So to Addison himself these Latin poems had practical value. Apart from this, they had a decided influence on both his literary and his personal development. Their literary effect pervades his whole work; no English writer has ever had a more fastidious sense of technical form. Their personal effect is palpable both in his English poems and in many of his later writings. As Macaulay points out, Addison's knowledge of classical Latin poetry was wide and accurate; apart from this, his technical scholarship seems not to have been extraordinary. When he went to Italy, the things which most engaged his attention were consequently things which Roman poets had written about. Take, for example, the following passage: 1 We saw the lake Benacus in our way, which the Italians now call Lago di Garda: it was so rough with tempests when we passed by it, that it brought into my mind Virgil's noble description of it. Anne lacus tantos, te Lari maxime, teque Fluctibus et fremitu assurgens, Benace, marino.2 Here vexed by winter storms Benacus raves, So loud the tempest roars, so high the billows rise. This lake perfectly resembles a sea when it is worked up by storms. It is thirty-five miles in length, and twelve in breadth. At the lower end of it we crossed the Mincio. Mincius, et tenerâ praetexit arundine ripas.3 Where the slow Mincius through the valley strays; And reeds defend the winding water's brink. - DRYDEN. The river Adige runs through Verona; so much is the situation of the town changed from what it was in Silius Italicus his time, 1 Bohn, I, 376 ff. 2 Virgil, Georg., ii, 159, 160, 3 Virgil, Georg., iii, 14, 15. - Verona Athesi circumflua.1 Verona by the circling Adige bound. This is the only great river in Lombardy that does not fall into the Po; which it must have done, had it run but a little further The rivers are all of them men before its entering the Adriatic. tioned by Claudian. - Ventosque erectior amnes Magnâ voce ciet. Frondentibus humida ripis Venetia's rivers, summoned all around, Hear the loud call, and answer to the sound: The rapid Adige then erects her head, And last Timavus, that with eager force From nine wide mouths comes gushing to his course. His Larius is doubtless an imitation of Virgil's Benacus. - Umbrosâ vestit qua littus olivâ Larius, et dulci mentitur Nerea fluctu.3 The Larius here, with groves of olives crowned, At Naples, somewhat later, Addison even pressed Horace into the service of sound Whig Protestantism. Writing of the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius, he proceeds as follows: I had twice an opportunity of seeing the operation of this pretended miracle, and must confess I think it so far from being 1 Silius Italicus, Punica, viii, 597. 2 Claudian, VI Cons. Hon., 194–198. a real miracle, that I look upon it as one of the most bungling tricks that I ever saw: yet it is this that makes ås great a noise as any in the Roman Church, and that Monsieur Paschal1 has hinted at among the rest in his marks of the true religion. The modern Neapolitans seem to have copied it out from one, which was shown in a town of the kingdom of Naples, as long ago as Horace's time. One may see at least that the heathen priesthood had the same kind of secret among them, of which the Roman Catholics are now masters. The traits here evident appear in a more compact and studied form in Addison's first considerable English poem, the Letter from Italy to the Right Honourable Charles Lord Halifax in the year MDCCI. After a politely apologetic address, he sets himself to his task thus: 1 Pascal, Pensées sur la religion, chap. ii ("Marques de la véritable religion"), § 3. 2 Horace, Sat., i, 5, 97–101. 8 Miss Aikin (Life of Addison, I, 119–120) supposes this to be the first use of this now hackneyed phrase. The Oxford Dictionary mentions no earlier case. For here the Muse so oft her Harp has strung, And ev'ry stream in heavenly numbers flows.1 Somewhat later, after comparing the glories of the Tiber to those of the Boyne, he thus bursts forth in enthusiastic address to Charles, Lord Halifax : Oh cou'd the Muse my ravish'd breast inspire Virgil's Italy, not the Italy which lay before his eyes, was what Addison instinctively saw, after his long course of classical study. Of the painters he names only "Raphael's god-like art." 8 He has a word for music : Here pleasing airs my ravisht soul confound With circling notes and labyrinths of sound.1 He has a word, too, for domes and temples which "rise in distant views." 5 In modern Italy, however, he preferred to remark chiefly the absence of political freedom: Finally, after some forty lines about the joyous liberties of Britannia, which to this day might serve British or American campaign orators, - he thus returns to Halifax : But I've already troubled you too long, And lines like Virgil's, or like yours, shou'd praise.1 Extravagant as these compliments sound, they were merely the conventional civilities of an age when literature depended for its bread on patronage. As Macaulay remarks,2 too, they were not written until Halifax was out of power a circumstance certainly creditable to the heart and the principles of Addison. These compliments, however, together with the polished smoothness of the verse, the superficial scholarship, the sensitiveness in matters of art merely to what is polished, and the innocent cant about British freedom, make this poem very typical of what patrons thought worth encouraging. Throughout the poem, too, appears a restrained personal note. Addison's sense of humor, sometimes momentarily evident in his notes of travel, kept him, at least as compared with other panegyrical poets of his time, free from absurdity, and he never for an instant forgot his permanent habit of polite selfcontrol. The Campaign, the poem in honor of Blenheim, which made Addison's political fortune, displays the same traits as the Letter from Italy. With a far more definite subject, however, it is naturally a far more specific piece of work: it remains a fine bit of versified history. In view of the relations of the 1 ll. 163–168. 2 Works, ed. 1875, VII, 72. |