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SATIRICAL CHARACTER OF ADDISON.

(From the Prologue to the Satires.)

[The quarrel between Pope and Addison has formed matter of endless discussion. In all probability it arose chiefly from morbid sensitiveness and misunderstanding on the part of Pope; although some critics would lay the blame on Addison. See Macaulay's Essay on Addison, De Quincey's Essay on Pope, and Professor Ward's Introductory Memoir in the Globe Edition of Pope.

The lines are universally admitted to be masterly, to possess 'the most exquisite finish of sarcastic expression.' They had been thoroughly meditated and painfully filed. Though finished in 1716, they first appeared as a fragment in the Miscellanies of 1727; and were worked into the Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot (the Prologue to the Satires) in 1735. (Pattison.)]

But were there one whose fires

True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires;
Blest with each talent and each art to please,
And born to write, converse, and live with ease:
Should such a man, too fond to rule alone,
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne,
View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes,
And hate for arts that caused himself to rise;
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer;
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike;
Alike reserved to blame, or to commend,
A timorous foe, and a suspicious friend;
Dreading ev'n fools, by flatterers besieged,
And so obliging that he ne'er obliged ;
Like Cato, give his little senate laws,
And sit attentive to his own applause;
While wits and Templars every sentence raise,
And wonder with a foolish face of praise—
Who but must laugh, if such a man there be?
Who would not weep, if Atticus were he ?

NOTES.

198. Bear, like the Turk, &c. Warton traces this comparison to Bacon, De

195

200

205

210

Augm. Scient., Lib. iii., cap. 4. 'Aristotle, like the Ottomans,

thought he could not reign in safety, unless he massacred all his brothers'-that is, destroyed the authority of all other philosophers. 201. Damn, the technical expression when an audience 'condemns,' disapproves of, a play.-Assent with civil leer. 'Addison had one habit which both Swift and Stella applauded, and which we hardly know how to blame. If his first attempts to set a presuming dunce right were ill received, he changed his tone, "assented with civil leer," and lured the flattered coxcomb deeper and deeper into absurdity' (Macaulay). 207-12. 'One charge which Pope has enforced with great skill is probably not without foundation. Addison was, we are inclined to believe, too fond of presiding over a circle of humble friends ['his little senate,' 209]. Of the other imputations which these famous lines are intended to convey, scarcely one has ever been proved to be just, and some are certainly false. That Addison was not in the habit of "damning with faint praise" appears from innumerable passages in his writings, and from none more than from those in which he mentions Pope. And it is not merely unjust, but ridiculous, to describe a man who made the fortune of every one of his intimate friends, as SO obliging that he ne'er obliged " (Macaulay).

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211. Wits and Templars. 'Templars,' members of the Inns of Court, residing in the Temple. The Temple is a part of the city of London, between the west half of Fleet Street and the Thames. It takes name from the Knights Templars, who established a branch of their order here in 1185. Cf. Stanhope, Reign of Queen Anne, chap. xvi., page 556 (referred to by Pattison): Steele, incited both by party zeal and by personal friendship, promised to pack the House [for the first representation of Cato]. Into the pit was poured, as Steele devised it, a band of friendly and intelligent listeners from the Inns of Court. Another such band came from Will's Coffeehouse, which was then to men of letters what the Athenæum is now. These together made up the class of persons called in the quaint language of their day men of wit and honour about town." is to them that Pope referred some time afterwards.'-Raise, applaud.

214. Atticus.

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In the first copy, in

1727, the name was given-Addison. The substitution of Atticus in 1735 may perhaps be an indication that Pope was not without some sense of the outrage he was committing (Pattison). Addison had died sixteen years before (1719).

JONATHAN SWIFT.-1667-1745.

JONATHAN SWIFT, the greatest of English satirists, was born in Dublin, and was educated at Kilkenny, and at Trinity College. From 1689 to 1699 (except for a short interval), he acted as private secretary to Sir William Temple, whose wife was a relative of Swift's mother. On Sir William's death, he became chaplain and private secretary to Lord Berkeley, by whom he was very soon (1700) made

Vicar of Laracor. In 1713, he was appointed Dean of St Patrick's, in Dublin-the highest church preferment he attained.

