This volume presents the miscellaneous writings of Joseph Addison, one of the most celebrated English essayists, poets, and men of letters of the early eighteenth century. The collection brings together works that span Addison’s entire literary career, from his early Latin poems and English verses composed during his student days at Oxford to the major poetical works that established his reputation, including translations from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the political poem The Campaign, the opera Rosamond, and the tragedy Cato. The edition also includes Addison’s critical commentary on classical authors, his hymns and devotional poetry published in the Spectator, and a substantial body of Latin verse demonstrating his fluency in the learned language of European scholarship.
The volume opens with editorial apparatus that establishes the textual authority for the collection. Shortly before his death, Addison arranged for his friend Thomas Tickell to publish his works, and a collected edition appeared in four quarto volumes with a dedication letter from Addison to James Craggs. This letter established Tickell’s edition as the final authority for its contents, though some works usually attributed to Addison were omitted, presumably according to Addison’s own instructions. The present edition reprints Tickell’s text of everything he included in the first two volumes, collating earlier editions where they could be found. Other apparently genuine works are reprinted from their original editions, while spurious or doubtful works appear in an appendix.
The prefatory material includes Tickell’s substantial biographical preface, which provides the essential facts of Addison’s life: his birth at Milston near Ambrosebury in Wiltshire, his education at the Chartreux and then at Queen’s College and Magdalen College, Oxford, his early distinction as a Latin poet, his travels through France and Italy on a government pension, and his eventual rise to public employment. The preface also recounts the circumstances surrounding the composition of several major works, including the Letter from Italy, the Travels, and The Campaign.
Context
Joseph Addison lived during a period of profound political and literary transformation in England. Born in 1671, he came of age in the aftermath of the Restoration, when English literature was negotiating between the exuberance of the late seventeenth century and the demands for greater correctness and refinement that would characterize the Augustan age. His father, Lancelot Addison, was a clergyman who had traveled through Europe and Africa and published several books, providing his son with an early model of learned authorship combined with ecclesiastical respectability.
Addison’s education at Oxford placed him at the center of English classical learning. He studied the old Greek and Roman writers with such intensity that he caught their language and manner, as Tickell puts it, in the way young people gain a French accent. This early acquaintance with the classics Tickell calls “the good-breeding of Poetry,” suggesting that classical study provided not merely technical skill but a kind of cultural polish that distinguished the true poet from the mere versifier. Addison first distinguished himself through his Latin compositions in the Musae Anglicanae, a collection that would earn him continental recognition. Tickell records that the French critic Boileau, upon perusing these volumes, conceived a good opinion of English poetic genius and confessed that they gave him a new idea of English politeness.
The literary world Addison entered was dominated by the figure of John Dryden, to whom Addison addressed his first English publication—verses concerning Dryden’s translations. Dryden made honorable mention of the young poet in the postscript to his Virgil translation, and Addison contributed a version of Virgil’s fourth Georgic to Dryden’s project. This connection placed Addison within the dominant literary circle of the age while his classical training and natural disposition pushed him toward a more refined and correct style than the preceding generation had practiced.
Addison’s career unfolded against the backdrop of major political events. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 had established William and Mary on the throne, and Addison’s early Latin poems celebrate William’s military campaigns and his return in peace. The War of the Spanish Succession dominated the early years of the eighteenth century, providing the subject for The Campaign, Addison’s poem celebrating the Duke of Marlborough’s victories, particularly the great victory at Blenheim. This poem brought Addison to the attention of the Whig ministry and led to his public employment, beginning a political career that would culminate in high office.
The religious dimension of Addison’s context deserves particular attention. Tickell notes that among Addison’s early verses was a poem on the greatest English poets in which he insinuated a design of entering holy orders, urged by his father. His seriousness and modesty, which might have recommended him for that life, proved obstacles that made him decline it. Tickell observes that this circumstance later benefited virtue and religion, since Addison’s labours in defense of Christianity were voluntary rather than necessary—a distinction that suggests the peculiar value of religious writing undertaken freely rather than as a professional obligation.
Structure of the Book
The collection is organized according to the textual principles established in the editorial preface. The first two volumes reprint Tickell’s text of everything he included except the Essays, with earlier editions collated where they exist. Other apparently genuine works are reprinted from their original editions, while spurious or doubtful works appear in an appendix to the third volume. Each work carries a prefixed note in two parts: the first states which text is reprinted and which editions were collated, while the second deals briefly with bibliography. A detailed introduction, commentary, and general bibliography appear in the third volume, which also contains Addison’s correspondence.
The contents move through Addison’s career in roughly chronological order while grouping works by genre and language. The English poetical works include his translations from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which constitute a substantial portion of the volume. These translations render several books of Ovid’s great mythological poem into English heroic couplets, including the stories of Phaeton, Cadmus, Salmacis and Hermaphroditus, Calisto, Coronis and Aesculapius, and the Theban narratives of Tiresias, Narcissus and Echo, and Pentheus. Each translation is accompanied by textual notes recording variant readings between the early editions and Tickell’s text.
Addison’s critical commentary on Ovid accompanies these translations, offering observations on the art of the Latin poet and the challenges of rendering him in English. These notes discuss Ovid’s commentators and critics, his use of verbal repetitions, his handling of mythological material, and specific passages where Addison found beauties or defects. The commentary reveals Addison as a thoughtful critic who engaged with Ovid’s text both as a translator and as a literary analyst.
The volume also includes The Campaign, Addison’s poem on the Duke of Marlborough’s victories, which is presented with its dedication and textual notes recording the poem’s publication history from its first appearance in 1705 through subsequent editions. The poem follows the campaign’s progress through the Moselle, the Danube, the Maine, and the Neckar rivers, describing the meeting of Marlborough with Prince Eugene, the assault on the Schellenberg, and the great victory at Blenheim with the capture of Marshal Tallard.
A translation from the third book of Virgil’s Aeneid, imitating Milton’s style, presents the episode of Achaemenides, the Greek sailor left behind in the cave of the Cyclops Polyphemus. This narrative translation demonstrates Addison’s range as a translator, showing his ability to adapt his style to different classical models and to the influence of English predecessors.
The dramatic works include Rosamond, an opera based on the legend of Henry II and his mistress Rosamond Clifford, and Cato, Addison’s celebrated tragedy on the Roman republican hero. The excerpts from Rosamond show the opera’s blend of historical legend, pastoral setting, and comic subplot involving the characters Grideline and Trusty. The excerpts from Cato present the opening scenes of the tragedy, establishing the political and personal conflicts that drive the drama.
The devotional and occasional poems published in the Spectator appear in this collection, including hymns on divine mercies, on creation, and on divine protection during travels, as well as a hymn composed during sickness. These poems are accompanied by the prose contexts from the Spectator papers in which they originally appeared, showing how Addison integrated his verse into his moral and critical essays.
A substantial section of Latin poems demonstrates Addison’s fluency in the language of European learning. These include the Pax Gulielmi, celebrating King William’s return from military campaigns; the Barometri Descriptio, a witty didactic poem on the barometer; the Pygmaeo-Geranomachia, a mock-epic on the battle between the Pygmies and the Cranes; the Resurrectio Delineata, describing a painting of the Resurrection at Magdalen College, Oxford; the Sphaeristerium, on a game of bowls; and various occasional poems addressed to friends and patrons.
