NOTES

A LETTER FROM ITALY

On December 9, 1701, Addison wrote to Wortley Montagu from Geneva: "I am just now arrived at Geneva by a very troublesome journey over the Alps, where I have been for some days together shivering among the eternal snows. My head is still giddy with mountains and precipices, and you cannot imagine how much I am pleased with the sight of a plain, that is as agreeable to me at present as a shore was about a year ago after our tempest at Genoa. During my passage over the mountains I made a rhyming epistle to my Lord Halifax, which perhaps I will trouble you with the sight of, if I do not find it to be nonsense upon a review. You will think it, I dare say, as extraordinary a thing to make a copy of verses in a voyage over the Alps as to write an heroic poem in a hackney coach, and I believe I am the first that ever thought of Parnassus on Mont Cenis."

...

Charles Montagu (1661-1715), Earl of Halifax, entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1682. In 1687 he wrote with Prior The City and the Country Mouse, a parody on Dryden's The Hind and the Panther. His Epistle to the Earl of Dorset (1690) celebrated King William's victory at the Boyne. In March, 1692, he was a Lord Commissioner of the Treasury and in 1694 Chancellor of the Exchequer. In the next year he began to interest himself in reëstablishing the currency, a service for which he received the thanks of the House of Commons in 1697. He was made First Lord of the Treasury in 1698; he resigned in June, 1700. The same year he was created Baron Halifax. In 1701 he was impeached for "high crime and misdemeanor." The charge of neglecting the auditorship of the exchequer, however, was not sustained. During the remainder of Queen Anne's reign, Halifax was out of office; in 1714 he became First Lord of the Treasury, and later Earl of Halifax. In March, 1715, he took his seat in the House of Lords. He died May 19, 1715. The principal authorities for his life are given in the Dict. Nat. Biog. His Works and Life appeared in 1715.

Pope's well-known lines (Epistle to Arbuthnot, 231-233):

Proud as Apollo on his forked hill,

Sat full-blown Bufo, puff'd by ev'ry quill;

Fed with soft Dedication all day long,

are supposed to refer to Halifax. On this point, however, one should consult Roscoe's edition of Pope, IV, 344-345. Halifax received the dedications of Addison's Letter from Italy; The Spectator, vol. II; The Tatler, vol. IV; Congreve's Birth of the Muse; Tickell's Homer; Stepney's An Epistle... on His Majesty's Voyage to Holland; Smith's Phædra and Hippolitus; Durfey's Third Part of Don Quixote; Congreve's Double Dealer. See also Addison's Account of the Greatest English Poets; Rowe's Macenas: Verses Occasion'd by the Honours Conferred on the Right Honourable, the Earl of Halifax; and Prior's verses To the Honourable Charles Montagu.

PAGE 1 Motto: Virg., Georg., ii, 173–175.

LINE 2 From Britannia's publick posts retire: very gracefully expressed: Halifax had been dismissed from office (see the preceding biographical account).

12 Classic ground: Miss Aikin (Life of Addison, I, 120) believes that this phrase "here makes its appearance, in all probability, for the first time." The Oxford Dictionary gives no earlier example.

19 Nar: the Nera. See Addison's Remarks on Italy (Bohn ed., I, 413-415). It may here be noted that in general those Remarks are the best commentary on this poem.

20 Clitumnus: see Remarks on Italy (Bohn ed., I, 409–410) and the passages in the Latin poets to whom Addison there refers.

21 Mincio: see the Remarks (Bohn, I, 376-377); cf. Milton, Lycidas, 1. 86: Smooth-sliding Mincius, crown'd with vocal reeds."

23 Albula: In his Remarks (Bohn, I, 482) Addison says: "On our way to Tivoli I saw the rivulet of Salforata, formerly called Albula, and smelt the stench that arises from its waters some time before I saw them. Martial mentions this offensive smell in an epigram of the fourth book, as he does the rivulet itself in the first.

"Quod siccæ redolet lacus lacunæ,

Crudarum nebulæ quod Albularum. Lib. iv. Ep. 4.

"Itur ad Herculeæ gelidas qua Tiburis arces,

Canaque sulphureis Albula fumat aquis. Lib. i. Ep. 5.”

26 Eridanus: "fluviorum rex Eridanus," Virg., Georg., i, 482. The Eridanus is the modern Po.

40 Thrifty urns: because the river god pours from his urn scantily. 47 Your lines: Halifax had celebrated the battle of the Boyne in An Epistle To the Right Honourable Charles Earl of Dorset and Middlesex, Lord Chamberlain of His Majesties' Household, . . . London, 1690. The second edition (1690) adds after Household the phrase Occasion'd by his Majesty's Victory in Ireland. On King William's descent from the house of Nassau, see the genealogical tables opposite pp. 6-7 of vol. I, and p. 432, vol. II, of Ruth Putnam's William the Silent, New York: Putnam, 1895.

49-50 Pierce... verse: In Addison's time, as in Milton's (L'Allegro, 137-138), the rhyme was perfect. On eighteenth-century pronunciation in general, see A. J. Ellis, Early English Pronunciation, Part IV, pp. 997-1084 (London, 1874, Early English Text Society, Extra Series, XXIII).

63 Baia: in Campania, within a small bay to the west of Naples. It was a famous and very luxurious winter resort of the Romans. See Addison's Remarks on Italy (Bohn, I, 432, 435, 486).

