He was nevertheless a man of the finest talents, and seems to have possessed the power of gaining personal ascendency over his companions by a profound knowledge of character. An acquaintance with Addison, doubtless commencing at the Kit-Kat Club, of which both were members, had convinced him that the latter had eminent qualifications for the task, which the Secretary"s post would involve, of dealing with men of very various conditions. Of the feelings with which Addison on his side regarded the Earl we have no record. "It is reasonable to suppose," says Johnson, "that he counteracted, as far as he was able, the malignant and blasting influence of the Lieutenant; and that, at least, by his intervention some good was done and some mischief prevented." Not a shadow of an imputation, at any rate, rests upon his own conduct as Secretary. He appears to have acted strictly on that conception of public duty which he defines in one of his papers in the _Spectator_. Speaking of the marks of a corrupt official, "Such an one," he declares, "is the man who, upon any pretence whatsoever, receives more than what is the stated and unquestioned fee of his office. Gratifications, tokens of thankfulness, despatch money, and the like specious terms, are the pretences under which corruption very frequently shelters itself. An honest man will, however, look on all these methods as unjustifiable, and will enjoy himself better in a moderate fortune, that is gained with honour and reputation, than in an overgrown estate that is cankered with the acquisitions of rapine and exaction. Were all our offices discharged with such an inflexible integrity, we should not see men in all ages, who grow up to exorbitant wealth, with the abilities which are to be met with in an ordinary mechanic."[23] His friends perhaps considered that his impartiality was somewhat overstrained, since he always declined to remit the customary fees in their favour. "For," said he, "I may have forty friends, whose fees may be two guineas a-piece; then I lose eighty guineas, and my friends gain but two a-piece."
He took with him as his own Secretary, Eustace Budgell, who was related to him, and for whom he seems to have felt a warm affection. Budgell was a man of considerable literary ability, and was the writer of the various papers in the _Spectator_ signed "X," some of which succeed happily in imitating Addison"s style. While he was under his friend"s guidance his career was fairly successful, but his temper was violent, and when, at a later period of his life, he served in Ireland under a new Lieutenant and another Secretary, he became involved in disputes which led to his dismissal. A furious pamphlet against the Lord-Lieutenant, the Duke of Bolton, published by him in spite of Addison"s remonstrances, only complicated his position, and from this period his fortunes steadily declined. He lost largely in the South Sea Scheme; spent considerable sums in a vain endeavour to obtain a seat in Parliament; and at last came under the influence of his kinsman, Tindal, the well-known deist, whose will he is accused of having falsified. With his usual infelicity he happened to rouse the resentment of Pope, and was treated in consequence to one of the deadly couplets with which that great poet was in the habit of repaying real or supposed injuries:
"Let Budgell charge low Grub Street on his quill, And write whate"er he pleased--except his will."
The lines were memorable, and were doubtless often quoted, and the wretched man finding his life insupportable, ended it by drowning himself in the Thames.
During his residence in Ireland Addison firmly cemented his friendship with Swift, whose acquaintance he had probably made after _The Campaign_ had given him a leading position in the Whig party, on the side of which the sympathies of both were then enlisted. Swift"s admiration for Addison was warm and generous. When the latter was on the point of embarking on his new duties, Swift wrote to a common friend, Colonel Hunter, "Mr.
Addison is hurrying away for Ireland, and I pray too much business may not spoil _le plus honnete homme du monde_." To Archbishop King he wrote: "Mr.
