“He taught us how to live and (oh! too high
The price of knowledge) taught us how to die.”
His body, after lying in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, was buried by night in Westminster Abbey. The service was performed by Atterbury, and the scene is described by Tickell in a fine passage, probably inspired by a still finer one written by his own rival and his friend’s satirist:
“Can I forget the dismal night that gave
My soul’s best part for ever to the grave?
How silent did his old companions tread,
By midnight lamps, the mansions of the dead,
Through breathing statues, then unheeded things,
Through rows of warriors, and through walks of kings!
What awe did the slow solemn march inspire,
The pealing organ, and the pausing choir;
The duties by the lawn-robed prelate paid,
And the last words that dust to dust conveyed!
While speechless o’er the closing grave we bend,
Accept these tears, thou dear departed friend!
Oh gone for ever; take this last adieu,
And sleep in peace next thy loved Montague.”[68]
He left by the Countess of Warwick one daughter, who lived in his old house at Bilton, and died unmarried in 1797.
CHAPTER IX.
THE GENIUS OF ADDISON.
Such is Addison’s history, which, scanty as it is, goes far towards justifying the glowing panegyric bestowed by Macaulay on “the unsullied statesman, the accomplished scholar, the consummate painter of life and manners, the great satirist who alone knew how to use ridicule without abusing it; who, without inflicting a wound, effected a great social reform; and who reconciled wit and virtue after a long and painful separation, during which wit had been led astray by profligacy, and virtue by fanaticism.” It is wanting, no doubt, in romantic incident and personal interest, but the same may be said of the life of Scott; and what do we know of the personality of Homer and Shakespeare? The real life of these writers is to be found in their work; and there, too, though on a different level and in a different shape, are we to look for the character of the creator of Sir Roger de Coverley. But, while it seems possible to divine the personal tastes and feelings of Shakespeare and Scott under a hundred different ideal forms of their own invention, it is not in these that the genius of Addison most characteristically embodies itself. Did his reputation rest on Rosamond or Cato or The Campaign, his name would be little better known to us than any among that crowd of mediocrities who have been immortalised in Johnson’s Lives of the Poets. The work of Addison consisted in building up a public opinion which, in spite of its durable solidity, seems, like the great Gothic cathedrals, to absorb into itself the individuality of the architect. A vigorous effort of thought is required to perceive how strong this individuality must have been. We have to reflect on the ease with which, even in these days when the foundations of all authority are called in question, we form judgments on questions of morals, breeding, and taste, and then to dwell in imagination on the state of conflict in all matters religious, moral, and artistic, which prevailed in the period between the Restoration and the succession of the House of Hanover. To whom do we owe the comparative harmony we enjoy? Undoubtedly to the authors of the Spectator, and first among these, by universal consent, to Addison.
Addison’s own disposition seems to have been of that rare and admirable sort which Hamlet praised in Horatio: