"From the coffee-house he went to a tavern, where he often sat late, and drank too much wine. In the bottle, discontent seeks for comfort, cowardice for courage, and bashfulness for confidence. It is not unlikely that Addison was first seduced to excess by the manumission which he obtained from the servile timidity of his sober hours. He that feels oppression from the presence of those to whom he knows himself superior, will desire to set loose his powers of conversation; and who that ever asked succors from Bacchus was able to preserve himself from being enslaved by his auxiliary?
"Among those friends it was that Addison displayed the elegance of his colloquial accomplishments, which may easily be supposed such as Pope represents them. The remark of Mandeville, who, when he had passed an evening in his company, declared that he was a parson in a tie-wig, can detract little from his character; he was always reserved to strangers, and was not incited to uncommon freedom by a character like that of Mandeville."—Johnson's Life of Addison.
The statement made by Dr. Johnson, in his Lives of the Poets, and by Spence, that Addison's marriage, like that of Dryden, was not a happy one, has lately been strongly argued against by Miss Aikin. One would gladly be able to acquiesce in it, and if we could believe the painter as well as Miss Aikin, we should be inclined to believe the Countess of Warwick possessed both unusual sense and sweetness of temper. The current of tradition, however, runs strongly the other way; and I fear we have not now sufficient strength of evidence to avert it. As little do I anticipate that Miss Aikin will prove Addison a very sober man; the statements of his cotemporaries, and the voice of tradition, are against her. We must be content to take the man with his failings and his secret griefs, the foils to a great reputation and a great prosperity.
Addison purchased the estate of Bilton for £10,000, and the money was principally advanced by his brother Gulston Addison, governor of Fort St. George, at Madras. Thither he conveyed his paintings, his library, and his collection of medals, which, as connected with his Dialogues on Medals, was very valuable. Here it may be supposed that, during the five years previous to his marriage, he passed much of his leisure time. It was a beautiful retirement, well calculated to dispose to thought, and worthy of the author of the Spectator. If we are to believe tradition, that he planted most of the trees now standing around it, he must have taken great pleasure in its embellishment. On his death, he left it to his only child, Charlotte Addison, who could not have been much more than two years old. Here she spent her long life, from the death of her mother, the countess, dying in 1797, at about eighty years of age. Miss Addison, for she was never married, is said to have been of weak intellect, a fact by many traced to the want of real and spiritual union between her parents, a supposition which the researches of our own times into the nature of man tend greatly to confirm. With the usual effect of aristocratic prejudice on a feeble mind, she is said to have been especially proud of her mother, but to have rarely mentioned her father. Being left to the care and education of her mother, this does not very strongly corroborate the case which Miss Aikin labors to establish. It does not tell very eloquently for that true affection which she tells us the countess bore toward Addison, and which she endeavors to prove by proving Addison's affection for her, evidenced by his making her his sole executrix, and guardian of his child. By the fruits we must judge of the woman as well as the tree, and the fruit of Lady Warwick's education of her child was, by all accounts, this, that she left her ashamed of her father the commoner, though an immortal man, and proud of her mother, a lady—and nothing more. There are many stories of the eccentricities and increasing fatuity of poor Miss Addison floating in the village and neighborhood of Bilton, which may as well die out with time. The disposal of her property marks the tendency of her feelings. Her grandfather, Dr. Lancelot Addison, was a native of Cumberland. There, at the time of Miss Addison making her will, still remained many near and poor relations, whom she entirely passed over, as she had done in her lifetime, and bequeathed Bilton to the Honorable John Bridgman Simpson, brother to Lord Bridgman, whose representative is now Earl of Bradford. This gentleman she chose to consider her nearest relation, because her mother's relation, though very near he could not be. Her mother, the countess, was the daughter of Sir Thomas Middleton, of Chirk Castle, Denbighshire, by a daughter of Sir Orlando Bridgman; so that this Mr. Bridgman Simpson, a relative of her grandmother, could be no very near relative of her own, while she must have had first cousins of the paternal line in plenty. Those relatives of her own name, and who would have handed down the property, bound up with the name of Addison, as a monument of their family fame, disputed her will, but ineffectually. She is buried there in the chancel of the church, but the gratitude of that aristocratic person on whom, to the prejudice of her own name and blood, she bestowed her whole estate, has never to this hour proved warm enough to furnish a single stone, or a single line, to mark where she lies. As if the name of Addison were something noxious or disgraceful, and should be carefully kept out of all mention which might decide its connection with Bilton,
"The sole daughter of his house and heart"
lies buried in that oblivious silence which can not but be confessed to be a rich piece of poetical justice, though of very unpoetical ingratitude. Soon after Miss Addison's death, the library was removed to London, and in May, 1799, was sold by auction for £456, 2s., 9d., and Addison's collection of medals for £92, 2s., 2d. The poet's screen, drinking-cup, tea-pot, &c., are now in the possession of William Ferdinand Wratislaw, Esq., of Rugby, the descendant of one of the most ancient families in Europe—no other than the royal family of Bohemia, of which our "good Queen Ann," the wife of Richard II., was a princess; and of which, that is, of Mr. Wratislaw, of Rugby, the present head of the house, the young Count Adam Wratislaw, allied to Queen Victoria by his aunt, the Princess of Leiningen, is a near relative. They could not be in better hands.
