XIX. SIR ROGER AT THE ASSIZES Motto. "A jovial companion on the way is as good as a carriage." - Publius Syrus, Maxims. by at least one 144 9. Assizes. The periodical sessions held of the superior judges in every county in England. For a brief but clear description of the English judicial system, see Woodrow Wilson's The State, sections 731-745. 144 16. Just within the Game Act. This act, passed in the reign of James I, provided that no person who had not an income of forty pounds a year, or two hundred pounds' worth of goods and chattels, should be allowed to shoot game. The law continued in force until 1827. 144 23. Petty jury. The twelve men selected to determine cases, civil or criminal, in court, according to the evidence presented to them; called petty (or petit) jury to distinguish them from the grand jury, whose principal function is to decide whether the evidence against a suspected person is sufficient to warrant holding him for trial by a petty jury. 144 27. Quarter sessions. A criminal court held by the justices of the peace once a quarter in an English county. 145 20. Much might be said on both sides. Sir Roger's decision has passed into a proverb. 146: 12. A look of much business and great intrepidity. One of Addison's best bits of description. 147: 19. The Saracen's Head. In early days, before city streets were numbered, not only inns but shops usually were designated by some sign painted or carved at the door. In the case of inns this practice still survives, and most English inns of the county towns bear the name of some object that once served as a sign, as the Angel (Lincoln), the Fountain (Canterbury), the Bull (Cambridge), the Three Swans (Salisbury). Ever since the time of the Crusades the head of a Saracen, or Turk, had been a favourite sign. Readers of Boswell's Life of Samuei Johnson will recall the Turk's Head Tavern in Gerrard Street, London, where the most famous of clubs used to meet. XX. THE EDUCATION OF AN HEIR Motto. 'Learning improves native genius, and right training strengthens the character; but bad morals will bring to shame the best advantages of truth." - Horace, Odes, iv. 33. 149 23. A story I have heard. Addison probably invented this story, and he certainly thought well of it himself. On the same day this paper was printed he sent to his friend Edward Wortley Montague a letter beginning thus: "Being very well pleased with this day's Spectator, I cannot forbear sending you one of them, and desiring your opinion of the story in it. When you have a son, I shall be glad to be his Leontine, as my circumstances will probably be like his." The tone of discouragement in the last clause is explained by Addison's statements, later in the letter, that he has recently lost large sums of money," and what is worse than all the rest, my mistress." The Countess of Warwick was evidently not smiling upon him just then, and Addison saw himself in the future-if not like Leontine, a widower a bachelor in humble circumstances. 149 27. Like a novel. The word novel was introduced into English in the sixteenth century as a name for the Italian novelle, or short tales, translations of which were then very numerous in England. In Addison's time it was still used to designate a short story as distinguished from the longer romances like those in the Ladies Library (V of this volume). The modern novel, an extended narrative of real life, with careful plot usually having for its central motion the passion of love, was not yet written in English. It is usually said to begin with the work of Richardson and Fielding, 1740–1750. 150 14. Gazette. The official journal of the government. DE COVERLEY · 16 Steele, it will be remembered, had been gazetteer from May, 1707, to October, 1710, when the Whigs went out of power. 66 150 23. According to Mr. Cowley. You would advise me not to precipitate that resolution [of retiring from public life] but to stay a while longer with patience and complaisance, till I had gotten such an estate as might afford me (according to the saying of that person whom you and I love very much and would believe as soon as another man) 'cum dignitate otium.' That were excellent advice to Joshua, who could bid the sun stay too. But there is no fooling with life when it is once turned beyond forty. The seeking for a fortune then is but a desperate after-game." - Cowley's Essay, The Danger of Procrastination. Also see note, p. 234. 