The Coverley Papers | Page 2

common life, but assert it as a general observation.' [Footnote: Spectator 107] He is in perfect harmony with his age, too, in the intensely rational view which he takes of ghosts [Footnote: Spectator 110] and witches, [Footnote: Spectator 117] for it was a period in which men cared very little for things which 'the eye hath not seen'. In his use of mottoes, again, which are deliberately sought illustrations for his papers, [Footnote: Spectator 221] and not the sparks which have fired his train of thought, he is typical of the period of middle-age in which men amuse themselves with such academic pastimes. Addison is the very antipodes of the kind of man who
'Loves t' have his sails fill'd with a lusty wind, Even till his sail-yards tremble, his masts crack'--
he remarks soberly that 'it is very unhappy for a man to be born in such a stormy and tempestuous season.' [Footnote: Spectator 125.] He may not have been a great poet, but he was an exquisite critic of life; he shared his contemporaries' lack of enthusiasm, but he possessed a fine discrimination, and those less practical, more irresponsible qualities would have been merely an incumbrance to the apostle of good sense and moderation. For when men are young they are much occupied with the framing of ideals and the search after absolute truth; as they grow older they generally become more practical; they accept, more or less, the idea of compromise, and make the best of things as they are or as they may be made. The age being vicious, Addison did not betake himself to a monastery, or urge others to do so; he tried to mend its morals. This was a difficult task. The Puritans, during their supremacy, had imposed their own severity on others; and now the Court party was revenging itself by indulging in extreme licentiousness. Its amusements were cruel and vicious, and the Puritans did nothing to improve them, but denounced them altogether and held themselves aloof. It was Addison's task to refine the taste of his contemporaries and to widen their outlook, so that the Puritan and the man of the world might find a common ground on which to meet and to learn each from the other; it was his endeavour 'to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality ... till I have recovered them out of that desperate state of vice and folly into which the age is fallen. [Footnote: Spectator 10.] It was a happy thing for that and for all succeeding ages that a man of Addison's character and genius was ready to undertake the work. He was well versed in the pleasures of society and letters, but his delicate taste could not be gratified by the ordinary amusements of the town. He treated life as an art capable of affording the artist abundant pleasure, but he recognized goodness as a necessary condition of this pleasure. He was the most popular man of his day; even Swift said that if Addison had wished to be king people could hardly have refused him; [Footnote: Journal to Stella, October 12, 1710.] and the qualities which endeared him to his friends were exactly of the kind to enable him to hold the mean between the bigots and the butterflies, and to dictate without giving offence, for they were humanity and humour, moderation of character, judgment, and a most sensitive tact. His qualities and his limitations alike appear in the Spectator. For example, he tells us that he wishes that country clergymen would borrow the sermons of great divines, and devote all their own efforts to acquiring a good elocution: [Footnote: Spectator 106.] here we detect the practical moralist and the man who likes a thing good of its kind, but not the enthusiast. He upholds the observance of Sunday on account of its social influences rather than for its religious meaning; [Footnote: Spectator 112.] Swift's famous Argument against the Abolition of Christianity is only a satirical exaggeration of this position. The virtues commended in the Spectator are those which make for the well-being of society-- good sense and dignity, moderation and a sense of fitness, kindness and generosity. They are to be practised with an eye to their consequences; even virtues must not be allowed to run wild. Modesty is in itself a commendable quality, but in Captain Sentry it becomes a fault, because it interferes with his advancement. [Footnote: Spectator 2.] The great function of goodness is to promote happiness; when it ceases to do this it ceases to be goodness.
But the greatest hindrance that an enthusiastic temperament would have presented to Addison's work is that it would have spoilt his method. His aim he declared roundly to be 'the advancement of the public weal', [Footnote: Spectator 1.]