English Literature For Boys And Girls by H.E. Marshall

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And now having introduced you and Gulliver to the Lilliputians, I
must leave you to hear about his further adventures among them
from the book itself. There you will learn how Gulliver received
his freedom, and how he lived happily among the little people
until at length Swift falls upon the quaint idea of having him
impeached for treason. Gulliver then, hearing of this danger,
escapes, and after a few more adventures arrives at home.

As a contrast to what you have just read you may like to hear of
Gulliver's first adventures in Brobdingnag, the land of giants.
Gulliver had been found by a farmer and carried home. When the
farmer's wife first saw him "she screamed and ran back, as women
in England do at the sight of a toad or a spider." However, when
she saw that he was only a tiny man, she soon grew fond of him.

"It was about twelve at noon, and a servant brought in dinner.
It was only one substantial dish of meat (fit for the plain
condition of a husbandman) in a dish of about four-and-twenty
foot diameter. The company were the farmer and his wife, three
children, and an old grand-mother. When they were sat down, the
farmer placed me at some distance from him on the table, which
was thirty foot high from the floor. I was in a terrible fright,
and kept as far as I could from the edge for fear of falling.
The wife minced a bit of meat, then crumbled some bread on a
trencher, and placed it before me. I made her a low bow, took
out my knife and fork, and fell to eat, which gave them exceeding
delight. The mistress sent her maid for a small dram cup, which
held about two gallons, and filled it with drink. I took up the
vessel with much difficulty in both hands, and in a most
respectful manner drank to her ladyship's health, expressing the
words as loud as I could in English, which made the company laugh
so heartily, that I was almost deafened with the noise. . . .

"In the midst of dinner, my mistress's favourite cat leapt into
her lap. I heard a noise behind me like that of a dozen
stocking-weavers at work; and turning my head, I found it
proceeded from the purring of this animal, who seemed to be three
times larger than an ox, as I computed by the view of her head,
and one of her paws, while her mistress was feeding and stroking
her. The fierceness of this creature's countenance altogether
discomposed me; though I stood at the further end of the table,
above fifty foot off; and although my mistress held her fast for
fear she might give a spring, and seize me in her talons. But it
happened there was no danger; for the cat took not the least
notice of me when my master placed me within three yards of her.
And as I have been always told, and found true by experience in
my travels, that flying, or discovering fear before a fierce
animal, is a certain way to make it pursue or attack you, so I
resolved in this dangerous juncture to show no manner of concern.
I walked with intrepidity five or six times before the very head
of the cat, and came within half a yard of her; whereupon she
drew herself back, as if she were more afraid of me."

When it was published Gulliver's Travels was at once a great
success. Ten days after it appeared, two poets wrote to Swift
that "the whole town, men, women, and children are quite full of
it."

For nearly twenty years longer Swift lived, then sad to say the
life of the man who wrote for us these fascinating tales closed
in gloom without relief. Stella, his life-long friend, died.
That left him forlorn and desolate. Then, as the years passed,
darker and darker gloom settled upon his spirit. Disease crept
over both mind and body, he was tortured by pain, and when at
length the pain left him he sank into torpor. It was not madness
that had come upon him, but a dumb stupor. For more than two
years he lived, but it was a living death. Without memory,
without hope, the great genius had become the voiceless ruin of a
man. But at length a merciful end came. On an October day in
1745 Swift died. He who had torn his own heard with restless
bitterness, who had suffered and caused others to suffer, had at
last found rest.

He was buried at dead of night in his own cathedral and laid by
Stella's side, and over his grave were carved words chosen by
himself which told the wayfarer that Jonathan Swift had gone
"Where savage indignation can no longer tear at his heart. Go,
wayfarer, and imitate, if thou canst, a man who did all a man may
do as a valiant champion of liberty."

BOOKS TO READ

Stories of Gulliver, by J. Lang. Gulliver's Travels. Gulliver's
Travels (Everyman's Library).

NOTE:--These two last are both the same text and are illustrated
by A. Rackham. It is the edition in Temple Classics for Young
People that is recommended, not that in the Temple Classics.

Chapter LXV ADDISON--THE "SPECTATOR"

SWIFT'S wit makes us laugh, but it leaves us on the whole,
perhaps, a little sad. Now we come to a satirist of quite
another spirit whose wit, it has been said, "makes us laugh and
leaves us good and happy."*

*Thackeray.

