private grounds. Swift describes him as the would-be Was easy though they wanted shoes." Pope also satirises the vanity and meanness of his disposition in the well-known character of Bufo. Such portraits, though they are justified to some extent by evidence coming from other quarters, are not to be too strictly examined as if they bore the stamp of historic truth. It is, at any rate, certain that Halifax always proved himself a warm and zealous friend to Addison, and when Godolphin applied to him for a poet to celebrate Blenheim, he answered that, though acquainted with a person who possessed every qualification for the task, he could not ask him to undertake it. Being pressed for his reasons, he replied "that while too many fools and blockheads were maintained in their pride and luxury at the public expense, such men as were really an honour to their age and country were shamefully suffered to languish in obscurity; that, for his own share, he would never desire any gentleman of parts and learning to employ his time in celebrating a Ministry who had neither the justice nor the generosity to make it worth his while." In answer to this the Lord Treasurer assured Halifax that any person whom he might name as equal to the required task, should have no cause to repent of having rendered his assistance; whereupon Halifax mentioned Addison, but stipulated that all advances to the latter must come from Godolphin himself. Accordingly Boyle, Chancellor of the Exchequer, afterwards Lord Carleton, was despatched 105 UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN LIBRARIES on the embassy, and, if Pope is to be trusted, found Addison lodged up three pair of stairs over a small shop. He opened to him the subject, and informed him that, in return for the service that was expected of him, he was instructed to offer him a Commissionership of Appeal in the Excise, as a pledge of more considerable advancement in the future. The fruits of this negotia tion were The Campaign. Warton disposes of the merits of The Campaign with the cavalier criticism, so often since repeated, that it is merely "a gazette in rhyme." In one sense the judgment is no doubt just. As a poem, The Campaign shows neither loftiness of invention nor enthusiasm of personal feeling, and it cannot therefore be ranked with such an ode as Horace's Qualem ministrum, or with Pope's very fine Epistle to the Earl of Oxford after his disgrace. Its methodical narrative style is scarcely misrepresented by Warton's sarcastic description of it; but it should be remembered that this style was adopted by Addison with deliberate intention. "Thus," says he, in the conclusion of the poem, "Thus would I fain Britannia's wars rehearse When actions unadorned are faint and weak The design here avowed is certainly not poetical, but it is eminently business-like and extremely well adapted to the end in view. 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. This happy turn of flattery shows how far he had advanced in literary skill since he wrote his address To the King. He had then excused himself for the inadequate celebration of William's deeds on the plea that, great though these might be, they were too near the poet's own time to be seen in proper focus. A thousand years hence, he suggests, some Homer may be inspired by the theme "and Boyne be sung when it has ceased to flow." This could not have been very consolatory to a mortal craving for contemporary applause, and the apology offered in The Campaign for the prosaic treatment of the subject is far more dexterous. Bearing in mind the fact that it was written to order, and that the poet deliberately declined to avail himself of the aid of fiction, we must allow that the construction of the poem exhibits both art and dignity. The allusion to the vast slaughter at Blenheim in the opening paragraph— "Rivers of blood I see and hills of slain, An Iliad rising out of one campaign " is not very fortunate; but the lines describing the ambition of Louis XIV. are weighty and dignified, and the couplet indicating through the single image of the Danube the vast extent of the French encroachments shows how thoroughly Addison was imbued with the spirit of classical poetry: F "The rising Danube its long race began, And half its course through the new conquests ran.” With equal felicity he describes the position and intervention of England, seizing at the same time the opportunity for a panegyric on her free institutions: "Thrice happy Britain from the kingdoms rent From long-tried faith and friendship's holy ties, By showers of blessings Heaven approves their choice; And factions strive who shall applaud them most.” He proceeds in a stream of calm and equal verse, enlivened by dexterous allusions and occasional happy turns of expression to describe the scenery of the Moselle; the march between the Maese and the Danube; the heat to which the army was exposed; the arrival on the Neckar; and the track of devastation left by the French armies. The meeting between Marlborough and Eugene inspires him again to raise his style: "Great souls by instinct to each other turn, A sudden friendship, while with outstretched rays Their courage dwells not in a troubled flood To souls like these in mutual friendship joined The celebrated passage describing Marlborough's conduct at Blenheim is certainly the finest in the poem: ""Twas then great Marlborough's mighty soul was proved In peaceful thought the field of death surveyed Johnson makes some characteristic criticisms on this LOS VNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN LIBRARIES |