Friendship

Essays from Addison Spectator No. 68, May 18, 1711

Nos duo turha sumus —Ovid (We two are a multitude)

ONE would think that the larger the company is in which we are engaged, the
greater variety of thoughts and subjects would be started in discourse; but
instead of this, we find that conversation is never so much straitened and
confined as in numerous assemblies. When a multitude meet together upon
any subject of discourse, their debates are taken up chiefly with forms and
general positions; nay, if we come into a more contracted assembly of men
and women, the talk generally runs upon the weather, fashions, news, and the
like public topics. In proportion as conversation gets into clubs and knots of
friends, it descends into particulars, and grows more free and communicative;
but the most open, instructive, and unreserved discourse, is that which passes
between two persons who are familiar and intimate friends. On these
occasions, a man gives a loose to every passion and every thought that is
uppermost, discovers his most retired opinions of persons and timings, tries
the beauty and strength of his sentiments, and exposes his whole soul to the
examination of his friend.

Tully was the first who observed, that friendship improves happiness and
abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and dividing of our grief; a thought in
which he bath been followed by all the essayers upon friendship, that have
written since his time. Sir Francis Bacon has finely described other advantages,
or, as he calls them, fruits of friendship; and indeed there is no subject of
morality which has been better handled and more exhausted than this. Among
the several fine things which have been spoken of it, I shall beg leave to quote
some out of a very ancient author, whose book would be regarded by our
modern wits as one of the most shining tracts of morality that is extant, if it
appeared under the name of a Confucius, or of any celebrated Grecian
philosopher I mean the little apocryphal treatise entitled, "The Wisdom of the
Son of Sirach." How finely has he described the art of making friends, by an
obliging and affable behaviour! and laid down that precept which a late
excellent author has delivered as his own, "That we should have many well-
wishers, but few friends." "Sweet language will multiply friends: and a fair-
speaking tongue will increase kind greetings. Be in peace with many;
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nevertheless, have but one counsellor of a thousand." With what prudence
does he caution us in the choice of our friends; and with what strokes of
nature (I could almost say of humour) has he described the behaviour of a
treacherous and self-interested friend!

"If thou wouldest get a friend, prove him first, and be not hasty to credit him
for some man is a friend for his own occasion, and will not abide in the day of
thy trouble. And there is a friend who, being turned to enmity and strife, will
discover thy reproach."

Again,

"Some friend is a companion at the table, and will not continue in the day of
thy affliction: but in thy prosperity he will be as thyself, and will be bold over
thy servants. If thou be brought low, he will be against thee, and hide himself
from thy face."

What can be more strong and pointed than the following verse? "Separate
thyself from thine enemies, and take heed of thy friends." In the next words he
particularizes one of those fruits of friendship which is described at length by
the two famous authors above-mentioned, and falls into a general eulogium of
friendship, which is very just as well as very sublime.

"A faithful friend is a strong defence; and he that hath found such an one, hath
found a treasure. Nothing doth countervail a faithful friend, and his excellency
is unvaluable. A faithful friend is the medicine of life; and they that fear the
Lord shall find him. Whoso feareth the Lord shall direct his friendship aright; for
as he is, so shall his neighbour (that is, his friend) be also."

I do not remember to have met with any saying that has pleased me more than
that of a friend's being the medicine of life, to express the efficacy of friendship
in healing the pains and anguish which naturally cleave to our existence in this
world; and am wonderfully pleased with the turn in the last sentence; That a
virtuous man shall as a blessing meet with a friend who is as virtuous as
himself. There is another saying in the same author, which would have been
very much admired in an heathen writer;

"Forsake not an old friend, for the new is not comparable to him: a new friend
is as new wine; when it is old thou shalt drink it with pleasure."
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With what strength of allusion, and force of thought, has he described the
breaches and violations of friendship!

"'Who casteth a stone at the birds, frayeth them away; and he that upbraideth
his friend, breaketh friendship. Though thou drawest a sword at a friend, yet
despair not, for there may be a returning to favour. If thou hast opened thy
mouth against thy friend, fear not, for there may be a reconciliation; except for
upbraiding, or pride, or disclosing of secrets, or a treacherous wound; for, for
these things every friend will depart."