Joseph Addison was the son of a Dean. He was born in 1672 in the
quaint little thatched parsonage of Milston, a Wiltshire village,
not far from that strange monument of ancient days, Stonehenge.
When he was old enough Joseph was sent first to schools near his
home, and then a little later to the famous Charterhouse in
London. Of his schooldays we know little, but we can guess, for
one story that has come down to us, that he was a shy, nervous
boy. It is said that once, having done something a little wrong,
he was so afraid of what punishment might follow that he ran
away. He hid in a wood, sleeping in a hollow tree and feeding on
wild berries until he was found and taken home to his parents.

At Charterhouse Joseph met another boy named Dick Steele, and
these two became fast friends although they were very different
from each other. For Dick was merry, noisy, and fun-loving, and
although Joseph loved fun too it was in a quiet, shy way. Dick,
who was a few weeks older than Joseph, was the son of a well-to-
do lawyer. He was born in Ireland, but did not remain there
long. For, as both his father and mother died when he was still
a little boy, he was brought to England to be taken care of by an
uncle.

From Charterhouse Joseph and Dick both went to Oxford, but to
different Colleges. Dick left the University without taking his
degree and became a soldier, while Joseph stayed many years and
became a man of learning.

Joseph Addison had gone to College with the idea of becoming a
clergyman like his father, but after a time he gave up that idea,
and turned his thoughts to politics. The politicians of the day
were always on the lookout for clever men, who, by their
writings, would help to sway the people to their way of thinking.
Already at college Addison had become known by his Latin poetry,
and three Whig statesmen thought so highly of it that they
offered him a pension of 300 pounds a year to allow him to travel
on the Continent and learn French and so add to his learning as to
be able to help their side by his writing. Addison accepted the
pension and set out on his travels. For four years he wandered
about the Continent, adding to his store of knowledge of men and
books, meeting many of the foremost men of letters of his day.
But long before he returned home his friends had fallen from
power and his pension was stopped. So back in London we find him
cheerfully betaking himself to a poor lodging up three flights of
stairs, hoping for something to turn up.

These were the days of the War of the Spanish Succession and of
the brilliant victories of Marlborough of which you have read in
the history of the time of Anne. Blenheim had been fought. All
England was ringing with the praises of the great General in
prose and verse. But the verse was poor, and it seemed to those
in power that this great victory ought to be celebrated more
worthily, so the Lord Treasurer looked about him for some one who
could sing of it in fitting fashion. The right person, however,
seemed hard to find, and the laureate of the day, an honest
gentleman named Nahum Tate, who could hardly be called a poet,
was quite unable for the task. To help the Lord Treasurer out of
his difficulty one of the great men who had already befriended
Addison suggested him as a suitable writer. And so one morning
Addison was surprised in his little garret by a visit from no
less a person than the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

A shy boy at school, Addison had grown into a shy, retiring man,
and no doubt he was not a little taken aback at a visit from so
great a personage. The Chancellor, however, soon put him at his
ease, told him what he had come about, and begged him to
undertake the work. "In short, the Chancellor said so many
obliging things, and in so graceful a manner, as gave Mr. Addison
the utmost spirit and encouragement to begin that poem, which he
afterwards published and entitled The Campaign."*

*Budgell, Memories of the Boyles.

The poem was a great success, and besides being paid for the
work, Addison received a Government post, so once more life ran
smoothly for him. He had now both money and leisure. His
Government duties left him time to write, and in the next few
years he published a delightful book of his travels, and an
opera.

Shy, humorous, courteous, Addison steadily grew popular.
Everything went well with him. "If he had a mind to be chosen
king he would hardly be refused," said Swift. He, however, only
became a member of Parliament. But he was too shy ever to make a
speech, and presently he went to Ireland as Secretary of State.
Swift and Addison already knew each other, and Addison had sent a
copy of his travels to Swift as "to the most agreeable companion,
the truest friend, and the greatest genius of his age." Now in
Ireland they saw much of each other, and although they were, as
Swift himself says, as different as black and white, they became
fast friends. And even later, in those days of bitter party
feeling, when Swift left his own side and became a Tory, though
their friendship cooled, they never became enemies. Swift's
bitter pen was never turned against his old friend. Addison with
all his humor and his satire never attacked any man personally,
so their relations continued friendly and courteous to the end.

