After studying at Oxford, enlisted in the Guards as a private, and was in consequence disinherited. Promoted to the rank of captain, he plunged into the vices and follies of the day, dicing himself into a spunging-house or drinking himself into a fever. Wrote, became a popular man of the town, and was employed by the Whig Government to write "The Gazette." Started a periodical miscellany, lost his appointment by the retirement of his party from office, but continued his character of essayist. Obtained a seat in Parliament, lost it, was knighted by George I., and received a place in the royal household. Always in trouble by his reckless behavior, his pecuniary difficulties increasing, he retired to a seat in Wales left him by his second wife, and there died in 1729. Writings. The Christian Hero, written to check his irregularities; containing some noble sentiments, but exercising little influence on the author.-The Conscious Lovers, a drama; at the time, a great success. The Tatler (1709), suggested by his employment as Gazetteer; a triweekly sheet devoted in part to foreign intelligence and in part to the manners of the age. The Spectator (1711), a daily, and, like the Tatler, a news organ, a censor of manners, a teacher of public taste, and an exponent of English feeling; suspended in 1712, and resumed in 1714. The Guardian, also a daily, begun in 1712. Of the first, there were 271 papers; of the second, 635; of the third, 175. In these enterprises, Steele was very largely assisted by Addison, who furnished for the Tatler one-sixth, for the Spectator about three-sevenths, and for the Guardian one-third, of the whole quantity of matter. Style. Like the man himself, easy, familiar, vivacious, and humane, mingling good sense with merriment and burlesque. Rank. He excelled as a satirist, a humorist, and a story-teller, who must, like the poet, be born. He had a knowledge of the world and a dramatic skill by which the serials profited largely. Some of his papers equal anything Addison ever wrote. Occupying a more elevated plane than many of his contemporaries, he is paled in his powers by the overshadowing presence of his illustrious friend. His writings have been compared to those light wines which, though deficient in body and flavor, are yet a pleasant small drink, if not kept too long or carried too far. Character. So good-natured that it was impossible to hate him, and difficult to be seriously angry with him; so rolicking and improvident that it was impossible to respect him; of sweet temper, of noble aspiration, but of strong passions and of weak principles; inculcating what was right and doing what was wrong; spending his life in resolving and re-resolving, then dying the same. An irregular thinker, as well as an irregular liver. Influence. His aim in projecting the Tatler does not appear to have been higher than to publish a paper containing the foreign news, notices of theatrical representations the literary gossip of the clubs, remarks on current topics of fashion, compliments to beauties, satires on noted sharpers, and criticisms on popular preachers. He did much to ennoble the prevalent conceptions of female character. While his purpose (more or less vaguely realized) was reformatory and corrective, his service was chiefly indirect, in calling to the support and development of his enterprises Addison, to whom it was reserved to make the periodical a true revolutionary power in literature and society. What shall we expect of a man who forever gathers the pleasures that lie on the border-land of evil, tearfully casts them away, then recklessly gathers them again? ADDISON. He lived in abundance, activity, and honors, wisely and usefully. Taine. Biography. The son of an English dean, born at Milston, 1672. Learned his rudiments in the schools of his father's neighborhood, and was then sent to Charter-House, London. Entered Oxford at the age of fifteen, where he was distinguished by the delicacy of his feelings, by the shyness of his manners, by the assiduity with which he often prolonged his studies far into the night, by his knowledge of the Latin poets, and by his skill in Latin versification. Leaving the University in the summer of 1699, he traveled long in the two most polished countries in the world, - France and Italy, to prepare himself for the diplomatic service of the Crown, and to perfect his tastes by contact with the elegance and refinements of life and art. His pension stopped by the death of William III., he was obliged to return to England, hard pressed by pecuniary difficulties. But his poem on Blenheim quickly placed him in the first rank of the Whigs, and again started him on a brilliant and prosperous career. Became a member of Parliament, but lacked the ready resource, "the small change", as he himself expressed it, of an effective parliamentary orator. Married Lady Warwick in 1716, a beautiful, imperious woman, with more pride of rank than sincerity of character, whom he is said to have first known by becoming tutor to her son. She probably took him on terms like those on which a Turkish princess is espoused, to whom the Sultan is reported to say: "Daughter, I give thee this man for thy slave." The marriage neither found nor made them equal, and he was glad to escape from the chilling splendor of Holland House to the more congenial society of the club room, where he could enjoy a laugh, a smoke, and a bottle of claret.Rose to his highest elevation in 1717, being made Secretary of State, an elevation due to his popularity, his stainless probity, and his literary fame. Unequal to the duties of his place by reason of his diffidence and fastidiousness, he was forced to resign, and retired to literary occupations, with a pension of fifteen hundred pounds. In the office, says Pope, he could not issue an order without losing his time in quest of fine expressions. Many years seemed to be before him, and he meditated many works a tragedy on the death of Socrates, a translation of the Psalms, and a treatise on the evidences of Christianity - but the fatal complaint of asthma, aggravated by dropsy, terminated his life on the 17th of June, 1719. He was buried in the Abbey at dead of night, an eminent Tory leading the procession by torchlight round the shrine of Saint Edward and the graves of the Plantagenets, to the chapel of Henry VII. Writings. - Address to Dryden (1694), his first attempt in English verse. The Campaign, or Victory of Blenheim, whose chief merit consists in the praise of those qualities which make a general truly great,energy, sagacity, serene firmness, and military science, a manly rejection of the traditional custom of celebrating, in heroes, strength of muscle and skill in fence. Cato (1713) a tragedy, and the noblest production of his genius; a classic play, observing the unities strictly and avoiding all admixture of comedy; applauded by both political parties - the