Main Arguments
The collection presents Addison’s sustained argument for a particular conception of poetry and literary culture. At the center of this argument is the conviction that classical literature provides the essential foundation for modern writing. Tickell’s preface articulates this position through the metaphor of classical study as “the good-breeding of Poetry”—the idea that ancient authors supply not merely models of technique but a standard of taste and decorum that disciplines the natural exuberance of the modern imagination. Addison’s own practice, as displayed throughout the volume, embodies this principle: his translations from Ovid and Virgil, his Latin poems, and his English verses all demonstrate how deeply the classical inheritance shaped his literary sensibility.
Addison’s critical commentary on Ovid advances more specific arguments about the nature of poetic excellence. He criticizes the various types of Ovidian commentators who had preceded him: those who focused entirely on mythologies, showing judiciousness only by demonstrating where Ovid erred in a pedigree or transformed a person into the wrong animal; those who imposed dull morals on every story, treating characters as mere allegorical nicknames for virtues and vices; and those who worked only on the surface, helping schoolboys construe Latin or marking the author’s maxims, usually the heaviest passages, set off in italics. Against these approaches, Addison argues for a criticism that attends to the actual beauties and imperfections of the text—a criticism that can explain why a passage succeeds or fails as poetry.
This critical method is demonstrated in Addison’s specific observations on Ovid’s text. He praises the speech of Phoebus to Phaeton for its representation of a father speaking to his young son, sometimes scaring him with bugbears, sometimes tattling with parental fondness, making the speech’s length natural. He notes that Ovid has more turns and repetitions in words than any Latin poet, but that these are always easy and natural. He identifies passages where Ovid’s wit becomes a “low kind” through punning, as when the poet joins two different ideas to the same verb. He points out logical oversights, such as Ovid’s error in making the Triones grow warm before such a constellation existed. And he offers judgments on matters of scale and decorum, finding the mention of swans growing warm in Cayster and dolphins daring not to leap “intolerably trivial” for the burning of the world.
The collection also advances arguments about the relationship between poetry and public life. The Campaign presents war and politics as proper subjects for elevated verse, celebrating the Duke of Marlborough’s victories in terms that connect military valor with the defense of European liberty against French domination. The poem’s dedication addresses Marlborough directly, praising his deeds while noting that crowds of princes and emperors commit their cause to him. The poem describes the haughty Gaul whose power was felt across Europe, with Germania trembling and the Emperor Leopold seized with fear, until the nations turn to Britain’s Queen for aid, relying on Anna’s councils and Churchill’s arms. This is poetry as political argument, using the resources of epic to shape public understanding of contemporary events.
Addison’s religious poems advance arguments about the relationship between literary art and Christian devotion. The hymns published in the Spectator present poetry as a vehicle for religious feeling and theological reflection. The hymn on divine mercies surveys God’s goodness from the womb through every period of life, acknowledging that “Eternity’s too short / To utter all thy praise.” The hymn on creation finds in the heavens evidence of the Creator’s power, with all celestial bodies singing in “Reason’s ear” that “The hand that made us is divine.” The hymn composed during sickness confronts the prospect of judgment, finding hope through repentance and through Christ’s dying groans. These poems argue, through their very existence, that Christian devotion and literary excellence are compatible—that the resources of poetry can serve the highest religious purposes.
Key Concepts
The concept of transformation stands at the center of Addison’s Ovidian translations. The Metamorphoses is a poem about change—the change of shape, of identity, of form—and Addison’s versions render these transformations with careful attention to their psychological and moral dimensions. The story of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus presents transformation as the literal merging of two bodies into one, a single form with a double sex, while the story of Narcissus presents a more subtle transformation in which the boy melts away like wax or ice before the sun, leaving only a rising stalk crowned with yellow blossoms. The story of Calisto shows transformation as punishment, the nymph’s arms growing shaggy with hair, her nails becoming claws, her hands turning to paws, while her mind remains unchanged—she lifts her paws to Jove, groaning inwardly, unable to call him false but thinking him so.
The concept of divine power and its limits runs through the mythological narratives. In the Phaeton story, the Sun-god warns his son about the dangers of driving the chariot, describing his own fear looking down at earth and ocean hanging below. The father’s power to grant gifts is bounded by the nature of the gift itself—he can give Phaeton anything except this one unequal task, which he calls a mischief rather than a gift. Yet the father grants the wish anyway, bound by his word, and Styx has heard his voice. The story dramatizes the tension between divine omnipotence and the order of nature, between what a god can do and what it is wise to do.
The concept of music as a cosmic force appears in Addison’s poem “To Musick and Cecilia.” Music is called “the greatest good that mortals know” and “all of heav’n we have below.” It can impart noble hints, engender fury, kindle love, move with unsuspected eloquence, and manage all of man with secret art. When Orpheus strikes the lyre, streams stand still, stones admire, savages advance listening, the Wolf and Lamb trip around him, Bears leap in awkward measures, and Tigers join the dance. Music inspires religious heats, wakes the soul, lifts it high, wings it with sublime desires, and fits it to bespeak the Deity. The poem imagines that when time itself shall be no more and all things are hurled in confusion, music shall exert its power, and sound shall survive the ruins of the world.
The concept of the classical landscape as a source of meaning informs Addison’s approach to translation and to his own poetry. Tickell’s preface explains that Addison’s book of Travels disappointed common readers who expected customs, policies, and descriptions of Italy; instead it offered poetical travels, comparing the present country with classical landscapes. The Tyber and Po explain verses made on their banks; the Alpes and Appennines comment on ancient authors. This approach treats geography as a kind of commentary on literature, finding in the physical world the contexts that illuminate the texts of antiquity.
The concept of the mock-heroic appears in Addison’s Latin poems, particularly the Pygmaeo-Geranomachia, which treats the battle between the Pygmies and the Cranes with the full apparatus of epic poetry. The narrator sings of the lamentable war between Pygmies and Cranes—feathered battle-lines, swords, death-threatening beaks—while noting that great poets sang of Theseus, Achilles, Aeneas, William, Theban brothers, and Pompey, but this poet first attempts these untouched battles. The poem compares the conflict to the Batrachomyomachia, the frog-mouse war, and concludes with the extinction of the Pygmy race, compared to fallen Assyrian, Persian, and Latin empires.
The concept of the puppet-show as a figure for human life appears in the Machinae Gesticulantes. The poet sings of a tiny people, a mindless crowd, made by a better Prometheus without stolen fire. The puppets act out human affairs—battles, triumphs—in a small theatre, and the poet compares them to pygmy folk at peace or to elves dancing in circles. The poem explains the mechanism by which the craftsman shapes wood into human forms, joins limbs with bindings, adds pulleys to move the small burden, and supplies hidden motions and voice. The whole machine shows skilled grooves and iron’s traces, leaping with agile motion, emitting thin voices not its own—a figure for the artifice that underlies all human performance.
Themes
The relationship between love and destruction emerges as a recurring theme across the mythological translations. In the story of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus, the Nymph’s desire for the Boy leads to his absorption into a doubled form, a loss of masculine identity that the Boy experiences as diminishment—he prays that whoever enters these streams might rise again supple, unsinewed, and but Half a Man. In the story of Narcissus, love turns inward and consumes the lover, who melts away contemplating his own image. In the story of Coronis, Apollo’s love turns to murderous jealousy when he learns of the Nymph’s infidelity, and his arrow kills the woman he loves, leaving him to repent too late. These narratives explore the destructive potential of desire, the way passion can annihilate its object and its subject alike.