Addison, who goes over our first secretary, is a most excellent person, and being my intimate friend I shall use all my credit to set him right in his notions of persons and things." Addison"s duties took him occasionally to England, and during one of his visits Swift writes to him from Ireland: "I am convinced that whatever Government come over you will find all marks of kindness from any parliament here with respect to your employment, the Tories contending with the Whigs which should speak best of you. In short, if you will come over again when you are at leisure we will raise an army and make you King of Ireland. Can you think so meanly of a kingdom as not to be pleased that every creature in it, who hath one grain of worth, has a veneration for you?" In his _Journal to Stella_ he says, under date of October 12, 1710: "Mr. Addison"s election has pa.s.sed easy and undisputed; and I believe if he had a mind to be chosen king he would hardly be refused." On his side Addison"s feelings were equally warm. He presented Swift with a copy of his _Remarks on Several Parts of Italy_, inscribing it--"To the most agreeable companion, the truest friend, and the greatest genius of his age."
This friendship, founded on mutual respect, was destined to be impaired by political differences. In 1710 the credit of the Whig Ministry had been greatly undermined by the combined craft of Harley and Mrs. Masham, and Swift, who was anxious as to his position, on coming over to England to press his claims on Somers and Halifax, found that they were unable to help him. He appears to have considered that their want of power proceeded from want of will; at any rate, he made advances to Harley, which were of course gladly received. The Ministry were at this time being hard pressed by the _Examiner_, under the conduct of Prior, and at their instance Addison started the _Whig Examiner_ in their defence. Though this paper was written effectively and with admirable temper, party polemics were little to the taste of its author, and, after five numbers, it ceased to exist on the 8th of October. Swift, now eager for the triumph of the Tories, expresses his delight to Stella by informing her, in the words of a Tory song, that "it was down among the dead men." He himself wrote the first of his _Examiners_ on the 2d of the following November, and the crushing blows with which he followed it up did much to hasten the downfall of the Ministry. As was natural, Addison was somewhat displeased at his friend"s defection. In December Swift writes to Stella, "Mr.
Addison and I are as different as black and white, and I believe our friendship will go off by this d---- business of party. He cannot bear seeing me fall in so with the Ministry; but I love him still as much as ever, though we seldom meet." In January, 1710-11, he says: "I called at the coffee-house, where I had not been in a week, and talked coldly awhile with Mr. Addison; 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?" Many similar entries follow; but on June 26, 1711, the record is: "Mr. Addison and I talked as usual, and as if we had seen one another yesterday." And on September 14, he observes: "This evening I met Addison and pastoral Philips in the Park, and supped with them in Addison"s lodgings. We were very good company, and I yet know no man half so agreeable to me as he is. I sat with them till twelve."
It was perhaps through the influence of Swift, who spoke warmly with the Tory Ministry on behalf of Addison, that the latter, on the downfall of the Whigs in the autumn of 1710, was for some time suffered to retain the Keepership of the Records in Bermingham"s Tower, an Irish place which had been bestowed upon him by the Queen as a special mark of the esteem with which she regarded him, and which appears to have been worth 400 a year.[24] In other respects his fortunes were greatly altered by the change of Ministry. "I have within this twelvemonth," he writes to Wortley on the 21st of July, 1711, "lost a place of 2000 per ann., an estate in the Indies worth 14,000, and, what is worse than all the rest, my mistress.[25] Hear this and wonder at my philosophy! I find they are going to take away my Irish place from me too; to which I must add that I have just resigned my fellowship, and that stocks sink every day." In spite of these losses his circ.u.mstances were materially different from those in which he found himself after the fall of the previous Whig Ministry in 1702. Before the close of the year 1711 he was able to buy the estate of Bilton, near Rugby, for 10,000. Part of the purchase money was probably provided from what he had saved while he was Irish Secretary, and had invested in the funds; and part was, no doubt, made up from the profits of the _Tatler_ and the _Spectator_. Miss Aikin says that a portion was advanced by his brother Gulston; but this seems to be an error. Two years before, the Governor of Fort St. George had died, leaving him his executor and residuary legatee. This is no doubt "the estate in the Indies" to which he refers in his letter to Wortley, but he had as yet derived no benefit from it. His brother had left his affairs in great confusion; the trustees were careless or dishonest; and though about 600 was remitted to him in the shape of diamonds in 1713, the liquidation was not complete till 1716, when only a small moiety of the sum bequeathed to him came into his hands.[26]
CHAPTER V.