We may observe in this and several other precepts in this author, those little
familiar instances and illustrations which are so much admired in the moral
writings of Horace and Epicetus. There are very beautiful instances of this
nature in the following passages, which are likewise written upon the same
subject:

"Whoso discovereth secrets, loseth his credit, and shall never find a friend to his
mind. Love thy friend and be faithful unto him; but if thou bewrayest his
secrets, follow no more after him : for as a man bath destroyed his enemy, so
hast thou lost the love of thy friend; as one that letteth a bird go out of his
hand, so hast thou let thy friend go, and shall not get him again. Follow after
him no more, for he is too far off; he is as a roe escaped out of the snare. As for
a wound, it may be bound up, and after reviling there may be reconciliation;
but he that bewrayeth secrets is without hope."

Among the several qualifications of a good friend, this wise man has very justly
singled out constancy and faithfulness as the principal: to these others have
added virtue, knowledge, discretion, equality in age and fortune, and as Cicero
calls it, morum comitas, a pleasantness of temper. If I were to give my opinion
upon such an exhausted subject, I should join to these other qualifications a
certain equability or evenness of behaviour. A man often contracts a friendship
with one whom perhaps he does not find out till after a year's conversation ;
when on a sudden some latent ill humour breaks out upon him, which he
never discovered or suspected at his first entering into an intimacy with him.
There are several persons who in some certain periods of their lives are
inexpressibly agreeable, and at others as odious and detestable. Martial has
given us a very pretty picture of one of this species in the following epigram:

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Difficilis, facilis, jucundus, acerbus es idem,
Nec tecum possum vivere, nec sine te

(Ep. xii. 47.)

In all thy humours, whether grave or mellow,
Thou’rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow;
Hast so much wit, and mirth, and spleen about thee,
There is no living with thee, nor without thee.
It is very unlucky for a man to be entangled in a friendship with one, who by
these changes and vicissitudes of humour is sometimes amiable and
sometimes odious: and as most men are at some times in an admirable frame
and disposition of mind, it should be one of the greatest tasks of wisdom to
keep ourselves well when we are so, and never to go out of that which is the
agreeable part of our character.

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Good-Nature
Essays from Addison Spectator No. 169, September 13, 1711

Sic vita erat: facile omnes perferre ac pati:

Cum quibus erat cunque una, his sese dedere,
Eorum obsequi studiis: advorsus nemini;
Nunquam praeponens se aliis. Ita facillime
Sine invidia invenias laudem. — Terence

(His manner of life was this: to bear with everybody's humours; to comply with
the inclinations and pursuits of those he conversed with; to contradict nobody;
never to assume a superiority over others. This is the ready way to gain
applause without exciting envy.)

MAN is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of

humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are
continually adding grief to grief, and aggravating the common calamity by our
cruel treatment of one another. Every man's natural weight of affliction is still
made more heavy by the envy, malice, treachery, or injustice of his neighbour.
At the same time that the storm beats on the whole species, we are falling foul
upon one another.

Half the misery of human life might be extinguished, would men alleviate the
general curse they lie under, by mutual offices of compassion, benevolence,
and humanity. There is nothing, therefore, which we ought more to encourage
in ourselves and others, than the disposition of mind which in our language
goes under the title of good-nature, and which I shall choose for the subject of
this day's speculation.

Good-nature is more agreeable in conversation than wit, and gives a certain air
to the countenance which is more amiable than beauty. It shows virtue in the
fairest light, takes off in some measure from the deformity of vice, and makes
even folly and impertinence supportable.

There is no society or conversation to be kept up in the world without good-

nature, or something which must bear its appearance, and supply its place. For
this reason mankind have been forced to invent a kind of artificial humanity,
which is what we express by the word good-breeding. For if we examine

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thoroughly the idea of what we call so, we shall find it to be nothing else but
an imitation and mimicry of good-nature, or, in other terms, affability,
complaisance, and easiness of temper reduced into an art.

These exterior shows and appearances of humanity render a man wonderfully

popular and beloved, when they are founded upon a real good-nature; but
without it are like hypocrisy in religion, or a bare form of holiness, which when
it is discovered makes a man more detestable than professed impiety. Good-
nature is generally born with us; health, prosperity, and kind treatment from
the world are great cherishers of it where they find it, but nothing is capable of
forcing it up, where it does not grow of itself. It is one of the blessings of a
happy constitution, which education may improve, but not produce.

Xenophon, in the life of his imaginary prince, whom he describes as a pattern

for real ones, is always celebrating the philanthropy or good-nature of his hero,
which he tells us he brought into the world with him, and gives many
remarkable instances of it in his childhood, as well as in all the several parts of
his life. Nay, on his death-bed, he describes him as being pleased, that while
his soul returned to him who made it, his body should incorporate with the
great mother of all things, and by that means become beneficial to mankind.
For which reason he gives his sons a positive order not to enshrine it in gold or
silver, but to lay it in the earth as soon as the life was gone out of it.