The theme of parental authority and filial rebellion structures the Phaeton narrative. The Sun-god warns his son against the rash desire to drive the chariot, but Phaeton hangs on his neck and the father grants the wish. The story dramatizes the failure of parental wisdom to protect the young from their own folly, and the catastrophic consequences that follow when children insist on powers beyond their capacity. Phaeton, light and unable to fill the seat or poise the chariot, is tossed like an unballassed vessel; he sees earth and ocean beneath, changes colour, and wishes he had not tried the steeds, would now own Merops as his father. The theme resonates with Addison’s own biography, as Tickell’s preface describes his father urging him toward holy orders and his gentle decline of that path.
The theme of political liberty and its enemies runs through The Campaign and Cato. The campaign poem presents the war against France as a struggle for the liberty of Europe, with Britain’s Queen and Marlborough’s arms standing against the haughty Gaul whose power was felt across the continent. The tragedy Cato dramatizes the last stand of the Roman republican against Caesar’s tyranny, with Cato described as fighting the cause of honour, virtue, liberty, and Rome. Portius’s opening speech sets the scene: the dawn is overcast and morning lours, bringing on the great, important day big with the fate of Cato and of Rome. Marcus’s passionate response condemns Caesar’s ambition, asking whether there is not some chosen curse, some hidden thunder in Heaven’s stores, red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man who owes his greatness to his country’s ruin.
The theme of religious faith and its consolations appears throughout the devotional poems. The hymns published in the Spectator explore the relationship between human frailty and divine mercy. The hymn on divine mercies surveys God’s goodness from the womb through every period of life, acknowledging human weakness—the “slipp’ry paths” of youth, the hidden dangers and “pleasing snares of vice”—while affirming God’s sustaining care. The hymn composed during sickness confronts the terror of judgment, expressing guilt and fear at facing one’s Maker, trembling at judgment, yet finding hope through repentance and through Christ’s dying groans. The reflection on judgment in Spectator No. 513 argues that no religion besides Christianity can support the most virtuous person under the thought of appearing before a Being whom none can see and live, given secret sins, frailties, offences of ignorance, passion, prejudice, unguarded words, and defects in best actions.
The theme of art and its limits appears in Addison’s critical commentary and in poems about artistic representation. The Resurrectio Delineata describes a painting of the Resurrection, exploring the relationship between visual art and religious truth. The painter’s art is compared to divine creation: as the sky was made before stars, then Titan warmed the new world and Cynthia shone, so the painter exercises his brushes until mute figures appear everywhere. The poem addresses the painting directly, urging its beautiful colors to endure and its glory not to languish until it sees the final light it imitates—acknowledging both the power and the limitation of art, which can depict but cannot participate in the reality it represents.
The theme of mortality and the transience of human achievement pervades the collection. The Pygmaeo-Geranomachia concludes with the extinction of the Pygmy race, their small ghosts wandering Elysium or appearing to shepherds as shades. The poem addressed to the physician Hannes reminds him that medicine cannot prevent death, that all are owed to the tomb, and that Hannes himself will see the shades his art has diminished. The happiest life, the poem suggests, belongs to one who does not anxiously make life burdensome, who delights in calmly flowing days, mutual friendships, and innocent joys. This Epicurean wisdom appears alongside the Christian hope of the hymns, suggesting the range of Addison’s response to the fact of death.
The Author’s Conclusions
The collection as a whole presents Addison’s mature understanding of the poet’s vocation and the purposes of literature. His practice across multiple genres—translation, original verse, drama, criticism, devotional poetry—demonstrates a conviction that literature should serve moral and religious ends while maintaining the highest standards of artistic excellence. The classical inheritance provides the technical foundation for this project, but it is not an end in itself; rather, the forms and styles of antiquity are resources to be deployed in the service of contemporary needs.
Addison’s critical observations on Ovid reveal his conclusions about the nature of poetic excellence. He values what he calls “beauties”—passages where the poet achieves effects that justify themselves aesthetically, without needing allegorical or moral justification. He is equally alert to “imperfections,” passages where Ovid’s wit becomes forced, his imagery trivial, or his logic confused. This critical balance suggests Addison’s conclusion that even the greatest poets require judicious reading, and that the critic’s task is not to defend or condemn wholesale but to discriminate between what succeeds and what fails.
The religious poems articulate Addison’s conclusions about the relationship between literature and faith. The hymns do not argue for Christianity so much as they assume it, using the resources of poetry to express devotion, gratitude, penitence, and hope. The reflection on judgment in Spectator No. 513 makes the argument more explicit: no religion besides Christianity can support the most virtuous person under the thought of appearing before a divine judge, given the inevitable failures and frailties of human life. Only Christianity’s expiation and atonement allow clearing before the sovereign Judge. This conclusion—that Christianity provides a unique answer to the problem of human guilt—underlies the devotional poems and gives them their urgency.
The political poems and plays present Addison’s conclusions about the relationship between individual virtue and public life. The Campaign celebrates military valor in the service of liberty, while Cato dramatizes the tragic choice of a man who prefers death to submission to tyranny. Cato’s cause is hopeless—he is pent up in Utica, forming “A poor epitome of Roman greatness,” directing a feeble army and an empty senate—yet his virtue shines through his suffering. The play suggests that the value of political resistance does not depend on its success, that the cause of honour, virtue, liberty, and Rome retains its dignity even in defeat.
The collection ends with the opening scenes of Cato, which establish the dramatic situation of the tragedy. Portius and Marcus, the sons of Cato, discuss the impending crisis as the dawn breaks over Utica. Marcus is tortured even to madness thinking on the proud victor Caesar, seeing in imagination the insulting tyrant prancing over the field strewn with Rome’s citizens. Portius counsels a steadier temper, noting that their father’s actions break out through the dark cloud of ills covering him with more triumphant brightness. The scene concludes with Portius recalling what their father often said about the ways of Heaven, though the note breaks off before his speech is complete. The tragedy thus opens onto the central questions of the collection: the nature of virtue, the cost of principle, the relationship between human action and divine providence, and the possibility of maintaining integrity in a world that seems to reward its opposite.
Significance
The significance of this collection lies in its presentation of a major literary figure whose work shaped the development of English prose and verse in the eighteenth century. Addison’s achievement was to synthesize the classical inheritance with the demands of modern English, creating a style that was at once learned and accessible, correct and natural. His translations from Ovid made the Latin poet available to English readers in couplets that preserved something of the original’s wit and elegance, while his critical commentary established standards for judging both the ancient text and its modern versions.
Addison’s significance also rests on his demonstration that poetry could serve the highest purposes—religious, moral, and political—without sacrificing artistic excellence. The hymns published in the Spectator brought devotional verse into the mainstream of periodical literature, reaching an audience far beyond the traditional readership of religious poetry. The Campaign showed that contemporary events could be treated with the dignity of epic, connecting the victories of Marlborough with the classical tradition of heroic poetry. Cato would become one of the most celebrated tragedies of the eighteenth century, admired for its political sentiments and its stoic philosophy.
