About the Work
This volume collects a selection of essays and tales by Joseph Addison, drawn from the pages of the Tatler and the Spectator, the two periodicals that defined early eighteenth-century English prose and social criticism. The collection is part of a larger library series intended to make classic literature accessible to a broad readership, and it focuses exclusively on Addison’s contributions, distinguishing his voice from that of his celebrated collaborator Richard Steele. The contents range widely across Addison’s characteristic concerns: political allegory, literary criticism, social observation, moral reflection, and the gentle correction of human folly. Included are such well-known pieces as “Public Credit,” “Household Superstitions,” the papers on wit and false wit, the extended critical appreciation of the ballad “Chevy-Chase,” and the celebrated allegorical vision of human life known as “The Vision of Mirza.” The collection also contains narrative tales, including the tragic romance of Theodosius and Constantia, and reflective essays on friendship, good nature, and the proper employment of time. Together, these pieces represent the breadth of Addison’s achievement as an essayist who sought to refine the taste and morals of his age through wit, humour, and a persistent appeal to good sense.
The editorial introduction to the volume situates Addison within his literary partnership with Steele, noting that while the two men differed in temperament, they agreed on essentials. Addison, the introduction suggests, found charm in literature itself, delighting in style and deriving principles of taste from the truths of life, whereas Steele regarded literature as life itself. This distinction helps account for the character of the essays gathered here: they are works of a man who loved letters, who wrote with calm and benign criticism, and who never attacked individuals. Addison’s criticism, we are told, was never personal or painful; he sought to soften the harshness of life with light and kindly humour. The introduction also notes that while Addison and Steele generally excluded politics from the Spectator, the first essay in this collection, “Public Credit,” touches on the nation’s position after the Revolution of 1688 and the strains of foreign war, indicating that even in a periodical devoted to manners and morals, the great public questions of the age could find expression.
Context
The essays and tales in this volume emerge from a particular moment in English literary and social history, the early decades of the eighteenth century, when the periodical essay was establishing itself as a powerful instrument of cultural influence. The Tatler and the Spectator, founded and sustained by Addison and Steele, created a new kind of public discourse: one that addressed men and women of ordinary education and leisure, that mixed instruction with entertainment, and that sought to reform manners without resorting to satire’s sharper weapons. Addison’s papers were written for a readership that included the growing commercial classes, the gentry, and the emerging professional men of London, as well as the fashionable world of the coffeehouse and the theatre. The period was one of political consolidation following the Glorious Revolution, of commercial expansion and public credit, of religious controversy tempered by the Act of Toleration, and of intense literary activity in which questions of taste, criticism, and the nature of wit were vigorously debated.
The collection reflects these contexts in several ways. The essay on “Public Credit” responds directly to anxieties about the national debt and the stability of the new financial order, casting political and economic concerns in the form of an allegorical dream vision. The papers on household superstitions engage with popular beliefs and folk practices that persisted alongside the rational Christianity of the age. The theatrical criticism, including the account of Signior Nicolini’s lion combat at the Haymarket, addresses the controversies surrounding Italian opera and the state of the English stage. The essays on wit, false wit, and the ballad of “Chevy-Chase” participate in contemporary critical debates about the nature of taste, the authority of the ancients, and the proper standards of literary judgment. Throughout, Addison writes as a man of the world and a man of letters, addressing his readers as friends and equals, inviting them to share in his observations and reflections on the passing scene.
The introduction to this volume also places Addison within the broader literary culture of his time, recounting an episode in which Pope attacked John Dennis for criticising Addison’s tragedy Cato, and Addison expressed regret at the affair. Such anecdotes suggest the personal and professional rivalries that surrounded Addison’s career, though the essays themselves are notably free of personal animosity. Addison’s criticism, we are told, could be biased by the taste of his age, but he dissented from misapplications of that taste, as in his papers on “Chevy-Chase,” where he defended the simple and natural beauties of an old ballad against the prevailing preference for artificial wit. The context of the collection, then, is one in which literature and criticism were matters of public concern, in which the periodical press was creating new forms of authorship and readership, and in which a man of Addison’s temperament could exert enormous influence through the quiet authority of his prose.
Structure of the Book
The volume is organised as a sequence of essays and tales, each complete in itself but together forming a coherent body of work that displays Addison’s range and characteristic concerns. The collection opens with “Public Credit,” an allegorical dream vision in which the health of the nation’s finances is figured as a beautiful virgin whose life and death depend on the security of the constitution and the confidence of the public. This is followed by “Household Superstitions,” a humorous and reflective essay on the follies of popular belief, in which Addison recounts his visit to a family troubled by omens and portents and draws moral lessons about the tyranny of fear and ignorance.
The collection then moves through a series of papers on literary and theatrical subjects. The account of Signior Nicolini’s staged combat with a lion at the Haymarket theatre is a piece of comic criticism that exposes the absurdities of contemporary operatic entertainment while also reflecting on the state of public taste. The papers on false wit, including discussions of shaped poetry, lipogrammatists, rebuses, bouts-rimes, double rhymes, and punning, constitute a sustained critical inquiry into the nature of wit and its counterfeit forms. These papers culminate in the allegorical “Vision of False Wit,” in which Addison dreams of a region governed by the goddess of Falsehood, and in the account of the battle between Truth and Falsehood, in which the forces of true wit triumph over their imitators. The essay on friendship follows, drawing on classical and biblical sources to explore the nature and value of this human bond.
A substantial portion of the collection is devoted to Addison’s celebrated papers on the ballad of “Chevy-Chase,” in which he undertakes a detailed critical analysis of this old English and Scottish ballad, comparing its sentiments and descriptions to passages from Virgil and Homer, and arguing that its enduring popularity among all ranks of readers demonstrates the universal appeal of natural and simple poetry. These papers are followed by “A Dream of the Painters,” an allegorical vision in which Addison contrasts the living painters of his own age, each representing a particular artistic vice, with the dead masters of the past, whose works are perfected by time. The essays on spare time and the employment of leisure explore the proper use of our hours, recommending virtue, innocent diversions, friendship, conversation, and the pursuit of knowledge as means of filling the vacant spaces of life. The paper on the English language and national character offers a speculative account of how the genius of the English people has shaped their tongue, while “The Vision of Mirza” presents an Oriental tale in which a shepherd-genius shows the dreamer a vision of human life as a bridge over an abyss, with souls crossing from birth to death and vanishing into the ocean of eternity.
The collection also includes papers on genius, ancient and modern, in which Addison distinguishes between the great natural geniuses of the past and the more correct but less daring writers of his own age, and on Pindar and Pindaric imitations, in which he ridicules the attempts of sober writers to imitate the inspired flights of the Greek lyric poet. The tale of Theodosius and Constantia is a tragic romance of separated lovers who reunite only in death, and the collection concludes with papers on good nature, in which Addison distinguishes between constitutional good nature and moral virtue, and argues that true benevolence is the foundation of a virtuous character.