THE _TATLER_ AND _SPECTATOR_.
The career of Addison, as described in the preceding chapters, has exemplified the great change effected in the position of men of letters in England by the Restoration and the Revolution; it is now time to exhibit him in his most characteristic light, and to show the remarkable service the eighteenth century essayists performed for English society in creating an organised public opinion. It is difficult for ourselves, who look on the action of the periodical press as part of the regular machinery of life, to appreciate the magnitude of the task accomplished by Addison and Steele in the pages of the _Tatler_ and _Spectator_. Every day, week, month, and quarter now sees the issue of a vast number of journals and magazines intended to form the opinion of every order and section of society; but in the reign of Queen Anne the only centres of society that existed were the Court, with the aristocracy that revolved about it, and the clubs and coffee-houses, in which the commercial and professional cla.s.ses met to discuss matters of general interest. The _Tatler_ and _Spectator_ were the first organs in which an attempt was made to give form and consistency to the opinion arising out of this social contact.
But we should form a very erroneous idea of the character of these publications if we regarded them as the sudden productions of individual genius, written in satisfaction of a mere temporary taste. Like all masterpieces in art and literature, they mark the final stage of a long and painful journey, and the merit of their inventors consists largely in the judgment with which they profited by the experience of many predecessors.
The first newspaper published in Europe was the _Gazzetta_ of Venice, which was written in ma.n.u.script, and read aloud at certain places in the city, to supply information to the people during the war with the Turks in 1536. In England it was not till the reign of Elizabeth that the increased facilities of communication and the growth of wealth caused the purveyance of news to become a profitable employment. Towards the end of the sixteenth century newsmongers began to issue little pamphlets reporting extraordinary intelligence, but not issued at regular periods. The t.i.tles of these publications, which are all of them that survive, show that the arts with which the framers of the placards of our own newspapers endeavour to attract attention are of venerable antiquity: "Wonderful and Strange newes out of Suffolke and Ess.e.x, where it rained wheat the s.p.a.ce of six or seven miles" (1583); "Lamentable newes out of Monmouthshire, containinge the wonderfull and fearfull accounts of the great overflowing of the waters in the said countrye" (1607).[27]
In 1622 one Nathaniel b.u.t.ter began to publish a newspaper bearing a fixed t.i.tle and appearing at stated intervals. It was called the _Weekly Newes from Italy and Germanie, etc._, and was said to be printed for _Mercurius Britannicus_. This novelty provided much food for merriment to the poets, and Ben Jonson in his _Staple of News_ satirises b.u.t.ter, under the name of Nathaniel, in a pa.s.sage which the curious reader will do well to consult, as it shows the low estimation in which newspapers were then held.[28]
Though it might appear from Jonson"s dialogue that the newspapers of that day contained many items of domestic intelligence, such was scarcely the case. b.u.t.ter and his contemporaries, as was natural to men who confined themselves to the publication of news without attempting to form opinion, obtained their materials almost entirely from abroad, whereby they at once aroused more vividly the imagination of their readers, and doubtless gave more scope to their own invention. Besides, they were not at liberty to retail home news of that political kind which would have been of the greatest interest to the public. For a long time the evanescent character of the newspaper allowed it to escape the attention of the licenser, but the growing demand for this sort of reading at last brought it under supervision, and so strict was the control exercised over even the reports of foreign intelligence that its weekly appearance was frequently interrupted.
In 1641, however, the Star-chamber was abolished, and the heated political atmosphere of the times generated a new species of journal, in which we find the first attempt to influence opinion through the periodical press.