The collection also preserves the record of Addison’s Latin poetry, demonstrating his command of the international language of European learning. These poems—the Pax Gulielmi, the Barometri Descriptio, the Pygmaeo-Geranomachia, the *Resur
Inside the Book
Preface and Dedication
The volume opens with an editorial note explaining the provenance of Addison’s works. Shortly before his death, Addison arranged for his friend Thomas Tickell to publish his collected writings, and a four-volume quarto edition appeared in 1721, prefaced by a dedication letter from Addison to James Craggs. This letter establishes Tickell’s edition as the final authority for its contents, though some works usually attributed to Addison were omitted, presumably on his own instructions. The present edition reprints Tickell’s text for everything he included, collating earlier editions where they exist, while other apparently genuine works are reprinted from their original sources. Spurious or doubtful pieces are relegated to an appendix. Each work carries a prefixed note stating which text is reprinted and which editions were collated, with a brief bibliography. A detailed introduction and commentary appear in a later volume, which also contains Addison’s correspondence. The publishers express gratitude to the Bodley’s Librarian for permission to reprint Addison’s autograph manuscript of the Letter from Italy.
The dedication itself, dated June 4, 1719, is a brief and warm address from Addison to Craggs, expressing hope that Craggs may gain as many sincere friends as possible and wishing him true happiness, signed with affection.
Tickell’s Preface then provides a biographical account of Addison. Born in 1671 at Milston near Amesbury, Wiltshire, he was the son of Lancelot Addison, D.D., and Jane Gulston. His father, a man of learning who had traveled through Europe and Africa and published several books, was Rector of Milston at the time of Addison’s birth, later becoming Archdeacon of Coventry and Dean of Lichfield. Addison was first educated at the Charterhouse, then removed early to Queen’s College, Oxford. After about two years there, Dr. Lancaster, the Dean, saw a paper of his verses, which occasioned his election into Magdalen College. At Oxford, Addison immersed himself in the study of Greek and Roman writers, catching their language and manner as young people acquire a French accent. Tickell calls this early acquaintance with the Classics “the good-breeding of Poetry.” Addison first distinguished himself through his Latin compositions in the Musae Anglicanae. Tickell criticizes the age’s false wit and affected phrases, attributing a new demand for correctness to Addison’s being fashioned by ancient models. England owed it to Addison that Monsieur Boileau conceived a good opinion of English poetic genius from reading the Musae Anglicanae. A reported saying that Boileau would not have written against Perrault had he seen such pieces is dismissed as unworthy of Boileau; the true compliment was that the books gave him a new idea of English politeness.
Addison’s first English publication was verses to Mr. Dryden concerning his translations, followed by a version of Virgil’s fourth Georgic. Dryden makes honorable mention of this in his postscript to his Virgil translation. Tickell notes that Dryden did not acknowledge Addison’s authorship of the “Essay upon the Georgics” prefixed to Mr. Bryan’s translation, and Tickell has inserted it in this collection to prevent misattribution. Among Addison’s early verses, the largest is “An Account of the greatest English Poets,” in which he insinuates a design of entering holy orders, urged by his father. His seriousness and modesty, which might have recommended him for that life, proved obstacles, making him decline it—a circumstance that later benefited virtue and religion, as his labours were voluntary rather than necessary.
At twenty-eight, Addison’s desire to see France and Italy was encouraged by Lord-Chancellor Somers. His poem on one of King William’s campaigns, addressed to Somers, led to a message desiring his acquaintance, and Somers obtained for him a yearly pension of three hundred pounds from the Crown for travel. Addison’s book of Travels, dedicated to Somers, disappointed common readers who expected customs and policies; instead it offered poetical travels, comparing the present country with classical landscapes. Few are so fond of the ancients as to value such annotations gathered from the hills and valleys where poems were written; the Tyber and Po explain verses made on their banks, the Alps and Appennines comment on ancient authors. The work’s fame increased yearly, with copies rising to four or five times their original value before the second edition. The “Letter from Italy” to Lord Halifax is the text upon which the Travels form a large comment, esteemed by antiquity-lovers as Addison’s most exquisite poetical performance. A translation by Signor Salvini, professor of Greek at Florence, is inserted because it is the language of the poem’s subject.
Materials for the Dialogues upon Medals, now first printed from manuscript, were collected in the native country of those coins. The book was begun at Vienna, as shown by a November 1702 letter to Mr. Stepney. Addison had planned to return to England but was pitched upon to attend Prince Eugene’s army in Italy as Secretary; news of King William’s death at Geneva ended that thought. With his friends out of power, he toured Germany on his way home. After returning, Addison remained without public employment until 1704, when the Duke of Marlborough’s victories furnished the subject for “The Campaign,” and Lord-Treasurer Godolphin, a fine judge of poetry, took notice.
To Musick and Cecilia
This poem is a celebration of music and St. Cecilia, calling music “the greatest good that mortals know” and “all of heav’n we have below.” Music can impart noble hints, engender fury, kindle love, move with unsuspected eloquence, and manage all of man with secret art. When Orpheus strikes the lyre, streams stand still, stones admire, savages advance listening, the Wolf and Lamb trip around him, Bears leap in awkward measures, and Tigers join the dance. Moving woods attended his playing, and Rhodope was left without a shade.
Music inspires religious heats, wakes the soul, lifts it high, wings it with sublime desires, and fits it to bespeak the Deity. The Almighty listens to a tuneful tongue and seems well-pleased and courted with song. Soft sounds and heavenly airs give force to every word and recommend prayers. When time itself shall be no more and all things are hurled in confusion, music shall exert its power, and sound shall survive the ruins of the world. Saints and Angels shall agree in one eternal jubilee; all heaven shall echo with hymns divine, and God himself shall see the whole creation join in chorus. The Chorus consecrates the place and day to Music and Cecilia, forbidding rough winds to invade the hallowed bounds, and calling for gladness on every tongue while all keep up the harmonious song, imitating the Blest above in joy, harmony, and love. An editorial note states the text comes from Tickell’s edition, collated with The Annual Miscellany of 1694 and Garth’s Ovid’s Metamorphoses of 1717.
The Story of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus
This poem, from the Fourth Book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, explains how Salmacis with weak enfeebling streams softens the body and unnerves the limbs; the cause is secret but the effect known. The Naiads nursed an infant that Cytherea bore to Hermes, the child named from both illustrious authors, both bright parents traceable through the infant’s face. At fifteen years, in Ida’s cool retreat, the boy left his native seat and sought fresh fountains in a foreign soil, crossing the Lycian fields. He viewed a river so lovely bright it showed the bottom clearly, producing no slimy ooze or weeds, but crowning the banks with verdure and keeping eternal spring.
A Nymph presided, not practiced in the chase nor skillful at bow—the only stranger to Diana’s train among the blue-eyed daughters. Her sisters urged her to take up hunting, but she refused, instead bathing in the crystal tide, combing her dewy locks, and gathering flowers. She chanced to see the Boy and longed for what she viewed. She called him bright youth, asking if he were a God or mortal, praising his Nurse, Parents, and Sisters, and offering herself as a willing Bride. The Boy, knowing nothing of love, strove and blushed, his rising blushes showing fresh beauties. The Nymph begged at least a Sister’s kiss, but he replied coyly, telling her to leave him alone. She feigned to go but hid in a covert. The Boy, fancying danger over, sported about the shore, dipped his foot, and, pleased by the coolness, cast his garments on the banks. The Nymph spied his naked limbs with rapture, and when he leapt into the flood, she cried “He’s mine,” flung off her clothes, and flew after him, wrapping about his limbs like a wriggling Snake snatched by an Eagle’s claws.