150 29. Of three hundred a year, i.e. yielding an income of three hundred pounds a year. 152 19. Inns of Court. See note, p. 221. Motto. XXI. WHIGS AND TORIES "This thirst of kindred blood, my sons, detest, 155 I. The malice of parties. Party feeling had perhaps never been more bitter in England than just at this time; and it was probably all the more bitter and personal because there were no very clear questions at issue between the two parties. Swift, writing in the Tory Examiner a few months before the date of this paper (November 16, 1710), says, "Let any one examine a reasonable honest man, of either side, upon those opinions in religion and government, which both parties daily buffet each other about, he shall hardly find one material point in difference between them." The principal questions upon which Whig and Tory had once actively differed, and still continued to differ in theory, were two. The first was the nature of the monarchy and its relation to the other parts of the government. The extreme Tories held that the king had a divine right to his throne, by hereditary succession; that this was indefeasible, and implied the duty of unconditional obedience from the subject. The extreme Whigs held that the king was the creation of the people, and held his office purely by act of Parliament. But it would have been difficult to find many such extreme Tories or extreme Whigs. The doctrine of the divine right of kings had been practically refuted by the Revolution of 1688; if there were any such right, then the crown belonged, not to Anne, but to the Pretender, son of James II. On the other hand, few Whigs would have denied that the monarchy was an essential part of the English system of government, and not the mere creature of parliament. The other and more important subject of difference between the two parties was the relation of the Church to the State and to Dissent. The Tories were Churchmen, and held that the interests of the Church and of religion demanded more constant and detailed attention from the State, and more stringent measures to repress dissent. They always called themselves the Church party; Queen Anne never called them anything else. The Whigs, on the other hand, though many of them were good Churchmen, apprehended less danger from dissent and were more liberal toward it. The Dissenters themselves, of course, were all Whigs. There was, however, another difference between the two parties quite as important as any speculative question, and daily growing more important. As was stated in the Introduction, the most significant social fact in the England of the first half of the eighteenth century is the growth of a great middle, commercial class, who were gaining wealth rapidly and filling up the towns. At the bottom of much political controversy between 1700 and 1715 was the undefined jealousy between this class and the landed class. It was trade against land, new wealth against old aristocracy, town against country. For this commercial class almost to a man were Whigs; the landed gentry and their dependants, country squires and country parsons, almost to a man, were Tories. This jealousy became extremely bitter about 1710. During all the reign of Anne, England had been engaged in the great war of the Spanish succession, the real object of which was to prevent the virtual union of the crowns of France and Spain. The war was heartily supported from the first by the Whigs, but opposed, or only languidly supported, by the Tories. A successful war is always popular, and strengthens the party that favours it most; accordingly, through the earlier years of the reign, when the English general Marlborough was winning his famous victories, the Whigs had everything their own way, and by 1708 the government was entirely in their hands. But as the war, however successful, seemed no nearer ending, and its burdens began to press more heavily, Tory opposition strengthened, and party feeling grew more and more intense. The financial load fell mostly on the Tory or landed class; for, as the Tories said, so soon as ever a trading Whig could get a thousand pounds, he put it into government securities, which he had to pay no tax upon, while the land had to pay him a handsome rate of interest. This opposition to the Whigs, strengthened by a feeling that the cause of the church and of religion was endangered by Whig supremacy, grew to such volume that in the memorable elections of 1710 the Whigs were defeated, and a Tory majority brought into the Commons. The Whig ministers were dismissed; Marlborough, the great general, a little later was recalled from the army; and finally the queen took the unprecedented step of creating twelve new Tory peers, and so making a Tory majority in the House of Lords also. It was in these stormy years that The Spectator appeared. In the tumult of partisan controversy Addison succeeded in keeping his paper out of the strife. He was a pronounced Whig himself, and his preferences are plainly enough to be seen even in these papers; but he sincerely deprecated the rancorous tone of party writing, and he wisely refused to allow The Spectator to become the organ of a party. Steele had more difficulty in restraining his pen, and finally retired from The Spectator rather than remain quiet on public questions. |