"A nobler change than he himself can tell."
This, however, although happy, starts a different view of the subject. It suggests the idea that most translations are metamorphoses to the worse, like that of a living person into a dead tree, or at least of a superior into an inferior being. In Pope's "Iliad," you have the metamorphosis of an eagle into a nightingale; in Dryden's "Virgil," you have a stately war-horse transformed into a hard-trotting hackney; in Hoole's versions of the Italian Poets, you have nymphs nailed up in timber; while, on the other hand, in Coleridge's "Wallenstein," you have the "nobler change," spoken of by Addison, of—shall we say?-a cold and stately holly-tree turned into a murmuring and oracular oak.
That, after thus introducing himself to Dryden, he met him occasionally seems certain, although the rumour circulated by Spence that he taught the old man to sit late and drink hard seems ridiculous. Dryden introduced him to Congreve, and through Congreve he made the valuable acquaintance of Charles Montague, then leader of the Whigs in the House of Commons, and Chancellor of the Exchequer.
He afterwards published a translation of that part of the "Fourth Book of the Georgics" referring to bees, on which Dryden, who had procured a preface to his own complete translation of the same poem from Addison, complimented him by saying—"After his bees, my later swarm is scarcely worth hiving." He published, too, a poem on "King William," and an "Account of the Principal English Poets," in which he ventures on a character of Spenser ere he had read his works. It thus is, as might have been expected, poor and non-appreciative, and speaks of Spenser as a poet pretty nearly forgotten. Some time after this, he collected a volume, entitled, "Musæ Anglicanæ," in which he inserted all his early Latin verses.
Charles Montague, himself a poet of a certain small rank, and a man of great general talents, became—along with Somers—the patron of Addison. He diverted him from the Church, to which his own tastes seemed to destine him, suggesting that civil employment had become very corrupt through want of men of liberal education and good principles, and should be redeemed from this reproach, and declaring that, though he had been called an enemy of the Church, he would never do it any other injury than keeping Mr Addison out of it. It is likely that the timid temperament of our poet concurred with these suggestions of Montague in determining his decision. His failure as a Parliamentary orator subsequently seems to prove that the pulpit was not his vocation. After all, his Saturday papers in the Spectator are as fine as any sermons of that age, and he perhaps did more good serving as a volunteer than had he been a regular soldier in the army of the Christian faith.
Somers and Montague wished to employ their protégé in public service abroad. There was, however, one drawback. Addison had plenty of English, Greek, and Latin, but he had little French. This he must be sent abroad to acquire; and for the purpose of defraying the expenses of his travels, a pension of £300 a-year was conferred upon him. Paid thus, as few poets or writers of any kind are, in advance, and having his fellowship besides, Addison, like a young nobleman, instead of a parson's son, set out upon his tour. This was in the summer of 1699. He was twenty-seven years of age, exactly one year younger than Byron, and three years younger than Milton, when they visited the same regions. He went first to Paris, and was received with great distinction by Montague's kinsman, the Earl of Manchester, and his beautiful lady. He travelled with his eyes quietly open, especially to the humorous aspects of things. In a letter to Montague he says that he had not seen a blush from his first landing at Calais, and gives a sarcastic description of the spurious devotion which the example of the old repentant roué, Louis XIV., had rendered fashionable among the literati of France: "There is no book comes out at present that has not something in it of an air of devotion. Dacier has been forced to prove his Plato a very good CHRISTIAN before he ventures upon his translation, and has so far complied with the taste of the age, that his whole book is overrun with texts of Scripture, and the notion of pre-existence, supposed to be stolen from two verses of the prophets." The sincere believer is usually the first to detect and be disgusted with the sham one; and Addison was always a sincere believer, but he had also that happy nature in which disgust is carried quickly and easily off through the safety-valve of a smile.
From Paris he went to Blois, the capital of Loir-and-Cher, a small town about 110 miles south-west of Paris. Here he had two advantages. He found the French language spoken in its perfection; and as he had not a single countryman with whom to exchange a word, he was driven on his own resources. He remained there a year, and spent his time well, studying hard, rising early, having the best French masters, mingling in society, although subject, as in previous and after parts of his life, to fits of absence. His life was as pure as it was simple, his most intimate friend at Blois, the Abbe Philippeaux, saying: "He had no amour whilst here that I know of, and I think I should have known it if he had had any." During this time he sent home letters to his friends in England—to Montague, Colonel Froude, Congreve, and others1—which contain sentences of exquisite humour. Thus, describing the famous gallery at Versailles, with the paintings of Louis' victories, he says: "The history of the present King till the sixteenth year of his reign is painted on the roof by Le Brun, so that his Majesty has actions enough by him to furnish another gallery much longer than the first. He is represented with all the terror and majesty that you can imagine in every part of the picture, and see his young face as perfectly drawn in the roof as his present one in the side. The painter has represented His Most Christian Majesty under the figure of Jupiter throwing thunderbolts all about the ceiling, and striking terror into the Danube and Rhine, that lie astonished and blasted with lightning a little above the cornice."
This is Addison all over; and quite as good is his picture of the general character of the French: "'Tis not in the power of want or slavery to make them miserable. There is nothing to be met with in the country but mirth and poverty. Every one sings, laughs, and starves. Their conversation is generally agreeable, for if they have any wit or sense, they are sure to shew it. Their women are perfect mistresses in the art of shewing themselves to the best advantage. They are always gay and sprightly, and set off the worst faces in Europe with the best airs. Every one knows how to give herself as charming a look and posture as Sir Godfrey Kneller could draw her in."
From Blois he returned to Paris, and was now better qualified, from his knowledge of the language, to mingle with its philosophers, savants, and poets. He had some interesting talk with Malebranche and Boileau, the former of whom "very much praised Mr Newton's mathematics; shook his head at the name of Hobbes, and told me he thought him a pauvre esprit." Here follows a genuine Addisonianism: "His book is now reprinted with many additions, among which he shewed me a very pretty hypothesis of colours, which is different from that of Cartesius or Newton, though they may all three be true." Boileau, now sixty-four, deaf as a post, and full of the "sweltered venom" of ill-natured criticism, nevertheless received Addison kindly; and when presented by him with his "Musæ Anglicanæ," is said from that time to have conceived an opinion of the English genius for poetry. Addison says that Boileau "hated an ill poet." Unfortunately, however, for his judgment, it is notorious that he slighted Shakspeare, Milton, and Corneille, and that, next to Homer and Virgil, his great idols were Arnaud and Racine.
In December 1700, tired of French manners, which had lost even their power of moving him to smiles, and it may be apprehensive of the war connected with the Spanish succession, which was about to inflame all Europe, Addison embarked from Marseilles for Italy. After a narrow escape from one of those sudden Mediterranean storms, in which poor Shelley perished, he landed at Savona, and proceeded, through wild mountain paths, to Genoa. He afterwards commemorated his deliverance in the pleasing lines published in the Spectator, beginning with—
"How are Thy servants blest, O Lord,"
one verse in which was wont to awaken the enthusiasm of the boy Burns,
"What though in dreadful whirls we hung,
High