In the Journal to Stella we find many entries about this
difficulty between the friends, "Mr. Addison and I are as
different as black and white, and I believe our friendship will
go off by this business of party. But I love him still as much
as ever, though we seldom meet." "All our friendship and
dearness are off. We are civil acquaintance, talk words of
course, of when we shall meet, and that's all. Is it not odd?"
Then later the first bitterness of difference seems to pass, and
Swift tells how he went to Addison's for supper. "We were very
good company, and I yet know no man half so agreeable to me as he
is."

It was while Addison was in Ireland that Richard Steele started a
paper called the Tatler. When Addison found out that it was his
old friend Dick who had started the Tatler he offered to help.
And he helped to such good purpose that Steele says, "I fared
like a distressed prince who calls in a powerful neighbour to his
aid. I was undone by my own auxiliary; when I had once called
him in, I could not subsist without dependence on him."

This was the beginning of a long literary partnership that has
become famous. Never perhaps were two friends more different in
character. Yet, says Steele, long after, speaking of himself and
Addison, "There never was a more strict friendship than between
those gentlemen, nor had they ever any difference but what
proceeded from their different way of pursuing the same thing.
The one with patience, foresight, and temperate address, always
waited and stemmed the torrent; while the other often plunged
himself into it, and was as often taken out by the temper of him
who stood weeping on the brink for his safety, whom he could not
dissuade from leaping into it. . . . When they met they were as
unreserved as boys, and talked of the greatest affairs, upon
which they saw where they differed, without pressing (what they
knew impossible) to convert each other."*

*Steele in the Theatre, 12.

The Tatler, like Defoe's Review, was a leaflet of two or three
pages, published three times a week. The Review and other papers
of the same kind no doubt prepared the way for the Tatler. But
the latter was written with far greater genius, and while the
Review is almost forgotten the Tatler is still remembered and
still read.

In the first number Steele announced that:--"All accounts of
gallantry, pleasure and entertainment, shall be under the article
of White's Chocolate-House; Poetry under that of Wills' Coffee-
House; learning under the title of Grecian; foreign and domestic
news you will have from Saint James's Coffee-House; and what else
I have to offer on any other subject shall be dated from my own
apartment."

The coffee-houses and chocolate-houses were the clubs of the day.
It was there the wits gathered together to talk, just as in the
days of Ben Jonson they gathered at the Mermaid Tavern. And in
these still nearly newspaperless days it was in the coffee-houses
that the latest news, whether of politics or literature or sheer
gossip, was heard and discussed. At one coffee-house chiefly
statesmen and politicians would gather, at another poets and
wits, and so on. So Steele dated each article from the coffee-
house at which the subject of it would most naturally be
discussed.

Steele meant the Tatler to be a newspaper in which one might find
all the news of the day, but he also meant it to be something
more.

You have heard that, after the Restoration, many of the books
that were written, and plays that were acted, were coarse and
wicked, and the people who read these books and watched these
plays led coarse and wicked lives. And now a rollicking soldier,
noisy, good-hearted Dick Steele, "a rake among scholars, and a
scholar among rakes"* made up his mind to try to make things
better and give people something sweet and clean to read daily.
The Tatler, especially after Addison joined with Steele in
producing it, was a great success. But, as time went on,
although it continued to be a newspaper, gradually more room was
given to fiction than to fact, and to essays on all manner of
subjects than to the news of the day. For Addison is among the
greatest of our essayists. But although these essays were often
meant to teach something, neither Steele nor Addison are always
trying to be moral or enforce a lesson. At times the papers
fairly bubble with fun. One of the best humorous articles in the
Tatler is one in which Addison gives a pretended newly found
story by our friend Sir John Mandeville. It is perhaps as
delightful a lying tale as any that "learned and worthy knight"
ever invented. Here is a part of it:--

*Macaulay.

"We were separated by a storm in the latitude of 73, insomuch
that only the ship which I was in, with a Dutch and French
vessel, got safe into a creek of Nova Zembla. We landed, in
order to refit our vessels, and store ourselves with provisions.
The crew of each vessel made themselves a cabin of turf and wood,
at some distance from each other, to fence themselves against the
inclemencies of the weather, which was severe beyond imagination.