Inside the Book
The Bank and the Dream of Public Credit
The volume opens with editorial front matter placing it as the sixty-fourth in Cassell’s National Library, a collection drawn from the Tatler and Spectator. The introduction by H. M. sets the stage by contrasting Addison with his collaborator Steele: where Steele saw literature as life itself, Addison found charm in literature as an art, delighting in style and deriving his principles of taste from the truths of human existence. Their partnership, the introduction argues, gave their periodicals a breadth neither could have achieved alone. Addison’s criticism is characterized as calm, simple, and benign—never personal or painful—and the introduction recounts how, when Pope attacked John Dennis for criticizing Addison’s Cato, Addison expressed regret through Steele rather than retaliating. Though politics was generally excluded from the Spectator, the first paper included here touches on the nation’s condition after the Revolution of 1688-89 and the strain of foreign war.
In “Public Credit,” Addison describes visiting the bank and observing its directors and clerks at work, which reminds him of the various discourses he has heard on the decay of public credit—discourses he finds defective because they are colored by party interests. That night he falls into a methodical dream. He returns to the hall and beholds a beautiful virgin named Public Credit seated on a throne of gold. The walls are hung with Acts of Parliament inscribed in golden letters, including Magna Charta, the Act of Uniformity on her right, the Act of Toleration on her left, and the Act of Settlement full in her eye. She regards these with tenderness, smiling upon them but showing the utmost unease if anything approaches to harm them. She is infinitely timorous, changing colour at every alarm, a valetudinarian subject to sudden consumptions and as sudden recoveries. Two secretaries read her letters from all parts of the world, and she responds with visible health or sickness according to the news. Behind her throne lie bags of money, and the floor is covered with pyramids of gold. She possesses the Midas-like power of converting whatever she touches into treasure.
The hall is suddenly alarmed, and six hideous phantoms enter in a dance, paired in dissociable unions: Tyranny with Anarchy, Bigotry with Atheism, and the Genius of a commonwealth with a young man of about twenty-two who brandishes a sword at the Act of Settlement and holds a sponge in his other hand. At this dreadful sight, the lady faints and dies. The money-bags shrink to a tenth of their former size, the rest being filled with air, like Aeolus’s gift of winds to a hero in Homer. The heaps of gold turn to paper and notched sticks, resembling Bath faggots. The scene then vanishes, and a second, agreeable dance enters: Liberty with Monarchy, Moderation with Religion, and an unknown person with the Genius of Great Britain. The lady revives, the bags swell again, and the paper is transformed back into pyramids of guineas. The author awakes with joy, wishing he could sleep again to see the vision completed.
Household Superstitions
The author dines with an acquaintance whose family is dejected because the wife has dreamt a strange dream portending misfortune. She identifies the author as “the stranger that was in the candle last night,” and forbids her son from beginning his join-hand on Thursday, Childermas-day, insisting he must wait until Friday. When the author drops salt while passing it, and it falls towards her, she is startled and sighs that misfortunes never come singly, recalling that the pigeon-house fell the very afternoon the wench spilt salt, and the next post brought news of the battle of Almanza. The author, feeling he has done mischief, lays his knife and fork across his plate, and the lady asks him to place them side by side—a practice he now always follows without knowing why. He leaves the house, seeing that she regards him as an odd fellow.
He reflects on how superstition subjects us to imaginary afflictions, turning indifferent circumstances into portents of misfortune. A shooting star spoils a night’s rest; a screech-owl alarms more than robbers; the voice of a cricket strikes more terror than the roar of a lion; a rusty nail becomes a prodigy. He recalls an assembly where an old woman noted that thirteen were present; a friend observed that a pregnant woman made fourteen, so the omen foretold a birth rather than a death. He mentions a maiden aunt, an “antiquated Sibyl,” who sees apparitions and hears death-watches, and was once frightened by a howling dog. Such fancies, he concludes, cause impertinent terrors and supernumerary duties, arising from fear and ignorance. Wise men retrench evils by philosophy; fools multiply them by superstition. The author would not wish for the power of divination, for he would not anticipate happiness nor feel misery before it arrives. His only fortification is securing the friendship of the Being who governs futurity and who sees his whole existence at once. He recommends himself to God’s care when sleeping and waking, trusting that He will avert evils or turn them to advantage, and will comfort him at the hour of death.
Signior Nicolini’s Lion Combat
The author turns to a popular entertainment of the day: Signior Nicolini’s staged combat with a lion at the Haymarket theatre, frequently performed before the nobility and gentry of Great Britain. Rumors circulated, believed by many in the galleries, that a tame lion would be sent from the Tower each opera night to be killed by Hydaspes, Nicolini’s character. This groundless report prevailed among “the upper regions of the playhouse,” where some politicians whispered that the lion was a cousin-german of the tiger that appeared in King William’s days, and that the stage would be supplied with lions at public expense for the whole season.
Various conjectures arose about how Nicolini would handle the beast. Some thought he would subdue it in recitativo, as Orpheus tamed wild beasts, and then knock it on the head. Others fancied the lion would not attack because of the belief that lions will not hurt virgins. Several who claimed to have seen the opera in Italy said the lion was to act in High Dutch and roar two or three times to a thorough bass before falling at Hydaspes’ feet. The author investigated whether the lion was genuine or counterfeit. He recounts walking behind the scenes last winter and accidentally jostling a monstrous animal—a lion rampant—which startled him. The lion spoke gently, saying he did not intend to hurt anyone. The author passed by and later saw it leap on stage and act with applause.
The lion had changed his manner several times because the lion had been changed three times. The first lion was a candle-snuffer, testy and choleric, who overdid his part and resisted being killed properly. He grew surly each time he came out of the lion costume, dropping words suggesting he had not fought his best, had been thrown on his back, and would wrestle Nicolini out of the lion’s skin. He was discarded, believed capable of mischief. He also reared too erect, looking more like an old man than a lion. The second lion was a tailor by trade, mild and peaceable, but too sheepish—he fell at the first touch of Hydaspes without grappling, denying the audience Nicolini’s Italian trips. He once ripped Nicolini’s flesh-colour doublet, but only to make work for himself as a tailor. This second lion treated the author humanely behind the scenes. The current lion is a country gentleman who acts for diversion, concealing his name. He says he does not act for gain, indulges an innocent pleasure, and prefers this to gaming and drinking. He jokes that if known, he might be called “the ass in the lion’s skin.” His temper mixes mild and choleric, outdoing both predecessors and drawing greater audiences than ever known.
The author addresses a report that Nicolini and the lion sat smoking together behind the scenes, implying the combat is a sham. He finds that any such correspondence occurred only after the combat, when the lion was dead according to dramatic rules. He compares this to Westminster Hall, where lawyers who tear each other apart in court embrace afterward. The author does not reflect on Nicolini, who complies with his audience’s wretched taste; the lion has more admirers than Nicolini, like the equestrian statue on the Pont-Neuf at Paris, where more people see the horse than the king. He expresses indignation that a person whose action gives majesty to kings, resolution to heroes, and softness to lovers should sink into the character of the London Prentice. He wishes English tragedians would copy this master in action—using arms, legs, and facial expressions—which could dignify even the forced thoughts and unnatural expressions of Italian opera. He relates this combat to show the reigning entertainments of the politer part of Great Britain. Audiences are reproached for coarse taste, but the grievance is not want of good taste but of common sense.
