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JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
135
with slight interruptions, for fifty-four years. Minister to the United
Netherlands, to Russia, to Prussia, and to England; commissioner to
frame the Treaty of Ghent which ended the war of 1812; State Sen-
ator, United States Senator; Secretary of State, a position in which
he made the treaty with Spain which conceded Florida, and enun-
ciated the Monroe Doctrine before Monroe and far more thoroughly
than he; President, and then for many years Member of the National
House of Representatives, - it is strange to find this man writing in
his later years, “My whole life has been a succession of disappoint-
ments. I can scarcely recollect a single instance of success to any-
thing that I ever undertook. ”
It is true, however, that his successes and even his glories always
had some bitter ingredient to spoil their flavor. As United States
Senator he was practically boycotted,” for years, even by his own
party members, because he was an Adams. In 1807 he definitely
broke with the Federalist party- for what he regarded as its slavish
crouching under English outrages, conduct which had been for years
estranging him— by supporting Jefferson's Embargo, as better than
no show of resistance at all; and was for a generation denounced by
the New England Federalists as a renegade for the sake of office and
a traitor to New England. The Massachusetts Legislature practically
censured him in 1808, and he resigned.
His winning of the Presidency brought pain instead of pleasure:
he valued it only as a token of national confidence, got it only as
a minority candidate in a divided party, and was denounced by the
Jacksonians as a corrupt political bargainer. And his later Congress-
ional career, though his chief title to glory, was one long martyrdom
(even though its worst pains were self-inflicted), and he never knew
the immense victory he had actually won. The "old man eloquent,”
after ceasing to be President, was elected in 1830 by his home
district a Representative in Congress, and regularly re-elected till his
death. For a long time he bore the anti-slavery standard almost
alone in the halls of Congress, a unique and picturesque figure, rous-
ing every demon of hatred in his fellow-members, in constant and
envenomed battle with them, and more than a match for them all.
He fought single-handed for the right of petition as an indefeasible
right, not hesitating to submit a petition from citizens of Virginia
praying for his own expulsion from Congress as a nuisance. In 1836
he presented a petition from one hundred and fifty-eight ladies,
citizens of Massachusetts, "for, I said, I had not yet brought myself
to doubt whether females were citizens. " After eight years of per-
sistent struggle against the « Atherton gag law,” which practically
denied the right of petition in matters relating to slavery, he carried
a vote rescinding it, and nothing of the kind was again enacted. He


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JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
had a fatal stroke of paralysis on the floor of Congress February
21st, 1848, and died two days later.
As a writer he was perspicuous, vigorous, and straightforward.
He had entered Harvard in the middle of the college course, and
been graduated with honors. He had then studied and practiced
law. He was Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard from
1806 to 1809, and was well drilled in the use of language, but was
too downright in his temper and purposes to spend much labor upon
artistic effects. He kept an elaborate diary during the greater part
of his life, - since published in twelve volumes of “Memoirs” by
his son Charles Francis Adams; a vast storehouse of material relat-
ing to the political history of the country, but, as published, largely
restricted to public affairs. He delivered orations on Lafayette, on
Madison, on Monroe, on Independence, and on the Constitution; pub-
lished essays on the Masonic Institution and various other matters;
a report on weights and measures, of enormous labor and permanent
value; Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory; a tale in verse on the Con-
quest of Ireland, with the title Dermot MacMorrogh'; an account of
Travels in Silesia; and a volume of Poems of Religion and Society. '
He had some facility in rhyme, but his judgment was not at fault in
informing him that he was not a poet. Mr. Morse says that “No
man can have been more utterly void of a sense of humor or an
appreciation of wit ”; and yet he very fairly anticipated Holmes in
his poem on (The Wants of Man,' and hits rather neatly a familiar
foible in the verse with which he begins Dermot MacMorrogh':-
«'Tis strange how often readers will indulge
Their wits a mystic meaning to discover;
Secrets ne'er dreamt of by the bard divulge,
And where he shoots a duck, will find a plover;
Satiric shafts from every line promulge,
Detect a tyrant where he draws a lover:
Nay, so intent his hidden thoughts to see,
Cry, if he paint a scoundrel —That means me. ) »
Selections from Letters and Memoirs used by permission of
J. B. Lippincott Company
LETTER TO HIS FATHER
(At the Age of Ten)
D
EAR SIR, - I love to receive letters very well; much better than
I love to write them. I make but a poor figure at compo-
sition, my head is too fickle, my thoughts are running after
birds eggs play and trifles, till I get vexed with myself. Mamma


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137
has a troublesome task to keep me steady, and I own I am
ashamed of myself. I have but just entered the third volume of
Smollett, tho' I had designed to have got it half through by this
time. I have determined this week to be more diligent, as Mr.
Thaxter will be absent at Court, and I cannot pursue my other
studies. I have Set myself a Stent and determine to read the 3rd
volume Half out. If I can but keep my resolution, I will write
again at the end of the week and give a better account of myself.
I wish, Sir, you would give me some instructions, with regard to
my time, and advise me how to proportion my Studies and my
Play, in writing, and I will keep them by me, and endeavor to
follow them. I am, dear Sir, with a present determination of
growing better, yours.
P. S. — Sir, if you will be so good as to favor me with a Blank
Book, I will transcribe the most remarkable occurances I meet
with in my reading, which will serve to fix them upon my mind.
FROM THE MEMOIRS
(At the Age of Eighteen)
A "
PRIL 26TH, 1785. — A letter from Mr. Gerry of Feb. 25th Says
that Mr. Adams is appointed Minister to the Court of
London.
I believe he will promote the interests of the United States,
as much as any man, but I fear his duty will induce him to make
exertions which may be detrimental to his health. I wish how-
ever it may be otherwise. Were I now to go with him, probably
my immediate satisfaction might be greater than it will be in
returning to America. After having been traveling for these
seven years almost all over Europe, and having been in the
World, and among company, for three; to return to spend one
or two years in the pale of a College, subjected to all the rules
which I have so long been freed from; then to plunge into the
dry and tedious study of the Law for three years; and afterwards
not expect (however good an opinion I may have of myself) to
bring myself into notice under three or four years more; if ever!
It is really a prospect somewhat discouraging for a youth of my
ambition (for I have ambition, though I hope its object is laud-
able). But still
“Oh! how wretched
Is that poor Man, that hangs on Princes' favors »


