“There is nothing of late years has afforded matter of greater amusement to the town than Signor Nicolini’s combat with a lion in the Haymarket, which has been very often exhibited to the general satisfaction of most of the nobility and gentry in the kingdom of Great Britain. Upon the first rumour of this intended combat it was confidently affirmed, and is still believed by many in both galleries, that there would be a tame lion sent from the tower every opera in order to be killed by Hydaspes. This report, though altogether groundless, so universally prevailed in the upper regions of the playhouse, that some of the refined politicians in those parts of the audience gave it out in a whisper that the lion was a cousin-german of the tiger who made his appearance in King William’s days, and that the stage would be supplied with lions at the public expense during the whole session. Many, likewise, were the conjectures of the treatment which this lionwas to meet with at the hands of Signor Nicolini; some supposed that he was to subdue him in recitativo, as Orpheus used to serve the wild beasts in his time, and afterwards to knock him on the head; some fancied that the lion would not pretend to lay his paws upon the hero, by reason of the received opinion that a lion will not hurt a virgin; several, who pretended to have seen the opera in Italy, had informed their friends that the lion was to act a part in High Dutch, and roar twice or thrice to a thorough-bass before he fell at the feet of Hydaspes. To clear up a matter that was so variously reported, I have made it my business to examine whether this pretended lion is really the savage he appears to be or only a counterfeit.“But, before I communicate my discoveries, I must acquaint the public that upon my walking behind the scenes last winter, as I was thinking upon something else, I accidentally jostled against an enormous animal that extremely startled me, and, upon my nearer survey of it, appeared to be a lion rampant. The lion, seeing me very much surprised, told me, in a gentle voice, that I might come by him if I pleased; ‘for,’ says he, ‘I do not intend to hurt anybody.’ I thanked him very kindly and passed by him, and in a little time after saw him leap upon the stage and act his part with very great applause. It has been observed by several that the lion has changed his manner of acting twice or thrice since his first appearance; which will not seem strange when I acquaint my reader that the lion has been changed upon the audience three several times. The first lion was a candle-snuffer, who, being a fellow of testy, choleric temper, overdid his part, and would not suffer himself to be killed so easily as he ought to have done; besides, it was observed of him that he became more surly every time he came out of the lion; and having dropped some words in ordinary conversation as if he had not fought his best, and that he suffered himself to be thrown on his back in the scuffle, and that he could wrestle with Mr. Nicolini for what he pleased out of his lion’s skin, it was thought proper to discard him; and it is verily believed to this day that, had he been brought upon the stage another time, he would certainly have done mischief. Besides, it was objected against the first lion that he reared himself so high upon his hinder paws and walked in so erect a posture that he looked more like an old man than a lion.“The second lion was a tailor by trade, who belonged to the playhouse, and had the character of a mild and peaceable man in hisprofession. If the former was too furious, this was too sheepish for his part, insomuch that, after a short, modest walk upon the stage, he would fall at the first touch of Hydaspes, without grappling with him and giving him an opportunity of showing his variety of Italian trips. It is said, indeed, that he once gave him a rip in his flesh-coloured doublet; but this was only to make work for himself in his private character of a tailor. I must not omit that it was this second lion who treated me with so much humanity behind the scenes.“The acting lion at present is, as I am informed, a country gentleman, who does it for his diversion, but desires his name may be concealed. He says, very handsomely in his own excuse, that he does not act for gain; that he indulges an innocent pleasure in it; and that it is better to pass away an evening in this manner than in gaming and drinking; but he says at the same time, with a very agreeable raillery upon himself, that, if his name were known, the ill-natured world might call him ‘the ass in the lion’s skin.’ This gentleman’s temper is made out of such a happy mixture of the mild and the choleric that he outdoes both his predecessors, and has drawn together greater audiences than have been known in the memory of man.“I must not conclude my narrative without taking notice of a groundless report that has been raised to a gentleman’s disadvantage of whom I must declare myself an admirer; namely, that Signor Nicolini and the lion have been seen sitting peaceably by one another and smoking a pipe together behind the scenes; by which their common enemies would insinuate that it is but a sham combat which they represent upon the stage; but upon inquiry I find that, if any such correspondence has passed between them, it was not till the combat was over, when the lion was to be looked on as dead, according to the received rules of the drama. Besides, this is what is practised every day in Westminster Hall, where nothing is more usual than to see a couple of lawyers who have been tearing each other to pieces in the court embracing one another as soon as they are out of it.”[90]
