III THE JUSTIFICATION OF WISDOM I. Doubts ADDISON had written nothing for the earlier Guardians ; he had been too busy over Cato. The field had been left to Berkeley, who, with that charming simpleness which sometimes peeps through the subleties of his philosophy, used it to confound such monsters' as free-thinkers, critics, and misers in one graceful damnation. And although Addison contributed some fifty papers to the second volume, he seems to have felt they were of a rather tired quality, being indeed mainly furbished-up versions of the letters he had written home when on his travels. "There is no employment so irksome as that of transcribing out of oneself next to that of transcribing out of others" he was to say later; so in the autumn he retired to Bilton to enjoy the company of his sister, 'a sort of wit, very like Addison', to prepare for the election now due under the Triennial Act, and to gather fresh material. He refused to be drawn into any literary venture, and replied to Hughes's solicitations by saying "I must now take some time pour me délasser, and lay in fuel for a future work ". Moreover, in the then stormy crisis of affairs, with ballad-mongers crying out against the makers of the wretched damn'd sham Peace', and piously wishing that 'Bob' [Harley] and 'Harry' [St. John] might be hanged,' it would be impossible to write anything out of which party capital could not be made. Steele, with characteristic courage had thrown himself into the fray with a a paper called The Englishman. "I am in a thousand troubles for poor Dick ", Addison continued to Hughes, "and wish that his zeal for the public may not be ruinous to himself; but he has sent me word that he is determined to go on, and that any advice I may give him in this particular, will have no weight with him." But it is doubtful if Steele had ever given much more than lip-service to Addison's advice. It always seemed sound; but somehow, when it came to actuality, was impotent to check him. No one could expect the fervent Steele to keep out of the present exciting hurly-burly, or persuade him that it was called folly to prop a falling fabric. When in April the Queen announced the signature of the Peace of Utrecht, the turbid river of pamphlets, which already seemed swollen to the utmost, doubled and redoubled itself, flooding the country with a mass of ephemeral matter. On the Whig side the treaty gave rise to a howl of execration. The Queen's ministers were traitors, Jacobites, Papists; why else such disgracefully easy terms to Louis; why the quashing of prosecutions against Scottish Jacobites; why, finally, this influx of Popish priests? When the magistrates of Dunkirk—to Captain Shandy's dismay-petitioned the Queen against the demolition of their fortifications, the cries grew louder than ever, and it is possible that even Addison secretly published one or two leaflets. The old Whig juntists, rallying their forces, carried a Bill in the House of Lords making high treason any active measures against the Protestant succession-but they only carried it by one Ballad, Harleian Misc., iii. 294. vote! And while the enlistments in the Pretender's army increased, they began to correspond with Marlborough, a pastime in which they were joined by Lord Oxford. Clearly, if it was wise to write anonymously, it was wiser still to keep out of the tussle altogether. Poor Dick would not listen to reason. He saw the state was in danger, and said so at some length, with great clarity, and no lack of vigour, in The Crisis. Even if he made too much of the scare, he said, it was better to be frightened by a bogey than to be lulled into false security. Addison, Hoadley, and others, privately gave it a little revision, and it appeared on the 19th January 1714, a powerful indictment of the Government. Poor Dick indeed! He watched the public weal but not his own. To publish The Crisis was a rash act, the pamphlet one of which the new Tory Parliament could not but take notice. It was true their party was in a large majority, which it intended to increase by bringing in petitions against a hundred odd Whig members, including Steele; but however strong you may be, you do not care to nourish a really dangerous viper in your bosom for a moment longer than necessary, and since Steele was as far down as seventeenth on the list, it was found more convenient to charge him at the Bar of the House of Commons with irreligion and sedition, than to await the outcome of the other charge. The Kit-Cat took the matter in hand, not trusting Steele's impetuous nature, and forbade him to conduct his own defence. They caused him instead to stand between Walpole and General Stanhope and read a three-hour speech by Addison, who sat near by. But the case was prejudged ; the speeches of Walpole and others were of no effect whatever, and the member for Stockbridge was expelled Lecky, England, i. the House. "There is no need to issue orders for his commitment", Collier, the theatre patentee and Parliament-man, is reported to have said; I once he is no longer a member of this House, his creditors will see to that for us." Addison was not attacked-there is no danger in a member who never opens his mouth-and controlling his zeal, he kept out of the murky regions, resisting Bolingbroke's attempt to win him over. How, indeed, could he change? He had written, "Nothing that is not a real crime makes a man appear more contemptible and little in the eyes of the world as inconstancy, especially when it regards religion or party". It would not have suited him to be a renegado, for, "In either of these cases, though a man perhaps does but his duty in changing his side, he not only makes himself hated by those he left, but is seldom heartily esteemed by those he came over to". He held firm; and meanwhile, as the Queen's constitution sank, the struggle waxed fiercer and more vindictive. So universal were treachery and tergiversation' that no one could foresee the issue, and it was only by a majority of seven that the Upper House rejected a motion that the Protestant succession was in danger." Foreign observers, indeed, would have supported the motion.3 The succession was probably always safe enough, for commerce was on the side of the Hanoverians, as well as law, the dissenters, and the moderate Church party; but at that time the excitement was intense, and civil war seemed imminent. When at the end of July Bolingbroke forced Oxford from power, the country held its breath, and few dared whistle Lilli-Burlero. The immediate rumour La reine se meurt' sent a shudder throughout the kingdom. I Spectator, 162. 2 Hallam, iii. 3 Lecky, England, i. But-Addison was busied with other things. Every week there appeared three Spectators,' those by Addison being written in his suavest manner. The journal dealt with such subjects as the benefit of needlework to ladies, the cleanliness of Mahometans, the grandeur of obscurity, and, with equal urbanity, the poetry of Cowley, the ubiquity of God, or Sir Isaac Newton's noble way of regarding infinite space. Perhaps, however, Addison was right, for when on the Ist August the news came' La reine est morte ' it was felt as an anti-climax. The Jacobite plans were found to be in a hopeless state of muddled unreadiness, and the Regency of Peers, selected to bridge the interim of King George's absence, ruled unopposed. A scarcely disturbed calm reigned over the waters, in the midst of which Addison floated in well-merited glory as Secretary to the Chief Justices, or Regents. It was a magnificent appointment, so magnificent as to give rise to some comment, for it was thought to herald a Secretaryship of State. Halifax, indeed, believing with undue optimism that he would be made head of the Government, is said to have offered the post to Addison as they went to meet the King. The offer, it is supposed, was refused, for apart from its conditional nature, if it behoves a maiden of modesty to refuse the earliest offer of marriage, and a clergyman the first offer of a bishopric,3 it would be most improper for a politician at once to seize the chance of one of the three highest posts in the kingdom. The Parliament elected after the King's arrival was splendidly Whig, for no expense had been spared. Steele once more took his place in the assembly, this time I Nos. 556-635, 18th June-28th Dec. 3 Spectator, 89. |