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JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
or on those of anybody else. I am determined that so long as I
shall be able to get my own living in an honorable manner, I
will depend upon no one. My Father has been so much taken up
all his lifetime with the interests of the public, that his own for-
tune has suffered by it; so that his children will have to provide
for themselves, which I shall never be able to do, if I loiter away
my precious time in Europe and shun going home until I am
forced to it. With an ordinary share of Common sense which I
hope I enjoy, at least in America I can live independent and free;
and rather than live otherwise I would wish to die before the
time when I shall be left at my own discretion. I have before
me a striking example of the distressing and humiliating situation
a person is reduced to by adopting a different line of conduct,
and I am determined not to fall into the same error.
FROM THE MEMOIRS
JA
ANUARY 14TH, 1831. -I received a letter from John C. Calhoun,
now Vice-President of the United States, relating to his pres-
ent controversy with President Jackson and William H. Craw-
ford. He questions me concerning the letter of General Jackson
to Mr. Monroe which Crawford alleges to have been produced at
the Cabinet meetings on the Seminole War, and asks for copies,
if I think proper to give them, of Crawford's letter to me which
I received last summer, and of my answer. I answered Mr. Cal.
houn's letter immediately, rigorously confining myself to the direct
object of his inquiries. This is a new bursting out of the old and
rancorous feud between Crawford and Calhoun, both parties to
which, after suspending their animosities and combining together
to effect my ruin, are appealing to me for testimony to sustain
themselves each against the other. This is one of the occasions
upon which I shall eminently need the direction of a higher power
to guide me in every step of my conduct. I see my duty to dis-
card all consideration of their treatment of me; to adhere, in
everything that I shall say or write, to the truth; to assert noth-
ing positively of which I am not absolutely certain; to deny
nothing upon which there remains a scruple of doubt upon my
memory; to conceal nothing which it may be lawful to divulge,
and which may promote truth and justice between the parties.
With these principles, I see further the necessity for caution and
prudence in the course I shall take. The bitter enmity of all


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139
three of the parties - Jackson, Calhoun, and Crawford — against
me, an enmity the more virulent because kindled by their own
ingratitude and injustice to me; the interest which every one of
them, and all their partisans, have in keeping up that load
of obloquy and public odium which their foul calumnies have
brought down upon me; and the disfavor in which I stand before
a majority of the people, excited against me by their artifices;-
their demerits to me are proportioned to the obligations to me -
Jackson's the greatest, Crawford's the next, Calhoun's the least of
positive obligation, but darkened by his double-faced setting him-
self up as a candidate for the Presidency against me in 1821, his
prevarications between Jackson and me in 1824, and his icy.
hearted dereliction of all the decencies of social intercourse with
me, solely from the terror of Jackson, since the 4th of March,
1829. I walk between burning ploughshares; let me be mindful
where I place my foot.
J"
FROM THE MEMOIRS
UNE 7TH, 1833. -The first seedling apple-tree that I had observed
on my return here just out of the ground was on the 22d
of April. It had grown slowly but constantly since, and had
put out five or six leaves. Last evening, after my return from
Boston, I saw it perfectly sound. This morning I found it broken
off, leaving one lobe of the seed-leaves, and one leaf over it. This
may have been the work of a bug, or perhaps of a caterpillar. It
would not be imaginable to any person free from hobby-horse or
fanciful attachments, how much mortification such an incident oc-
casions. St. Evremond, after removing into the country, returned
to a city life because he found himself in despair for the loss of
a pigeon. His conclusion was, that rural life induced exorbitant
attachment to insignificant objects. My experience is conformable
to this. My natural propensity was to raise trees, fruit and forest,
from the seed. I had it in early ġouth, but the course of my life
deprived me of the means of pursuing the bent of my inclina-
tion. One shellbark-walnut-tree in my garden, the root of which
I planted 8th October, 1804, and one Mazzard cherry-tree in the
grounds north of the house, the stone of which I planted about
the same time, are the only remains of my experiments of so
ancient a date. Had my life been spent in the country, and my
experiments commenced while I was at College, I should now


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JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
have a large fruit garden, flourishing orchards of native fruit, and
very valuable forests; instead of which I have a nursery of about
half an acre of ground, half full of seedlings, from five years to
five days old, bearing for the first time perhaps twenty peaches,
and a few blossoms of apricots and cherries; and hundreds of
seedlings of the present year perishing from day to day before my
eyes.
FROM THE MEMOIRS
Spevening in the multitudinous whimses olevar disabled mind
EPTEMBER 9TH, 1833. — Cold and cloudy day, clearing off toward
In the multitudinous whimseys of a disabled mind
and body, the thick-coming fancies often come to me that
the events which affect my life and adventures are specially
shaped to disappoint my purposes. My whole life has been a
succession of disappointments. I can scarcely recollect a single
instance of success to anything that I ever undertook. Yet, with
fervent gratitude to God, I confess that my life has been equally
marked by great and signal successes which I neither aimed at
nor anticipated. Fortune, by which I understand Providence, has
showered blessings upon me profusely. But they have been
blessings unforeseen and unsought. «Non nobis Domine, non
nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam ! ” I ought to have been taught
by it three lessons:-1. Of implicit reliance upon Providence.
Of humility and humiliation; the thorough conviction of my
own impotence to accomplish anything. 3. Of resignation; and
not to set my heart upon anything which can be taken from me
or denied.
2.
THE MISSION OF AMERICA
A
From his Fourth of July Oration at Washington, 1821
ND now, friends and countrymen, if the wise and learned
philosophers of the older world, the first observers of nuta.
tion and aberration, the discoverers of maddening ether and
invisible planets, the inventors of Congreve rockets and shrapnel
shells, should find their hearts disposed to inquire, What has
America done for mankind ? let our answer be this:— America,
with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as
nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of
human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government.
America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among
a


