William Spalding

“ In the course of the same year occurred the first of the only two quarrels with friends, into which the prudent, good-tempered, and modest Addison is said to have ever been betrayed. His adversary on this occasion was Pope, who, only three years before, had received, with an appearance of humble thankfulness, Addison's friendly remarks on his Essay on Criticism; but who, though still very young, was already very famous, and beginning to show incessantly his literary jealousies, and his personal and party hatreds. ”

“ The finical man of taste does indeed show himself to be some times weary of discussing constitutional questions; but he aims many enlivening thrusts at weak points of social life and manners; and the character of the Fox hunting Squire, who is introduced as the representative of the Jacobites, is drawn with so much humour and force that we regret not being allowed to see more of him.
In August 1716, when he had completed his 44th year, Addison married the Countess-Dowager of Warwick, a widow of fifteen years' standing. ”

“ Addison prosecuted, not, indeed, with much of philosophical depth, but with a sagacity and comprehensiveness which we shall undervalue much unless we remember how little of philosophy was to be found in any critical views previously propounded in England. To Addison, further, belong those essays which (most frequently introduced in regular alternation in the papers of Saturday) rise into the region of moral and religious meditation, and tread the elevated ground with a step so graceful as to allure the reader irresistibly to follow ”

“ We see him attaining the summit of his ambition, only to totter for a little and sink into an early grave. We are reminded of his more vigorous days by nothing but a few happy inventions interspersed in political pamphlets, and the gay fancy of a trifling poem on Kneller's portrait of George I.
The lord justices who, previously chosen secretly by the Elector of Hanover, assumed the government on the Queen's demise, were, as a matter of course, the leading Whigs. They appointed Addison to act as their secretary. ”

“ It was impossible that a Government, whose secretary of state could not open his lips in debate, should long face an opposition headed by Robert Walpole. The decay of Addison's health, too, was going on rapidly, being, we may readily conjecture, precipitated by anxiety, if no worse causes were at work. Ill health was the reason assigned for retirement, in the letter of resignation which he laid before the king in March 1718, eleven months after his appointment. He received a pension of £1500 a year. ”

“ It is pleasant to observe that, after the insult had been perpetrated, Addison was at the pains, in his Freeholder, to express hearty approbation of the Iliad of Pope; who, on the contrary, after Addison's death, deliberately printed the striking but malignant lines in the Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot. In 1715 there was acted, with little success, the comedy of The Dmmmer, or the Haunted House, which, though it appeared under the name of Steele, was certainly not his, and was probably written in whole or chiefly by Addison. It contributes very little to his fame. ”

“ They relied, with a confidence which the extraordinary popularity of the work fully justified, on their power of exciting the interest of a wide audience by pictures and reflections drawn from a field which embraced the whole compass of ordinary life and ordinary knowledge, no kind of practical themes being positively excluded except such as were political, and all literary topics being held admissible, for which it seemed possible to command attention from persons of average taste and information. ”

“ Sobriety was not the virtue of the day; and the constant frequenting of coffee-houses, which figures so often in the Spectator and elsewhere, and which was really practised among literary men as well as others, cannot have had good effects. Addison, however, really appears to have had no genuine relish for this mode of life; and there are curious notices, especially in Steele's correspondence, of his having lodgings out of town, to which he retired for study and composition. ”

“ Though the Whigs were out of office, the administration which succeeded them was, in all its earlier changes, of a complexion so mixed and uncertain, that the influence of their leaders was not entirely lost. Not long after Marlborough's great victory at Blenheim, it is said that Godolphin, the lord treasurer, expressed to Lord Halifax a desire to have the great duke's fame extended by a poetical tribute. Halifax seized the opportunity of recommending Addison as the fittest man for the duty ”

“ Many of the landscapes are sketched with great liveliness, and there are not a few strokes of arch humour. The statistical information is very meagre; nor are there many observations on society; and politics are no further meddled with than to show the moderate liberality of the writer's own opinions.
With the year 1704 begins a second era in Addison's life, which extends to the summer of 1710, when his age was thirty-eight. ”

“ The second period of the queen s reign began at this point. She was thenceforth governed by Mrs Masham; Mrs Masham was governed by Harley and St John, the chiefs of the new ministry ; and these able and unscrupulous men exerted themselves to the utmost of their power in undoing all that had been done by their predecessors. The fruits of the war were immediately abandoned, and the allies of England shamefully betrayed, by the treaty of Utrecht. ”

“ A ministry of Tories was formed on the queen s accession ; but the leaders of it were Marlborough and Godolphin, who immediately began to edge off from their party. The principal measures were, from the begin ning, in substantial conformity to the policy of King William : the war with France, hardly resisted then by any part of the nation, was prosecuted with ardour and success ; and the victories of Oudenarde, Eamillies, and Blenheim, gained by the consummate generalship of Marlborough, made England formidable and illustrious throughout Europe. ”

“ Most of these form, in the unbroken seriousness both of their topics and of their manner, a contrast to the majority of his essays in the earlier volumes; but several of them, both in this vein and in one less lofty, are among the best known, if not the finest, of all his essays. Such are the "Mountain of Miseries;" ”

“ If open attacks were not made on the con stitution, it was only because the Parliament could not be trusted in such a case, and because, also, the two ministerial leaders became jea!ous of each other, and formed separate intrigues. ”