Towards the close of the year 1715, while the Rebellion was still raging in Scotland, Addison published the first number of a paper called the Freeholder.Among his political works the Freeholder is entitled to the first place.Even in the Spectator there are few serious papers nobler than the character of his friend Lord Somers, and certainly no satirical papers superior to those in which the Tory fox-hunter is introduced.This character is the original of Squire Western, and is drawn with all Fielding's force, and with a delicacy of which Fielding was altogether destitute.As none of Addison's works exhibit stronger marks of his genius than the Freeholder, so none does more honour to his moral character.It is difficult to extol too highly the candour and humanity of a political writer whom even the excitement of civil war cannot hurry into unseemly violence.Oxford, it is well known, was then the stronghold of Toryism.The High Street had been repeatedly lined with bayonets in order to keep down the disaffected gownsmen; and traitors pursued by the messengers of the Government had been concealed in the garrets of several colleges.Yet the admonition which, even under such circumstances, Addison addressed to the University, is singularly gentle, respectful, and even affectionate.Indeed, he could not find it in his heart to deal harshly even with imaginary persons.
His fox-hunter, though ignorant, stupid, and violent, is at heart a good fellow, and is at last reclaimed by the clemency of the King.Steele was dissatisfied with his friend's moderation, and, though he acknowledged that the Freeholder was excellently written, complained that the Ministry played on a lute when it was necessary to blow the trumpet.He accordingly determined to execute a flourish after his own fashion, and tried to rouse the public spirit of the nation by means of a paper called the Town Talk, which is now as utterly forgotten as his Englishman, as his Crisis, as his Letter to the Bailiff of Stockbridge, as his Reader, in short, as everything that he wrote without the help of Addison.
In the same year in which the Drummer was acted, and in which the first numbers of the Freeholder appeared, the estrangement of Pope and Addison became complete.Addison had from the first seen that Pope was false and malevolent.Pope had discovered that Addison was jealous.The discovery was made in a strange manner.
Pope had written the Rape of the Lock, in two cantos, without supernatural machinery.These two cantos had been loudly applauded, and by none more loudly than by Addison.Then Pope thought of the Sylphs and Gnomes, Ariel, Momentilla, Crispissa, and Umbriel, and resolved to interweave the Rosicrucian mythology with the original fabric.He asked Addison's advice.Addison said that the poem as it stood was a delicious little thing, and entreated Pope not to run the risk of marring what was so excellent in trying to mend it.Pope afterwards declared that this insidious counsel first opened his eyes to the baseness of him who gave it.
Now there can be no doubt that Pope's plan was most ingenious, and that he afterwards executed it with great skill and success.
But does it necessarily follow that Addison's advice was bad.And if Addison's advice was bad, does it necessarily follow that it was given from bad motives? If a friend were to ask us whether we would advise him to risk his all in a lottery of which the chances were ten to one against him, we should do our best to dissuade him from running such a risk.Even if he were so lucky as to get the thirty thousand pound prize, we should not admit that we had counselled him ill; and we should certainly think it the height of injustice in him to accuse us of having been actuated by malice.We think Addison's advice good advice.It rested on a sound principle, the result of long and wide experience.The general rule undoubtedly is that, when a successful work of imagination has been produced, it should not be recast.We cannot at this moment call to mind a single instance in which this rule has been transgressed with happy effect, except the instance of the Rape of the Lock.Tasso recast his Jerusalem.Akenside recast his Pleasures of the Imagination, and his Epistle to Curio.Pope himself, emboldened no doubt by the success with which he had expanded and remodelled the Rape of the Lock, made the same experiment on the Dunciad.All these attempts failed.Who was to foresee that Pope would, once in his life, be able to do what he could not himself do twice, and what nobody else has ever done?
Addison's advice was good.But had it been bad, why should we pronounce it dishonest? Scott tells us that one of his best friends predicted the failure of Waverley.Herder adjured Goethe not to take so unpromising a subject as Faust.Hume tried to dissuade Robertson from writing the History of Charles the Fifth Nay, Pope himself was one of those who prophesied that Cato would never succeed on the stage, and advised Addison to print it without risking a representation.But Scott, Goethe, Robertson, Addison, had the good sense and generosity to give their advisers credit for the best intentions.Pope's heart was not of the same kind with theirs.
In 1715, while he was engaged in translating the Iliad, he met Addison at a coffee-house.Phillips and Budgell were there; but their sovereign got rid of them, and asked Pope to dine with him alone.After dinner Addison said that he lay under a difficulty which he wished to explain."Tickell," he said, "translated some time ago the first book of the Iliad.I have promised to look it over and correct it.I cannot therefore ask to see yours; for that would be double-dealing." Pope made a civil reply, and begged that his second book might have the advantage of Addison's revision.Addison readily agreed, looked over the second book, and sent it back with warm commendations.