Tiresias and the Prophecy of Narcissus
The segment opens within Addison’s verse translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Book III, a passage furnished with the usual scholarly apparatus of variant readings drawn from the 1704 Poetical Miscellanies and Tickell’s 1721 edition. The narrative finds the blind prophet Tiresias at the center of the action. His strange history is recounted: how he once struck two serpents in a wood and was transformed into a woman, only to be restored to manhood years later when he encountered the creatures again. Because Jove had granted him this peculiar experience, his authority as a sage was unquestioned. When a Nereid, a tender sea-nymph, consults him about the fate of her beautiful son, born of a sea-god, Tiresias delivers a cryptic and ominous verdict: the boy will live to a ripe old age only “If e’er he knows himself.” The mother is left in a state of anxious suspense, waiting for time to unravel the meaning of the prophecy.
Narcissus and Echo
The boy in question is Narcissus, now sixteen, whose beauty has made him the object of desire for countless friends and love-sick maidens. His pride, however, is absolute, and he scorns them all. It is during a hunt in the woods that he encounters Echo, a nymph who cannot initiate speech but can only repeat the final words of others. The passage explains her affliction as a punishment from Juno, who grew weary of Echo’s clever, protracted stories—told whenever the goddess tried to catch Jove with his lovers—which gave the fleeing couples time to escape. Juno decreed that Echo’s tongue, so skilled at producing subtle tales, would henceforth be of little use, leaving her to prattle in a fainter tone with mimic sounds not her own.
Consumed by love for Narcissus, Echo follows him, burning with a desire she cannot express, waiting only for the chance to catch his voice and return his sound. But Narcissus, moved by nothing, spurns her. Slighted and heartbroken, Echo wastes away in solitary caves until her flesh is gone and her bones are turned to stone; all that remains is her voice, forever doubling every sound in vaults and hollows. In the wake of this rejection, one of the many slighted virgins raises a prayer to Nemesis: “Oh may he love like me, and love like me in vain!” The goddess of vengeance hears and answers with a cruel justice.
The Death of Narcissus
Overheated from the chase, Narcissus comes upon a fountain in a dark, untroubled wood. Seeing his own reflection in the crystal water, he is instantly captivated, falling in love with a “fantastick shade,” unaware that it is himself. He admires his own neck, shoulders, and eyes, his hands that Bacchus might not scorn, and hair that might flow around Apollo’s head. When he tries to kiss or embrace the image, it slips away from him. He becomes mindless of sleep and negligent of food, pouring out a long lament to the woods. He realizes at last the terrible truth: “It is my self I love, my self I see; / The gay delusion is a part of me.” He wishes he could remove himself from himself. His tears disturb the fountain’s surface, deforming the image, and he rends his garment and beats his breast in despair. He melts away like wax before a fire. Echo, witnessing his misery, sighs back his sighs and groans to his groans, answering his final farewell with a mournful “Farewel.” Narcissus dies, and even in the Stygian shades his ghost admires itself. When the Naiads and Dryads come to mourn him and seek his corpse, they find only a rising stalk crowned with yellow blossoms.
Pentheus and the Tale of Accetes
This event brings Tiresias great fame throughout Greece, but Pentheus alone derides the prophet. Tiresias warns him that his impious carcass will be torn into pieces and strewn across the woods. Bacchus, meanwhile, rides through prostrate Greece, celebrated by matrons. Pentheus rebukes the Thebans for yielding to the drunken shouts and timbrels of women when neither sword nor trumpet could frighten them, invoking the Serpent their ancestor slew and the example of Acrisius who repelled this boasted power. He orders the audacious boy-god dragged before him, deaf to the dissuasions of his friends and grandsire.
His servants bring instead a captive, Accetes of Meonia, who tells a remarkable tale. He and his crew had seized a beautiful boy in Chios, whom Accetes recognized as divine and refused to harm. The other sailors, named as Dictys, Epopeus, Lycabas, and Ethalion, insisted on carrying the boy away. Bacchus then worked a miracle: the ship rooted fast in the flood, ivy twined around the oars and climbed the mast, the sails grew green with berries, and panthers surrounded the god. The sailors, driven mad, leaped overboard and were transformed into dolphins—nineteen men became nineteen dolphins. Only Accetes remained in his proper shape, and Bacchus kindly bade him fear no more, landing with him on the Chian shore. Pentheus dismisses this as a far-fetched tale and orders Accetes tortured, but the prison gates fly open unbarr’d and the captive stands free.
Addison’s Critical Commentary on Ovid
The narrative then shifts from verse to prose, presenting Addison’s critical commentary on Ovid’s Metamorphoses. He opens by deriding the various types of Ovidian commentators who had come before him. Some, he notes, focus entirely on mythologies, showing their judiciousness only by pointing out where Ovid erred in a pedigree or transformed a person into the wrong animal. Others impose dull morals on every story, treating characters as mere allegorical nicknames for virtues and vices. Alexander Ross is singled out for having “dived deeper” than all others, discovering in Ovid the greatest mysteries of the Christian religion and typical representations of the World, the Flesh, and the Devil. Still others worked only on the surface, helping schoolboys construe Latin or marking the author’s maxims—usually the heaviest passages—in italics. The best expositor, according to Addison, is the one who wrote for the Dauphin’s use, acting more as a Geographer than a Critick.
Addison then offers specific observations on various passages. He praises the speech of Phoebus to Phaeton, noting its peculiar beauty lies in representing the sun-god speaking just as a father would to his young son, sometimes scaring him with bugbears, sometimes tattling with parental fondness. He remarks that Ovid has more turns and repetitions in words than any Latin poet, and that the repetition of “Aureus” and the transition to “Argenteus” in describing the Chariot gives sweetness and majesty. He addresses the objection that Ovid mistakes the Sun’s annual for diurnal motion, arguing that the Dauphin’s notes may answer for the first speech but not for the second, where Phoebus plainly describes motion through all the Zodiac. He criticizes Ovid’s low wit in joining two different ideas to the same verb, as in “Consiliis non Curribus utere nostris,” and finds the antithesis of light and darkness in Phaeton’s confusion flat. He wonders that no commentator noticed Ovid’s error in making the Triones grow warm before such a constellation existed. He admits to omitting some names of mountains and rivers that make no figure in description. He notes that the swarthy Moor passage is the only transformation in the long story, and suggests Phaeton might have been turned into a creature hating sunlight. He finds the Nile verses noble but the mention of the sea’s channel afterward too near a thought, and the image of swans growing warm and dolphins daring not leap “intolerably trivial” for the burning of the world. The Earth’s speech he calls the boldest Prosopopoeia in old poets, though she speaks too much for one in her condition. On Europa’s rape, he notes the story is prettily told, introduced by two serious lines about Majesty and Love not agreeing, without which the fable would seem profane. He concludes that Ovid shows himself best in familiar stories but wants not strength in sublime subjects, and he extensively discusses the mixing of two different ideas in one image, praising Virgil’s “Auri frondentis” and the wittiest verse in Virgil, “Attollens humeris Famamque et Fata nepotum.”
Achaemenides and the Cyclops
The text then presents a poetic translation by Addison, imitating Milton’s style, of a story from the third book of the Aeneid.