Women and Wives
The author recalls being in France, gazing at splendid equipages and party-coloured habits. He observed a lady in a coach adorned with gilded Cupids, painted with the Loves of Venus and Adonis, drawn by six milk-white horses, with six powdered footmen behind, and two beautiful pages among the harness looking like elder brothers of the carved boys. The lady was the unfortunate Cleanthe, who later occasioned a melancholy novel. She had received a gentleman’s addresses for years but forsook him for this shining equipage offered by a man of great riches but crazy constitution. Her circumstances were disguises of a broken heart—pageantry covering distress—for in two months she was carried to her grave with the same pomp, sent there partly by losing one lover and partly by possessing another.
The author reflects on women’s unaccountable humour of being smitten with showy, superficial things. He remembers a young lady courted by two rivals who recommended themselves through complacency and agreeable conversation. When the competition was doubtful, one lover added a supernumerary lace to his liveries, which so effected that he married her the week after. Ordinary women’s conversation cherishes this weakness. Talk of newlyweds brings questions of coach and six or eating in plate; an absent lady is discussed via her gown and petticoat. Balls and birthdays furnish discourse. Furbelows of precious stones, diamond-buttoned hats, brocade waistcoats are standing topics. Women consider only drapery, never ornaments of mind. A girl trained thus is in danger of every embroidered coat; fringed gloves may ruin her. Lace, ribands, silver and gold galloons are lures to weak-minded women. True happiness, he concludes, is retired, an enemy to pomp and noise, arising from enjoyment of oneself and the friendship of few select companions.
False Wit: Poems in Picture
Addison discusses ancient “poems in picture”—shaped poetry, where the verses were arranged to form the outline of an object. He remarks that an axe would have served as a good figure for a lampoon if its edge contained the most satirical parts, but in the original he takes it to be merely the inscription on an axe consecrated to Minerva, thought to be the same axe Epeus used in building the Trojan horse. He leaves this hint to critics. He thinks the poesy was originally written upon the axe like modern cutlers inscribe knives, so the poesy survives though the axe is lost. The shepherd’s pipe is “full of music” because it consists of nine different kinds of verses, resembling the nine stops of the old musical instrument that is the poem’s subject. The altar bears the epitaph of Troilus, son of Hecuba, which makes Addison believe these false pieces of wit are more ancient than the authors to whom they are ascribed; he will never be persuaded that so fine a writer as Theocritus authored such simple works.
Success in these performances required the poet to be a kind of painter or designer: first drawing the outline of his subject, then conforming the description to its figure. Poetry had to contract or dilate according to its mould, cramped or extended to the frame’s dimensions—undergoing the fate of those whom the tyrant Procrustes lodged in his iron bed: if too short, stretched on a rack; if too long, their legs chopped off until they fit his couch. Addison notes that Mr. Dryden hints at this obsolete wit in Mac Flecknoe, quoting verses about choosing “Some peaceful province in acrostic land,” where one may “wings display, and altars raise, / And torture one poor word a thousand ways.” This fashion was revived by several poets of the last age, including Mr. Herbert’s poems and, if Addison is not mistaken, the translation of Du Bartas. He compares it to the famous picture of King Charles the First with the whole Book of Psalms written in the lines of the face and hair. At Oxford, Addison perused one whisker and was reading the other but could not finish due to impatient friends. He has heard of a writing-master in town who transcribed all the Old Testament in a full-bottomed periwig, promising to add locks for the Apocrypha if thick wigs return. This wig was designed for King William, with the two Books of Kings in the two forks of the foretop, but the monarch died before completion, leaving space for any purchaser’s face.
Addison humorously proposes that modern poets imitate these devices: a young poetical lover intends to present his mistress verses shaped like her fan, having finished the three first sticks; he also plans a posy in ring form to fit her marriage finger. Addison expects the town to be filled with poetical tippets, handkerchiefs, and snuff-boxes. He advises Pindaric writers to apply themselves to this kind of wit, being provided with verses of all sizes.
Letter-Droppers and Rebus
In his second paper on false wit, Addison quotes Seneca—”Operose nihil agunt,” busy about nothing. Every man would be a wit if he could; pedants who decry polite authors as flash and froth nevertheless spare no pains to arrive at wit themselves, often attempting works of fancy costing infinite pangs. A man had better be a galley-slave than a wit gained by elaborate trifles invented by authors of great learning but no genius. He introduces the lipogrammatists or letter-droppers of antiquity, who excluded a particular letter from a whole poem. Tryphiodorus composed an Odyssey in twenty-four books, banishing the letter A from his first book (called Alpha, as “lucus a non lucendo,” because no Alpha appeared); his second book was inscribed Beta for the same reason. The poet excluded all twenty-four letters in turn. Addison imagines the poet avoiding the reprobate letter like a false quantity, escaping through Greek dialects. The most apt word was rejected like a flawed diamond if blemished with a wrong letter.
On Wit, Truth, and False Wit
Addison opens this discussion by invoking Bouhours, “the most penetrating of all the French critics,” who maintained that no thought can be beautiful unless it is just and grounded in the nature of things. The basis of all wit, therefore, is truth, and good sense is the groundwork of all valuable thought. Boileau inculcated the same notion in both prose and verse, and this principle constitutes that natural way of writing, that beautiful simplicity, so admired in ancient compositions. Poets who lack the strength of genius to make a thought shine in its natural beauties are forced to hunt after foreign ornaments. Addison likens such writers to the Goths in poetry—just as Gothic architects, unable to match the simplicity of Greek and Roman design, supplied its place with the extravagancies of an irregular fancy.
Addison then quotes Mr. Dryden on Ovid’s letter from Dido to Æneas. Dryden observes that Ovid took up Virgil’s fiction in the same age, making an ancient heroine of Virgil’s new-created Dido, dictating a letter before her death to the ungrateful fugitive—unluckily measuring swords with a superior on the same subject. Dryden claims some judgment in this matter because he has translated both authors. The author of The Art of Love borrows everything from a greater master, improves nothing, and when nature fails him, he resorts to witticism, which passes with soft admirers who prefer him to Virgil.
Supported by Dryden’s authority, Addison ventures to assert that the taste of most English poets and readers is extremely Gothic. He quotes Dryden quoting Monsieur Segrais, who distinguished the readers of poetry into three classes. Segrais places in the lowest form Les Petits Esprits, who are like the upper-gallery audiences in a playhouse, liking the husk and rind of wit and preferring quibbles, conceits, and epigrams to solid sense. These are the mob readers; if Virgil and Martial stood for Parliament-men, one knows who would carry the election. Though they are the loudest, they are like French Huguenots or Dutch boors brought over in herds but not naturalised, lacking lands of two pounds per annum in Parnassus and thus not privileged to poll. Their authors suit mountebank stages or bear-gardens, yet they have the most admirers—until readers improve their sense and forsake them.
Addison notes that just as Mr. Locke discovered the most fruitful source of wit, there is another of a contrary nature: not only the resemblance but the opposition of ideas produces wit, in points, turns, and antitheses, which he may enlarge upon later.