An instance of such an overflowing of humanity, such an exuberant love to

mankind, could not have entered into the imagination of a writer, who had not
a soul filled with great ideas, and a general benevolence to mankind.

In that celebrated passage of Sallust, where Caesar and Cato are placed in such
beautiful, but opposite lights; Caesar's character is chiefly made up of good-
nature, as it showed itself in all its forms towards his friends or his enemies, his
servants or dependants, the guilty or the distressed. As for Cato's character, it
is rather awful than amiable. Justice seems most agreeable to the nature of
God, and mercy to that of man. A being who has nothing to pardon in himself,
may reward every man according to his works; but he whose very best actions
must be seen with grains of allowance, cannot be too mild, moderate, and
forgiving. For this reason, among all the monstrous characters in human

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nature, there is none so odious, nor indeed so exquisitely ridiculous, as that of
a rigid, severe temper in a worthless man.

This part of good-nature, however, which consists in the pardoning and

overlooking of faults, is to he exercised only in doing ourselves justice, and that
too in the ordinary commerce and occurrences of life; for in the public
administration of justice, mercy to one may be cruelty to others.

It is grown almost into a maxim, that good-natured men are not always men of
the most wit. The observation, in my opinion, has no foundation in nature. The
greatest wits I have conversed with are men eminent for their humanity. I take,
therefore, this remark to have been occasioned by two reasons. First, because
ill-nature, among ordinary observers passes for wit. A spiteful saying gratifies
so many little passions in those who hear it, that it generally meets with a good
reception. The laugh rises upon it, and the man who utters it is looked upon as
a shrewd satirist. This may be one reason, why a great many pleasant
companions appear so surprisingly dull when they have endeavoured to be
merry in print; the public being more just than private clubs or assemblies, in
distinguishing between what is wit and what is ill-nature.

Another reason why the good-natured man may sometimes bring his wit in
question, is, perhaps, because he is apt to be moved with compassion for
those misfortunes and infirmities, which another would turn into ridicule, and
by that means gain the reputation of a wit. The ill-natured man, though but of
equal parts, gives himself a larger field to expatiate in, he exposes the failings
in human nature which the other would cast a veil over, laughs at vices which
the other either excuses or conceals, gives utterance to reflections which the
other stifles, falls indifferently upon friends or enemies, exposes the person
who has obliged him, and in short sticks at nothing that may establish his
character as a wit. It is no wonder, therefore, he succeeds in it better than the
man of humanity, as a person who makes use of indirect methods is more
likely to grow rich than the fair trader.

Part 2

Quis enim bonus, aut face dignus Arcanâ, qualem Cereris vult esse sacerdos,
Ulla aliena sibi credat mala? — JUV., Sat. xv. 140. Tate.

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Who can all sense of others’ ills escape, Is but a brute, at best, in human shape.

In one of my last week’s papers, I treated of good-nature as it is the effect of

constitution; I shall now speak of it as it is a moral virtue. The first may make a
man easy in himself and agreeable to others, but implies no merit in him that is
possessed of it. A man is no more to be praised upon this account, than
because he has a regular pulse or a good digestion. This good nature, however,
in the constitution, which Mr. Dryden somewhere calls “a milkiness of blood,”
is an admirable groundwork for the other. In order, therefore, to try our good-
nature, whether it arises from the body or the mind, whether it be founded in
the animal or rational part of our nature; in a word, whether it be such as is
entitled to any other reward besides that secret satisfaction and contentment
of mind which is essential to it, and the kind reception it procures us in the
world, we must examine it by the following rules:

First, whether it acts with steadiness and uniformity in sickness and in health,
in prosperity and in adversity; if otherwise, it is to be looked upon as nothing
else but an irradiation of the mind from some new supply of spirits, or a more
kindly circulation of the blood. Sir Francis Bacon mentions a cunning solicitor,
who would never ask a favour of a great man before dinner; but took care to
prefer his petition at a time when the party petitioned had his mind free from
care, and his appetites in good humour. Such a transient temporary good-
nature as this, is not that philanthropy, that love of mankind, which deserves
the title of a moral virtue.

The next way of a man’s bringing his good-nature to the test is to consider
whether it operates according to the rules of reason and duty: for if,
notwithstanding its general benevolence to mankind, it makes no distinction
between its objects; if it exerts itself promiscuously towards the deserving and
the undeserving; if it relieves alike the idle and the indigent; if it gives itself up
to the first petitioner, and lights upon any one rather by accident than choice—
it may pass for an amiable instinct, but must not assume the name of a moral
virtue.