The Latin Poems: War, Nature, and the Mock-Heroic
The first of these poems, Pax Gulielmi, continues its celebration of William III’s return from war. The scene is one of devastation, with a spectator surveying ruined towns and blood-stained rivers, and the text is careful to honor specific figures, such as Lord Cutts and Christopher Codrington, through footnotes. The destruction is given a mythic scale by comparing it to the Giants’ rebellion against Jupiter, where the earth itself was torn apart. Troops from across Europe—Britons, Germans, Belgians, and northern men—are shown gathering under Nassau’s banners. The poem then turns to praise William’s education, attributing his fiery spirit not to the cold north but to a torrid clime, and even a Muscovite emperor abandons his frozen realm to admire him. William is likened to Hercules, and the soldiers rejoice in peace, displaying their scars to wondering wives and children. The young Duke of Gloucester is seen playing at war, besieging toy fortifications named Namur, before fireworks and celebrations close the scene. The poem ends with an address to Queen Mary, who waits patiently for her husband, and a plea for the shades of heroes to guard him.
The Barometri Descriptio is a more playful, scientific poem. It begins with a miner discovering liquid mercury, which the poet imagines as either an unperfected silver or a metal incompletely cooked by the sun. The mercury is then compared to Jupiter’s golden shower embracing Danaë. The reader is instructed on the instrument’s use: a glass tube with air excluded, where quicksilver settles at the bottom. The poem’s central conceit is that the metal is conscious, foretelling the weather. When rain approaches, the mercury descends; when heat demands, it rises. A rising column promises fair days, but an excessive rise indicates drought, while a falling column with misty exhalations predicts rain more reliably than a heron. A great fall signals storms. The “wonderful glass” thus reveals heaven’s secrets, telling the traveler when to journey safely and the farmer when to harvest.
The Pygmaeo-Geranomachia is a mock-heroic poem on the war between Pygmies and Cranes. The narrator declares he will sing of this lamentable conflict, a subject untouched by poets who sang of Theseus, Achilles, and Aeneas. In India, a Pygmy kingdom once stood in a pleasant valley, but now only deserted homes and whitening bones remain. The war’s causes are given: the Pygmies slew any attacking bird and destroyed nests, killing unborn chicks in their eggs. The crane army assembles from far-flung regions, and the Pygmy commander, a full cubit tall and scarred by beaks, inspires terror. The battle is joined, with feathers flying and fortune wavering, until a huge crane seizes the commander and carries him aloft, leaving the Pygmies to mourn their king as prey. The race is extinguished, compared to fallen Assyrian, Persian, and Latin empires, and their small ghosts now wander Elysium or appear to shepherds as shades.
The Resurrectio Delineata describes a painting of the Resurrection at Magdalen College, Oxford. The poem follows the painter’s process, from whitening the wall to laying foundations, as the sky was made before the stars. Winged ministers blow trumpets, and the dead hear, the painted ground swells, and a revived progeny emerges from the opened earth, like Cadmus’s sown teeth. Dust scattered through the earth reunites, and scattered limbs rejoin, though some figures rise imperfect, missing noses. Life creeps slowly into stiff corpses, and horror fills the figures. The spectator is urged to look to the center, where sits “God’s offspring, God himself,” radiant with serene light, triumphant and looking down on the small moon and lesser sun. The poem continues by depicting Christ displaying his wounds—his side pierced, his palms and feet marked by nails. Blessed shades approach heaven’s light, receiving immortal rewards, while mothers, infants, youths, and maidens stand around, drinking in the radiance. Heaven thunders praise, and the Sibyl’s exultation is compared unfavorably to this joy. The painter has depicted a figure rising from a tomb, supported by a winged attendant, and the face is recognized as Wainflet, though another lies hidden in that countenance. The speaker laments when an equal image of his soul will be found. A scene of hell appears, with fire mixed with darkness and a river of melted sulphur, so artfully kindled that one fears the flames will consume the painting. The unhappy crowd is driven there, gnashing teeth, while an avenger rages behind them, driving the wicked from Paradise. The sad soul wishes it had cultivated virtue, but sighs and weeps too late. The speaker praises the painting’s varied beauties, addressing it directly, urging its colors to endure until it sees the final light it imitates.
The Bowling-Green and Other Diversions
The Sphaeristerium describes a bowling-green where grass is mown at dawn while dew hangs on the blades. A rolling stone compresses the earth, and oiled wooden balls, marked with distinguishing signs, are chosen by players. Some balls are weighted with metal to curve, while lighter ones run straight. After dividing into parties, the first ball marks the course, and players follow its traces, releasing balls that glide gently until their force fades. When balls crowd the target, players proceed cautiously. A player whose ball creeps sluggishly follows anxiously, blaming the uneven ground. Laughter erupts at poor throws, and the thrower vents empty noise, contorts his body, and curses the ball, which ignores the abuse. The ball that reaches the target earns highest honor, and opponents try to dislodge it. The poet compares the player to a charioteer from Elis. When balls collide, players rage against fortune and call the gods cruel. Successful shots bring shouts of approval, while Sirius’s hostile star wearies the players, who seek shade and wipe sweat away.
The Ad D. D. Hannes addresses a distinguished physician and poet who draws song more sweetly than Orpheus and recalls souls from death. The poet urges him to leave his work, relax his brow, and seek a cup of wine, invoking the memory of great William and Montacute. Medicine cannot prevent death; all are owed to the tomb. Hannes himself will see the shades his art has diminished, and Libitina will conquer her conqueror. The happiest life belongs to one who does not anxiously make life burdensome, who delights in calmly flowing days, mutual friendships, and innocent joys.
The Machinae Gesticulantes sings of a puppet-show, a tiny people made by a better Prometheus without stolen fire. At crossroads where laughter thrives, spectators gather, paying different prices for seats. When the curtain is removed, light enters through narrow openings, and the little people act out human affairs—battles and triumphs—in a small theatre. Homuncio stands out, noisy, with a large cloak-clasp, living movements in his eyes, a huge belly, and a prominent hump; the pygmy crowd fears this giant. He insults the slender crowd and laughs inappropriately during serious moments. The puppets dance, sometimes adorned with jewels and gold. The poet compares them to pygmy folk at peace or elves dancing in circles. Wars arise: armed troops fight with swords, tubes foul with sulphur, and spears, and the noise terrifies. The floor is strewn with fallen puppets—civil war’s crimes. After the battle-fury cools, they resume their former pursuits. Ancient heroes from sacred pages reappear in small form—old Fathers with wrinkled faces and long white beards, like Tithonus shrunk to a cicada. The poet explains the mechanism: a craftsman shapes wood into human forms, joins limbs with bindings, adds pulleys, and supplies hidden motions and voice. The whole machine shows skilled grooves and iron’s traces, leaping with agile motion, emitting thin voices not its own.
From Rosamond: Quarrels and Lamentations
The opera Rosamond continues with a quarrel between Grideline and Trusty. Grideline accuses Trusty of infidelity, calling him a “faithless varlet” and “monster.” Trusty responds with affectionate names, attempting to kiss her, but Grideline insists his kisses belong to Rosamond. Trusty claims Rosamond is not half so fair, and Grideline calls him a traitor to his King and herself. Trusty urges her to consult her glass and behold her own beauty. Grideline wishes she could call Sir Trusty hers, but fears his smiles conceal “amorous wiles.”