The Vision of False Wit
Addison describes a dream in which he formed his schemes of wit into an allegory. He was transported to a country governed by the goddess of Falsehood, entitled the Region of False Wit. The trees blossomed in leaf-gold, produced bone-lace and precious stones; the fountains bubbled in opera tunes and were filled with stags, bears, and mermaids; dolphins played upon the banks; birds had golden beaks and human voices; flowers smelled of incense, ambergris, and pulvillios, growing in embroidery. Artificial echoes either agreed or contradicted him. He discovered a monstrous fabric built after the Gothic manner—a heathen temple consecrated to the god of Dulness, who was dressed as a monk with a book and a rattle. On his right stood Industry with a lamp, and on his left, Caprice with a monkey. The altar bore offerings of paper axes, wings, and eggs inscribed with verses.
The temple contained votaries: a regiment of anagrams perpetually moving in figures and counter-marches; a body of acrostics in three columns—tall officers with dwarf, crippled common soldiers; chronograms with hour-glasses and scythes. Addison saw the phantom of Tryphiodorus, the lipogrammatist, dancing with twenty-four persons who could not overtake him. At the western end was the great magazine of rebuses—bundles of unlike things, such as an anchor, a night-rail, and a hobby-horse bound together. He declined explanation, being in haste. He observed gamesters at crambo with double rhymes, and a party of puns—pairs identically dressed, causing mistaken identities, an old man for a boy, a woman for a man, a blackamoor for a European.
The Battle of Truth and Falsehood
Hearing trumpets, Addison saw at a distance the beautiful person Truth, with Wit on her right bearing quivers and arrows. Their approach threw False Wit into consternation. The frontiers were inhabited by Mixed Wit—men stuck full of darts, women with burning-glass eyes, hearts of fire, and breasts of snow. This army divided, half joining Truth and half joining Falsehood. The gigantic goddess of Falsehood faded as Truth’s light shone upon her, vanishing entirely like stars at sunrise. The whole army shrank into nothing; the temple sank; nature recovered its true appearance—fish returned to streams, beasts to woods, fountains regained their murmurs, birds their voices, trees their leaves, and flowers their scents.
Addison then surveyed Wit and Truth. Behind them stood figures: Heroic Poetry with sword and laurel; Tragedy crowned with cypress, her robes dipped in blood; Satire with smiles and a hidden dagger; Rhetoric with a thunderbolt; Comedy with a mask; and Epigram in the rear, suspected of favouring the enemy. The god of Wit inspired both love and terror. As Addison reached for a quiver of arrows offered to him, he knocked against a chair and awaked.
On Friendship
Addison observes that larger companies straiten conversation; numerous assemblies debate chiefly forms and general positions, while contracted assemblies talk of weather, fashions, and news. Conversation among clubs and friends descends into particularities. He attributes to Tully the observation that friendship improves happiness and abates misery by doubling joy and dividing grief, a thought followed by all later essayists on friendship. Sir Francis Bacon described other fruits of friendship. Addison quotes from an ancient, apocryphal treatise, The Wisdom of the Son of Sirach, which would be admired if attributed to Confucius or a Greek philosopher. This work describes making friends through obliging behaviour, advising one to have many well-wishers but few friends. It cautions to prove a friend before trusting, noting that some friends are useful only for their own occasions and will not stand by one in trouble; a table-companion may turn against one in adversity. A verse advises separating from enemies and taking heed of friends. Addison praises the saying that a faithful friend is a strong defence, a treasure, and the medicine of life, with his excellency being unvaluable; those who fear the Lord shall find such a friend and direct friendship aright. He is pleased by the idea of a virtuous man meeting a friend as virtuous as himself. Another saying compares a new friend to new wine, which is best when old. The text describes breaches of friendship: casting a stone at birds frightens them away, and upbraiding a friend breaks friendship; reconciliation is possible after drawing a sword or speaking against a friend, except for upbraiding, pride, disclosing secrets, or a treacherous wound. Addison notes these familiar illustrations resemble those admired in Horace and Epictetus. Further passages state that discovering secrets loses credit; a friend betrayed is like a bird let go or a roe escaped from a snare, beyond recovery. The wise man singles out constancy and faithfulness as the principal qualifications of a good friend; others add virtue, knowledge, discretion, equality in age and fortune, and Cicero’s Morum comitas, or pleasantness of temper. Addison would add equability or evenness of behaviour, since latent ill-humour may break out after a year’s intimacy. Martial’s epigram describes a man who is difficult, easy, pleasant, and bitter at once, so that one can live neither with nor without him. It is unlucky to be entangled with such a friend; wisdom should keep us in the agreeable part of our character.
Chevy-Chase: The Ballad’s First Part
The next section begins with a Horatian epigraph noting that the vulgar sometimes see aright. Addison delighted in hearing common songs and fables while travelling, for universal approval by a multitude indicates some aptness to please human nature. Moliere read his comedies to his old housekeeper and could foretell theatrical success from her reception. Simplicity of thought pleases all palates, unlike the Gothic manner, which pleases only those with artificial taste. Homer, Virgil, or Milton please plain common sense, whereas an epigram of Martial or a poem of Cowley would not; an ordinary ballad delights the common people and also the refined. Chevy-Chase is the favourite ballad of the English common people; Ben Jonson wished he had authored it. Sir Philip Sidney said he never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas without his heart being more moved than by a trumpet, despite its rude style. Addison will critique it.
Modern critics rule that an heroic poem should be founded on an important moral precept adapted to the country. Homer grounded his poem on discords among Grecian princes confederated against an Asiatic prince. The poem in question was written when baronial dissensions ran high; the poet describes a bloody battle arising from feuds between an English and a Scotch nobleman, drawing a precept in the last four lines praying for peace and that foul debate ‘twixt noblemen may cease. Heroic poets celebrate persons honouring their country; Valerius Flaccus and Statius were derided for choosing the Golden Fleece and the Theban Wars. The poet found a hero in his own country: the English take the field first and quit it last; the English bring fifteen hundred to battle, the Scotch two thousand; the English keep the field with fifty-three, the Scotch retire with fifty-five. The Scotch and English kings receive the news differently: King James laments Douglas as his best captain; King Henry says he has five hundred as good as Percy, yet vows vengeance, which he performs at Humble-down, slaying fifty knights. The poet shows partiality to his countrymen but represents the Scots as bold. Earl Douglas, on a milk-white steed, proposes single combat to Percy to spare innocent men; Percy agrees. Douglas falls by an arrow, and his dying words urge his merry men to fight on, noting that Percy sees his fall. Addison compares this to Camilla’s death in Virgil’s Æneid, where she thinks only of the battle’s continuation. Turnus did not die so heroically, though the poet had his eye on Turnus’s speech. Percy’s lamentation over Douglas is generous; the line “taking the dead man by the hand” recalls Æneas’s behaviour towards Lausus.
Chevy-Chase: The Ballad’s Second Part
Addison promises to be more particular about Chevy-Chase, showing that its sentiments are natural, poetical, and full of majestic simplicity like the ancients. He quotes passages similar to the Æneid, not implying imitation but the same poetic genius and copying after nature. The song would not have pleased the common people or warmed Sidney if filled with epigrammatical wit. Addison dissents from Sidney’s judgment on the rude style, finding several parts majestic and sonorous, more gorgeous than many Elizabethan poets. He quotes the stanza about Earl Percy driving the deer, noting that the unborn child may rue that day’s hunting—a way of considering misfortunes brought upon posterity, conformable to ancient poets.