The third trial of good-nature will be the examining ourselves whether or not
we are able to exert it to our own disadvantage, and employ it on proper
objects, notwithstanding any little pain, want, or inconvenience, which may

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arise to ourselves from it: in a word, whether we are willing to risk any part of
our fortune, our reputation, our health or ease, for the benefit of mankind.
Among all these expressions of good nature, I shall single out that which goes
under the general name of charity, as it consists in relieving the indigent: that
being a trial of this kind which offers itself to us almost at all times and in every
place.

I should propose it as a rule, to everyone who is provided with any competency

of fortune more than sufficient for the necessaries of life, to lay aside a certain
portion of his income for the use of the poor. This I would look upon as an
offering to Him who has a right to the whole, for the use of those whom, in the
passage hereafter mentioned, He has described as His own representatives
upon earth. At the same time, we should manage our charity with such
prudence and caution, that we may not hurt our own friends or relations whilst
we are doing well to those who are strangers to us.

This may possibly be explained better by an example than by a rule.

Eugenius is a man of a universal good nature, and generous beyond the extent
of his fortune; but withal so prudent in the economy of his affairs, that what
goes out in charity is made up by good management. Eugenius has what the
world calls two hundred pounds a year; but never values himself above nine-
score, as not thinking he has a right to the tenth part, which he always
appropriates to charitable uses. To this sum he frequently makes other
voluntary additions, insomuch, that in a good year— for such he accounts
those in which he has been able to make greater bounties than ordinary—he
has given above twice that sum to the sickly and indigent. Eugenius prescribes
to himself many particular days of fasting and abstinence, in order to increase
his private bank of charity, and sets aside what would be the current expenses
of those times for the use of the poor. He often goes afoot where his business
calls him, and at the end of his walk has given a shilling, which in his ordinary
methods of expense would have gone for coach-hire, to the first necessitous
person that has fallen in his way. I have known him, when he has been going to
a play or an opera, divert the money which was designed for that purpose
upon an object of charity whom he has met with in the street; and afterwards
pass his evening in a coffee-house, or at a friend’s fireside, with much greater
satisfaction to himself than he could have received from the most exquisite
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entertainments of the theatre. By these means he is generous without
impoverishing himself, and enjoys his estate by making it the property of
others.

There are few men so cramped in their private affairs, who may not be
charitable after this manner, without any disadvantage to themselves, or
prejudice to their families. It is but sometimes sacrificing a diversion or
convenience to the poor, and turning the usual course of our expenses into a
better channel. This is, I think, not only the most prudent and convenient, but
the most meritorious piece of charity which we can put in practice. By this
method, we in some measure share the necessities of the poor at the same
time that we relieve them, and make ourselves not only their patrons, but their
fellow-sufferers.

Sir Thomas Brown, in the last part of his “Religio Medici,” in which he describes
his charity in several heroic instances, and with a noble heat of sentiments,
mentions that verse in the Proverbs of Solomon: “He that giveth to the poor
lendeth to the Lord.” There is more rhetoric in that one sentence, says he, than
in a library of sermons; and indeed, if those sentences were understood by the
reader with the same emphasis as they are delivered by the author, we needed
not those volumes of instructions, but might be honest by an epitome.

This passage of Scripture is, indeed, wonderfully persuasive; but I think the
same thought is carried much further in the New Testament, where our
Saviour tells us, in a most pathetic manner, that he shall hereafter regard the
clothing of the naked, the feeding of the hungry, and the visiting of the
imprisoned, as offices done to Himself, and reward them accordingly. Pursuant
to those passages in Holy Scripture, I have somewhere met with the epitaph of
a charitable man, which has very much pleased me. I cannot recollect the
words, but the sense of it is to this purpose: What I spent I lost; what I
possessed is left to others; what I gave away remains with me.

Since I am thus insensibly engaged in Sacred Writ, I cannot forbear making an

extract of several passages which I have always read with great delight in the
book of Job. It is the account which that holy man gives of his behaviour in the
days of his prosperity; and, if considered only as a human composition, is a

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finer picture of a charitable and good-natured man than is to be met with in
any other author.

“Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me:
When his candle shined upon my head, and when by his light I walked through
darkness: When the Almighty was yet with me; when my children were about
me: When I washed my steps with butter, and the rock poured me out rivers of
oil.