"We soon observed, that in talking to one another we lost several
of our words, and could not hear one another at above two yards'
distance, and that too when we sat very near the fire. After
much perplexity, I found that our words froze in the air before
they could reach the ears of the persons to whom they were
spoken. I was soon confirmed in this conjecture, when, upon the
increase of the cold, the whole company grew dumb, or rather
deaf. For every man was sensible, as we afterwards found, that
he spoke as well as ever, but the sounds no sooner took air than
they were condensed and lost.

"It was now a miserable spectacle to see us nodding and gaping at
one another, every man talking, and no man heard. One might
observe a seaman that could hail a ship at a league distance,
beckoning with his hands, straining his lungs, and tearing his
throat, but all in vain.

"We continued here three weeks in this dismal plight. At length,
upon a turn of wind, the air about us began to thaw. Our cabin
was immediately filled with a dry clattering sound, which I
afterwards found to be the crackling of consonants that broke
above our heads, and were often mixed with a gentle hissing,
which I imputed to the letter S, that occurs so frequently in the
English tongue.

"I soon after felt a breeze of whispers rushing by my ear; for
those, being of a soft and gentle substance, immediately
liquified in the warm wind that blew across our cabin. These
were soon followed by syllables and short words, and at length by
entire sentences, that melted sooner or later, as they were more
or less congealed; so that we now heard everything that had been
spoken during the whole three weeks that we had been silent; if I
may use that expression.

"It was now very early in the morning, and yet, to my surprise, I
heard somebody say, 'Sir John, it is midnight, and time for the
ship's crew to go to bed.' This I knew to be the pilot's voice,
and upon recollecting myself I concluded that he had spoken these
words to me some days before, though I could not hear them before
the present thaw. My reader will easily imagine how the whole
crew was amazed to hear every man talking, and seeing no man
opening his mouth."

When the confusion of voices was pretty well over Sir John
proposed a visit to the Dutch cabin, and so they set out. "At
about half a mile's distance from our cabin, we heard the
groanings of a bear, which at first startled us. But upon
inquiry we were informed by some of our company, that he was
dead, and now lay in salt, having been killed upon that very spot
about a fortnight before, in the time of the frost."

Having reached the Dutch cabin the company was almost stunned by
the confusion of sounds, and could not make out a word for about
half an hour. This, Sir John thinks, was because the Dutch
language being so much harsher than ours it "wanted more time
than ours to melt and become audible."

Next they visited the French cabin and here Sir John says, "I was
convinced of an error into which I had before fallen. For I had
fancied, that for the freezing of the sound, it was necessary for
it to be wrapped up, and, as it were, preserved in breath. But I
found my mistake, when I heard the sound of a kit playing a
minuet over our heads."

The kit was a small violin to the sound of which the Frenchmen
had danced to amuse themselves while they were deaf or dumb. How
it was that the kit could be heard during the frost and yet still
be heard in the thaw we are not told. Sir John gave very good
reasons, says Addison, but as they are somewhat long "I pass over
them in silence."*

*Tatler, 254.

Addison and Steele carried on the Tatler for two years, then it
was stopped to make way for a far more famous paper called the
Spectator. But meanwhile the Whigs fell from power and Addison
lost his Government post. In twelve months, he said to a friend,
he lost a place worth two thousand pounds a year, an estate in
the Indies, and, worst of all, his lady-love. Who the lady-love
was is not known, but doubtless she was some great lady ready
enough to marry a Secretary of State, but not a poor scribbler.

As Addison had now no Government post, it left him all the more
time for writing, and his essays in the Spectator are what we
chiefly remember him by.

The Spectator was still further from the ordinary newspaper than
the Tatler. It was more perhaps what our modern magazines are
meant to be, but, instead of being published once a week or once
a month, it was published every morning.

In order to give interest to the paper, instead of dating the
articles from various coffee-houses, as had been done in the
Tatler, Addison and Steele between them imagined a club. And it
is the doings of these members, their characters, and their
lives, which supply subjects for many of the articles. In the
first numbers of the Spectator these members are described to us.

