The original delineation of Sir Roger de Coverley, for the management and keeping of which character Addison has been highly extolled, must unquestionably be ascribed to Steele. He drew the outlines; Addison principally worked up the portrait. Johnson not only takes a false view of the character, but in contradiction to every judgment but his own, represents the author as sinking under the weight of it. “The irregularities in Sir Roger’s conduct seem not so much the effects of a mind deviating from the beaten track of life, by the pressure of some overwhelming idea, as of habitual rusticity, and that negligence which solitary grandeur naturally generates. The variable weather of the mind, the flying vapours of incipient madness, which from time to time cloud reason, without eclipsing it, it requires so much nicety to exhibit, that Addison seems to have been deterred from prosecuting his own design.” This seems to be a mistake from beginning to end. Addison had no more design to impute incipient madness to Sir Roger, than to his contrast, Sir Andrew Freeport. Habitual rusticity is not the prevailing feature in a man who visited the metropolis every season: a main beauty of the picture is, that Sir Roger is always a gentleman, although an odd one. Hear Lord Orford on the subject. “Natural humour was the primary talent of Addison. His character of Sir Roger de Coverley, though inferior, is only inferior to Shakspeare’s Falstaff.” But however prejudiced or mistaken Johnson might be in this particular instance, when he deals in generalities, he traces the peculiar merits of Addison’s manner with the touch of a master. “He copies with so much fidelity, that he can be hardly said to invent; yet his exhibitions have an air so much original, that it is difficult to suppose them not merely the product of imagination.”
An attempt has been made to compare the humour of Addison with that of Molière, of whom Lord Chesterfield said that no man ever had so much. But a parallel between an essayist and a dramatic writer will not run straight; the construction of the drama gives so much greater latitude to the display of humour, and allows of so much nearer an approach to extravagance, that there can be no drawn game between them, and the essayist will almost always be the loser.
As a critic, Addison’s merit is impartially and ably set forth in the notes to his Life in Dr. Kippis’s edition of the ‘Biographia Britannica.’ On that subject Johnson is just and liberal. “Addison is now despised by some who perhaps would never have seen his defects, but by the lights which he afforded them.” By some of these arrogant despisers he has been blamed for deciding by taste rather than by principles. To this Dr. Warton, who thought him superior to Dryden as a critic, briefly answers, taste must decide. Addison’s style has been universally admired and thought a model. Lord Orford says of Addison, Swift, Bolingbroke, and Dr. Middleton, “Such authors fix a standard by their writings.” Johnson says he did not wish to be energetic; Dr. Warton affirms that he is so, and that often. Steele describes his habits of composition. “This was particular in this writer, that, when he had taken his resolution, or made his plan for what he designed to write, he would walk about a room, and dictate it into language with as much freedom and ease as any one could write it down, and attend to the coherence and grammar of what he dictated.” Pope says that he wrote with fluency; but if he had time to correct, did it slowly and cautiously; but that many of the ‘Spectators’ were written rapidly, and sent to the press in the instant; and he doubts whether much leisure for revisal would have led to improvement. “He would alter any thing to please his friends, before publication, but would not retouch his pieces afterwards; and I believe not one word in Cato, to which I made an objection, was suffered to stand.” The last line of Cato was Pope’s; a substitute for the original.
We have neither room nor willingness to enter on the jealousy between these two eminent persons. Bowles vindicates Addison’s conduct, and relates the following fact to the credit of his disposition:—“Though attacked by Dennis as a critic, he never mentioned his name with asperity, and refused to give the least countenance to a pamphlet which Pope had written upon the occasion of Dennis’s stricture on Cato.” The piece here alluded to is the ‘Narrative of the Madness of John Dennis.’ Pope strangely imputed Addison’s pious compositions to the selfish motive of an intention to take orders and obtain a bishopric on quitting administration. Johnson cites this as the only proof that Pope retained some malignity from their ancient rivalship: with this opinion we cannot quite agree.
Addison’s defect of animal spirits condemned him to silence in general company; but his conversation, when set afloat by wine and the presence of confidential friends, was brilliant and delightful. Steele represents him as “having all the wit and nature of Terence and Catullus, heightened with humour more exquisite than any other man ever possessed.” This high flight is borne out by Pope’s less suspicious testimony. “Addison’s conversation had something in it more charming than I have found in any other man.” Tonson and Spence represent him as demanding to be the first name in modern wit; and with Steele as his echo, depreciating Dryden, whom Pope and Congreve defended against them. We close our account with the following summary of his character from Hutchinson’s ‘History of Cumberland’:—“Addison was modest and mild, a scholar, a gentleman, a poet, and a Christian.”
BRAMANTE.
The name of Bramante derives a marked distinction from its intimate connexion with the history of the famous church of St. Peter at Rome, and is further interesting in its association with the names of Michael Angelo, of Raphael, and of the pontiff Julius II. Bramante is justly noted among the cinquecento architects, as a powerful co-operator in the great work of restoring, under certain modifications, the style of ancient Rome. The leader of this reformation is universally acknowledged to have been Brunelleschi; while Palladio is honoured as having effected its final and permanent establishment. Brunelleschi had evinced his daring and his taste in projecting the vast dome of Florence cathedral, the character of which, however, exhibited only a slight advance towards the regular architecture of antiquity; and it remained for a successor to emulate at once the majestic elevation of the Florentine cupola, and the more classic beauty of the Roman Pantheon.
Brunelleschi died in 1444, a circumstance which we mention as giving additional interest to the fact, that, in 1444, Bramante was born. The family of the latter, his birth-place, and even his name, are matters of some obscurity; but there is reason to believe that his parentage was humble, and that he was born in the territory of Urbino. Whether at Urbino the capital of the Duchy, or at Castel Durante, at Fermignano, or at Monte Asdrubale, there are no means of deciding, unless we admit as evidence in favour of the latter place an existing medal in the Museo Mazzachelliano, whereon are inscribed the words “Bramantes Asdruvaldinus.” He is variously called Bramante Lazzari, Lazzaro Bramante, and is spoken of as “Donato di Urbino, cognominato Bramante.”