“When the ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me, it
gave witness to me. Because I delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless,
and him that had none to help him. The blessing of him that was ready to
perish came upon me, and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy. I was
eyes to the blind; and feet was I to the lame; I was a father to the poor, and
the cause which I knew not I searched out. Did not I weep for him that was in
trouble? Was not my soul grieved for the poor? Let me be weighed in an even
balance, that God may know mine integrity. If I did despise the cause of my
man-servant or of my maid-servant when they contended with me: What then
shall I do when God riseth up? and when he visiteth, what shall I answer him?
Did not he that made me in the womb, make him? and did not one fashion us
in the womb? If I have withheld the poor from their desire, or have caused the
eyes of the widow to fail; Or have eaten my morsel myself alone, and the
fatherless hath not eaten thereof; If I have seen any perish for want of
clothing, or any poor without covering; If his loins have not blessed me, and if
he were not warmed with the fleece of my sheep; If I have lifted my hand
against the fatherless, when I saw my help in the gate: Then let mine arm fall
from my shoulderblade, and mine arm be broken from the bone. If I [have]
rejoiced at the destruction of him that hated me, or lifted up myself when evil
found him: Neither have I suffered my mouth to sin, by wishing a curse to his
soul. The stranger did not lodge in the street; but I opened my doors to the
traveller. If my land cry against me, or that the furrows likewise thereof
complain: If I have eaten the fruits thereof without money, or have caused the
owners thereof to lose their life: Let thistles grow instead of wheat, and cockle
instead of barley.”

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No. 97. Narratives of travellers considered. 23 Feb 1760

Posted by Samuel Johnson in The Idler

It may, I think, be justly observed, that few books disappoint their readers
more than the narrations of travellers. One part of mankind is naturally curious
to learn the sentiments, manners, and condition of the rest; and every mind
that has leisure or power to extend its views, must be desirous of knowing in
what proportion Providence has distributed the blessings of nature, or the
advantages of art, among the several nations of the earth.

This general desire easily procures readers to every book from which it can
expect gratification. The adventurer upon unknown coasts, and the describer
of distant regions, is always welcomed as a man who has laboured for the
pleasure of others, and who is able to enlarge our knowledge and rectify our
opinions; but when the volume is opened, nothing is found but such general
accounts as leave no distinct idea behind them, or such minute enumerations
as few can read with either profit or delight.

Every writer of travels should consider, that, like all other authors, he
undertakes either to instruct or please, or to mingle pleasure with instruction.
He that instructs must offer to the mind something to be imitated, or
something to be avoided; he that pleases must offer new images to his reader,
and enable him to form a tacit comparison of his own state with that of others.

The greater part of travellers tell nothing, because their method of travelling
supplies them with nothing to be told. He that enters a town at night, and
surveys it in the morning, and then hastens away to another place, and
guesses at the manners of the inhabitants by the entertainment which his inn
afforded him, may please himself for a time with a hasty change of scenes, and
a confused remembrance of palaces and churches; he may gratify his eye with
a variety of landscapes, and regale his palate with a succession of vintages; but
let him be contented to please himself without endeavouring to disturb others.

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Why should he record excursions by which nothing could be learned, or wish
to make a show of knowledge, which, without some power of intuition
unknown to other mortals, he never could attain?

Of those who crowd the world with their itineraries, some have no other
purpose than to describe the face of the country; those who sit idle at home,
and are curious to know what is done or suffered in distant countries, may be
informed by one of these wanderers, that on a certain day he set out early
with the caravan, and in the first hour’s march saw, towards the south, a hill
covered with trees, then passed over a stream, which ran northward with a
swift course, but which is probably dry in the summer months; that an hour
after he saw something to the right which looked at a distance like a castle
with towers, but which he discovered afterwards to be a craggy rock; that he
then entered a valley, in which he saw several trees tall and flourishing,
watered by a rivulet not marked in the maps, of which he was not able to learn
the name; that the road afterward grew stony, and the country uneven, where
he observed among the hills many hollows worn by torrents, and was told that
the road was passable only part of the year; that going on they found the
remains of a building, once, perhaps, a fortress to secure the pass, or to
restrain the robbers, of which the present inhabitants can give no other
account than that it is haunted by fairies; that they went to dine at the foot of
a rock, and travelled the rest of the day along the banks of a river, from which
the road turned aside towards evening, and brought them within sight of a
village, which was once a considerable town, but which afforded them neither
good victuals nor commodious lodging.

Thus he conducts his reader through wet and dry, over rough and smooth,
without incidents, without reflection; and, if he obtains his company for
another day, will dismiss him again at night, equally fatigued with a like
succession of rocks and streams, mountains and ruins.