The excerpt opens with verses describing the Earl of Northumberland vowing to hunt in Scottish woods for three summer days, accompanied by fifteen hundred chosen bowmen. The hounds’ cries through the woods are compared to Virgil’s Georgics. The ballad then introduces Earl Douglas arriving with full twenty hundred Scottish spears from pleasant Tividale, fast by the river Tweed. Addison notes this country has a fine romantic situation and provides smooth words for verse, asserting the preceding six lines are written in the spirit of Virgil. Earl Douglas rides foremost on a milk-white steed with armour shining like gold, compared to Virgil’s description of Turnus. The English archers kill threescore Scots with their first flight of arrows; the Scots close in, and many gentlemen fall. An arrow from an English bow strikes Earl Douglas fatally, compared to Aeneas being wounded by an unknown hand during a parley.
Addison praises four stanzas as the most beautiful descriptive parts, noting the thought in the third stanza was never touched by any other poet and would have shone in Homer or Virgil. These describe an English archer perceiving the Earl slain, drawing a cloth-yard arrow against Sir Hugh Montgomery, whose death is marked by the gray-goose wing wet in heart-blood. The fight lasted from break of day until the evening bell rang. Addison observes the author followed ancient poets in listing the dead with little characters of particular persons, quoting verses naming Sir Hugh Montgomery, Sir Charles Carrel, Sir Charles Murrel of Ratcliff, and Sir David Lamb. Addison admits the familiar sound in these names destroys the majesty of the description, mentioning this only to show the natural cast of thought, and compares the last two verses to Virgil’s lines on Ripheus, justissimus unus. In the English catalogue, Witherington’s behaviour is particularised very artfully: a squire, he declares he would not have it told to King Henry that his captain fought on foot while he stood looking on, compared to Virgil’s Æneid where warriors are shamed into fighting. Addison notes that buffoon readers who saw this ridiculed in Hudibras will not grasp its beauty. He praises as natural and moving the stanzas describing widows coming next day to bewail their husbands, washing wounds with tears, bearing away bodies bathed in purple blood, and kissing them dead a thousand times. Addison concludes the poem’s thoughts are always simple, and sometimes exquisitely noble, the language often very sounding, written with true poetical spirit. Had it been written in the Gothic manner delighting little wits, it would not have pleased readers of all ranks for so many ages. He apologizes for his profusion of Latin quotations, which he used fearing his judgment would seem too singular without Virgil’s authority.
A Dream of the Painters
Addison describes visiting picture galleries in bad weather, finding in art relief from gloomy skies. He recounts a dream of a gallery with living painters on one side and dead masters on the other. Only one person worked among the dead masters—slow and wonderfully nice. Among the living: Vanity, dressed like a Frenchman with tied-back hair, gave all faces smiles and a smirking air, even to judges and bishops, using glaring colours in drapery. Stupidity, a German name, stood at his left, copying him. Fantasque, dressed like a Venetian scaramouch, excelled at chimeras, distortions, and grimaces—his finest figures were agreeable monsters.
The English Language and National Character
The author opens by recalling an eminent person who, in his private devotions, gave thanks that he had been born a Frenchman. The author, by contrast, counts it a singular blessing to have been born an Englishman, chiefly because the English language is so well suited to one who is sparing of words and an enemy to loquacity. He then shares his speculations on the English tongue for his curious readers, observing that foreigners note the English delight in silence more than any other European nation. English discourse falls into more pauses and intervals than that of neighbouring countries, and English writings are thrown much closer together, lying in a narrower compass than foreign works. To favour this natural taciturnity, when the English are obliged to utter their thoughts, they do it in the shortest way, giving as quick a birth to their conceptions as possible.
This humour shows itself in several features of the language. First, English abounds in monosyllables, which allows a man to deliver his thoughts in few sounds. This takes off from elegance but expresses ideas in the readiest manner, answering the first design of speech better than the multitude of syllables that make other languages more tuneable and sonorous. English word sounds are like string music—short and transient, rising and perishing upon a single touch—whereas the sounds of other languages resemble wind instruments, sweet and swelling, lengthened into a variety of modulation. Second, where words are not monosyllables, the English often make them so by the rapidity of their pronunciation, especially in long words derived from Latin, contracting syllables that have a grave and solemn air in their own language to make them proper for despatch, as in “liberty,” “conspiracy,” “theatre,” and “orator.”
Third, this aversion to loquacity has lately altered the language by closing in one syllable the termination of the preterperfect tense, turning “drowned,” “walked,” and “arrived” into “drown’d,” “walk’d,” and “arriv’d.” This has disfigured the tongue, turning a tenth part of the smoothest words into clusters of consonants. The want of vowels has been the general complaint of the politest authors, yet these same men made these retrenchments, increasing the former scarcity. The author heard this reflection on words ending in “ed” from one of the greatest geniuses this age has produced. Fourth, words terminated in “eth” have been abbreviated by substituting “s,” so “drowneth,” “walketh,” and “arriveth” become “drowns,” “walks,” and “arrives.” This has multiplied a letter already too frequent, adding to the hissing noticed by foreigners, but it humours taciturnity and eases superfluous syllables. The same letter “s” often does the office of a whole word, representing the “his” and “her” of forefathers. Foreigners’ ears would disapprove, though the English themselves retain the old termination in writing and in the solemn offices of religion.
Fifth, two words have been drawn into one, clogging the language with consonants: “mayn’t,” “can’t,” “shan’t,” and “won’t” for “may not,” “can not,” “shall not,” and “will not.” Sixth, this humour has curtailed words so that in familiar writings they lose all but their first syllables, as in “mob,” “rep,” “pos,” and “incog.” Ridiculous words enter a language by familiar phrases, and the author dares not answer that these will not become part of the tongue. Some poets have imitated Hudibras’s doggrel expressions in serious compositions, throwing out the signs of substantives essential to English. This shortening humour once ran so far that celebrated authors, including Sir Roger L’Estrange, began pruning words of all superfluous letters to adjust spelling to pronunciation, which would have confounded all etymologies and destroyed the tongue. Seventh, proper names familiarised in English generally dwindle to monosyllables, whereas other modern languages give them a softer turn by adding a syllable: Nick in Italian is Nicolini, and Jack in French is Janot. Eighth, English suppresses several particles that other tongues require to make sentences intelligible, which perplexes the best writers regarding the relatives “whom,” “which,” or “they”—whether they may have admission—and this will never be decided until something like an academy settles controversies between grammar and idiom by the best authorities and rules from the analogy of languages.
The author has considered English as showing the genius of the English—modest, thoughtful, and sincere—which may recommend the people though it spoiled the tongue. The same thought could apply to other languages: the light talkative humour of the French has infected their tongue; the Italians’ genius for music and ceremony has moulded their words; the stateliness and gravity of Spaniards shows in their language’s solemnity; and the blunt honest humour of Germans sounds better in High-Dutch roughness than in a politer tongue.