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JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
141
them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them
the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous
reciprocity. She has uniformly spoken among them, though often
to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal
liberty, equal justice, and equal rights. She has, in the lapse of
nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the
independence of other nations, while asserting and maintaining
her own. She has abstained from interference in the concerns of
others, even when the conflict has been for principles to which
she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. She
has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of
that Aceldama, the European World, will be contests between
inveterate power and emerging right. Wherever the standard of
freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there
will her heart, her benedictions, and her prayers be. But she
goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the
well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the
champion and vindicator only of her own. She will recommend
the general cause, by the countenance of her voice, and the
benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by
once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even
the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself,
beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and
intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume
the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental
maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to
force. The frontlet upon her brows would no longer beam with
the ineffable splendor of freedom and independence; but in its
stead would soon be substituted an imperial diadem, flashing in
false and tarnished lustre the murky radiance of dominion and
power. She might become the dictatress of the world; she would
no longer be the ruler of her own spirit.
THE RIGHT OF PETITION
Quoted in Memoir by Josiah Quincy
IR, it is . . . well known that, from the time I entered this
house, down to the present day, I have felt it a sacred duty
to present any petition, couched in respectful language, from
any citizen of the United States, be its object what it may, - be


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JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
the prayer of it that in which I could concur, or that to which I
was utterly opposed. I adhere to the right of petition; and let
me say here that, let the petition be, as the gentleman from
Virginia has stated, from free negroes, prostitutes, as he supposes,
for he says there is one put on this paper, and he infers that
the rest are of the same description, — that has not altered my
opinion at all. Where is your law that says that the mean, the
low, and the degraded, shall be deprived of the right of petition,
if their moral character is not good? Where, in the land of free-
men, was the right of petition ever placed on the exclusive basis
of morality and virtue ? Petition is supplication - it is entreaty -
it is prayer! And where is the degree of vice or immorality
which shall deprive the citizen of the right to supplicate for a
boon, or to pray for mercy ? Where is such a law to be found ?
It does not belong to the most abject despotism. There is no
absolute monarch on earth who is not compelled, by the constitu-
tion of his country, to receive the petitions of his people, whoso-
ever they may be. The Sultan of Constantinople cannot walk
the streets and refuse to receive petitions from the meanest and
vilest in the land. This is the law even of despotism; and what
does your law say ? Does it say, that, before presenting a peti-
tion, you shall look into it and see whether it comes from the
virtuous, and the great, and the mighty? No, sir; it says no such
thing. The right of petition belongs to all; and so far from
refusing to present a petition because it might come from those
low in the estimation of the world, it would be an additional
incentive, if such an incentive were wanting.
NULLIFICATION
From his Fourth of July Oration at Quincy, 1831
N"
ULLIFICATION is the provocation to that brutal and foul contest
of force, which has hitherto baffled all the efforts of the
European and Southern American nations, to introduce
among them constitutional governments of liberty and order. It
strips us of that peculiar and unimitated characteristic of all our
legislation - free debate; it makes the bayonet the arbiter of law;
it has no argument but the thunderbolt. It were senseless to
imagine that twenty-three States of the Union would suffer their
laws to be trampled upon by the despotic mandate of one. The
act of nullification would itself be null and void. Force st be
-
-
-
-
--
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143
called in to execute the law of the Union. Force must be applied
by the nullifying State to resist its execution -
“Ate, hot from Hell,
Cries Havoc! and lets slip the dogs of war. ”
The blood of brethren is shed by each other. The citizen of
the nullifying State is a traitor to his country, by obedience to
the law of his State; a traitor to his State, by obedience to the law
of his country.
The scaffold and the battle-field stream alter-
nately with the blood of their victims. Let this agent but once
intrude upon your deliberations, and Freedom will take her flight
for heaven. The Declaration of Independence will become a phi-
losophical dream, and uncontrolled, despotic sovereignties will
trample with impunity, through a long career of after ages, at
interminable or exterminating war with one another, upon the
indefeasible and unalienable rights of man.
The event of a conflict of arms, between the Union and one
of its members, whether terminating in victory or defeat, would
be but an alternative of calamity to all. In the holy records of
antiquity, we have two examples of a confederation ruptured by
the severance of its members; one of which resulted, after three
desperate battles, in the extermination of the seceding tribe. And
the victorious people, instead of exulting in shouts of triumph,
<< came to the House of God, and abode there till even before
God; and lifted up their voices, and wept sore, and said, -0
Lord God of Israel, why is this come to pass in Israel, that there
should be to-day one tribe lacking in Israel ? ” The other was a
successful example of resistance against tyrannical taxation, and
severed forever the confederacy, the fragments forming separate
kingdoms; and from that day, their history presents an unbroken
series of disastrous alliances and exterminating wars- of assas-
sinations, conspiracies, revolts, and rebellions, until both parts of
the confederacy sunk in tributary servitude to the nations around
them; till the countrymen of David and Solomon hung their
harps upon the willows of Babylon, and were totally lost among
the multitudes of the Chaldean and Assyrian monarchies, the
most despised portion of their slaves. "
In these mournful memorials of their fate, we may behold
the sure, too sure prognostication of our own, from the hour
when force shall be substituted for deliberation in the settlement
of our Constitutional questions. This is the deplorable alternative


