FROM THE DEATH OF DR. SWIFT.

We had a hundred abler men,
Nor need depend upon his pen.—
Say what you will about his reading,
You never can defend his breeding;
Who, in his satires running riot,
Could never leave the world in quiet;
Attacking, when he took the whim,
Court, city, camp-all one to him.-
But why would he, except he slobber'd,
Offend our patriot, great Sir Robert,1
Whose counsels aid the sovereign power
To save the nation every hour!
What scenes of evil he unravels,
In satires, libels, lying travels;
Not sparing his own clergy cloth,
But eats into it, like a moth!"

"Perhaps I may allow the Dean
Had too much satire in his vein,
And seem'd determined not to starve it,
Because no age could more deserve it.
Yet malice never was his aim;

He lash'd the vice, but spared the name.
No individual could resent,

Where thousands equally were meant.
His satire points at no defect,
But what all mortals may correct;
For he abhorr'd the senseless tribe
Who call it humour when they gibe:
He spared a hump, or crooked nose,
Whose owners set not up for beaux.
True genuine dulness moved his pity,
Unless it offer'd to be witty.
Those who their ignorance confest,
He ne'er offended with a jest ;
But laugh'd to hear an idiot quote
A verse from Horace learn'd by rote.
Vice, if it e'er can be abash'd,
Must be or ridiculed or lash'd.
If you resent it, who's to blame?

He neither knows you, nor your name.
Should vice expect to 'scape rebuke,
Because its owner is a duke?

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The Irish senate if you named,
With what impatience he declaim'd!
Fair LIBERTY was all his cry;
For her he stood prepared to die;
For her he boldly stood alone;
For her he oft exposed his own.
Two kingdoms, just as faction led,
Had set a price upon his head ;1
But not a traitor could be found,
To sell him for six hundred pound.
"Had he but spared his tongue and pen,
He might have rose like other men :
But power was never in his thought,
And wealth he valued not a groat.
Ingratitude he often found,

And pitied those who meant the wound;
But kept the tenor of his mind,
To merit well of human-kind;
Nor made a sacrifice of those

Who still were true, to please his foes.

He spent his life's declining part,
Where folly, pride, and faction sway,
Remote from St. John, Pope, and Gay."

"Alas, poor Dean! his only scope

Was to be held a misanthrope.
This into general odium drew him,
Which if he liked, much good may't do him.
His zeal was not to lash our crimes,
But discontent against the times:
For, had we made him timely offers,
To raise his post, or fill his coffers,
Perhaps he might have truckled down,
Like other brethren of his
gown;
For party he would scarce have bled:-
I say no more—because he's dead.--
What writings has he left behind?"

'I hear they're of a different kind :

A few in verse; but most in prose"

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Some high-flown pamphlets, I suppose :—

All scribbled in the worst of times,

To palliate his friend Oxford's crimes ;

To praise Queen Anne, nay more, defend her,
As never favouring the Pretender:

Or libels yet conceal'd from sight,

Against the court to show his spite:

1 In England for the publication of "The Public Spirit of the Whigs;" in Ireland for his "Proposal for the universal use of Irish Manufactures, etc;" and for the "Drapier's" fourth letter.

FROM POETRY-A RHAPSODY.

Perhaps his travels, part the third;
A lie at every second word-
Offensive to a loyal ear :-

But not one sermon, you may swear."
"He knew an hundred pleasing stories,
With all the turns of Whigs and Tories:
Was cheerful to his dying day;

And friends would let him have his way.
"As for his works in verse or prose,
I own myself no judge of those.
Nor can I tell what critics thought them;
But this I know, all people bought them,
As with a moral view designed
To please and to reform mankind:
And, if he oftén miss'd his aim,

The world must own it to their shame,
The praise is his, and theirs the blame.
He gave the little wealth he had
To build a house for fools and mad;
To show, by one satiric touch,
No nation wanted it so much.
That kingdom he hath left his debtor;
I wish it soon may have a better.
And, since you dread no further lashes,
Methinks you may forgive his ashes.”