First of all there is the Spectator himself. He is the editor of
the paper. It is he who with kindly humorous smile and grave
twinkle in his eye is to be seen everywhere. He is seen, and he
sees and listens, but seldom opens his lips. "In short," he
says, "I have acted in all the parts of my life as a looker-on."
And that is the meaning of Spectator--the looker-on. This on-
looker, there can be little doubt, was meant to be a picture of
Addison himself. In a later paper he tells us that "he was a man
of a very short face, extremely addicted to silence. . . . and
was a great humorist in all parts of his life."* And when you
come to know Mr. Spectator well, I think you will love this grave
humorist.

*Spectator, 101.

After Mr. Spectator, the chief member of the Club was Sir Roger
de Coverley. "His great-grandfather was inventor of that famous
country dance which is called after him. All who know that shire
(in which he lives), are very well acquainted with the parts and
merits of Sir Roger. He is a gentleman that is very singular in
his behaviour, but his singularities proceed from his good sense,
and are contradictions to the manners of the world, only as he
thinks the world is in the wrong." He was careless of fashion in
dress, and wore a coat and doublet which, he used laughingly to
say, had been in and out twelve times since he first wore it.
"He is now in his fifty-sixth year, cheerful, gay, and hearty;
keeps a good house both in town and country; a great lover of
mankind; but there is such a mirthful cast in his behaviour, that
he is rather beloved than esteemed. His tenants grow rich, his
servants look satisfied. All the young women profess love to him
and the young men are glad of his company. When he comes into a
house he calls the servants by their names, and talks all the way
upstairs to a visit."

Next came a lawyer of the Inner Temple, who had become a lawyer
not because he wanted to be one, but because he wanted to please
his old father. He had been sent to London to study the laws of
the land, but he liked much better to study those of the stage.
"He is an excellent critic, and the time of the play is his hour
of business. Exactly at five he passes through New Inn, crosses
through Russel Court, and takes a turn at Wills' till the play
begins. He has his shoes rubbed and his periwig powdered at the
barber's as you go into the Rose."

Next comes Sir Andrew Freeport, "a merchant of great eminence in
the City of London." "He abounds in several frugal maxims,
amongst which the greatest favorite is, 'A penny saved is a penny
got.'"

"Next to Sir Andrew in the Club room sits Captain Sentry, a
gentleman of great courage, good understanding, but invincible
modesty. He was some years a captain, and behaved himself with
great gallantry in several engagements and at several sieges.
But having a small estate of his own, and being next heir to Sir
Roger, he has quitted a way of life in which no man can rise
suitably to his merit, who is not something of a courtier as well
as a soldier. The military part of his life has furnished him
with many adventures, in the relation of which he is very
agreeable to the company, for he is never overbearing, though
accustomed to command men in the utmost degree below him, nor
ever too obsequious, from an habit of obeying men highly above
him.

"But that our society may not appear a set of humorists,
unacquainted with the gallantries and pleasures of the age, we
have among us the gallant Will Honeycomb, a gentleman who,
according to his years, should be in the decline of his life.
But having ever been very careful of his person, and always had a
very easy fortune, time has made but very little impression,
either by wrinkles on his forehead, or traces in his brain. His
person is well turned, of a good height. He is very ready at
that sort of discourse with which men usually entertain women.
He has all his life dressed very well, and remembers habits as
other do men. He can smile when one speaks to him, and laugh
easily." He is in fact an old beau, a regular man about town, "a
well-bred, fine gentleman," yet no great scholar, "he spelt like
a gentleman and not like a scholar,"* he says.

*Spectator, 105.

Last of all there is a clergyman, a man of "general learning,
great sanctity of life, and the most exact breeding." He seldom
comes to the Club, "but when he does it adds to every man else a
new enjoyment of himself."

This setting forth of the characters in the story will remind you
a little perhaps of Chaucer in his Prologue to the Canterbury
Tales. As he there gives us a clear picture of England in the
time of Edward III, so Addison gives us a clear picture of
England in the time of Anne. And although the essays are in the
main unconnected, the slight story of these characters runs
through them, weaving them into a whole. You may pick up a
volume of the Spectator and read an essay here or there at will
with enjoyment, or you may read the whole six hundred one after
the other and find in them a slight but interesting story.