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JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
1
race.
- the extirpation of the seceding member, or the never-ceasing
struggle of two rival confederacies, ultimately bending the neck of
both under the yoke of foreign domination, or the despotic sov-
ereignty of a conqueror at home. May Heaven avert the omen!
The destinies of not only our posterity, but of the human race,
are at stake.
Let no such melancholy forebodings intrude upon the festivi.
ities of this anniversary. Serene skies and balmy breezes are not
congenial to the climate of freedom. Progressive improvement
in the condition of man is apparently the purpose of a superin-
tending Providence. That purpose will not be disappointed. In
no delusion of national vanity, but with a feeling of profound
gratitude to the God of our Fathers, let us indulge the cheering
hope and belief, that our country and her people have been
selected as instruments for preparing and maturing much of the
good yet in reserve for the welfare and happiness of the human
Much good has already been effected by the solemn pro-
clamation of our principles, much more by the illustration of our
example. The tempest which threatens desolation, may be des-
tined only to purify the atmosphere. It is not in tranquil ease
and enjoyment that the active energies of mankind are displayed.
Toils and dangers are the trials of the soul. Doomed to the
first by his sentence at the fall, man, by his submission, converts
them into pleasures. The last are since the fall the condition of
his existence. To see them in advance, to guard against them
by all the suggestions of prudence, to meet them with the com-
posure of unyielding resistance, and to abide with firm resigna-
tion the final dispensation of Him who rules the ball, — these are
the dictates of philosophy — these are the precepts of religion –
these are the principles and consolations of patriotism; these re-
main when all is lost — and of these is composed the spirit of
independence - the spirit embodied in that beautiful personifica-
tion of the poet, which may each of you, my countrymen, to the
last hour of his life, apply to himself:
“Thy spirit, Independence, let me share,
Lord of the lion heart and eagle eye!
Thy steps I follow, with my bosom bare,
Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky. ”
In the course of nature, the voice which now addresses you
must soon cease to be heard upon earth. Life and all which it


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SARAH FLOWER ADAMS
145
inherits, lose of their value as it draws toward its close. But for
most of you, my friends and neighbors, long and many years of
futurity are yet in store. May they be years of freedom — years
of prosperity — years of happiness, ripening for immortality! But,
were the breath which now gives utterance to my feelings, the
last vital air I should draw, my expiring words to you and your
children should be, INDEPENDENCE AND UNION FOREVER!
SARAH FLOWER ADAMS
(1805-1848)
T
His English poet, whose hymn, Nearer, my God, to Thee,' is
known wherever the English language is spoken, was born
at Great Harlow, Essex, England, in 1805. She was the
daughter of Benjamin Flower, who in 1799 was prosecuted for plain
speaking in his paper, the Cambridge Intelligencer. From the out-
come of his trial is to be dated the liberty of political discussion
in England. Her mother was Eliza Gould, who first met her future
husband in jail, whither she had gone on a visit to assure him of her
sympathy. She also had suffered for liberal opinions. From their
parents two daughters inherited a distinguished nobility and purity of
character. Eliza excelled in the composition of music for congrega-
tional worship, and arranged a musical service for the Unitarian
South Place Chapel, London. Sarah contributed first to the Monthly
Repository, conducted by W. J. Fox, her Unitarian pastor, in whose
family she lived after her father's death. In 1834 she married William
Bridges Adams. Her delicate health gave way under the shock of
her sister's death in 1846, and she died of decline in 1848.
Her poetic genius found expression both in the drama and in
hymns. Her play, Vivia Perpetua' (1841 ), tells of the author's rapt
aspiration after an ideal, symbolized in a pagan's conversion to Christ-
ianity. She published also “The Royal Progress,' a ballad (1845), on
the giving up of the feudal privileges of the Isle of Wight to Edward
I.
; and poems upon the humanitarian interests which the Anti-Corn-
Law League endeavored to further. Her hymns are the happiest
expressions of the religious trust, resignation, and sweetness of her
nature.
Nearer, my God, to Thee,' was written for the South Place
Chapel service. There are stories of its echoes having been heard
from a dilapidated log cabin in Arkansas, from a remote corner of
the north of England, and from the Heights of Benjamin in the Holy
1-10


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SARAH FLOWER ADAMS
Land. But even its devotion and humility have not escaped censure —
arising, perhaps, from denominational bias. The fault found with it
is the fault of Addison's (How are thy servants blessed, O Lord,'
and the fault of the Psalmody begun by Sternhold and Hopkins,
which, published in Geneva in 1556, electrified the congregation of
six thousand souls in Elizabeth's reign,- it has no direct reference
to Jesus. Compilers of hymn-books have sought to rectify what they
deem a lapse in Christian spirit by the substitution of a verse begin-
ing “Christ alone beareth me. ” But the quality of the interpolated
verse is so inferior to the lyric itself that it has not found general
acceptance. Others, again, with an excess of zeal, have endeavored
to substitute «the Cross” for “a cross” in the first stanza.
An even share of its extraordinary vogue must in bare justice be
credited to the tune which Dr. Lowell Mason has made an insepa-
rable part of it; though this does not detract in the least from its
own high merit, or its capacity to satisfy the feelings of a devout
soul.
A taking melody is the first condition of even the loveliest
song's obtaining popularity; and this hymn was sung for many years
to various tunes, including chants, with no general recognition of its
quality. It was Dr. Mason's tune, written about 1860, which sent it
at once into the hearts of the people.
HE SENDETH SUN, HE SENDETH SHOWER
H
E SENDETH sun, he sendeth shower,
Alike they're needful to the flower;
And joys and tears alike are sent
To give the soul fit nourishment.
As comes to me or cloud or sun,
Father! thy will, not mine, be done.
Can loving children e'er reprove
With murmurs, whom they trust and love?
Creator, I would ever be
A trusting, loving child to thee:
As comes to me or cloud or sun,
Father! thy will, not mine, be done.
Oh, ne'er will I at life repine, -
Enough that thou hast made it mine.
When falls the shadow cold of death,
I yet will sing with parting breath,
As comes to me or cloud or sun,
Father! thy will, not mine, be done.


