terrible way, which makes us feel hopeless of
humanity, but with a kindly ridicule and gentle humor which takes speedy
improvement for granted. To read Swift's brutal "Letters to a Young Lady,"
and then to read Addison's "Dissection of a Beau's Head" and his
"Dissection of a Coquette's Heart," is to know at once the secret of the
latter's more enduring influence.
Three other results of these delightful essays are worthy of attention:
first, they are the best picture we possess of the new social life of
England, with its many new interests; second, they advanced the art of
literary criticism to a much higher stage than it had ever before reached,
and however much we differ from their judgment and their interpretation of
such a man as Milton, they certainly led Englishmen to a better knowledge
and appreciation of their own literature; and finally, in Ned Softly the
literary dabbler, Will Wimble the poor relation, Sir Andrew Freeport the
merchant, Will Honeycomb the fop, and Sir Roger the country gentleman, they
give us characters that live forever as part of that goodly company which
extends from Chaucer's country parson to Kipling's Mulvaney. Addison and
Steele not only introduced the modern essay, but in such characters as
these they herald the dawn of the modern novel. Of all his essays the best
known and loved are those which introduce us to Sir Roger de Coverley, the
genial dictator of life and manners in the quiet English country.
In style these essays are remarkable as showing the growing perfection of
the English language. Johnson says, "Whoever wishes to attain an English
style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give
his days and nights to the volumes of Addison." And again he says, "Give
nights and days, sir, to the study of Addison if you mean to be a good
writer, or, what is more worth, an honest man." That was good criticism for
its day, and even at the present time critics are agreed that Addison's
_Essays_ are well worth reading once for their own sake, and many times for
their influence in shaping a clear and graceful style of writing.
Addison's poems, which were enormously popular in his day, are now seldom
read. His _Cato_, with its classic unities and lack of dramatic power, must
be regarded as a failure, if we study it as tragedy; but it offers an