Will Honeycomb marries and reforms at sixty.The club breaks up;and the Spectator resigns his functions.Such events can hardly be said to form a plot; yet they are related with such truth, such grace, such wit, such humour, such pathos, such knowledge of the human heart, such knowledge of the ways of the world, that they charm us on the hundredth perusal.We have not the least doubt that if Addison had written a novel on an extensive plan, it would have been superior to any that we possess.As it is, he is entitled to be considered, not only as the greatest of the English essayists, but as the forerunner of the greatest English novelists.
We say this of Addison alone; for Addison is the Spectator.About three-sevenths of the work are his; and it is no exaggeration to say, that his worst essay is as good as the best essay of his coadjutors.His best essays approach near to absolute perfection;nor is their excellence more wonderful than their variety.His invention never seems to flag; nor is he ever under the necessity of repeating himself, or of wearing out a subject.There are no dregs in his wine.He regales us after the fashion of that prodigal nabob who held that there was only one good glass in a bottle.As soon as we have tasted the first sparkling foam of a jest, it is withdrawn, and a fresh draught of nectar is at our lips.On the Monday we have an allegory as lively and ingenious as Lucian's Auction of Lives; on the Tuesday an Eastern apologue, as richly coloured as the Tales of Scherezade; on the Wednesday, a character described with the skill of La Bruyere; on the Thursday, a scene from common life, equal to the best chapters in the Vicar of Wakefield; on the Friday, some sly Horatian pleasantry on fashionable follies, on hoops, patches, or puppet shows; and on the Saturday a religious meditation, which will bear a comparison with the finest passages in Massillon.
It is dangerous to select where there is so much that deserves the highest praise.We will venture, however, to say, that any person who wishes to form a just notion of the extent and variety of Addison's powers, will do well to read at one sitting the following papers, the two " Visits to the Abbey," the "Visit to the Exchange," the "Journal of the Retired Citizen," the "Vision of Mirza," the "Transmigrations of Pug the Monkey," and the "Death of Sir Roger de Coverley." [Nos.26, 329, 69, 317, 159, 343, 517.
These papers are all in the first seven volumes.The eighth must be considered as a separate work.]
The least valuable of Addison's contributions to the Spectator are, in the judgment of our age, his critical papers.Yet his critical papers are always luminous, and often ingenious.The very worst of them must be regarded as creditable to him, when the character of the school in which he had been trained is fairly considered.The best of them were much too good for his readers.In truth, he was not so far behind our generation as he was before his own.No essays in the Spectator were more censured and derided than those in which he raised his voice against the contempt with which our fine old ballads were regarded, and showed the scoffers that the same gold which, burnished and polished, gives lustre to the Aeneid and the Odes of Horace, is mingled with the rude dross of Chevy Chace.
It is not strange that the success of the Spectator should have been such as no similar work has ever obtained.The number of copies daily distributed was at first three thousand.It subsequently increased, and had risen to near four thousand when the stamp tax was imposed.The tax was fatal to a crowd of journals.The Spectator, however, stood its ground, doubled its price, and, though its circulation fell off, still yielded a large revenue both to the State and to the authors.For particular papers, the demand was immense; of some, it is said, twenty thousand copies were required.But this was not all.To have the Spectator served up every morning with the bohea and rolls was a luxury for the few.The majority were content to wait till essays enough had appeared to form a volume.Ten thousand copies of each volume were immediately taken off, and new editions were called for.It must be remembered, that the population of England was then hardly a third of what it now is.
The number of Englishmen who were in the habit of reading, was probably not a sixth of what it now is.A shopkeeper or a farmer who found any pleasure in literature, was a rarity.
Nay, there was doubtless more than one knight of the shire whose country seat did not contain ten books, receipt books and books on farriery included.In these circumstances, the sale of the Spectator must be considered as indicating a popularity quite as great as that of the most successful works of Sir Walter Scott and Mr.Dickens in our own time.
At the close of 1712 the Spectator ceased to appear.It was probably felt that the short-faced gentleman and his club had been long enough before the town; and that it was time to withdraw them, and to replace them by a new set of characters.In a few weeks the first number of the Guardian was published.But the Guardian was unfortunate both in its birth and in its death.
It began in dulness, and disappeared in a tempest of faction.The original plan was bad.Addison contributed nothing till sixty-six numbers had appeared; and it was then impossible to make the Guardian what the Spectator had been.Nestor Ironside and the Miss Lizards were people to whom even he could impart no interest.He could only furnish some excellent little essays, both serious and comic; and this he did.
Why Addison gave no assistance to the Guardian, during the first two months of its existence is a question which has puzzled the editors and biographers, but which seems to us to admit of a very easy solution.He was then engaged in bringing his Cato on the stage.