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SARAH FLOWER ADAMS
147
NEARER, MY GOD, TO THEE
N"
EARER, my God, to thee,
Nearer to thee!
E'en though it be a cross
That raiseth me;
Still all my song shall be,
Nearer, my God, to thee,
Nearer to thee!
Though, like a wanderer,
The sun gone down,
Darkness be over me,
My rest a stone;
Yet in my dreams I'd be
Nearer, my God, to thee,
Nearer to thee!
There let the way appear
Steps unto heaven;
All that thou sendest me
In mercy given;
Angels to beckon me
Nearer, my God, to thee,
Nearer to thee!
Then with my waking thoughts
Bright with thy praise,
Out of my stony griefs
Bethel I'll raise;
So by my woes to be
Nearer, my God, to thee,
Nearer to thee!
Or if on joyful wing,
Cleaving the sky,
Sun, moon, and stars forgot,
Upward I fly;
Still all my song shall be,
Nearer, my God, to thee,
Nearer to thee!
From Adoration, Aspiration, and Belief. "


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148
JOSEPH ADDISON
(1672-1719)
BY HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE
HERE are few figures in literary history more dignified and
attractive than Joseph Addison; few men more eminently
representative, not only of literature as a profession, but of
literature as an art. It has happened more than once that literary
gifts of a high order have been lodged in very frail moral tenements;
that taste, feeling, and felicity of expression have been divorced from
general intellectual power, from intimate acquaintance with the best
in thought and art, from grace of manner and dignity of life. There
have been writers of force and originality who failed to attain a rep-
resentative eminence, to identify themselves with their art in the
memory of the world. There have been other writers without claim
to the possession of gifts of the highest order, who have secured this
distinction by virtue of harmony of character and work, of breadth
of interest, and of that fine intelligence which instinctively allies
itself with the best in its time. Of this class Addison is an illustrious
example. His gifts are not of the highest order; there was none of
the spontaneity, abandon, or fertility of genius in him; his thought
made no lasting contribution to the highest intellectual life; he set no
pulses beating by his eloquence of style, and fired no imagination by
the insight and emotion of his verse; he was not a scholar in the
technical sense: and yet, in an age which was stirred and stung by
the immense satiric force of Swift, charmed by the wit and elegance
of Pope, moved by the tenderness of Steele, and enchanted by the
fresh realism of De Foe, Addison holds the most representative place.
He is, above all others, the Man of Letters of his time; his name
instantly evokes the literature of his period.
Born in the rectory at Milston, Wiltshire, on May Day, 1672, it was
Addison's fortune to take up the profession of Letters at the very
moment when it was becoming a recognized profession, with a field
of its own, and with emoluments sufficient in kind to make decency
of living possible, and so related to a man's work that their accept-
ance involved loss neither of dignity nor of independence. He was
contemporary with the first English publisher, Jacob Tonson. He
was also contemporary with the notable reorganization of English
prose which freed it from exaggeration, complexity, and obscurity;
and he contributed not a little to the flexibility, charm, balance, and
ease which have since characterized its best examples. He saw the


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JOSEPH ADDISON
149
rise of polite society in its modern sense; the development of the
social resources of the city; the enlargement of what is called “the
reading class” to embrace all classes in the community and all orders
in the nation. And he was one of the first, following the logic of
a free press, an organized business for the sale of books, and the
appearance of popular interest in literature, to undertake that work of
translating the best thought, feeling, sentiment, and knowledge of
his time, and of all times, into the language of the drawing-room, the
club, and the street, which has done so much to humanize and civilize
the modern world.
To recognize these various opportunities, to feel intuitively the
drift of sentiment and conviction, and so to adjust the uses of art to
life as to exalt the one, and enrich and refine the other, involved
not only the possession of gifts of a high order, but that training
which puts a man in command of himself and of his materials.
Addison was fortunate in that incomparably important education
which assails a child through every sense, and above all through the
imagination --- in the atmosphere of a home, frugal in its service to
the body, but prodigal in its ministry to the spirit. His father was
a man of generous culture: an Oxford scholar, who had stood frankly
for the Monarchy and Episcopacy in Puritan times; a voluminous and
agreeable writer; of whom Steele says that he bred his five children
« with all the care imaginable in a liberal and generous way. ” From
this most influential of schools Addison passed on to other masters:
from the Grammar School at Lichfield, to the well-known Charter
House; and thence to Oxford, where he first entered Queen's College,
and later, became a member of Magdalen, to the beauty of whose
architecture and natural situation the tradition of his walks and per-
sonality adds no small charm. He was a close student, shy in man-
ner, given to late hours of work. His literary tastes and appetite
were early disclosed, and in his twenty-second year he was already
known in London, had written an Account of the Greatest English
Poets,' and had addressed some complimentary verses to Dryden,
then the recognized head of English Letters.
While Addison was hesitating what profession to follow, the lead-
ers of the political parties were casting about for men of literary
power. A new force had appeared in English politics -- the force of
public opinion, and in their experiments to control and direct this
novel force, politicians were eager to secure the aid of men of Let-
ters. The shifting of power to the House of Commons involved a
radical readjustment, not only of the mechanism of political action,
but of the attitude of public men to the nation. They felt the need
of trained and persuasive interpreters and advocates; of the resources
of wit, satire, and humor. It was this very practical service which