The Battle of the Books was written in 1697. A Tale of a Tub, a satire on religious dissensions, though mostly written in the same year, did not appear till 1704, and then anonymously. For the support of his pen to the Tory government in the last few years of Anne's reign, he received his deanery. The Drapier's Letters (1724), directed against Wood's patent for a copper coinage, made an extraordinary sensation, and led to the withdrawal of the patent. Gulliver's Travels, a satire on English institutions and manners, appeared in 1726. 'The Tale of a Tub and Gulliver's Travels are the two most finished allegories in our language' (Minto). Besides other satirical works in prose, the Dean wrote a large amount of vigorous satire in verse.

IN GULLIVER'S POCKETS.

(From Gulliver's Travels, Part I., Chap. ii.)

[Lemuel Gulliver, surgeon to the Antelope, being shipwrecked and cast ashore on the island of Lilliput, was made prisoner and carried up the country to the metropolis. The Lilliputians were a race of pygmies, 'diminutive mortals,' 'human creatures not six inches high.']

The emperor desired I would not take it ill, if he gave orders to certain proper officers to search me; for probably I might carry about me several weapons, which must needs be dangerous things, if they answered the bulk of so prodigious a person. I said his majesty should be satisfied, for I was ready to strip myself, and turn up my pockets before him. This I delivered, part in words and part in signs. He replied that, by the laws of the kingdom, I must be searched by two of his officers; that he knew this could not be done without my consent and assistance; that he had so good an opinion of my generosity and justice as to trust their persons in my hands: that whatever they took from me should be returned when I left the country, or paid for at the rate which I would set upon them. I took up the two officers in my hands, put them first into my coat pockets, and then into every other pocket about me, except my two fobs, and another secret pocket I had no mind should be searched,

wherein I had some little necessaries that were of no consequence to any but myself. In one of my fobs there was a silver watch, and in the other a small quantity of gold in a purse. These gentlemen, having pen, ink, and paper about them, made an exact inventory of everything they saw; and when they had done, desired I would set them down, that they might deliver it to the emperor. This inventory I afterwards translated into English, and is, word for word, as follows:

'Imprimis,1 in the right coat pocket of the Great Man Mountain (for so I interpret the words Quinbus Flestrin), after the strictest search, we found only one great piece of coarse cloth, large enough to be a foot-cloth for your majesty's chief room of state. In the left pocket we saw a huge silver chest, with a cover of the same metal, which we the searchers were not able to lift. We desired it should be opened, and one of us, stepping into it, found himself up to the mid leg in a sort of dust, some part whereof flying up to our faces, set us both a-sneezing for several times together. In his right waistcoat pocket we found a prodigious bundle of white thin substances, folded one over another, about the bigness of three men, tied with a strong cable, and marked with black figures; which we humbly conceive to be writings, every letter almost half as large as the palm of our hands. In the left, there was a sort of engine, from the back of which were extended twenty long poles, resembling the palisadoes before your majesty's court; wherewith we conjecture the Man Mountain combs his head, for we did not always trouble him with questions, because we found it a great difficulty to make him understand us. In the large pocket on the right side of his middle cover (so I translate the word ranfu-lo, by which they meant my breeches), we saw a hollow pillar of iron, about the

1 'In the first place.'

length of a man, fastened to a strong piece of timber larger than the pillar; and upon one side of the pillar were huge pieces of iron sticking out, cut into strange figures, which we know not what to make of. In the left pocket, another engine of the same kind. In the smaller pocket on the right side, were several round flat pieces of white and red metal, of different bulk; some of the white, which seemed to be silver, were so large and heavy that my comrade and I could hardly lift them. In the left pocket were two black pillars irregularly shaped: we could not, without difficulty, reach the top of them, as we stood at the bottom of his pocket. One of them was covered, and seemed all of a piece; but at the upper end of the other there appeared a white round substance, about twice the bigness of our heads. Within each of these was inclosed a prodigious plate of steel; which, by our orders, we obliged him to shew us, because we apprehended they might be dangerous engines. He took them out of their cases, and told us that, in his own country, his practice was to shave his beard with one of these, and to cut his meat with the other. There were two pockets which we could not enter these he called his fobs; they were two large slits cut into the top of his middle cover, but squeezed close by the pressure of his belly. Out of the right fob hung a great silver chain, with a wonderful kind of engine at the bottom. We directed him to draw out whatever was at the end of that chain; which appeared to be a globe, half silver, and half of some transparent metal; for, on the transparent side we saw certain strange figures circularly drawn, and thought we could touch them, till we found our fingers stopped by that lucid substance. He put this engine to our ears, which made an incessant noise, like that of a water-mill. And we conjecture it is either some unknown animal, or

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