The Vision of Mirza
The author reports picking up Oriental manuscripts at Grand Cairo, including one titled “The Visions of Mirza,” which he will give the public, beginning with the first vision translated word for word. Mirza, on the fifth day of the moon, kept holy by the custom of his forefathers, after washing and morning devotions, ascended the high hills of Bagdad for meditation and prayer. Contemplating the vanity of human life, he mused that man is but a shadow and life a dream. He discovered on a nearby rock one in shepherd’s habit with a musical instrument, who played tunes exceeding sweet, unlike anything heard before—reminding Mirza of heavenly airs played to the departed souls of good men on their arrival in Paradise. Mirza’s heart melted in secret raptures. The rock was reportedly the haunt of a genius; several had been entertained with the music, but none had seen the musician visible before. The genius beckoned to Mirza.
On Genius, Ancient and Modern
The passage discusses “great natural geniuses” never disciplined by the rules of art, found chiefly among the ancients, particularly those of the more Eastern parts of the world. Homer has innumerable flights that Virgil could not reach, and the Old Testament contains passages more elevated and sublime than anything in Homer. While the ancients possessed greater and more daring genius, they failed in—or were above—the nicety and correctness of the moderns. In their similitudes and allusions, provided there was a likeness, they did not trouble themselves about the decency of the comparison. Examples are given: Solomon compares his beloved’s nose to the tower of Lebanon looking toward Damascus; the New Testament compares the coming of Christ to a thief in the night. Homer illustrates one hero surrounded by enemies by comparing him to an ass in a cornfield belabored by village boys without stirring, and another hero tossing in bed with resentment is compared to flesh broiled on coals. This failure opens a large field of raillery to the little wits who can laugh at indecency but cannot relish the sublime. The present Emperor of Persia, following this Eastern way of thinking, among his pompous titles calls himself “the sun of glory” and “the nutmeg of delight.” The rule of observing what the French call bienseance (decorum) in allusion was found out in later years, in colder regions, where writers compensated for want of force by scrupulous nicety. Shakespeare is cited as a remarkable instance of the first kind of genius.
On Pindar and Pindaric Imitations
Pindar was a great genius of the first class, hurried by natural fire to vast conceptions. Nothing is more ridiculous than sober men imitating his way of writing in monstrous compositions called Pindarics. Addison quotes Terence: attempting to make uncertain things certain by reason is like trying to be mad and sane simultaneously. A modern Pindaric writer compared to Pindar is like a sister among the Camisars compared to Virgil’s Sibyl—having the distortion and grimace but nothing of the divine impulse. The second class of geniuses formed themselves by rules, submitting natural talents to art’s corrections. Examples include Plato and Aristotle among the Greeks, Virgil and Tully among the Romans, and Milton and Sir Francis Bacon among the English. Both classes may be equally great but show differently: the first is like rich soil producing a wilderness of noble plants without order; the second is the same soil laid out in walks and parterres by the gardener’s skill. The danger for the latter is cramping abilities by too much imitation. Few writers make extraordinary figures without something peculiar and entirely their own.
Genius Thrown Away on Trifles
Addison recounts a famous Italian author’s story of a shepherd who diverted himself tossing eggs and catching them without breaking, keeping four aloft for minutes. The man’s face showed the seriousness and gravity of a privy councillor, and the author reflected that the same assiduity might have made a greater mathematician than Archimedes.
Theodosius and Constantia
This tale opens with Virgil’s lines about Orpheus losing Eurydice. Constantia, a woman of extraordinary wit and beauty, had a father who delighted only in money. Theodosius, the younger son of a decayed family, was learned and virtuous. At twenty he met Constantia, not yet fifteen, and they fell mutually in love through long acquaintance. An irreparable quarrel broke out between their parents—one valuing birth, the other possessions. Constantia’s father forbade Theodosius his house and arranged a marriage for his daughter with a wealthy young gentleman. Constantia silently consented, which her father commended. Theodosius, hearing of the intended marriage, wrote a despairing letter and disappeared. Constantia fainted reading it, and messengers came inquiring after him. She refused the marriage, and her father, relieved of Theodosius, did not press it. After years, Constantia resolved to enter a convent at twenty-five, and her father complied.
In the city, a renowned confessor—actually Theodosius, who had taken the name Father Francis and made a private vow never to inquire after Constantia—heard her confession. She told of her lover’s death, and he wept so violently the seat shook. She revealed her vow of virginity as atonement. He gave absolution, directing her to return. The next day he encouraged her, promising letters since their orders forbade meetings. She entered her vow, and the abbess delivered Father Francis’s letter revealing he was Theodosius, still alive. Constantia recognized the handwriting and voice. They corresponded for ten years. A fever swept the place, killing Theodosius, who sent his benediction to Constantia, herself delirious. On her deathbed, she asked to be buried by Theodosius, saying her vow reached no further than the grave. She died and was interred accordingly. Their tombs bear a Latin inscription: “Here lie the bodies of Father Francis and Sister Constance. They were lovely in their lives, and in their death they were not divided.”
Good Nature
Addison quotes Terence: the ready way to gain applause without envy is to bear with everybody’s humours, comply with others’ inclinations, contradict nobody, and never assume superiority. He observes that humanity suffers innumerable pains by its very condition, yet adds grief to grief through mutual cruelty—envy, malice, treachery, and injustice—so that while the storm beats on the whole species, people fall foul upon one another. Half of human misery could be extinguished through mutual compassion, benevolence, and humanity. He therefore chooses good nature as his subject. Good-nature, he argues, is more agreeable in conversation than wit, gives the countenance an amiability beyond beauty, shows virtue in the fairest light, diminishes vice’s deformity, and makes folly supportable. No society can be maintained without good-nature or something that supplies its place—hence mankind invented good-breeding, which is merely an imitation and mimicry of good-nature: affability, complaisance, and easiness of temper reduced to art. These exterior shows render a man popular when founded on real good-nature, but without it they are like hypocrisy in religion—a bare form of holiness that, once discovered, makes a man more detestable than professed impiety.
Good-nature is generally born with us; health, prosperity, and kind treatment cherish it, but nothing can force it where it does not grow naturally. It is a blessing of happy constitution, which education may improve but not produce. Addison cites Xenophon’s imaginary prince, whose philanthropy and good-nature he says he brought into the world with him, shown in childhood and throughout life. On his deathbed, the prince was pleased that his body should incorporate with the great mother of all things and become beneficial to mankind, ordering his sons not to enshrine it in gold or silver but to lay it in the earth. Such exuberant love could only come from a writer with a soul filled with general benevolence. In Sallust’s celebrated passage contrasting Caesar and Cato, Caesar’s character consists chiefly of good-nature toward friends, enemies, servants, dependents, the guilty, and the distressed; Cato’s is rather awful than amiable. Justice suits God, mercy suits man: a Being who has nothing to pardon may reward according to works, but one whose best actions need allowance cannot be too mild and forgiving. Thus no character is so odious or ridiculous as a rigid, severe temper in a worthless man. However, pardoning faults applies only in ordinary commerce, not public justice, where mercy to one is cruelty to others.