“There is nothing of late years has afforded matter of greater amusement to the town than Signor Nicolini’s combat with a lion in the Haymarket, which has been very often exhibited to the general satisfaction of most of the nobility and gentry in the kingdom of Great Britain. Upon the first rumour of this intended combat it was confidently affirmed, and is still believed by many in both galleries, that there would be a tame lion sent from the tower every opera in order to be killed by Hydaspes. This report, though altogether groundless, so universally prevailed in the upper regions of the playhouse, that some of the refined politicians in those parts of the audience gave it out in a whisper that the lion was a cousin-german of the tiger who made his appearance in King William’s days, and that the stage would be supplied with lions at the public expense during the whole session. Many, likewise, were the conjectures of the treatment which this lionwas to meet with at the hands of Signor Nicolini; some supposed that he was to subdue him in recitativo, as Orpheus used to serve the wild beasts in his time, and afterwards to knock him on the head; some fancied that the lion would not pretend to lay his paws upon the hero, by reason of the received opinion that a lion will not hurt a virgin; several, who pretended to have seen the opera in Italy, had informed their friends that the lion was to act a part in High Dutch, and roar twice or thrice to a thorough-bass before he fell at the feet of Hydaspes. To clear up a matter that was so variously reported, I have made it my business to examine whether this pretended lion is really the savage he appears to be or only a counterfeit.
“But, before I communicate my discoveries, I must acquaint the public that upon my walking behind the scenes last winter, as I was thinking upon something else, I accidentally jostled against an enormous animal that extremely startled me, and, upon my nearer survey of it, appeared to be a lion rampant. The lion, seeing me very much surprised, told me, in a gentle voice, that I might come by him if I pleased; ‘for,’ says he, ‘I do not intend to hurt anybody.’ I thanked him very kindly and passed by him, and in a little time after saw him leap upon the stage and act his part with very great applause. It has been observed by several that the lion has changed his manner of acting twice or thrice since his first appearance; which will not seem strange when I acquaint my reader that the lion has been changed upon the audience three several times. The first lion was a candle-snuffer, who, being a fellow of testy, choleric temper, overdid his part, and would not suffer himself to be killed so easily as he ought to have done; besides, it was observed of him that he became more surly every time he came out of the lion; and having dropped some words in ordinary conversation as if he had not fought his best, and that he suffered himself to be thrown on his back in the scuffle, and that he could wrestle with Mr. Nicolini for what he pleased out of his lion’s skin, it was thought proper to discard him; and it is verily believed to this day that, had he been brought upon the stage another time, he would certainly have done mischief. Besides, it was objected against the first lion that he reared himself so high upon his hinder paws and walked in so erect a posture that he looked more like an old man than a lion.
“The second lion was a tailor by trade, who belonged to the playhouse, and had the character of a mild and peaceable man in hisprofession. If the former was too furious, this was too sheepish for his part, insomuch that, after a short, modest walk upon the stage, he would fall at the first touch of Hydaspes, without grappling with him and giving him an opportunity of showing his variety of Italian trips. It is said, indeed, that he once gave him a rip in his flesh-coloured doublet; but this was only to make work for himself in his private character of a tailor. I must not omit that it was this second lion who treated me with so much humanity behind the scenes.
“The acting lion at present is, as I am informed, a country gentleman, who does it for his diversion, but desires his name may be concealed. He says, very handsomely in his own excuse, that he does not act for gain; that he indulges an innocent pleasure in it; and that it is better to pass away an evening in this manner than in gaming and drinking; but he says at the same time, with a very agreeable raillery upon himself, that, if his name were known, the ill-natured world might call him ‘the ass in the lion’s skin.’ This gentleman’s temper is made out of such a happy mixture of the mild and the choleric that he outdoes both his predecessors, and has drawn together greater audiences than have been known in the memory of man.