The Senate Debate on War
The scene opens with the Roman Senate in Utica, where Sempronius passionately declares for war. He argues that a Roman Senate should not be debating the choice between slavery and death, urging an immediate attack with their remaining troops. He hopes that some lucky arm may reach Caesar’s heart and free the world from bondage, invoking the slaughtered citizens of Rome and noting that half the Senate’s corpses now manure the fields of Thessaly while they deliberate coldly. He claims the ghosts of Pompey and Scipio complain that they are slow and unrevenged.
Cato, however, warns Sempronius against impetuous zeal that goes beyond reason. He states that true fortitude appears only in great exploits that justice warrants and wisdom guides; all else is merely “tow’ring frenzy.” He reminds them that the lives of those who draw swords in Rome’s defense are entrusted to their care, and they must not let the world say they lavished thousands’ blood merely to make their own fall glorious. Lucius then confesses that his thoughts turn toward peace, arguing that their quarrels have filled the world with widows and orphans, and that Scythia mourns while the earth’s remotest regions lie half-unpeopled by Rome’s feuds. He insists it is not Caesar but the Gods who declare against them, and that urging battle from blind revenge and wild despair refuses Providence’s awards. They took arms to free the commonwealth, not for revenge, and when that end fails, arms have no use. Sempronius, in an aside to Cato, whispers that smooth discourse often conceals a traitor, and that something tells him all is not right—Cato should beware of Lucius.
Cato urges a middle course, appearing neither rash nor diffident, noting that immoderate valour swells into fault while fear in public counsels betrays like treason. He sees affairs as not yet desperate: they have bulwarks, troops enured to toil in Africk’s heats, and Numidia behind them ready to rise at its young Prince’s call. While hope remains, they should not distrust the Gods, but wait till Caesar’s approach forces them to yield. It is better to draw freedom out to its full length, gaining one more day of liberty, for “a day, an hour of virtuous liberty, is worth a whole eternity in bondage.”
The Embassy of Decius
Marcus announces that a herald from Caesar’s camp has arrived—old Decius the Roman knight. Cato notes that Decius was once his friend, but other prospects bound him to Caesar. Decius brings Caesar’s health, but Cato says it would be welcome to his slaughtered friends. Decius says his business is with Cato alone, as Caesar, knowing Cato’s worth, is anxious for his life. Cato replies that his life is grafted on Rome’s fate, and bids Caesar spare his country. He disdains a life that Caesar has power to offer. Decius notes that Rome and the Senators submit, but Cato says those reasons forbid friendship. Decius expostulates as friend to friend about the gathering storm, suggesting Cato could stand high by making peace with Caesar. Cato refuses life on such conditions. When Decius invites Cato to name terms, Cato demands that Caesar disband his legions, restore liberty, submit to public censure and the Roman Senate’s judgment—then Cato would be his friend, and would even mount the Rostrum for Caesar if he did this. Decius says such style becomes a Conqueror, but Cato answers that it becomes a Roman. When Decius asks what a Roman is who is Caesar’s foe, Cato answers: greater than Caesar, a friend to virtue. Decius reminds Cato that he is in Utica with a little Senate, not thundering in the Capitol. Cato says Caesar’s sword made Rome’s Senate little, and that Decius’s dazzled eye sees Caesar in a false light, while Cato sees him black with murder, treason, and sacrilege. Cato swears that millions of worlds could never buy him to be like Caesar. Decius warns that Cato’s unconquer’d heart makes him forget he is a man, rushing on destruction, and that all Rome will weep at this embassy.
After Decius departs, Sempronius thanks Cato, saying immortal Rome’s genius speaks in his voice. Lucius says the Senate owns gratitude to Cato, who guards their lives while neglecting his own. Sempronius gives no thanks, arguing that life is not merely stalking about and breathing—it is to be Free; when liberty goes, life grows insipid. He could enjoy death’s pangs smiling if his dying hand lodged a sword in Caesar’s bosom. Lucius says others serve their country with warm zeal though not kindled into rage. Sempronius calls this sober conduct virtue in “lukewarm Patriots.” Cato silences them, reminding all that they are friends to Rome and should not weaken the weaker side by divisions. Sempronius sacrifices his resentments to Rome, and Lucius agrees with Cato to hold out till terms arrive. Cato urges them to fill this pause of life with resolution, friendship, and Roman bravery, so that Heaven may say it ought to be prolonged.
Juba’s Vow and the Lovers’ Anguish
Cato tells Juba that the Senate has resolved to keep the sword unsheathed against Caesar. Juba approves, then recounts his father’s dying words—that he should be Cato’s friend, who will train him to great and virtuous deeds. Cato acknowledges that Juba’s father merited such trust.
The scene shifts to Lucia and Portius. Lucia asks why Marcus fled her presence. Portius describes Marcus’s consuming love: he “pines, sickens, despairs, dies,” his passions and virtues confused, the whole man disfigured. Portius confesses his own distress, feeling a “secret damp of grief” even while blessed in Lucia’s presence. Lucia warns Portius to guard his honour amid love and friendship, noting that news of their union would raise Marcus’s grief to a height that might destroy him. Portius reveals that Marcus, with a “generous, open, undesigning heart,” has begged his rival to solicit for him. He asks Lucia not to strike Marcus dead with denial but to give a “faint glimmering of a doubtful hope.” Lucia refuses, foreseeing “thy sister’s tears, thy father’s anguish, and thy brother’s death” in pursuing their ill-fated loves. She swears to Heaven never to mix her plighted hands with Portius while “a cloud of mischief hangs about us,” resolving to forget their loves as far as she is able. Portius is thunder-struck, but Lucia insists the vow has passed her lips, is sealed in Heaven, and calls vengeance on herself if she breaks it. Portius compares himself to one blasted by lightning. Lucia says she has acted her severest part, feels “the woman breaking in upon me,” and must forget him. When Portius reproaches her for never knowing love’s force, she says his displeasure extinguishes her life. Portius calls the vow “loaden with death,” says “perdition’s in thy presence,” then repents, calls her “thou injur’d innocence,” and threatens to rush on his sword. Lucia revives, asking if it was well to frown on one expiring at his feet. She recalls her vow—”Destruction stands betwixt us”—but Portius cannot bear the word “part.” Lucia paints the imagined scene: her dying brother stabbed, storming at heaven; his father demanding the cause; Marcia tearing her hair and calling on Lucia. Portius approves “the sentence that destroys me,” finding Lucia more fair amid terrors. They exchange farewells, repeating “For-ever,” with Portius comparing himself to a dying lamp’s unsteady flame. Lucia warns that Marcus approaches, sickens at the sight, and departs, declaring no love was ever like hers.
The Mutiny and Cato’s Address
Marcus asks his fate of Portius, who is pensive and terrified. Marcus reads his downcast looks, asking not for success. Portius grieves that he undertook it. Marcus imagines the “barbarous maid” triumphs in his pains. Portius says Lucia, though sworn never to think of love, pities him. Marcus scorns compassion void of love, calling himself a fool for urging his cause through “so cold a friend.” Portius protests the treatment, and Marcus apologizes—”a soul exasperated in ills falls out with every thing.” A shout of war is heard, then a second. Marcus wishes for “some glorious cause to fall in battel,” his heart broken by Lucia’s disdain.
Sempronius tells mutiny leaders that the storm blows high, and they must direct it at Cato’s head while he herds among Cato’s friends. Cato enters, demanding where are the “bold intrepid sons of war” who turn their backs on the foe.