This is the common style of those sons of enterprise, who visit savage
countries, and range through solitude and desolation; who pass a desert, and
tell that it is sandy; who cross a valley, and find that it is green. There are
others of more delicate sensibility, that visit only the realms of elegance and
softness; that wander through Italian palaces, and amuse the gentle reader
with catalogues of pictures; that hear masses in magnificent churches, and
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recount the number of the pillars or variegations of the pavement. And there
are yet others, who, in disdain of trifles, copy inscriptions elegant and rude,
ancient and modern; and transcribe into their book the walls of every edifice,
sacred or civil. He that reads these books must consider his labour as its own
reward; for he will find nothing on which attention can fix, or which memory
can retain.

He that would travel for the entertainment of others, should remember that
the great object of remark is human life. Every nation has something peculiar
in its manufactures, its works of genius, its medicines, its agriculture, its
customs and its policy. He only is a useful traveller, who brings home
something by which his country may be benefited; who procures some supply
of want, or some mitigation of evil, which may enable his readers to compare
their condition with that of others, to improve it whenever it is worse, and
whenever it is better to enjoy it.

Six Paper’s on Wit

Michael G. Ketcham identifies four methods for defining wit in the Spectator
series (i.e. series on criticism and taste): (1) analytical method consisting in
separating what Addison calls “false”, “true” and “mixed” wit; (2) historical
method by tracing the history of wit from classical through Gothic and modern
times; (3) applying the conventional categories of neoclassical criticism – in wit
“the first Race of Authors, who were the great Heroes in Writing, were
destitute of all Rules and Arts of Criticism; and for that Reason, though they
excel later Writers in Greatness and Genius, they fall short of them in Accuracy
and Correctness” (No. 61); and (4) the method of searching for the
psychological explanations – Addison contrasts his own definitions with
Dryden’s definition of wit as “a Propriety of Words and Thoughts applied to the
Subject” (No. 62) (Ketcham 71). In the first essay on wit (No. 58 of May 7 1711),
Addison’s main motive is to “establish [...] a Taste for polite Writing” and he
proceeds to set out a plan to trace out “theHistory of false Wit and distinguish
the several Kinds of it as they have prevailed in different Ages of the World”
(The Spectator I 245). He is motivated by fear of revival of “those antiquated
Modes of Wit that have been long exploded out of the Common-wealth of

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Letters” because lately there have been “several Satyrs and Panegyricks handed
about in Agrostick, by which Means some of the most arrant undisputed
Blockheads about the Town began to entertain ambitious Thoughts, and to set
up for Polite Authors” (The Spectator I 245).

In this single sentence, Addison identifies several important things: One of the
poetic forms of false wit (acrostic, i.e. a poem in which the first letter, syllable
or word of each line spells out a word or a message), association of false wit
with the genre of satire and panegyric, and more significantly still his true
motivation for tracing out the history of false wit. False wit is closely associated
with those who try to set up for [polite] authors, i.e. the would-be writers or
artists in general. Addison’s real goal is not aesthetic (to establish a standard of
taste in writing) or literary-historical (to summarize the changing poetic styles),
but ideological – to defend himself and his profession against those who may
wish to infiltrate the guild and impose upon those whose sensibilities are not
as highly trained as to distinguish between what is a good piece of writing and
what is not. In the “Art of false Wit”, Addison continues, “[...] a Writer does not
shew himself a Man of a beautiful Genius, but of great Industry” (I 246).

He goes on to identify picture-poems (favoured by the Metaphysical poets and

often dubbed acrosticks) as another type of false wit and criticizes them for
their derogative attitude towards poetic art: author of such a poem had to first
“draw the Out-line of the Subject which he intended to write upon, and
afterwards conform the Description to the Figure of his Subject” (I 247).

During this creative process, poetry is treated in an impermissible manner: it is

to “contract or dilate itself according to the Mould in which it [is] cast” (ibid.).
Addison quotes Dryden’s Mac Flecknoe to support his own position. In the
second essay on wit (No. 59 of May 8, 1711) Addison points out for the first
time the social appeal of a wit when he says: “there is nothing more certain
than that every Man would be a Wit if he could”, thus hinting at the increasing
social attractiveness of the status of writer in the early modern European
culture (I 249).