“I must not conclude my narrative without taking notice of a groundless report that has been raised to a gentleman’s disadvantage of whom I must declare myself an admirer; namely, that Signor Nicolini and the lion have been seen sitting peaceably by one another and smoking a pipe together behind the scenes; by which their common enemies would insinuate that it is but a sham combat which they represent upon the stage; but upon inquiry I find that, if any such correspondence has passed between them, it was not till the combat was over, when the lion was to be looked on as dead, according to the received rules of the drama. Besides, this is what is practised every day in Westminster Hall, where nothing is more usual than to see a couple of lawyers who have been tearing each other to pieces in the court embracing one another as soon as they are out of it.”[90]
In a somewhat different vein, the ridicule cast by theSpectatoron the fashions of his day, by anticipating the judgment of posterity on himself, is equally happy:
“As for his speculations, notwithstanding the several obsolete words and obscure phrases of the age in which he lived, we still understand enough of them to see the diversions and characters of the English nation in his time; not but that we are to make allowance for the mirth and humour of the author, who has doubtless strained many representations of things beyond the truth. For, if we must interpret his words in their literal meaning, we must suppose that women of the first quality used to pass away whole mornings at a puppet show; that they attested their principles by their patches; that an audience would sit out an evening to hear a dramatical performance written in a language which they did not understand; that chairs and flowerpots were introduced as actors upon the British stage; that a promiscuous assembly of men and women were allowed to meet at midnight in masks within the verge of the Court; with many improbabilities of the like nature. We must, therefore, in these and in the like cases, suppose that these remote hints and allusions aimed at some certain follies which were then in vogue, and which at present we have not any notion of.”[91]
His power of ridiculing keenly without malignity is of course best shown in his character of Sir Roger de Coverley, whose delightful simplicity of mind is made the medium of much good-natured satire on the manners of the Tory country gentlemen of the period. One of the most exquisite touches is the description of the extraordinary conversion of a dissenter by the Act against Occasional Conformity.
“He (Sir Roger) then launched out into praise of the late Act of Parliament for securing the Church of England, and told me with great satisfaction that he believed it already began to take effect, for that a rigid dissenter who chanced to dine in his house on Christmas day had been observed to eat very plentifully of his plum-porridge.”[92]
The mixture of fashionable contempt for book-learning, blended with shrewd mother-wit, is well represented inthe character of Will Honeycomb, who “had the discretion not to go out of his depth, and had often a certain way of making his real ignorance appear a seeming one.” One of Will’s happiest flights is on the subject of ancient looking-glasses. “Nay,” says he, “I remember Mr. Dryden in hisOvidtells us of a swinging fellow called Polypheme, that made use of the sea for his looking-glass, and could never dress himself to advantage but in a calm.”
Budgell, Steele, and Addison seem all to have worked on the character of Will Honeycomb, which, however, presents none of the inconsistencies that appear in the portrait of Sir Roger de Coverley. Addison was evidently pleased with it, and in his own inimitable ironic manner gave it its finishing touches by making Will, in his character of a fashionable gallant, write two letters scoffing at wedlock and then marry a farmer’s daughter. The conclusion of the letter in which he announces his fate to theSpectatoris an admirable specimen of Addison’s humour:
“As for your fine women I need not tell thee that I know them. I have had my share in their graces; but no more of that. It shall be my business hereafter to live the life of an honest man, and to act as becomes the master of a family. I question not but I shall draw upon me the raillery of the town, and be treated to the tune of “The Marriage-hater Matched;” but I am prepared for it. I have been as witty as others in my time. To tell thee truly, I saw such a tribe of fashionable young fluttering coxcombs shot up that I do not think my post of anhomme de ruelleany longer tenable. I felt a certain stiffness in my limbs which entirely destroyed the jauntiness of air I was once master of. Besides, for I must now confess my age to thee, I have been eight-and-forty above these twelve years. Since my retirement into the country will make a vacancy in the Club, I could wish that you would fill up my place with my friend Tom Dapperwit. He has an infinite deal of fire, and knows the town. For my own part, as I have said before, I shall endeavour to livehereafter suitable to a man in my station, as a prudent head of a family, a good husband, a careful father (when it shall so happen), and as“Your most sincere friend and humble servant,“William Honeycomb.”[93]
