Addison

by William John Courthope

“The stage, like old Rump pulpits, is become
The scene of News, a furious Party’s drum.”

But the political influence of the drama and the audience to which it appealed being necessarily limited, the King sought for more powerful literary artillery, and he found it in the serviceable genius of Dryden, whose satirical and controversial poems date from this period. The wide popularity of Absalom and Achitophel, written against Monmouth and Shaftesbury; of The Medal, satirising the acquittal of Shaftesbury; of The Hind and Panther, composed to advance the Romanising projects of James II.; points to the vast influence exercised by literature in the party struggle. Nevertheless, in spite of all that Dryden had done for the Royal cause, in spite of the fact that he himself had more than once appealed to the poet for assistance, the ingratitude or levity of Charles was so inveterate that he let the poet’s services go almost unrequited. Dryden, it is true, held the posts of Laureate and Royal Historiographer, but his salary was always in arrears, and the letter which he addressed to Rochester, First Lord of the Treasury, asking for six months’ payment of what was due to him, tells its own story.

James II. cared nothing for literature, and was probably too dull of apprehension to understand the incalculable service that Dryden had rendered to his cause. He showed his appreciation of the Poet-Laureate’s genius by deducting £100 from the salary which his brother had promised him, and by cutting off from the emoluments of the office the time-honoured butt of canary!

Under William III. the complexion of affairs again altered. The Court, in the old sense of the word, ceased to be a paramount influence in literature. William III. derived his authority from Parliament; he knew that he must support it mainly by his sword and his statesmanship. A stranger to England, its manners and its language, he showed little disposition to encourage letters. Pope, indeed, maliciously suggests that he had the bad taste to admire the poetry of Blackmore, whom he knighted; but, as a matter of fact, the honour was conferred on the worthy Sir Richard in consequence of his distinction in medicine, and he himself bears witness to William’s contempt for poetry.

“Reverse of Louis he, example rare,
Loved to deserve the praise he could not bear.
He shunned the acclamations of the throng,
And always coldly heard the poet’s song.
Hence the great King the Muses did neglect,
And the mere poet met with small respect.”[17]

Such political verse as we find in this reign generally consists, like Halifax’s Epistle to Lord Dorset, or Addison’s own Address to King William, of hyperbolical flattery. Opposition was extinct, for both parties had for the moment united to promote the Revolution, and the only discordant notes amid the chorus of adulation proceeded from Jacobite writers concealed in the garrets and cellars of Grub Street. Such an atmosphere was not favorable to the production of literature of an elevated or even of a characteristic order.

Addison’s return to England coincided most happily with another remarkable turn of the tide. Leaning decidedly to the Tory party, who were now strongly leavened with the Jacobite element, Anne had not long succeeded to the throne before she seized an opportunity for dismissing the Whig Ministry whom she found in possession of office. The Whigs, equally alarmed at the influence acquired by their rivals, and at the danger which threatened the Protestant succession, neglected no effort to counterbalance the loss of their sovereign’s favour by strengthening their credit with the people. Having been trained in a school which had at least qualified them to appreciate the influence of style, the aristocratic leaders of the party were well aware of the advantages they would derive by attracting to themselves the services of the ablest writers of the day. Hence they made it their policy to mingle with men of letters on an equal footing, and to hold out to them an expectation of a share in the advantages to be reaped from the overthrow of their rivals.

The result of this union of forces was a great increase in the number of literary-political clubs. In its half-aristocratic, half-democratic constitution the club was the natural product of enlarged political freedom, and helped to extend the organisation of polite opinion beyond the narrow orbit of Court society. Addison himself, in his simple style, points out the nature of the fundamental principle of Association which he observed in operation all around him. “When a set of men find themselves agree in any particular, though never so trivial, they establish themselves into a kind of fraternity, and meet once or twice a week upon the account of such a fantastic resemblance.”[18] Among these societies, in the first years of the eighteenth century, the most celebrated was, perhaps, the Kit-Kat Club. It consisted of thirty-nine of the leading men of the Whig party; and, though many of these were of the highest rank, it is a characteristic fact that the founder of the club should have been the bookseller Jacob Tonson. It was probably through his influence, joined to that of Halifax, that Addison was elected a member of the society soon after his return to England. Among its prominent members was the Duke of Somerset, the first meeting between whom and Addison, after the correspondence that had passed between them, must have been somewhat embarrassing. The club assembled at one Christopher Catt’s, a pastry-cook, who gave his name both to the society and the mutton-pies which were its ordinary entertainment. Each member was compelled to select a lady as his toast, and the verses which he composed in her honour were engraved on the wine-glasses belonging to the club. Addison chose the Countess of Manchester, whose acquaintance he had made in Paris, and complimented her in the following lines:

“While haughty Gallia’s dames, that spread
O’er their pale cheeks an artful red,
Beheld this beauteous stranger there,
In native charms divinely fair,
Confusion in their looks they showed,
And with unborrowed blushes glowed.”

Circumstances seemed now to be conspiring in favour of the Whigs. The Tories, whose strength lay mainly in the Jacobite element, were jealous of Marlborough’s ascendency over the Queen; on the other hand, the Duchess of Marlborough, who was rapidly acquiring the chief place in Anne’s affections, intrigued in favour of the opposite faction. In spite, too, of her Tory predilections, the Queen, finding her throne menaced by the ambition of Louis XIV., was compelled in self-defence to look for support to the party which had most vigorously identified itself with the principles of the Revolution. She bestowed her unreserved confidence on Marlborough, and he, in order to counterbalance the influence of the Jacobites, threw himself into the arms of the Whigs. Being named Captain-General in 1704, he undertook the campaign which he brought to so glorious a conclusion on the 2d of August in that year at the battle of Blenheim.