Those would-be wits (i.e. authors) are characteristic for the inappropriately
painful and futile attempts at establishing this status: “[W]ere one to gain [the
title of wit] by those Elaborate Trifles [...], a Man had better be a Gally-Slave

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than a Wit” (ibid.). He goes on to identify some more forms of false wit:
lipogram (a poem in which a certain letter is omitted), rebus (a poem in which a
whole word is omitted and replaced by an image) and echo-poem (e.g. George
Herbert’s Heaven (1633)). He quotes a part of Samuel Butler’s mock heroic
Hudibras (1664). Addison also associates the origin of these forms of what he
calls false wit with the ancient Greek authors but his criticism is directed at the
Metaphysical poets who revived these poetic methods “purely for the sake of
being Witty”(I 251). The ancient authors (or rulers respectively), practised this
kind of wit for some actual purpose (e.g. the rebus-coin of Caesar, who placed
the figure of elephant on the reverse side of the coins. The word Caesar meant
“elephant” in Punic and it was against laws to place a private man’s image on
the coin).

True and False Wit: Dryden, Pope, and Addison. The Christian monks are
identified as the main culprits of this vogue of false wit in the beginning of the
third essay on wit (No. 60 of May 9, 1711). The monks as the masters of
learning in the early Christian period took up to this kind of wit which required
time and industry, but not genius and capacity. They not only restored the
ancient techniques of false wit, but also “enriched the World With Inventions
of their own” – e.g. anagram, “which is nothing else but a Transmutation of
one Word into another, or the turning of the same Set of Letters into different
Words; which may change Night into Day, or Black into White, if Chance [...]
shall so direct” (I 254).

Here, Addison alludes to the central danger of language employed in creative

way – manipulation and deformation of reality. Also, he adds another feature
of false wit: it is not guided by necessity (artistic or any other), but by mere
chance. Again, he emphasizes the disproportional quantity of time invested
into the creation of this kind of writing – he recounts a story of a man who,
trying to come up with an anagram for his mistress’s name, “shut himself up for
half a Year” before finally coming up with one (I 255).

Other types of false wit include chronogram (favoured by the Germans) and
bouts rimes (favoured by the French). In the fourth paper on wit (No. 61 of
May 10, 1711) Addison mostly attacks punning and discusses the battle
between the Ancients and the Moderns before mentioning the distinction
between false and true wit for the first time. Punning, Addison asserts at the
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outset of the essay, is the most frequent kind of false wit: The Seeds of Punning
are in the Minds of all Men, and tho’ they may be subdued by Reason,
Reflection and good Sense, they will be very apt to shoot up in the greatest
Genius, that is not broken and cultivated by the Rules of Art. Imitation is
natural to us, and when it does not raise the Mind to Poetry, Painting, Musick,
or other more noble Arts, it often breaks out in Puns and Quibbles. (I 259)

He quotes Aristotle (Rhetoric, Chapter 11) who ranks paragram as a proof of

good writing. According to Addison, the age that was most pun-prone was the
reign of James I (1566 –1625), i.e. the time of Baroque poetry, marinism,
gongorism, Metaphysical poetry etc. During this time, pun “was delivered with
great Gravity from the Pulpit, or pronounced in the most solemn manner at the
Council-Table” (I 260). Pun infected the everyday speech, and – by extension –
the reality, it ceased to respect the borders of its designated area of influence,
as Addison observes: “The Sermons of Bishop Andrews, and the Tragedies of
Shakespeare, are full of [Puns]”

Thus, the religious practice was undermined by the subversive wit and the
same rhetoric was used by a sinner to make repentance in the church as by an
actor during a soliloquy on the stage. Addison is sarcastic about “a famous
University of this Land”, which was lately “Infested With Punns” and suggests
ironically that the reason might be the nearby fens and marches (I 261).
Defending the ancient authors who used puns, Addison says they did not know
any better – they “were destitute of all Rules and Arts of Criticism, and for that
Reason, though they excel later Writers in Greatness of Genius, they fall short
of them in Accuracy and Correctness”

To distinguish several kinds of wit produced by the first

rhetoric_2013_text.indd 112 27.1.2014 17:05:50 3.3 Joseph Addison and the
Aesthetics of Neoclassical Wit 113 race of the writers (i.e. the Ancients) was
the task of the second race of authors, and they did so upon the criterion of
their being founded in truth. Ancient authors (apart from Quintilian and
Longinus) did not know how to separate false and true wit, because the
distinction was not settled yet. The dichotomy of false and true wit lay at the
core of the establishment of Augustan art criticism. He then continues to locate
the revival of false wit: “[it] happen’d about the time of the Revival of Letters

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[i.e. Renaissance], but as soon as it was once detected, it immediately vanish’d
and disappear’d” (I 262).