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150
JOSEPH ADDISON
literature was in the way of rendering to political parties, rather than
any deep regard for literature itself, which brought about a brief but
brilliant alliance between groups of men who have not often worked
together to mutual advantage. It must be said, however, that there
was among the great Whig and Tory leaders of the time a certain
liberality of taste, and a care for those things which give public life
dignity and elegance, which were entirely absent from Robert Wal-
pole and the leaders of the two succeeding reigns, when literature
and politics were completely divorced, and the government knew
little and cared less for the welfare of the arts. Addison came on
the stage at the very moment when the government was not only
ready but eager to foster such talents as his. He was a Whig of
pronounced although modern type, and the Whigs were in power.
Lord Somers and Charles Montagu, better known later as Lord
Halifax, were the heads of the ministry, and his personal friends as
well. They were men of culture, lovers of Letters, and not unap-
preciative of the personal distinction which already stamped the
studious and dignified Magdalen scholar. A Latin poem on the Peace
of Ryswick, dedicated to Montagu, happily combined Virgilian ele-
gance and felicity with Whig sentiment and achievement.
It con-
firmed the judgment already formed of Addison's ability; and, setting
aside with friendly insistence the plan of putting that ability into the
service of the Church, Montagu secured a pension of £300 for the
purpose of enabling Addison to fit himself for public employment
abroad by thorough study of the French language, and of manners,
methods, and institutions on the Continent. With eight Latin poems,
published in the second volume of the Musæ Anglicanæ,' as
introduction to foreign scholars, and armed with letters of introduction
from Montagu to many distinguished personages, Addison left Oxford
in the summer of 1699, and, after a prolonged stay at Blois for pur-
poses of study, visited many cities and interesting localities in France,
Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, and Holland. The shy, reticent,
but observing young traveler was everywhere received with the
courtesy which early in the century had made so deep an impression
on the young Milton. He studied hard, saw much, and meditated
more. He was not only fitting himself for public service, but for
that delicate portraiture of manners which was later to become his
distinctive work. Clarendon had already drawn a series of lifelike
portraits of men of action in the stormy period of the Revolution:
Addison was, to sketch the society of his time with a touch at once
delicate and firm; to exhibit its life in those aspects which emphasize
individual humor and personal quality, against a carefully wrought
background of habit, manners, usage, and social condition. The
habit of observation and the wide acquaintance with cultivated and
an


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JOSEPH ADDISON
151
elegant social life which was a necessary part of the training for the
work which was later to appear in the pages of the Spectator, were
perhaps the richest educational results of these years of travel and
study; for Addison the official is a comparatively obscure figure, but
Addison the writer is one of the most admirable and attractive figures
in English history.
Addison returned to England in 1703 with clouded prospects. The
accession of Queen Anne had been followed by the dismissal of the
Whigs from office; his pension was stopped, his opportunity of ad-
vancement gone, and his father dead. The skies soon brightened,
however: the support of the Whigs became necessary to the Govern-
ment; the brilliant victory of Blenheim shed lustre not only on Marl-
borough, but on the men with whom he was politically affiliated; and
there was great dearth of poetic ability in the Tory ranks at the very
moment when a notable achievement called for brave and splendid
Lord Godolphin, that easy-going and eminently successful
politician of whom Charles the Second once shrewdly said that he
was never in the way and never out of it,” was directed to Addison
in this emergency; and the story goes that the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, afterward Lord Carleton, who was sent to express to the
needy scholar the wishes of the Government, found him lodged in a
garret over a small shop. The result of this memorable embassy
from politics to literature was “The Campaign': an eminently suc-
cessful poem of the formal, occasional” order, which celebrated the
victor of Blenheim with tact and taste, pleased the ministry, delighted
the public, and brought reputation and fortune to its unknown
writer. Its excellence is in skillful avoidance of fulsome adulation, in
the exclusion of the well-worn classical allusions, and in a straight-
forward celebration of those really great qualities in Marlborough
which set his military career in brilliant contrast with his private life.
The poem closed with a simile which took the world by storm :-
verse.
«So when an angel, by divine command,
With rising tempests shakes a guilty land,
(Such as of late o'er pale Britannia passed,)
Calm and serene he drives the furious blast;
And, pleased the Almighty's orders to perform,
Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm. ”
« Addison left off at a good moment,” says Thackeray. “That
simile was pronounced to be the greatest ever produced in poetry.
That angel, that good angel, flew off with Mr. Addison, and landed
him in the place of Commissioner of Appeals -- vice Mr. Locke, provi-
dentially promoted.
In
the following year Mr. Addison went to
Hanover with Lord Halifax, and the year after was made Under-
Secretary of State. O angel visits! You come few and far between'


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152
JOSEPH ADDISON
to literary gentlemen's lodgings! Your wings seldom quiver at the
second-floor windows now!
The prize poem was followed by a narrative of travel in Italy,
happily written, full of felicitous description, and touched by a humor
which, in quality and manner, was new to English readers. Then
came one of those indiscretions of the imagination which showed
that the dignified and somewhat sober young poet, the "parson in a
tye-wig,” as he was called at a later day, was not lacking in gayety
of mood. The opera (Rosamond' was not a popular success, mainly
because the music to which it was set fell so far below it in grace
and ease. It must be added, however, that Addison lacked the quali-
ties of a successful libretto writer. He was too serious, and despite
the lightness of his touch, there was a certain rigidity in him which
made him unapt at versification which required quickness, agility,
and variety. When he attempted to give his verse gayety of manner,
he did not get beyond awkward simulation of an ease which nature
had denied him:-
«Since conjugal passion
Is come into fashion,
And marriage so blest on the throne is,
Like a Venus l'll shine,
Be fond and be fine,
And Sir Trusty shall be my Adonis. ”
Meantime, in spite of occasional clouds, Addison's fortunes were
steadily advancing. The Earl of Wharton was appointed Lord Lieu-
tenant of Ireland, and Addison accepted the lucrative post of Secre-
tary. Spenser had found time and place, during a similar service in
the same country, to complete the 'Faery Queene'; although the fair
land in which the loveliest of English poems has its action was not
unvexed by the chronic turbulence of a mercurial and badly used
race.
. Irish residence was coincident in Addison's case, not only with
prosperous fortunes and with important friendships, but also with the
beginning of the work on which his fame securely rests. In Ireland
the acquaintance he had already made in London with Swift ripened
into a generous friendship, which for a time resisted political differ-
ences when such differences were the constant occasion of personal
animosity and bitterness. The two men represented the age in an
uncommonly complete way. Swift had the greater genius: he was,
indeed, in respect of natural endowment, the foremost man of his
time; but his nature was undisciplined, his temper uncertain, and his
great powers quite as much at the service of his passions as of his
principles. He made himself respected, feared, and finally hated;
his lack of restraint and balance, his ferocity of spirit when opposed,
and the violence with which he assailed his enemies, neutralized


