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Addison's Campaign and Macaulay

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Robert D. Horn
Robert D. Horn*
Affiliation:
University of Oregon
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Extract

Macaulay's essay on The Life and Writings of Addison has been signalized by his most recent biographer as probably “his soundest piece of literary criticism.” Published in July, 1843, when he was at the height of his critical and stylistic powers, the work reveals both the strength and weaknesses of its author. It takes its point of departure as a review of Miss Lucy Aikin's Life of Joseph Addison, published in 1843 by Macaulay's own publishers, Longman and associates. After paying his respects to the lady author, he brushes aside the contributions in her work with severe strictures on its errors. In the prospect that the charm of Addison's letters, many of them printed in the biography for the first time, might brings a demand for a second edition of the Life, he concludes his remarks by saying: “If so, we hope that every paragraph will be revised, and that every date and fact about which there can be the smallest doubt will be carefully verified.” While making numerous corrections in Miss Aikin's work, Macaulay failed to produce a study any less in need of such checking of facts. As will be shown, this need is most notable in his spirited account of one of the salient episodes in Addison's career—the writing and publishing of the Campaign (1704).

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 63 , Issue 3 , September 1948 , pp. 886 - 902
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1948

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References

1 Richard Croom Beatty, Lord Macaulay: Victorian Liberal (Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1938), p. 265.

2 Critical and Historical Essays Contributed to the Edinburgh Review by Lord Macaulay, edited by F. C. Montague (London, 1903), iii, 313–393.

3 Ibid., p. 316.

4 Evidence for this date appears in The Post-Man: And the Historical Account, arc, no. 1355, Tuesday, Dec. 12, to Thursday, Dec. 14, 1704. It appears under the caption “This day is published.” See also evidence from The Diverting Post, no. 8, December 4–9 below. Walter Graham noted the fact, but not the evidence, in The Letters of Joseph Addison (Oxford Univ. Press, 1941), p. 50.

5 Memoirs of the Life and Character of the Late Earl of Orrery, and of the Family of the Boyles (London: for W. Mears), pp. 150–153.

6 The Miscellaneous Works of Joseph Addison, The preface (1721), (i, x-xi.)

7 Budgell, pp. 150-153. Since italics are used to set off quotations, certain unitalicized words are plainly intended to be stressed. The variations in the spelling of Halifax's name are unchanged in the 3rd ed., 1737.

8 A note to Thackeray's version in The English Humourists (1853), which along with the fictional elaboration in Henry Esmond of the preceding year follows Budgell, appears in the edition published by Harper & Brothers (1898), p. 478. The notes are accredited to James Hannay, but with other contributors mentioned. The note reads: “The famous story in the text, which has been generally accepted, is probably inaccurate. It was first told in 1732 by Addison's cousin, Eustace Budgell, then ruined and half sane, who was trying to puff himself by professing familiar knowledge of his eminent relation. The circumstantiality of the story is suspicious; Godolphin was the last man to give preferment to a poet in the way described, and Addison was not in the position implied. He had strong claims upon Halifax, his original patron. When Halifax lost office, Addison's pension had ceased. Halifax was now being courted by Godolphin, and could make an effective application on behalf of his client. This and not the simile of the angel, was probably at the bottom of Addison's preferment.”

9 Letters of Addison, p. 50.

10 Biographia Britannica, i, 33–34. The article on Addison condenses Budgell, but by including also the Tickell account, clearly sets the pattern for Macaulay. The following detail, not in Miss Aikin, but fully exploited by Macaulay, is significant. It represents Godol-phin as actively seeking an adequate Blenheim poem out of dissatisfaction with existing efforts: “In the year 1704, the Lord Treasurer, Godolphin, happened to complain to the Lord Halifax, that the Duke of Marlborough's victory at Blenheim, had not been celebrated in verse in the manner it deserved; intimating that he would take it kindly, if … [Halifax] would name a gentleman capable of writing on so elevated a subject.” This statement appears verbatim in Theophilus Cibber's Lives of the Poets (1753), iii, 309.

11 Essays of Macaulay, iii, 341.

12 Ibid.

13 Published 1852. Book ii, Chap, xi, “The Famous Mr. Joseph Addison.” Esmond is shown visiting Addison's rooms, where the Campaign has already reached the account of the laying waste of Bavaria, in lines 227–239. Esmond challenges the alleged compassion with which the poet credits Marlborough, voicing views gained from actual participation in the combat. From this conversation the hint develops for the conception of the leader as the Angel who “rides the whirlwind and directs the storm.” Two days later, Esmond and Dick Steele are present when Boyle arrives, expresses delight with the Angel simile, in lines 287–292, and rushes off to show the manuscript to Godolphin. Cf. note 8 above.

14 Narcissus Luttrell confirms the date of the patent. His note for Tuesday, November 7, states: “John [we] Addison esq., is made commissioner of appeals, with 200 1. per annum, in room of Mr. Lock, deceased.” A Brief Historical Relation of State Affairs (1857), v, 484.

15 Budgell, p. 153.

16 The Diverting Post, for the Entertainment of Town and Country. Printed for H. Playford, and printed by Benjamin Bragge, London, 1704–05.

17 Courthope has observed this distinction. He quotes the lines which remark of Marlborough's exploits that “Those who paint them truest praise them most”, and adds, “What Godolphin wanted was a set of complimentary verses on Marlborough. Addison, with infinite tact, declares that the highest compliment that can be paid to the hero is to recite his actions in their unadorned grandeur.” It might be suggested that Addison added this apologia in response to some demurring on the part of Godolphin over certain features of the poem, and that Addison thus had already nearly completed it before it came under official cognizance. Cf. Courthope, Addison in English Men of Letters series (1884), p. 62.

18 Printed, and Sold by B. Bragg, at the Blue-Ball in Ave-Mary Lane, 1705.

19 Ibid., p. 12.

20 The Consolidalor: or, Memoirs of Sundry Transactions from the World in the Moon. Printed, and are to be Sold by Benj. Bragg, 1705, p. 27. Addison's “Master” is of course Halifax.

21 In the absence of any definitive biography of Addison, only one other study calls for notice. The deficiencies of Bonamy Dobrée's spirited interpretation will be touched upon later. However, Courthope's life in the English Men of Letters series, it may be observed here, devotes ample space to the Campaign, pages 58-66. While it was easily within Court-hope's range to make a critical analysis of the evidence, he merely follows in the beaten path, or rather excludes Tickell's data, to which Macaulay had clung, and contents himself with paraphrasing Budgell, quoting directly at one point, though without any acknowledgment of his source. The passage quoted is that dealing with Halifax's complaint that fools and blockheads were pampered by the government while worthy men went neglected. Most of the account is devoted to a discussion of the merits of the poem. The chief contribution lies in the observation concerning Addison's view that to praise a true hero's actions best was merely to describe them well. Cf. note 19 above.

22 The writer, having collected and examined over a score of such pieces, along with the huge total output of Marlborough panegyrics, plans to deal with them elsewhere.

23 All editors, from Lady Trevelyan (1866) to the present, contribute only the eloquence of silence on the passage quoted by Macaulay. E. C. Montague seems alone to acknowledge defeat. He says: “I have not been able to trace the poem from which these Unes are taken” (p. 341). Cf. note 2 above.

24 Copy in the British Museum.

25 Critical Essays, iii, 315.

26 Le Feu de Joye, pp. 19–21.

27 Ibid., p. 24.

28 Ibid., sig. A2–3, pp. [ii–iii].

29 Remarks and Collections, ed. C. E. Doble et al. (Oxford Historical Society, 1885–1921), i, 49. Congreve and Rowe both dedicate victory panegyrics to Godolphin, but these are inspired by the Battle of Ramellies.

30 Citations from the Post-Man are by courtesy of the Dept. of Rare Books, University of Texas Library, Miss Fannie E. Ratchford, Curator. Errors in numbering are not infrequent. Thus the numbering 1366 marks two successive issues, cited above.

31 That errors breed errors and that critical biography of Addison needs to be on guard is made evident in Bonamy Dobrée's felicitous sketch of Addison in his Essay in Biography (Oxford Press, 1925). On p. 235 appears the following version of Macaulay, which, not content with misquoting Macaulay's misquotation, introduces phrases from Philips's Blein-heim. As has been shown, this work followed the Campaign. Dobrée writes as follows: “The appalling quality of the poetic lucubrations called forth by the battle of Blenheim shocked even Godolphin, who could not with any delight

Think of ten thousand gentlemen at least, And each man mounted on his capering beast into the Danube being pushed in shoals, as he was asked to do; nor could he revel in the vision of his friend Marlborough as a man of prodigious muscular development 'urging his way o‘er hills of gasping heroes,’ and ‘dyeing his reeking sword in Gallic blood’. “ Where Macaulay cut the casualties of the French cavalry in half, this newest verison multiplies them fivefold!