Sir George’s Scheme Unfolds
Sir George Truman, convinced the ghost is a fraud, confides in his steward, Vellum. He suspects his wife’s maid, Abigal, is behind the trick, calling the spirit one of her “Familiars.” Recalling a former romance between Vellum and Abigal, Sir George orders his steward to renew his addresses, coax her, and wheedle the secret from her. Vellum agrees, and Sir George asks to be locked in the office while his steward works, noting he is likely the first man employed to lay himself. Vellum jokes that his master acts a three-fold part—Ghost, Conjurer, and Master—while Sir George reminds him his own commission is two-fold: to gain admission to the Lady and to get the secret from Abigal.
The Lady, alone, reflects that women happy in a first marriage are most apt to venture on a second. A widow of fourteen months, she has many lovers, all in love with her jointure, and she feels she owes her sex revenge by making an example of these worthless fellows. Of all her captives, Mr. Tinsel is the most extraordinary, and she hopes her diversion with him is unblameable, as it turns her thoughts from her dead husband. Abigal enters, reporting that Tinsel has taken possession of the house, demanding Sir George’s apartment be enlarged and showing her the chamber where he intends to consummate. The Lady calls him a wild, young fellow she might reform, but Abigal contradicts her praise at every turn. The Lady dismisses Abigal when Vellum arrives.
Vellum presents the week’s accounts, which run high because housekeeping is chargeable in a haunted house. The items include a hogshead and a half of ale for the servants’ courage, two sheep and an ox for visiting strangers, and three bottles of Sack for Abigal, which the Lady notes was by Vellum’s own order. Vellum says the Sack gives Abigal spirit to chide the servants. The Lady advises Vellum on two points: retrench expenses and clear the house of the drummer. Vellum proposes a certain aged man with a long hoary beard, called a Wizard, White-Witch, Conjurer, Cunning-Man, or Necromancer, skilled in occult sciences, who has come about the drum. The Lady is skeptical, but Vellum argues the experiment can do no harm; if it fails, they can tell the world it succeeded. The man asks no money till the work is done, and the Lady agrees to see him.
The Conjurer Arrives
The Butler, Coachman, and Gardiner discuss the news that a Conjurer has come to lay the Spirit. They debate his appearance—a long grey beard, a dark cloak as black as coal, a long white wand—with the Gardiner confusing a conjurer with a juggler. They speculate on the wand’s virtue, imagining it making a circle as a trap, overpowering the ghost with learning, binding him for a thousand years, or laying him in the Red Sea. The Gardiner jokes that he wishes Mrs. Abigal were well laid too, ending with a couplet that a ghost is not so dreadful as a scold.
In Act III, Sir George waits in Vellum’s office, praising his steward’s punctual behavior. Vellum enters, locks the door, and delays answering, fussing over a lock and a pen, before reporting he has gained admission for Sir George as a Conjurer. Sir George says he will gain admission himself as a Husband. The Lady desires to talk with him before he begins, and Sir George hurries to dress in cloak and beard, offering Vellum the cast-offs. Vellum jokes about becoming a Conjurer or Heathen Philosopher.
Abigal and Tinsel meet, with Tinsel flirting and offering to get Abigal a husband—a young man in the Horse-Guards with no estate. Tinsel plans to discard the Steward and put his friend in the place after marrying the Lady, and Abigal resolves to remember his promise to his cost. The Lady enters, telling Tinsel about the Conjurer, and Tinsel mocks her household: a withered Abigal, a superannuated Steward, a Ghost, and a Conjurer. Sir George enters in his habit, and Tinsel jokes about the Zodiac. Sir George predicts that Mars entering his house portends a Master entering this family, while Tinsel claims the stars cut him out for the Lady’s husband. Sir George, aside, curses the fop. The Lady guesses Sir George’s age as two or three centuries; he says he is five and thirty, claiming occult studies make the beard grow faster. Sir George whispers to Tinsel that he is a Coxcomb, and Tinsel draws his sword when Sir George predicts he will die of a fright, but the Lady stops him. Sir George exits to prepare, telling the Lady to treat Tinsel with contempt. The Lady finds him diverting and resolves to employ him, comparing it to trying desperate remedies.
Abigal’s Scheme and Vellum’s Courtship
Abigal, alone, plans to get a thousand pounds, imagining herself a servant girl, flattered, and marrying the Steward as Madam Vellum with a chaise or chariot. Vellum enters with a pint of Sack, and they flirt, with Vellum claiming she is his debtor for his heart. He gives her a Silver Thimble, putting it on her finger and saluting it, while she feigns struggle and confusion. Vellum calls the thimble the forerunner of a wedding ring, a “twofold Emblem” of being a good housewife and a good wife. Abigal reminds him of his former vows, and Vellum says he would as soon forget the Multiplication Table. She has always taken his part before her Lady, which Vellum says he has “Item’d” in his memory. Abigal, aside, says she must “strike while the Iron’s hot,” then accepts him, confessing she loves him. Vellum is overjoyed, catching her in his arms and calling her the “Summ Total of all my Happiness.” He jokes that her Lady must marry quickly, or they will provide a young Steward before she has an heir. He asks if her Lady intends to marry Mr. Tinsel; Abigal says no, for Tinsel would discard all the old servants. Vellum asks if the Drum has put marriage out of her Lady’s head, and Abigal reveals that the Drum, if well managed, will be worth a Thousand Pound to them. Since they are “as good as Man and Wife,” she will conceal nothing. She hears Tinsel and her Lady approaching and tells Vellum to take a turn outside, where she will tell him the whole Contrivance.
The Plot Thickens
Vellum gives the Butler, John, orders for an evening Entertainment, emphasizing Method in business. The Butler is confused but admiring. Vellum says the entertainment is for the Conjurer, “and yet it is not,” describing the Conjurer as a “complicated Creature,” an “Amphibious Animal” of a “Two-fold Nature,” who eats and drinks like other men. The Butler guesses he is a Hermaphrodite. Vellum says he is Married and not Married, has a Beard and no Beard, is Old and Young, like a Snake casting its skin—when he throws off the “old Conjurer’s Slough,” he will be a fine young gentleman. The Butler admits he understands nothing. Vellum orders a table in the Great-Hall, clean pots and glasses, a plentiful supper, and best liveries, as well as two Pillows on his Lady’s bed, which the Butler questions. Vellum dismisses him. Alone, Vellum reflects that servants need to respect their director’s understanding, and fears he may be tempted to marry Abigal in earnest. Abigal enters, saying she must speak to her friend behind the Wainscot so he won’t be surprised by the Conjurer. Vellum warns her not to tell him that Vellum knows the secret, and they exchange affectionate farewells.
Abigal, alone, says she has him, if she can get the Thousand Pound. Fantome gives three raps on his drum—their agreed signal—and she tells him to leave his drum in the Ward-robe. Fantome asks what is doing in the world, and Abigal warns he will be “Laid” this evening by the Conjurer. Fantome is unafraid of the Doctor but more afraid of Tinsel, a Fop. Abigal says Tinsel has made more progress with her Lady in two days than Fantome did in two months, and Fantome says he will attack her differently if she can procure another interview. Abigal criticizes his distant bows and respectful compliments, saying he is only fit to make love across a Tea-Table. Fantome hugs her for the advice.