“As for your fine women I need not tell thee that I know them. I have had my share in their graces; but no more of that. It shall be my business hereafter to live the life of an honest man, and to act as becomes the master of a family. I question not but I shall draw upon me the raillery of the town, and be treated to the tune of “The Marriage-hater Matched;” but I am prepared for it. I have been as witty as others in my time. To tell thee truly, I saw such a tribe of fashionable young fluttering coxcombs shot up that I do not think my post of anhomme de ruelleany longer tenable. I felt a certain stiffness in my limbs which entirely destroyed the jauntiness of air I was once master of. Besides, for I must now confess my age to thee, I have been eight-and-forty above these twelve years. Since my retirement into the country will make a vacancy in the Club, I could wish that you would fill up my place with my friend Tom Dapperwit. He has an infinite deal of fire, and knows the town. For my own part, as I have said before, I shall endeavour to livehereafter suitable to a man in my station, as a prudent head of a family, a good husband, a careful father (when it shall so happen), and as
“Your most sincere friend and humble servant,“William Honeycomb.”[93]
I have already alluded to the delight with which the fancy of Addison played round the caprices of female attire. The following—an extract from the paper on the “fair sex” which specially roused the spleen of Swift—is a good specimen of his style when in this vein:
“To return to our female heads. The ladies have been for some time in a kind of moulting season with regard to that part of their dress, having cast great quantities of ribbon, lace, and cambric, and in some measure reduced that part of the human figure to the beautiful globular form which is natural to it. We have for a great while expected what kind of ornament would be substituted in the place of those antiquated commodes. But our female projectors were all the last summer so taken up with the improvement of their petticoats that they had not time to attend to anything else; but having at length sufficiently adorned their lower parts, they now begin to turn their thoughts upon the other extremity, as well remembering the old kitchen proverb, ‘that if you light your fire at both ends, the middle will shift for itself.’”[94]
Addison may be said to have almost created and wholly perfected English prose as an instrument for the expression ofsocialthought. Prose had of course been written in many different manners before his time. Bacon, Cowley, and Temple had composed essays; Hooker, Sir Thomas Browne, Hobbes, and Locke philosophical treatises; Milton controversial pamphlets; Dryden critical prefaces; Raleigh and Clarendon histories; Taylor, Barrow, South, and Tillotson sermons. But it cannot be said that any of these had founded a prose style which, besides being a reflection of the mind of the writer, could be taken asrepresenting the genius and character of the nation. They write as if they were thinking apart from their audience, or as if they were speaking to it either from an inferior or superior position. The essayists had taken as their model Montaigne, and their style is therefore stamped, so to speak, with the character of soliloquy; the preachers, who perhaps did more than any writers to guide the genius of the language, naturally addressed their hearers with the authority of their office; Milton, even in controversy, rises from the natural sublimity of his mind to heights of eloquence to which the ordinary idioms of society could not have borne him; while Dryden, using the language with a raciness and rhythm probably unequalled in our literature, nevertheless exhibits in his prefaces an air of deference towards the various patrons he addresses. Moreover, many of the earlier prose writers had aimed at standards of diction which were inconsistent with the genius of the English tongue. Bacon, for instance, disfigures his style with the witty antitheses which found favour with the Elizabethan and early Stuart writers; Hooker, Milton, and Browne construct their sentences on a Latin model, which, though it often gives a certain dignity of manner, prevents anything like ease, simplicity, and lucidity of expression. Thus Hooker delights in inversions; both he and Milton protract their periods by the insertion of many subordinate clauses; and Browne “projicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba” till the Saxon element seems almost eliminated from his style.
Addison took features of his style from almost all his predecessors: he assumes the characters of essayist, moralist, philosopher, and critic, but he blends them all together in his new capacity of journalist. He had accepted the public as his judges; and he writes as if some criticalrepresentative of the public were at his elbow, putting to the test of reason every sentiment and every expression. Warton tells us, in hisEssay on Pope, that Addison was so fastidious in composition that he would often stop the press to alter a preposition or conjunction; and this evidence is corroborated in a very curious and interesting manner by the MS. of some of Addison’s essays, discovered by Mr. Dykes Campbell in 1858.[95]A sentence in one of the papers on thePleasures of the Imaginationshows, by the various stages through which it passed before its form seemed satisfactory to the writer, what nice attention he gave to the balance, rhythm, and lucidity of his periods. In its original shape the sentence was written thus:
“For this reason we find the poets always crying up a Country Life; where Nature is left to herself, and appears to yebest advantage.”
This is rather bald, and the MS. is accordingly corrected as follows:
“For this reason we find all Fancifull men, and yepoets in particular, still in love with a Country Life; where Nature is left to herself, and furnishes out all yevariety of Scenes ytare most delightful to yeImagination.”
The text as it stands is this:
“For this reason we always find the poet in love with a country life, where nature appears in the greatest perfection, and furnishes out all those scenes that are most apt to delight the imagination.”[96]
This is certainly the best, both in point of sense and sound. Addison perceived that there was a certain contradiction in the idea of Nature being “left to herself,”and at the same timefurnishingscenes for the pleasure of the imagination; he therefore imparted the notion of design by striking out the former phrase and substituting “seen in perfection;” and he emphasised the idea by afterwards changing “delightful” into the stronger phrase “apt to delight.” The improvement of the rhythm of the sentence in its final form is obvious.
With so much elaboration of style it is natural that there should be in Addison’s essays a disappearance of that egotism which is a characteristic—and a charming one—of Montaigne; his moralising is natural, for the age required it, but is free from the censoriousness of the preacher; his critical and philosophical papers all assume an intelligence in his reader equal to his own.
This perfection of breeding in writing is an art which vanishes with theTatlerandSpectator. Other critics, other humourists have made their mark in English literature, but no second Addison has appeared. Johnson took him for his model so far as to convey lessons of morality to the public by means of periodical essays. But he confesses that he addressed his audience in tones of “dictatorial instruction;” and any one who compares the ponderous sententiousness and the elaborate antithesis of theRamblerwith the light and rhythmical periods of theSpectatorwill perceive that the spirit of preaching is gaining ground on the genius of conversation. Charles Lamb, again, has passages which, for mere delicacy of humour, are equal to anything in Addison’s writings. But the superiority of Addison consists in this, that he expresses the humour of the life about him, while Lamb is driven to look at its oddities from outside. He is not, like Addison, a moralist or a satirist; the latter indeed performed his task so thoroughly that the turbulent license ofMohocks, Tityre Tus, and such like brotherhoods, gradually disappeared before the advance of a tame and orderly public opinion. To Lamb, looking back on the primitive stages of society from a safe distance, vice itself seemed pardonable because picturesque, much in the same way as travellers began to admire the loneliness and the grandeur of nature when they were relieved from apprehensions for the safety of their purses and their necks. His humour is that of a sentimentalist; it dwells on odd nooks and corners, and describes quaint survivals in men and things. For our own age, when all that is picturesque in society is being levelled by a dull utilitarianism, this vein of eccentric imagination has a special charm, but the taste is likely to be a transient one. Mrs. Battle will amuse so long as this generation remembers the ways of its grandmothers: two generations hence the point of its humour will probably be lost. But the figure of Sir Roger de Coverley, though it belongs to a bygone stage of society, is as durable as human nature itself, and, while the language lasts, the exquisite beauty of the colours in which it is preserved will excite the same kind of pleasure. Scarcely below the portrait of the good knight will be ranked the character of his friend and biographer, the silent Spectator of men. A grateful posterity, remembering what it owes to him, will continue to assign him the reputation he coveted: “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 at clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables and in coffee-houses.”
THE END.
Footnotes:
[1]Spectator, No. 108.
[2]Spectator, No. 158.
[3]Spectator, No. 341.
[4]Spectator, No. 65.
[5]Tatler, No. 25.
[6]A note in the edition of Johnson’sLives of the Poets, published in 1801, states, on the authority of a “Lady in Wiltshire,” who derived her information from a Mr. Stephens, a Fellow of Magdalen and a contemporary of Addison’s, that the Henry Sacheverell to whom Addison dedicated hisAccount of the Greatest English Poetswas not the well-known divine, but a personal friend of Addison’s, who died young, having written aHistory of the Isle of Man.
[7]Spence’s Anecdotes, p. 50.
[8]Compare theNotes on the Metamorphoses, Fab. v. (Tickell’s edition, vol. vi. p. 183), where the substance of the above passage is found in embryo.
[9]Dunciad, Book iv. 224.
[10]CompareSpectator, 414. “I do not know whether I am singular in my opinion, but for my part I would rather look upon a tree in all its luxuriancy and diffusion of boughs and branches, rather than when it is thus cut and trimmed into a mathematical figure; and cannot but fancy that an orchard in flower looks infinitely more delightful than all the little labyrinths of the finished parterre.”
[11]Letter to the Right Honourable Charles Montague, Esq., Blois, 10br1699.
[12]Letter from Italy to Lord Halifax.
[13]Addison’sWorks(Tickell’s edition), vol. v. p. 301.
[14]Addison’sWorks(Tickell’s edition), vol. v. p. 213.
[15]Oldham’s SatireDissuading from Poetry.
[16]Oldham’s SatireDissuading from Poetry.
[17]Blackmore,The Kit-Kats.
[18]Spectator, No. 9.
[19]Spectator, No. 18.
[20]Spectator, No. 18.
[21]Sir John Hawkins’History of Music, vol. v. p. 137.
[22]Burney’sHistory of Music, vol. iv. p. 203.
[23]Spectator, No. 469.
[24]Fourth Drapier’s Letter.
[25]Who the “mistress” was cannot be certainly ascertained. See, however, p. 146.
[26]Egerton MSS., British Museum (1972).
[27]Andrews’History of British Journalism.
[28]Staple of News, Act I. Scene 2.
[29]Andrews’History of British Journalism.
[30]Tatler, No. 1.
[31]Ibid.
[32]Tatler, No. 271.
[33]Preface to the Fables.
[34]Tatler, No. 5.
[35]Ib., No. 82.
[36]Ib., Nos. 25, 26, 28, 29, 38, 39.
[37]Ib., No. 85.
[38]Tatler, No. 87.
[39]Spence’sAnecdotes, p. 325.
[40]Tatler, vol. iv. p. 545 (Nichols’ edition).
[41]See p. 93, note 3.
[42]Tatler, No. 6.
[43]Spectator, No. 10.
[44]Spectator, No. 10.
[45]Spectator, No. 10.
[46]The writer was a Miss Shepherd.
[47]Spectator, No. 134.
[48]Spectator, No. 553.
[49]Ibid., No. 542.
[50]Spectator, No. 10.
[51]Spectator, No. 555.
[52]See Addison’sWorks(Tickell’s edition), vol. v. p. 187.
[53]Spence’sAnecdotes, p. 196.
[54]Spectator, No. 40.
[55]Spectator, No. 40.
[56]See p. 43.
[57]Spence’sAnecdotes, p. 151.
[58]Ibid.
[59]These lines are to be found inThe Campaign, see p. 66.
[60]Spectator, No. 39.
[61]Spence’sAnecdotes, pp. 148, 149.
[62]Spence’sAnecdotes, p. 257.
[63]Pope’sWorks, Elwin and Courthope’s edition, vol. vi. p. 408.
[64]Spence’sAnecdotes, p. 146.
[65]Addison’s Memorial to the King.
[66]Freeholder, No. 1.
[67]Spence’sAnecdotes, p. 175.
[68]Tickell’sElegy. Compare Pope’sEloisa to Abelard, v. 107.
[69]Spectator, No. 125.
[70]Ibid., vol. iii., Nos. 201, 207.
[71]Ibid., No. 391.
[72]Ibid., No. 465.
[73]Ibid., No. 575.
[74]Ibid., No. 494.
[75]Ibid, Nos. 381, 387, 393.
[76]Spectator, No. 51.
[77]Ibid., No. 65.
[78]Spectator, No. 446.
[79]Spectator, No. 525 (by Hughes).
[80]Spectator, No. 399.
[81]Ibid., No. 507.
[82]Spectator, No. 125.
[83]Spectator, No. 158.
[84]Ibid., No. 434.
[85]Spectator, No. 69.
[86]Spectator, Nos. 58-63, inclusive.
[87]Ibid., Nos. 411-421, inclusive.
[88]Life of Addison.
[89]Spectator, No. 556.
[90]Spectator, No. 13.
[91]Spectator, No. 101.
[92]Ibid., No. 269.
[93]Spectator, No. 530.
[94]Ibid., No. 265.
[95]I have to thank Mr. Campbell for his kindness and courtesy in sending me the volume containing this collection.
[96]Spectator, No. 414.