This was the newspaper known under the generic t.i.tle of _Mercury_. Many weekly publications of this name appeared during the Civil Wars on the side of both King and Parliament, _Mercurius Anlicus_ being the representative organ of the Royalist cause, and _Mercurius Pragmaticus_ and _Mercurius Politicus_ of the Republicans. Party animosities were thus kept alive, and proved so inconvenient to the Government that the Parliament interfered to curtail the liberty of the press. In 1647 an ordinance pa.s.sed the House of Lords, prohibiting any person from "making, writing, printing, selling, publishing, or uttering, or causing to be made, any book, sheet, or sheets of news whatsoever, except the same be licensed by both or either House of Parliament, with the name of the author, printer, and licenser affixed." In spite of this prohibition, which was renewed by Act of Parliament in 1662, many unlicensed periodicals continued to appear, till in 1663 the Government, finding their repressive measures insufficient, resolved to grapple with the difficulty by monopolising the right to publish news.
The author of this new project was the well-known Roger L"Estrange, who in 1663 obtained a patent a.s.signing to him "all the sole privilege of writing, printing, and publishing all Narratives, Advertis.e.m.e.nts, Mercuries, Intelligencers, Diurnals, and other books of public intelligence." L"Estrange"s journal was called the _Public Intelligencer_; it was published once a week, and in its form was a rude antic.i.p.ation of the modern newspaper, containing as it did an obituary, reports of the proceedings in Parliament and in the Court of Claims, a list of the circuits of the judges, of sheriffs, Lent preachers, etc. After being continued for two years it gave place first, in 1665, to the _Oxford Gazette_, published at Oxford, whither the Court had retired during the plague; and in 1666 to the _London Gazette_, which was under the immediate control of an Under-Secretary of State. The office of Gazetteer became henceforth a regular ministerial appointment, and was viewed with different eyes according as men were affected towards the Government.
Steele, who held it, says of it: "My next appearance as a writer was in the quality of the lowest Minister of State--to wit, in the office of Gazetteer; where I worked faithfully according to order, without ever erring against the rule observed by all Ministers, to keep that paper very innocent and very insipid." Pope, on the other hand, who regarded it as an organ published to influence opinion in favour of the Government, is constant in his attacks upon it, and has immortalised it in the memorable lines in the _Dunciad_ beginning, "Next plunged a feeble but a desperate pack," etc.
In 1679 the Licensing Act pa.s.sed in 1662 expired, and the Parliament declined to renew it. The Court was thus left without protection against the expression of public opinion, which was daily becoming more bold and outspoken. In his extremity the King fell back on the servility of the judges, and, having procured from them an opinion that the publishing of any printed matter without license was contrary to the common law, he issued his famous Proclamation (in 1680) "to prohibit and forbid all persons whatsoever to print or publish any news, book, or pamphlets of news, not licensed by his Majesty"s authority."
Disregard of the proclamation was treated as a breach of the peace, and many persons were punished accordingly. This severity produced the effect intended. The voice of the periodical press was stifled, and the _London Gazette_ was left almost in exclusive possession of the field of news.
When Monmouth landed in 1685 the King managed to obtain from Parliament a renewal of the Licensing Act for seven years, and even after the Revolution of 1688 several attempts were made by the Ministerial Whigs to prolong or to renew the operation of the Act. In spite, however, of the violence of the organs of "Grub Street," which had grown up under it, these attempts were unsuccessful; it was justly felt that it was wiser to leave falsehood and scurrility to be gradually corrected by public opinion, as speaking through an unfettered press, than to attack them by a law which they had proved themselves able to defy. From 1682 the freedom of the press may therefore be said to date, and the lapse of the Licensing Act was the signal for a remarkable outburst of journalistic enterprise and invention. Not only did the newspapers devoted to the report of foreign intelligence reappear in greatly increased numbers, but, whereas the old _Mercuries_ had never been published more than once in the same week, the new comers made their appearance twice and sometimes even three times. In 1702 was printed the first daily newspaper, _The Daily Courant_.
It could only at starting provide material to cover one side of a half sheet of paper; but the other side was very soon covered with printed matter, in which form its existence was prolonged till 1735.