Since Miss Addison's death, the house at Bilton has been successively occupied by Mrs. Brookes and Miss Moore; by Mr. Apperley, the well-known Nimrod of sporting literature; by Sir Charles Palmer, Bart.; by the Vernon family; by the Misses Boddington; and, lastly, by Mr. Simpson himself. Mr. Simpson has considerably improved the house, rebuilding the back part facing the garden; but, on the other hand, he cut down a considerable part of a fine avenue of limes, stretching along one side of the garden down to a wood below, called Addison's Walk. This avenue is said to have been planted by Addison, and terminated in a clump of evergreens, where was an alcove called Addison's Seat. It was not till about half this avenue was felled that Mr. Simpson heard that it was Addison's Walk, and caused the destruction to stop. He is now a very old man, and has not resided at Bilton since the death of his wife. The house is, however, furnished; and after reading Miss Aikin's statement, that "a small number of pictures collected by Addison still, it is believed, remain in the house, which are mostly portraits of his cotemporaries, and intrinsically of small value," how great was my delight and surprise to find what and how many these paintings were! But let us make a more regular approach to this gem of an old house, to the actual country seat of our "dear short face," the Spectator.
Issuing from Rugby, Bilton salutes you from the hill on the opposite side of the valley, which you have to cross in order to reach it. A lofty mass of trees, on a fine airy elevation; a small gray church, with finely tapering spire in front of them, show you where Bilton lies; but house or village you do not discern till you are close upon them. It was not till I had approached within a few hundred yards of Addison's house, or the hall, as it is called, that I saw the cottages of the village stretching away to my right hand; and a carriage-road, diverging to my left toward the church, brought me within view of the house; there it stood in the midst of the fine old trees. A villager informed me that no one lived there but the gardener, nor had done for years. The autumn had dyed all the trees with its rich and yet melancholy hues; they strewed the ground in abundance, and there was a feeling of solitude and desertion about the place which was by no means out of keeping, when I reflected that I was approaching the house of Addison, so long quitted by himself. A fine old avenue of lime-trees, winding with the carriage-drive, brought me to the front of the house. It is a true Elizabethan mansion, not too large for a poet, yet large enough for any country gentleman who is not overdone with his establishment. The front of the main portion is lofty, handsome, and in excellent repair. A projecting tower runs up from the porch to the roof. Over the door is cut, in freestone, some mathematical or masonic sign—a circle inclosing two triangles; and near the top is the date of 1623. On the right hand, a wing of lower buildings runs forward from the main erection, forming, as it were, one side of a court. These buildings turn their gables toward you, and are covered with ivy. On the left hand, but standing back in a stable-yard, are the outbuildings, seeming, however, to balance the whole fabric, and giving it an air of considerable extent. All round, adjoining the buildings and along the avenue, grow evergreens in tall and luxuriant masses.
On the other side of the house lies the old garden, retaining all the characters of a past age. The center consists of a fine lawn; the upper part of which, near the house, has recently been laid out in fancy flower-beds, in the form of a star, and corner beds to make up the square. The rest appears as it might be when Addison left it. On the right a square-cut holly hedge divides it from the fields, which are scattered with lofty trees, among which are foreign oaks, said to be raised from acorns brought home by the poet. To the left, the garden is bounded by a still more massy square-clipped hedge of yew, opening half way down into a large kitchen-garden, being, at the same time, at the upper end, an old Dutch flower-garden. At the far side of this garden, opposite to the entrance through the yew hedge, is an alcove, and down that side extends the lime avenue, called Addison's Walk. At the bottom of this garden are fish-ponds, and in the field below an oak wood. Thus, amid lofty trees, some of them strong, old, and crooked, presenting a scene worthy of making part of a picture of Claude Lorraine, you look down over the garden to rich fields descending into the country below. At the bottom right-hand corner is an alcove, shut in by a group of evergreen shrubs and pine-trees from the house, but overlooking the fields and woodlands, called Addison's Seat; and a very pleasant seat it is, full of quiet retirement. Such is the exterior of Bilton. The interior of the main part of the house consists principally of two large rooms, a dining and drawing room. These extend quite through, are lighted at each end, and the projection in front forms a sort of little cabinet in each room. These two fine large rooms are hung round with the paintings placed here by Addison: whether they are few and of no intrinsic value will soon be seen.