73 An amphitheater: the Coliseum.

75 On: on the occasion of.

77 Pillars rough with sculpture: the columns of Antoninus and of Trajan. See Addison's Remarks (Bohn, I, 478).

79 Romans: the genitive plural without the apostrophe, common in the eighteenth century.

82 Airy channels: the aqueducts.

87-92 In solemn silence, etc.: These six lines vaguely suggest Keats's Ode on a Grecian Urn and Freneau's Indian Burying Ground.

101 Here pleasing airs, etc. : cf. Milton, L'Allegro, ll. 135-144.

136 Ten degrees: The latitude of London is about 51° N.; that of Rome, 41°.

149-151 The Dane and Swede.. Soon as her fleets appear: Boyer's History of King William the Third, III, 458-459, tells how "a League was made between the Kings of Denmark and Poland, with the Czar of Muscovy, to crush the young King of Sweden with their united Force, and kindle a violent War in the North. Whilst the Poles sat down before Riga, in Livonia, the King of Denmark attack'd the Duke of Holstein, the Brother-in-Law, and Confederate of the King of Sweden; And under pretence of having some Forts Demolish'd, proceeded to subdue his whole Country, and laid Siege to Tonningen: Tho' both without Success; Several Princes and States concern'd themselves in making up this Breach, but none so particularly as England and Holland, who finding an amicable Mediation would not do, his Majesty

...

thought fit to send a Squadron of Thirty English and Dutch Men of War into the Sound, besides Fire-ships and Bomb vessels. . . . Whereupon the Danish Fleet quitted the Sound; and presently . . . retir'd in some Confusion, . . . the Peace was at length sign'd on the 18th of August [1700], between Denmark, Sweden, and the Duke of Holstein, with the Exclusion of Moscovy and Poland."

153 Th' ambitious Gaul, etc. As a Whig, Addison of course supported the king in his desire for war with France, a desire which was opposed by the Tory ministry and the Tory majority in the Parliament of 1701. History at this point, which is very complicated, is conveniently summarized in Gardiner's Student's History of England, chap. xliii, §§ 8-22. On the matter of bribery, Boyer tells us (William III, III, 467-468) that the "great quantity of Foreign Gold in England, at this Time gave occasion for a Report that Count Fallard the French Ambassador had brought it over, and distributed it among some Members of the H.[ouse] of Com. [mons]. But what Truth there is in this, I shall not pretend to determine."

161-162 At this figure Dr. Johnson roars: "To bridle a goddess is no very delicate idea; but why must she be bridled? because she longs to launch; an act which was never hindered by a bridle: and whither will she launch? into a nobler strain. She is in the first line a horse, in the second a boat: and the care of the poet is to keep his horse or his boat from singing" (Johnson's Lives, ed. Cunningham, II, 158).

THE CAMPAIGN

The Campaign as printed in Tickell is preceded by the following half title:

THE

CAMPAIGN,

A

POEM,

To His GRACE the

DUKE of MARLBOROUGH,

Rheni pacator et Istri.

Omnis in hoc Uno variis discordia cessit

Ordinibus; lætatur Eques, plauditque Senator,

Votaque Patricio certant Plebeia favori.

Claud. de Laud. Stilic.

Esse aliquam in terris gentem quæ suâ impensâ, suo labore ac periculo bella gerat pro libertate aliorum. Nec hoc finitimis, aut propinquæ vicinitatis hominibus, aut terris continenti junctis præstet. Maria trajiciat: ne quod toto orbe terrarum injustum imperium sit, et ubique jus fas, lex, potentissima (Liv. Hist. lib. 33.)

sint.

The first edition of The Campaign (see Bibliography) contained only the first of these quotations. The full references are: for the first, Claudian, De Laudibus Stilichonis, 11. 13, 48-50; for the second, Livy, xxxiii, 33, 5-7.

The circumstances under which The Campaign was written are thus summarized by Tickell (Addison's Works, 1721, I, x-xi): “He [Addison] remained for some time, after his return to England, without any public employment, which he did not obtain 'till the year 1704, when the Duke of Marlborough arrived at the highest pitch of glory, by delivering all Europe from slavery, and furnished Mr. Addison with a subject worthy of that genius which appears in his Poem called The Campaign. The Lord-Treasurer Godolphin, who was a fine judge of Poetry, had a sight of this work, when it was only carried on as far as the applauded simile of the Angel; and approved the Poem, by bestowing on the Author, in a few days after, the place of Commissioner of Appeals, vacant by the removal of the famous Mr. Locke to the council of Trade." The best short account of the life and campaigns of the Duke of Marlborough is that in the Dict. Nat. Biog., which gives ample references to the authorities for detailed study.

LINES 1-2 While crouds of princes, etc. : "Not many days after the Battle of Hochstet, the Emperor wrote a Letter to his Grace, wherein, after having given him the honourable and kind Appellations of most Illustrious Cousin, and most Dear Prince, his Imperial Majesty told him, 'That he had freely, and of his own accord, admitted him among the Princes of the Holy Empire, not so much in consideration of his Noble Family, as upon account of his Personal Merit, and his great Deserts towards the August House of Austria, and the Holy Roman Empire.' (Boyer, Annals of the Reign of Queen Anne, III, 93.)

...

3 While Emperors to you commit their cause: "Prince Lewis of Baden . . . said [June 13, 1704], That his Grace was come to save the Empire, and give him an opportunity to Vindicate his Honour, which he was sensible was in some manner at the last Stake in the opinion of some People." (Annals, III, 57.)

4 Anna's praises: see the Annals, III, 167–169, for an account of Marlborough's visit to St. James's House, Dec. 5, 1704, "where he

25