The development of party government of course encouraged the controversial capacities of the journalist, and many notorious, and some famous names are now found among the combatants in the political arena. On the side of the Whigs the most redoubtable champions were Daniel Defoe, of the _Review_, who was twice imprisoned and once set in the pillory for his political writings; John Tutchin, of the _Observator_; and Ridpath, of the _Flying Post_--all of whom have obtained places in the _Dunciad_. The old Tories appear to have been satisfied during the early part of Queen Anne"s reign with prosecuting the newspapers that attacked them; but Harley, who understood the power of the press, engaged Prior to hara.s.s the Whigs in the _Examiner_, and was afterwards dexterous enough to secure the invaluable a.s.sistance of Swift for the same paper. In opposition to the _Examiner_ in its early days the Whigs, as has been said, started the _Whig Examiner_, under the auspices of Addison, so that the two great historical parties had their cases stated by the two greatest prose-writers of the first half of the eighteenth century.
Beside the Quidnunc and the party politician, another cla.s.s of reader now appeared demanding aliment in the press. Men of active and curious minds, with a little leisure and a large love of discussion, loungers at Will"s or at the Grecian Coffee-Houses, were anxious to have their doubts on all subjects resolved by a printed oracle. Their tastes were gratified by the ingenuity of John Dunton, whose strange account of his _Life and Errors_ throws a strong light on the literary history of this period. In 1690 Dunton published his _Athenian Gazette_, the name of which he afterwards altered to the _Athenian Mercury_. The object of this paper was to answer questions put to the editor by the public. These were of all kinds--on religion, casuistry, love, literature, and manners--no question being too subtle or absurd to extract a reply from the conductor of the paper. The _Athenian Mercury_ seems to have been read by as many distinguished men of the period as _Notes and Queries_ in our own time, and there can be no doubt that the quaint humours it originated gave the first hint to the inventors of the _Tatler_ and the _Spectator_.
Advertis.e.m.e.nts were inserted in the newspapers at a comparatively early period of their existence. The editor acted as middleman between the advertiser and the public, and made his announcements in a style of easy frankness which will appear to the modern reader extremely refreshing.
Thus, in the "Collection for the Improvement of Husbandry and Trade"
(1682), there are the following:
"If I can meet with a sober man that has a counter-tenor voice, I can help him to a place worth thirty pound the year or more.
"If any n.o.ble or other gentleman wants a porter that is very l.u.s.ty, comely, and six foot high and two inches, I can help.
"I want a complete young man that will wear a livery, to wait on a very valuable gentleman; but he must know how to play on a violin or flute.
"I want a genteel footman that can play on the violin, to wait on a person of honour."[29]
Everything was now prepared for the production of a cla.s.s of newspaper designed to form and direct public opinion on rational principles. The press was emanc.i.p.ated from State control; a reading public had const.i.tuted itself out of the _habitues_ of the coffee-houses and clubs; nothing was wanted but an inventive genius to adapt the materials at his disposal to the circ.u.mstances of the time. The required hero was not long in making his appearance.
Richard Steele, the son of an official under the Irish Government, was, above all things, "a creature of ebullient heart." Impulse and sentiment were with him always far stronger motives of action than reason, principle, or even interest. He left Oxford, without taking a degree, from an ardent desire to serve in the army, thereby sacrificing his prospect of succeeding to a family estate; his extravagance and dissipation while serving in the cavalry were notorious; yet this did not dull the clearness of his moral perceptions, for it was while his excesses were at their height that he dedicated to his commanding officer, Lord Cutts, his _Christian Hero_. Vehement in his political, as in all other feelings, he did not hesitate to resign the office he held under the Tory Government in 1711 in order to attack it for what he considered its treachery to the country; but he was equally outspoken, and with equal disadvantage to himself, when he found himself at a later period in disagreement with the Whigs. He had great fertility of invention, strong natural humour, true though uncultivated taste, and inexhaustible human sympathy.