The maxim that good-natured men lack wit has no foundation in nature; the greatest wits Addison has known are eminent for humanity. Two reasons explain the observation: first, ill-nature passes for wit among ordinary observers—a spiteful saying gratifies little passions, raises laughter, and makes the speaker seem a shrewd satirist; hence pleasant companions appear dull in print, the public being more just than private clubs in distinguishing wit from ill-nature. Second, the good-natured man is moved to compassion for misfortunes others ridicule; the ill-natured man, though of equal parts, has a larger field—he exposes failings, laughs at vices, utters stifled reflections, falls on friends or enemies, exposes benefactors, and sticks at nothing to establish his wit. No wonder he succeeds better, as indirect methods enrich a trader faster than fair dealing.
Addison now treats good-nature as moral virtue, not constitution. Constitutional good-nature makes a man easy and agreeable but implies no merit—no more praise than for a regular pulse or good digestion. It is, however, as Dryden calls it, a milkiness of blood, and an admirable groundwork. To test whether good-nature arises from body or mind, examine it by rules: First, does it act with steadiness in sickness and health, prosperity and adversity? Otherwise it is mere irradiation from new spirits or kindly blood circulation.
Main Arguments
Throughout these essays, Addison advances a consistent set of arguments about human nature, literature, and society. One of his central claims is that the health of both individuals and nations depends on the cultivation of good sense and the restraint of the passions. In “Public Credit,” he argues that the stability of the nation’s finances rests not on gold and silver but on public confidence, which is in turn secured by the constitution, the rule of law, and the protection of liberty and religion. The allegory of Public Credit as a beautiful virgin who sickens and dies at the approach of tyranny, anarchy, bigotry, and atheism, and who revives at the sight of liberty, monarchy, moderation, and religion, makes a political argument about the foundations of national prosperity: credit is a delicate plant that flourishes only under the protection of a free and stable government.
In the papers on superstition, Addison argues that human beings multiply their own miseries through imaginary fears and groundless fancies. The household that is thrown into dejection by a dream, a drop of salt, or the howling of a dog is suffering not from real misfortunes but from the tyranny of superstition, which subjects us to afflictions of our own making. His argument is that wise men retrench their evils by philosophy, while fools multiply them by superstition, and that the only true fortification against the uncertainties of futurity is a trust in the providence of God. This argument reflects Addison’s broader commitment to a rational and moderate Christianity, free from both enthusiasm and superstition.
In his literary criticism, Addison argues that true wit is founded on truth and good sense, and that the various forms of false wit—puns, acrostics, rebuses, shaped poetry, and the like—are counterfeit pleasures that appeal only to depraved or undeveloped tastes. Drawing on the authority of French critics such as Bouhours and Boileau, he maintains that no thought can be beautiful unless it is just and grounded in the nature of things, and that the best writing is characterised by a natural simplicity that pleases all readers, from the most refined to the most ordinary. The papers on “Chevy-Chase” argue that the enduring popularity of this old ballad among the common people and the refined alike demonstrates the universal appeal of natural poetry, and that the ballad’s sentiments and descriptions rival those of the greatest classical poets. Addison’s argument is that simplicity of thought pleases all palates, whereas the Gothic manner of false wit pleases only those with artificial tastes.
In the essays on the employment of time, Addison argues that human life is short and that we are accountable for the use we make of it. Virtue is necessary not only as an occupation but because its influence extends beyond the grave; our entire eternity takes its colour from the hours spent in virtue or vice. Because the mind cannot always be strained to a pitch of virtue, we must find proper employments for our relaxations, including innocent diversions, conversation with well-chosen friends, and the pursuit of knowledge. Addison advances the Lockean argument that our perception of time depends on the succession of ideas in the mind, and that by employing our thoughts on many subjects we can lengthen our lives, turning even the vacant hours to advantage.
In the papers on good nature, Addison argues that this quality is more agreeable in conversation than wit, that it gives the countenance an amiability beyond beauty, and that no society can be maintained without it. He distinguishes between constitutional good nature, which is a blessing of temperament but implies no merit, and moral virtue, which is the result of principle and choice. He defends good-natured men against the charge that they lack wit, arguing that ill-nature often passes for wit among ordinary observers, and that the good-natured man’s compassion for misfortune limits his field for satire. His argument is that mercy is the proper attribute of human beings, who are themselves in need of pardon, and that no character is so odious as a rigid and severe temper in a person who is himself worthless.
Key Concepts
Several named concepts and recurring motifs give Addison’s essays their distinctive character. The allegorical figure of Public Credit is one such concept: a beautiful virgin seated on a golden throne, whose health fluctuates with the political and constitutional security of the nation. She has the Midas-like power to convert everything to gold, but she is infinitely timorous, subject to sudden consumptions and recoveries, and she dies at the approach of the six hideous phantoms that represent the enemies of public order. The vision of her death and revival dramatises the dependence of national prosperity on the maintenance of liberty, religion, and the rule of law.
The distinction between true wit and false wit is another central concept. Addison defines false wit as consisting in the resemblance of sounds or letters rather than the resemblance of ideas, and he catalogues its various forms: shaped poetry, in which verses are arranged to form pictures; lipogrammatism, in which a particular letter is excluded from a whole poem; rebuses, in which pictures stand for words; bouts-rimes, in which verses are composed to fit predetermined rhymes; double rhymes, which appeal to ignorant readers; and punning, which Addison traces through the ages from Aristotle to the reign of King James the First. Against these counterfeit pleasures, Addison sets true wit, which is founded on truth and good sense, and which arises from the resemblance of ideas. He also identifies a middle category of mixed wit, which partakes of both truth and falsehood.
The concept of the Gothic manner is used by Addison to describe the preference for extravagant and irregular fancy over the natural simplicity of the ancients. He compares false wits to Gothic architects who, unable to match the simplicity of Greek and Roman design, supplied its place with the extravagancies of an irregular fancy. This concept recurs throughout his criticism, as he contrasts the natural beauties of Homer, Virgil, and the ballad of “Chevy-Chase” with the artificial ornaments of modern writers who lack the strength of genius to make their thoughts shine in their natural beauties.
The vision of human life as a bridge over an abyss, presented in “The Vision of Mirza,” is one of Addison’s most memorable concepts. The shepherd-genius shows Mirza a valley filled with a thick fog, through which a bridge of seventy complete arches spans a flood. The bridge is human life, the flood is the ocean of eternity, and the arches are the several ages of human life. Some travellers pass over the bridge safely, but many stumble and fall through hidden trapdoors into the flood below, while others, who have passed the arches, are seized by robbers or overcome by the waves. The vision concludes with the genius explaining that the hidden pitfalls represent the several ways of death, and that the whole is a representation of the vanity of human life.
The distinction between the two classes of genius is another key concept. The first class consists of great natural geniuses who were never disciplined by the rules of art, found chiefly among the ancients and particularly among the Eastern peoples. These writers possess greater and more daring genius, but they fail in the nicety and correctness of the moderns. The second class consists of those who formed themselves by rules, submitting their natural talents to the corrections of art. Addison compares the first to a rich soil that produces a wilderness of noble plants without order, and the second to the same soil laid out in walks and parterres by the skill of the gardener. He cites Homer, Shakespeare, and Pindar as examples of the first class, and Virgil, Cicero, Milton, and Bacon as examples of the second.