283

FROM POETRY-A RHAPSODY.
All human race would fain be wits,
And millions miss for one that hits.
Young's universal passion, pride,
Was never known to spread so wide.
Say, Britain, could you ever boast
Three poets in an age at most?
Our chilling climate hardly bears
A sprig of bays in fifty years;
While every fool his claim alleges,
As if it grew in common hedges.
What reason can there be assign'd
For this perverseness in the mind?
Brutes find out where their talents lie:
A bear will not attempt to fly;
A founder'd horse will oft debate,
Before he tries a five-barr'd gate;
A dog by instinct turns aside,
Who sees the ditch too deep and wide.
But man we find the only creature
Who, led by folly, combats nature;

1 See Young's Satires on the Love of Fame, the Universal Passion.

Hobbes clearly proves that every creature
Lives in a state of war by nature.1
The greater for the smallest watch,
But meddle seldom with their match.
A whale of moderate size will draw
A shoal of herrings down his maw;
A fox with geese his belly crams;
A wolf destroys a thousand lambs :
But search among the rhyming race,
The brave are worried by the base.
If on Parnassus' top you sit,
You rarely bite, are always bit.
Each poet of inferior size

On you shall rail and criticise,

And strive to tear you limb from limb;
While others do as much for him.
The vermin only tease and pinch
Their foes superior by an inch.
So, naturalists observe, a flea

Hath smaller fleas that on him prey;

And these have smaller still to bite 'em,
And so proceed ad infinitum.

Thus every poet in his kind

Is bit by him that comes behind:

Who, though too little to be seen,

Can tease, and gall, and give the spleen.

JOSEPH ADDISON.

(1672-1719.)

ADDISON was the son of a clergyman, and was born in Milston parsonage, Wiltshire. His success at the University of Oxford, the friendships he had formed, and the purity of his character, brought him early into the sphere of fortunate patronage. He was marked out for public service, and as an intimate knowledge of French was deemed necessary, a pension of £300 a year was settled on him that he might travel and reside abroad. He was absent about three years. His epistle from Italy to Montague (then Lord Halifax) is an elegant descriptive poem, evincing the enthusiasm of a scholar and a poet. On the accession of Queen Anne his pension ceased, but, a year or two after, the victory of Blenheim afforded to his muse another opportunity of preferment. Halifax recommended Addison to the Lord Treasurer Godolphin, for the

1 See the "Leviathan," chap. xiii.

FROM THE LETTER FROM ITALY.

285

celebration of Marlborough's triumph. His poem "the Campaign," was rewarded with the post of Commissioner of Appeals. He afterwards went to Ireland as Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, the Marquis of Wharton. While he was in Ireland the "Tatler" was started by his friend Steele. The publication of this periodical and its successors, the Spectator and the Guardian, stretches over the years between 1709 and 1714. Addison and Steele contributed the greater portion of the papers. The year 1713 was what Johnson calls the " 'grand climacteric of Addison's reputation," by the production of his tragedy of "Cato." This piece, a great part of which had been finished for several years, was reluctantly yielded to the stage by the author, in consequence of the party zeal of his Whig friends, during their exclusion from power in the latter years of Anne's reign. It was vehemently applauded by both political parties; and as vehemently abused, especially by the cynical critic John Dennis, who attacked every great reputation of his time.

Shortly after the accession of George I., Addison gave his literary services to the new government in the conduct of a political periodical, the "Free-holder." In 1716 he married, after a long probation of courtship, the Countess Dowager of Warwick. Addison, like Dryden, is said to have been unhappy in his splendid marriage, but the report rests on no good evidence. In 1717 he became Secretary of State. His health, however, soon failed, and after holding the office for about a twelvemonth, he resigned on a pension of £1500 a year. From his natural timidity and total want of the power of public speaking, he could have been of little service to the government. He continued to aid them occasionally by his pen, but died June 10, 1719. On his death-bed he said to his son-in-law, the dissolute Lord Warwick, "I have sent for you that you may see how a Christian can die." To this his friend Tickell alludes"He taught us how to live and--oh, too high

The price for knowledge !—taught us how to die." The only failing imputed to this great man is occasional excess in wine, and this, we suspect, has been exaggerated.

As a prose writer, Addison holds the first rank for delicate humour, purity of style, and variety of illustration, didactic and picturesque. He was an admirable observer and describer of life, manners, and character. He and Steele may be called the fathers of our periodical literature, at least in the shape of general popular instruction. Addison may also be distinguished as the founder of popular literary criticism. As a poet he is deficient in energy and originality. But some of his descriptive passages and similes are fine, and his hymns possess great sweetness and beauty. Cato,” as a drama, abounds in faults of plot and character; it should be read simply as a poem embodying a series of elevated and noble sentiments, many of which have become familiar as household words.

66

Addison's Latin poetry is praised, and he indulged to a considerable extent in the taste of the age for classical translation.

FROM THE LETTER FROM ITALY, ADDRESSED TO
LORD HALIFAX.

FOR wheresoe'er I turn my ravish'd eyes,
Gay gilded scenes in shining prospect rise;

N