His varied experience had made him well acquainted with life and character, and in his office of Gazetteer he had had an opportunity of watching the eccentricities of the public taste, which, now emanc.i.p.ated from restraint, began vaguely to feel after new ideals. That, under such circ.u.mstances, he should have formed the design of treating current events from a humorous point of view was only natural, but he was indebted for the form of his newspaper to the most original genius of the age. Swift had early in the eighteenth century exercised his ironical vein by treating the everyday occurrences of life in a mock-heroic style. Among his pieces of this kind that were most successful in catching the public taste were the humorous predictions of the death of Partridge, the astrologer, signed with the name of Isaac Bickerstaff. Steele, seizing on the name and character of Partridge"s fict.i.tious rival, turned him with much pleasantry into the editor of a new journal, the design of which he makes Isaac describe as follows:
"The state of conversation and business in this town having long been perplexed with Pretenders in both kinds, in order to open men"s minds against such abuses, it appeared no unprofitable undertaking to publish a Paper, which should observe upon the manners of the pleasurable, as well as the busy part of mankind. To make this generally read, it seemed the most proper method to form it by way of a Letter of Intelligence, consisting of such parts as might gratify the curiosity of persons of all conditions and of each s.e.x.... The general purposes of this Paper is to expose the false arts of life, to pull off the disguises of cunning, vanity, and affectation, and to recommend a general simplicity in our dress, our discourse, and our behaviour."[30]
The name of the _Tatler_, Isaac informs us, was "invented in honour of the fair s.e.x," for whose entertainment the new paper was largely designed. It appeared three times a week, and its price was a penny, though it seems that the first number, published April 12, 1709, was distributed _gratis_ as an advertis.e.m.e.nt. In order to make the contents of the paper varied it was divided into five portions, of which the editor gives the following account:
"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 t.i.tle of Grecian; Foreign and Domestic News you will have from Saint James" Coffee-House; and what else I have to offer on any other subject shall be dated from my own apartment."[31]
In this division we see the importance of the coffee-houses as the natural centres of intelligence and opinion. Of the four houses mentioned, St.
James" and White"s, both of them in St. James" Street, were the chief haunts of statesmen and men of fashion, and the latter had acquired an infamous notoriety for the ruinous gambling of its _habitues_. Will"s, in Russell Street, Covent Garden, kept up the reputation which it had procured in Dryden"s time as the favourite meeting-place of men of letters; while the Grecian, in Devereux Court in the Strand, which was the oldest coffee-house in London, afforded a convenient _rendezvous_ for the learned Templars. At starting, the design announced in the first number was adhered to with tolerable fidelity. The paper dated from St. James"
Coffee-House was always devoted to the recital of foreign news; that from Will"s either criticised the current dramas, or contained a copy of verses from some author of repute, or a piece of general literary criticism; the latest gossip at White"s was reproduced in a fict.i.tious form and with added colour. Advertis.e.m.e.nts were also inserted; and half a sheet of the paper was left blank, in order that at the last moment the most recent intelligence might be added in ma.n.u.script, after the manner of the contemporary news-letters. In all these respects the character of the newspaper was preserved; but in the method of treating news adopted by the editor there was a constant tendency to subordinate matter of fact to the elements of humour, fiction, and sentiment. In his survey of the manners of the time, Isaac, as an astrologer, was a.s.sisted by a familiar spirit, named Pacolet, who revealed to him the motives and secrets of men; his sister, Mrs. Jenny Distaff, was occasionally deputed to produce the paper from the wizard"s "own apartment;" and Kidney, the waiter at St. James"
Coffee-House, was humorously represented as the chief authority in all matters of foreign intelligence.
The mottoes a.s.sumed by the _Tatler_ at different periods of its existence mark the stages of its development. On its first appearance, when Steele seems to have intended it to be little more than a lively record of news, the motto placed at the head of each paper was
"Quidquid agunt homines, nostri est farrago libelli."