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JOSEPH ADDISON
153
(
(
SO
his splendid gifts, marred his fortune, and sent him into lonely exile
at Dublin, where he longed for the ampler world of London. Few
figures in literary history are more pathetic than that of the old
Dean of St. Patrick's, broken in spirit, failing in health, his noble
faculties gone into premature decay, forsaken, bitter, and remorseful.
At the time of Addison's stay in Ireland, the days of Swift's eclipse
were, however, far distant; both men were in their prime. That
Swift loved Addison is clear enough; and it is easy to understand
the qualities which made Addison one of the most deeply loved men
of his time. He was of an eminently social temper, although averse
to large companies and shy and silent in their presence. “There is
no such thing,” he once said, “as real conversation but between two
persons. ” He was free from malice, meanness, or jealousy, Pope to
the contrary notwithstanding. He was absolutely loyal to his prin-
ciples and to his friends, in a time when many men changed both
with as little compunction as they changed wigs and swords. His
personality was singularly winning; his features regular, and full of
refinement and intelligence; his bearing dignified and graceful; his
temper kindly and in perfect control; his character without a stain;
his conversation enchanting, its charm confessed by persons
diverse in taste as Pope, Swift, Steele, and Young. Lady Mary
Montagu declared that he was the best company she had ever known.
He had two faults of which the world has heard much: he loved the
company of men who flattered him, and at times he used wine
too freely. The first of these defects was venial, and did not blind
his judgment either of himself or his friends; the second defect was
common among the men of his time that Addison's occasional
over-indulgence, in contrast with the excesses of others, seems like
temperance itself.
The harmony and symmetry of this winning personality has, in a
sense, told against it; for men are prone to call the well-balanced
nature cold and the well-regulated life Pharisaic. Addison did not
escape charges of this kind from the wild livers of his own time,
who could not dissociate genius from profligacynor generosity of
nature from prodigality. It was one of the great services of Addison
to his generation and to all generations, that in an age of violent
passions, he showed how a strong man could govern himself. In a
time of reckless living, he illustrated the power which flows from
subordination of pleasure to duty. In a day when wit was identified
with malice, he brought out its power to entertain, surprise, and
delight, without taking on the irreverent levity of Voltaire, the bit-
terness of Swift, or the malice of Pope.
It was during Addison's stay in Ireland that Richard Steele pro-
jected the Tatler, and brought out the first number in 1709. His
SO


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154
JOSEPH ADDISON
friendship for Addison amounted almost to a passion; their intimacy
was cemented by harmony of tastes and diversity of character.
Steele was ardent, impulsive, warm-hearted. mercurial; full of aspi-
ration and beset by lamentable weaknesses,— preaching the highest
morality and constantly falling into the prevalent vices of his time;
a man so lovable of temper, so generous a spirit, and so frank a
nature, that his faults seem to humanize his character rather than
to weaken and stain it. Steele's gifts were many, and they were
always at the service of his feelings; he had an Irish warmth of
sympathy and an Irish readiness of humor, with great facility of
inventiveness, and an inexhaustible interest in all aspects of human
experience. There had been political journals in England since the
time of the Revolution, but Steele conceived the idea of a journal
which should comment on the events and characteristics of the time
in a bright and humorous way; using freedom with judgment and
taste, and attacking the vices and follies of the time with the light
equipment of wit rather than with the heavy armament of the formal
moralist. The time was ripe for such an enterprise. London was
full of men and women of brilliant parts, whose manners, tastes,
and talk presented rich material for humorous report and delineation
or for satiric comment. Society, in the modern sense, was fast tak-
ing form, and the resources of social intercourse were being rapidly
developed. Men in public life were intimately allied with society
and sensitive to its opinion; and men of all interests — public, fashion-
able, literary - gathered in groups at the different chocolate or coffee
houses, and formed a kind of organized community. It was distinctly
an aristocratic society: elegant in dress, punctilious in manner, exact-
ing in taste, ready to be amused, and not indifferent to criticism
when it took the form of sprightly badinage or of keen and trench-
ant satire. The informal organization of society, which made it pos-
sible to reach and affect the Town as a whole, is suggested by the
division of the Tatler:-
“All accounts of Gallantry, Pleasure, and Entertainment, shall be
under the article of White's Chocolate-House; Poetry under that of
Will's Coffee-House; Learning under the title of Grecian; Foreign and
Domestic News you will have from St. James's Coffee-House: and
what else I have to offer on any other subject shall be dated from
my own apartment. ”
So wrote Steele in his introduction to the readers of the new jour-
nal, which was to appear three times a week, at the cost of a penny.
Of the coffee-houses enumerated, St. James's and White's were the
headquarters of men of fashion and of politics; the Grecian of men of
legal learning; Will's of men of Letters. The Tatler was successful
from the start. It was novel in form in spirit; it was sprightly