Whigs cheering the frequent allusions to liberty, as a satire on the Tories; and the Tories echoing the cheer, to show that the satire was unfelt. During a whole month, it was performed to overflowing houses; but its representation was too far removed from any state probable or possible in human life, to sustain itself when unsupported by the emulation of factious praise. Exciting neither joy nor sorrow, it is replete with noble sentiments in noble language, such as the reader must wish to impress upon his memory, as in the following lines from Cato's soliloquy: The stars shall fade away, the sun himself The wreck of matter, and the crash of worlds. Hymns, whose verses shine, like the stars, out of a perpetual calm. Essays, being contributions to the Spectator chiefly, and in part to the Tatler, the Guardian, and the Freeholder (1715), a political journal. Their aim was primarily to instruct; secondarily, to please. For the literary lounger, there were comic sketches of society, exposures of social follies, in letters or allegories; for the novel-reader, stories, portraits of character woven into interesting narratives; for the sage and serious, essays on the Immortality of the Soul, Pleasures of the Imagination, critical papers on Paradise Lost &c. All subjects were discussed on which party-spirit had produced no diversities of sentiment, the object being to render instruction pleasing, to widen the circle of readers, and to accomplish a social regeneration without inflicting a wound. Addison is the Spectator. Style. Luminous, graceful, vivid, elegant, familiar, and even, never blazing into unexpected splendor; the exact words, the clear contrasts, the harmonious periods, of classical refinement and finish, happy inventions threaded by the most amiable irony. His poems Cato and the Hymns excepted regular and frigid, like the rule-and-compass poetry of Pope. Rank. A public favorite, an unrivaled satirist. The most charming of talkers, an unsullied statesman, a model of pure and elegant English, a consummate painter of human nature, and the greatest of English essayists, occupying a place in English literature only second to that of its great masters. A polished shaft in the temple of thought, whose workmanship is more striking than the weight supported. -- Character. Without taint of perfidy, of cowardice, of cruelty, of ingratitude, or of envy; satirical without abuse, tempering ridicule with a tender compassion for all that is frail, and a profound reverence for all that is sublime. The greatest and most salutary reform of public morals and tastes ever effected by any satirist, he accomplished without a personal lampoon. Himself a Whig, he was described by the bitterest Tories as a gentleman of wit and virtue, in whose friendship many persons of both parties were happy, and whose name ought not to be mixed up with factious squables. In the heat of controversy, no outrage could provoke him to a retaliation unworthy of a Christian and a gentleman. With a boundless power of abusing men, he never used it. His modesty amounted to bashfulness. He once rose in debate, in the House of Commons, but could not conquer his diffidence, and ever after remained silent. As an Oxford student, he was gentle and meditative, loving solitary walks under the elms that fringe the banks of the Cherwell. Is it not prophetic a commentary in itself- that he loved the quietness of nature? May we not hence expect the music of long cadenced and tranquil phrases, the measured harmonies of noble images, and the grave sweetness of moral sentiments? He stood fast by the altar of worship, penetrated by the presence of the Invisible. God was his loving friend, who had tenderly watched over his cradle, who had preserved his youth, and had richly blessed his manhood. His favorite Psalm was that which represents the Deity under the endearing image of a Shepherd. Dying, he called himself to a strict account, sent for Gay, and asked pardon for an injury which it was not even suspected that he had committed; sent for young Warwick, to whom he had been tutor, and whom he had vainly endeavored to reclaim from an irregular life; told. him, when he desired to hear his last injunction, "I have sent for you that you may see how a Christian can die." Influence. Seen best in the purpose which inspired his papers. "The great and only end of these speculations", says Addison, in a number of the Spectator, "is to banish vice and ignorance out of the territories of Great Britain." He was a successful reformer. He made morality fashionable, and it remained in fashion. The Puritans had divorced elegance from virtue — he reconciled them; genius was still thought to have some natural connection with profligacy — he divorced them; pleasure was subservient to passion he made it subservient to reason: "It was said of Socrates that he brought Philosophy down from heaven to inhabit among men; and I shall be ambitious to have it said of me, that I have brought Philosophy out of closets and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables, and in coffee-houses". His essays are, directly or indirectly, moral rules of propriety, precepts on when to speak, when to be silent, how to refuse, how to comply; reprimands to thoughtless women, railery against fashionable young men, a portrait of an honest man, attacks against the conceit of rank, epigrams on the frivolity of etiquette, advice to families, consolations to the sorrowing, reflections on God, the future life. A good and happy man, he scattered freely the blessings of a kind and generous nature. His satire, always directed against every form of social offence, was of that genial kind which, wooing the reader along a sunny path, awakens attention to his faults without friction or irritation. He was the first to make of prose a fine art, and elegant culture has ever since found constant expression in prose. - Observation. Human immortality is of three kinds: objective in God the immortality of conscious existence; subjective in the minds of men the immortality of fame; subjective in the life of the world the immortality of energy, energy that expends itself in good works, and, by the natural transmission of force, lives to perish never. These three were the inheritance of Addison, and are possible to few;-the last is the privilege of all. No particles of him will ever be lost. Ever since he died there has been a growth of the Christ-like. The seeds he dropped took root in the soul of man, have grown apace, flowering every spring, fruiting every autumn, spreading in the very air the odor of the bloom and the flavor of the fruit. No good thing is lost. Fortyfour years after his death, the Council of Constance ordered the bones of Wycliffe to be dug up and burned. The vultures of the law took what little they could find, burnt it, and cast the ashes into the Swift, a little brook running hard by, and thought they |