It soon became evident, however, that its true function was not merely to report the actions of men, but to discuss the propriety of their actions; and by the time that sufficient material had acc.u.mulated to const.i.tute a volume, the essayists felt themselves justified in appropriating the words used by Pliny in the preface to his _Natural History_:
"Nemo apud nos qui idem tentaverit: equidem sentio peculiarem in studiis causam corum esse, qui difficultatibus victis, utilitatem juvandi, protulerunt gratiae placendi. Res ardua vetustis novitatem dare, novis auctoritatem, obsoletis nitorem, fastidiis gratiam, dubiis fidem, omnibus vero naturam, et naturae suae omnia. Itaque NON a.s.sECUTIS _voluisse_, abunde pulchrum atque magnific.u.m est."
The disguise of the mock astrologer proved very useful to Steele in his character of moralist. It enabled him to give free utterance to his better feelings, without the risk of incurring the charge of inconsistency or hypocrisy, and nothing can be more honourable to him than the open manner in which he acknowledges his own unfitness for the position of a moralist: "I shall not carry my humility so far," says he, "as to call myself a vicious man, but at the same time must confess my life is at best but pardonable. With no greater character than this, a man would make but an indifferent progress in attacking prevailing and fashionable vices, which Mr. Bickerstaff has done with a freedom of spirit that would have lost both its beauty and efficacy had it been pretended to by Mr. Steele."[32]
As Steele cannot claim the sole merit of having invented the form of the _Tatler_, so, too, it must be remembered that he could never have addressed society in the high moral tone a.s.sumed by Bickerstaff if the road had not been prepared for him by others. One name among his predecessors stands out with a special t.i.tle to honourable record. Since the Restoration the chief school of manners had been the stage, and the flagrant example of immorality set by the Court had been bettered by the invention of the comic dramatists of the period. Indecency was the fashion; religion and sobriety were identified by the polite world with Puritanism and hypocrisy. Even the Church had not yet ventured to say a word in behalf of virtue against the prevailing taste, and when at last a clergyman raised his voice on behalf of the principles which he professed, the blow which he dealt to his antagonists was the more damaging because it was entirely unexpected. Jeremy Collier was not only a Tory but a Jacobite, not only a High Churchman but a Nonjuror, who had been outlawed for his fidelity to the principles of Legitimism; and that such a man should have published the _Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage_, reflecting, as the book did, in the strongest manner on the manners of the fallen dynasty, was as astounding as thunder from a clear sky. Collier, however, was a man of sincere piety, whose mind was for the moment occupied only by the overwhelming danger of the evil which he proposed to attack. It is true that his method of attack was c.u.mbrous, and that his conclusions were far too sweeping and often unjust; nevertheless, the general truth of his criticisms was felt to be irresistible. Congreve and Vanbrugh each attempted an apology for their profession; both, however, showed their perception of the weakness of their position by correcting or recasting scenes in their comedies to which Collier had objected. Dryden accepted the reproof in a n.o.bler spirit. Even while he had pandered to the tastes of the times, he had been conscious of his treachery to the cause of true art, and had broken out in a fine pa.s.sage in his _Ode to the Memory of Mrs. Killigrew_:
"O gracious G.o.d! how far have we Profaned thy heavenly gift of poesy!
Made prost.i.tute and profligate the Muse, Debased to each obscene and impious use!
"O wretched we! why were we hurried down This lubrique and adulterous age (Nay, added fat pollutions of our own) To increase the streaming ordure of the stage?"
When Collier attacked him he bent his head in submission. "In many things," says he, "he has taxed me justly, and I have pleaded guilty to all thought and expressions of mine which can be truly argued of obscenity, profaneness, or immorality, and retract them. If he be my enemy, let him triumph; if he be my friend, as I have given him no personal occasion to be otherwise, he will be glad of my repentance."[33]