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JOSEPH ADDISON
155
without being frivolous, witty without being indecent, keen without
being libelous or malicious. In the general license and coarseness of
the time, so close to the Restoration and the powerful reaction against
Puritanism, the cleanness, courtesy, and good taste which characterized
the journal had all the charm of a new diversion. In paper No. 18,
Addison made his appearance as a contributor, and gave the world
the first of those inimitable essays which influenced their own time so
widely, and which have become the solace and delight of all times.
To Addison's influence may perhaps be traced the change which
came over the Tatler, and which is seen in the gradual disappearance
of the news element, and the steady drift of the paper away from
journalism and toward literature. Society soon felt the full force of
the extraordinary talent at the command of the new censor of con-
temporary manners and morals. There was a well-directed and inces-
sant fire of wit against the prevailing taste of dramatic art; against
the vices of gambling and dueling; against extravagance and affect-
ation of dress and manner: and there was also criticism of a new
order.
The Tatler was discontinued in January, 1711, and the first num-
ber of the Spectator appeared in March. The new journal was issued
daily, but it made no pretensions to newspaper timeliness or interest;
it aimed to set a new standard in manners, morals, and taste, with-
out assuming the airs of a teacher. “It was said of Socrates," wrote
Addison, in a memorable chapter in the new journal, “that he
brought Philosophy down from heaven to inhabit among men; and I
shall be happy to have it said of me that I have brought Philosophy
out of closets and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs
and assemblies, at tea-tables and in coffee-houses. ” For more than
two years the Spectator discharged with inimitable skill and success
the difficult function of chiding, reproving, and correcting, without
irritating, wounding, or causing strife. Swift found the paper too
gentle, but its influence was due in no small measure to its persuas-
iveness. Addison studied his method of attack as carefully as Mat-
thew Arnold, who undertook a similar educational work in our own
time, studied his means of approach to a public indifferent or hostile
to his ideas. The two hundred and seventy-four papers furnished by
Addison to the columns of the Spectator may be said to mark the
full development of English prose as a free, flexible, clear, and ele-
gant medium of expressing the most varied and delicate shades of
thought. They mark also the perfection of the essay form in our
literature; revealing clear perception of its limitations and of its
resources; easy mastery of its possibilities of serious exposition and
of pervading charm; ability to employ its full capacity of conveying
serious thought in a manner at once easy and authoritative. They


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156
JOSEPH ADDISON
mark also the beginning of a deeper and more intelligent criticism;
for their exposition of Milton may be said to point the way to a new
quality of literary judgment and a new order of literary comment.
These papers mark, finally, the beginnings of the English novel; for
they contain a series of character-studies full of insight, delicacy of
drawing, true feeling, and sureness of touch. Addison was not con-
tent to satirize the follies, attack the vices, and picture the manners
of his times: he created a group of figures which stand out as dis-
tinctly as those which were drawn more than a century later by
the hand of Thackeray, our greatest painter of manners. De Foe had
not yet published the first of the great modern novels of incident
and adventure in Robinson Crusoe,' and Richardson, Fielding, and
Smollett were unborn or unknown, when Addison was sketching Sir
Roger de Coverley and Will Honeycomb, and filling in the back-
ground with charming studies of life in London and in the country.
The world has instinctively selected Sir Roger de Coverley as the
truest of all the creations of Addison's imagination; and it sheds clear
light on the fineness of Addison's nature that among the four charac-
ters in fiction whom English readers have agreed to accept as typical
gentlemen,- Don Quixote, Sir Roger de Coverley, Henry Esmond, and
Colonel Newcombe, — the old English baronet holds a secure place.
Finished in style, but genuinely human in feeling, betraying the
nicest choice of words and the most studied care for elegant and
effective arrangement, and yet penetrated by geniality, enlivened by
humor, elevated by high moral aims, often using the dangerous
weapons of irony and satire, and yet always well-mannered and
kindly, — these papers reveal the sensitive nature of Addison and the
delicate but thoroughly tempered art which he had at his command.
Rarely has literature of so high an order had such instant suc-
cess; for the popularity of the Spectator has been rivaled in English
literature only by that of the Waverley novels or of the novels of
Dickens. Its influence was felt not only in the sentiment of the
day, and in the crowd of imitators which followed in its wake, but
also across the Channel. In Germany, especially, the genius and
methods of Addison made a deep and lasting impression.
No man could reach such eminence in the first quarter of the
last century without being tempted to try his hand at play-writing;
and the friendly fortune which seemed to serve Addison at every
turn reached its climax in the applause which greeted the production
of Cato. ' The motive of this tragedy, constructed on what were
then held to be classic lines, is found in the two lines of the Pro-
logue: it was an endeavor to portray
«A brave man struggling in the storms of fate,
And greatly falling with a falling State. ”


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JOSEPH ADDISON
157
The play was full of striking lines which were instantly caught
up and applied to the existing political situation; the theatre was
crowded night after night, and the resources of Europe in the way
of translations, plaudits, and favorable criticisms were exhausted in
the endeavor to express the general approval. The judgment of a
later period has, however, assigned Cato a secondary place, and it
is remembered mainly on account of its many felicitous passages.
It lacks real dramatic unity and vitality; the character of Cato is
essentially an abstraction; there is little dramatic necessity in the
situations and incidents. It is rhetorical rather than poetic, declama-
tory rather than dramatic. Johnson aptly described it as «rather a
poem in dialogue than a drama, rather a succession of just senti-
ments in elegant language than a representation of natural affections,
or of any state probable or possible in human life. ”
Addison's popularity touched its highest point in the production
of Cato. Even his conciliatory nature could not disarm the envy
which such brilliant success naturally aroused, nor wholly escape the
bitterness which the intense political feeling of the time constantly
bred between ambitious and able men. Political differences separated
him from Swift, and Steele's uncertain character and inconsistent
course blighted what was probably the most delightful intimacy of
his life. Pope doubtless believed that he had good ground for char-
ging Addison with jealousy and insincerity, and in 1715 an open
rupture took place between them. The story of the famous quarrel
was first told by Pope, and his version was long accepted in many
quarters as final; but later opinion inclines to hold Addison guiltless
of the grave accusations brought against him. Pope was morbidly
sensitive to slights, morbidly eager for praise, and extremely irritable.
To a man of such temper, trifles light as air became significant of
malice and hatred. Such trifles unhappily confirmed Pope's sus-
picions; his self-love was wounded, sensitiveness became animosity,
and animosity became hate, which in the end inspired the most
stinging bit of satire in the language:-
«Should such a one, resolved to reign alone,
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne,
View him with jealous yet with scornful eyes,
Hate him for arts that caused himself to rise,
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer;
Alike unused to blame or to commend.
A timorous foe and a suspicious friend,
Fearing e'en fools, by flatterers besieged,
And so obliging that he ne'er obliged;
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike.