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The sixty-fourth volume of this Library contains those papers from
the Tatler which were especially associated with the imagined
character of ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, who was the central figure in that
series; and in the twenty-ninth volume there is a similar collection
of papers relating to the Spectator Club and SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY,
who was the central figure in Steele and Addison`s Spectator. Those
volumes contained, no doubt, some of the best Essays of Addison and
Steele. But in the Tatler and Spectator are full armouries of the
wit and wisdom of these two writers, who summoned into life the army
of the Essayists, and led it on to kindly war against the forces of
Ill-temper and Ignorance. Envy, Hatred, Malice, and all their first
cousins of the family of Uncharitableness, are captains under those
two commanders-in-chief, and we can little afford to dismiss from
the field two of the stoutest combatants against them. In this
volume it is only Addison who speaks; and in another volume,
presently to follow, there will be the voice of Steele.
The two friends differed in temperament and in many of the outward
signs of character; but these two little books will very distinctly
show how wholly they agreed as to essentials. For Addison,
Literature had a charm of its own; he delighted in distinguishing
the finer graces of good style, and he drew from the truths of life
the principles of taste in writing. For Steele, Literature was the
life itself; he loved a true book for the soul he found in it. So
he agreed with Addison in judgment. But the six papers on "Wit,"
the two papers on "Chevy Chase," contained in this volume; the
eleven papers on "Imagination," and the papers on "Paradise Lost,"
which may be given in some future volume; were in a form of study
for which Addison was far more apt than Steele. Thus as fellow-
workers they gave a breadth to the character of Tatler and Spectator
that could have been produced by neither of them, singly.
The reader of this volume will never suppose that the artist`s
pleasure in good art and in analysis of its constituents removes him
from direct enjoyment of the life about him; that he misses a real
contact with all the world gives that is worth his touch. Good art
is but nature, studied with love trained to the most delicate
perception; and the good criticism in which the spirit of an artist
speaks is, like Addison`s, calm, simple, and benign. Pope yearned
to attack John Dennis, a rough critic of the day, who had attacked
his "Essay on Criticism." Addison had discouraged a very small
assault of words. When Dennis attacked Addison`s "Cato," Pope
thought himself free to strike; but Addison took occasion to
express, through Steele, a serious regret that he had done so. True
criticism may be affected, as Addison`s was, by some bias in the
canons of taste prevalent in the writer`s time, but, as Addison`s
did in the Chevy-Chase papers, it will dissent from prevalent
misapplications of them, and it can never associate perception of
the purest truth and beauty with petty arrogance, nor will it so
speak as to give pain. When Wordsworth was remembering with love
his mother`s guidance of his childhood, and wished to suggest that
there were mothers less wise in their ways, he was checked, he said,
by the unwillingness to join thought of her "with any thought that
looks at others` blame." So Addison felt towards his mother Nature,
in literature and in life. He attacked nobody. With a light,
kindly humour, that was never personal and never could give pain, he
sought to soften the harsh lines of life, abate its follies, and
inspire the temper that alone can overcome its wrongs.
Politics, in which few then knew how to think calmly and recognise
the worth of various opinion, Steele and Addison excluded from the
pages of the Spectator. But the first paper in this volume is upon
"Public Credit," and it did touch on the position of the country at
a time when the shock of change caused by the Revolution of 1688-89,
and also the strain of foreign war, were being severely felt.
H. M.
PUBLIC CREDIT. HOUSEHOLD SUPERSTITIONS. OPERA LIONS. WOMEN AND WIVES. THE ITALIAN OPERA. LAMPOONS. TRUE AND FALSE HUMOUR. SA GA YEAN QUA RASH TOW`S IMPRESSIONS OF LONDON. THE VISION OF MARRATON. SIX PAPERS ON WIT. FRIENDSHIP. CHEVY-CHASE. A DREAM OF THE PAINTERS. SPARE TIME. CENSURE. THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. THE VISION OF MIRZA. GENIUS. THEODOSIUS AND CONSTANTIA. GOOD NATURE. A GRINNING MATCH. TRUST IN GOD. |