The concept of good nature is developed through a distinction between its constitutional and its moral forms. Constitutional good nature is a blessing of temperament, a “milkiness of blood” that makes a man easy and agreeable but implies no merit. Moral good nature is the result of principle and choice, tested by its steadiness in sickness and health, prosperity and adversity. Addison also introduces the concept of good breeding as an imitation and mimicry of good nature, a set of exterior shows that render a man popular when founded on real good nature but that, without it, are like hypocrisy in religion.
Themes
Several deeper themes run through these essays, giving them a coherence that transcends their occasional character. One of the most persistent is the vanity of human life and the shortness of our time on earth. This theme appears explicitly in “The Vision of Mirza,” where the dreamer contemplates that “man is but a shadow, and life a dream,” and where the vision of the bridge over the flood dramatises the precariousness of human existence. It appears again in the essays on spare time, where Addison argues that we must learn to lengthen our lives by employing our thoughts on many subjects, and that our entire eternity takes its colour from the hours spent in virtue or vice. The theme is treated not as a counsel of despair but as a call to wisdom: because life is short and uncertain, we must use our time well, cultivate virtue, and prepare for the life to come.
A related theme is the contrast between appearance and reality, between the shows of things and their true natures. This theme is explored in the essay on women and wives, where Addison describes the unfortunate Cleanthe, who forsook a worthy lover for a shining equipage and was carried to her grave within two months, her pageantry covering her distress. It appears in the account of the lion at the Haymarket, where the counterfeit combat conceals the reality that the lion is a candle-snuffer, a tailor, or a country gentleman acting for diversion. It is central to the papers on false wit, where the counterfeit pleasures of puns and acrostics are contrasted with the true pleasures of wit founded on truth and good sense. And it informs the essays on good nature, where Addison distinguishes between the genuine article and its imitation in good breeding.
The theme of the universal appeal of simplicity is developed most fully in the papers on “Chevy-Chase.” Addison argues that the ballad’s enduring popularity among all ranks of readers demonstrates that simplicity of thought pleases all palates, and that the natural and unadorned beauties of the old song are more lasting than the artificial ornaments of false wit. He compares the ballad’s sentiments and descriptions to passages from Virgil, not to suggest imitation but to show that the same poetic genius, copying after nature, produces similar effects. The ballad pleases because it is natural, because its thoughts are always simple and sometimes exquisitely noble, and because it speaks to universal human feelings of honour, courage, grief, and loss.
The theme of the proper use of leisure and the cultivation of the mind is another recurring concern. Addison argues that the mind never unbends itself so agreeably as in conversation with a well-chosen friend, that a taste for music, painting, or architecture is like having another sense, and that of all diversions, none is so proper to fill empty spaces as reading useful and entertaining authors. He recommends the pursuit of knowledge as a method of lengthening our lives, arguing that a man who employs his thoughts on many subjects experiences time as longer and richer than one who lets his mind lie idle. This theme reflects Addison’s broader commitment to the ideal of the cultivated gentleman, a man of letters and leisure who uses his time well, improves his mind, and contributes to the civility of society.
The theme of compassion and mutual benevolence as remedies for human misery is developed in the papers on good nature. Addison observes that humanity suffers innumerable pains by its very condition, yet adds grief to grief through mutual cruelty, envy, malice, treachery, and injustice. He argues that half of human misery could be extinguished through mutual compassion, benevolence, and humanity, and that good nature is more agreeable in conversation than wit, gives the countenance an amiability beyond beauty, and shows virtue in the fairest light. This theme connects to his broader moral vision, in which the gentle correction of folly and the encouragement of virtue are preferred to the harsh exposure of vice.
The Author’s Conclusions
Addison’s essays conclude with a consistent set of moral and aesthetic convictions. On the moral side, he concludes that the good life consists in the cultivation of virtue, the practice of benevolence, and the proper employment of time. He recommends good nature as the foundation of a virtuous character, distinguishing it from mere temperament and arguing that true good nature is a moral virtue that acts with steadiness in all circumstances. He concludes that mercy is the proper attribute of human beings, who are themselves in need of pardon, and that no character is so odious as a rigid and severe temper in a person who is himself worthless. He recommends trust in divine providence as the only true fortification against the uncertainties of futurity, and he commends himself to God’s care when sleeping and waking, trusting that God will avert evils or turn them to advantage.
On the aesthetic side, Addison concludes that true wit is founded on truth and good sense, and that the various forms of false wit are counterfeit pleasures that appeal only to depraved tastes. He concludes that the natural simplicity of the ancients is superior to the artificial ornaments of the moderns, and that the enduring popularity of a ballad like “Chevy-Chase” demonstrates the universal appeal of poetry that copies after nature. He distinguishes between the two classes of genius, the natural and the correct, and concludes that both may be equally great but that they show their greatness differently. He warns against the danger of cramping one’s abilities by too much imitation, and he concludes that few writers make extraordinary figures without something peculiar and entirely their own.
The collection ends with the papers on good nature, in which Addison treats the subject first as a quality of temperament and then as a moral virtue. He concludes that constitutional good nature is an admirable groundwork but implies no merit, and that true good nature must be tested by its steadiness in all circumstances. The final paper examines whether good nature operates by principle or only by constitution, asking whether it acts with steadiness in sickness and health, prosperity and adversity. The implication is that only a good nature founded on moral principle, on a deliberate choice of benevolence and compassion, can be relied upon to produce a virtuous character. The collection thus concludes on a note of moral seriousness, affirming the importance of good nature as the foundation of individual virtue and social harmony.
Significance
The significance of this collection lies in its representation of Addison as one of the defining voices of eighteenth-century English prose and as a central figure in the development of the periodical essay. Addison’s essays helped to create a new kind of public discourse, one that addressed a broad readership of men and women of ordinary education and leisure, that mixed instruction with entertainment, and that sought to reform manners without resorting to the sharper weapons of satire. His style—clear, calm, elegant, and gently humorous—became a model for English prose, admired by later writers for its naturalness and simplicity. His critical papers on wit and false wit, and his extended appreciation of “Chevy-Chase,” contributed to the development of English literary criticism, arguing for the universal appeal of natural poetry against the artificial tastes of the age.
The collection also represents a particular moment in English cultural history, when the periodical press was establishing itself as a powerful instrument of moral and aesthetic education. Addison’s essays addressed the great questions of the day—public credit, religious toleration, the state of the theatre, the nature of taste—in a manner that was accessible to ordinary readers and that sought to form their opinions without dictating to them. His allegorical visions, his humorous observations of contemporary life, and his moral reflections all served a common purpose: the refinement of taste and the improvement of manners through the gentle exercise of reason and humour.
The significance of Addison’s achievement lies also in his humane and balanced vision of life. He attacked nobody, sought to soften the harshness of life with light and kindly humour, and recommended compassion, benevolence, and good nature as the remedies for human misery. His essays reflect a worldview that is at once Christian and rational, that trusts in divine providence while recommending human effort, and that values both the cultivation of the mind and the warmth of the heart. In an age of political and religious controversy, Addison’s voice was one of moderation and good sense, appealing to what his readers shared rather than to what divided them. This collection preserves that voice for later generations, offering a portrait of a writer who helped to shape the moral and aesthetic sensibilities of his age and whose essays continue to reward readers with their wisdom, their humour, and their enduring charm.