Addison also predicts that it will one day be yet again revived “in some distant
Period of time, as Pedantry and Ignorance will prevail upon Wit and Sense”
(ibid.). Here, “wit” is of course the right kind of wit i.e. he true wit. Finally,
Addison defines pun as “a Conceit arising from the use of two Words that agree
in the Sound, but differ in the Sense” (I 262-3). If “a Piece of Wit” is true, it
needs to stand the test of translation: if “it bears the Test, you may pronounce
it true; but if it vanishes in the Experiment, you may conclude it to have been a
Punn” (I 263).

He then likens false wit to “vox et praeterea nihil” (i.e.sounds without sense)
and contrasts it to true wit whose essence lies in the metaphorical “Induitur,
formosa est: Exuitur, ipsa forma est” (let her be dressed or undressed, all is
one, she is excellent still) (ibid). The penultimate essay on wit (Spectator no. 62
of May 11, 1711) starts by Addison quoting from Locke’s Essay on the
difference between Wit and Judgment: “[...] Wit lying most in the Assemblage
of Ideas, and putting those together with Quickness and Variety, herein can be
found any Resemblance or Congruity thereby to make up pleasant Pictures and
agreeable Visions in the Fancy” (I 263-4). On the other hand, judgment “lies […]
in separating carefully one from another, Ideas wherein can be found the least
Difference, thereby to avoid being misled by Similitude and by Affinity to take
one thing for another” (I 264).

In Locke’s account, metaphor is associated with pleasantries of wit and fancy

and opposed to judgment and reason. Addison approves of this definition of
wit and adds that not every resemblance of Ideas is what we call wit, “unless it
be such a one that gives Delight and Surprise to the Reader: These two
Properties seem essential to Wit, more particularly the last of them. The ideas
should not lie too near one another in the Nature of things, for where the
Likeness is obvious, it gives no Surprise” (I 264). Apart from the obvious
resemblance, some further congruity must be discovered in the two ideas that
is capable of giving the reader some surprise.

Addison then defines true wit as resemblance of ideas while false wit as
resemblance of single letters (as in anagrams, chronograms, lipograms,

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acrostics), sometimes of syllables (echo-poems, doggerel rhymes), sometimes
of words (puns, quibbles), and sometimes of whole sentences or poems
(picture-poems), and proceeds to introduce a third type of wit: “mixt Wit” –
consisting partly in the resemblance of ideas and partly in the resemblance of
words. This kind of wit abounds in Cowley, Waller, “the Italians”, occasionally
Dryden, while Milton, Spencer, Boileau, most of the ancient Greeks, are above
it. Mixt wit has “innumerable branches”, and it is the composition of puns and
true wit. Addison disagrees with Dryden’s famous definition of true wit as
“Propriety of Words and Thoughts adapted to the Subject” (I 267).

This definition, Addison contends, is applicable to good writing in general. As

George Williamson points out, Addison misquotes Dryden here, but the
misquoting emphasizes the opposition between Addison’s position and earlier
perceptions of wit. For Dryden, according to Addison’s misreading, wit can be
tested by looking at the work itself, by assessing the proportions between
words and thoughts. For himself, Addison turns to Locke’s definition of wit as
“lying most in the assemblage of ideas, and putting those together with
quickness and variety wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity,
thereby to make up pleasant pictures in the fancy” (quoted in No. 62). Addison
modifies his definition, as well, in order to further emphasize an affective
psychology: “every Resemblance of Ideas is not that which we call Wit, unless it
be such a one that gives Delight and Surprize to the Reader” (No. 62). Addison
“appeals beyond the formal qualities of the work to the mechanisms of the
mind” (Ketcham 72). I will devote a part of the following section to the element
of surprise and its significance in Addison’s aesthetic theory. Addison agrees
with Dominique Bouhours that no thought can be beautiful that is not just and
does not have its foundation in the nature of things: “[...] the Basis of all Wit is
Truth; and [...] no Thought can be valuable, of which good Sense is not the
Groundwork” (I 268).

Boileau is also a supporter of this principle which is “the natural Way of writing,
that beautiful Simplicity, which we so admire in the Compositions of the
Ancients” (ibid.). This ability stems from the strength of genius. Those who lack
in it, try to compensate for it with “foreign Ornaments” (ibid.). Addison
compares these authors to “Goths in Poetry”, who, like those in architecture,
try to supply “beautiful Simplicity” with “all the Extravagancies of an irregular

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Fancy” (ibid.). Doubting the taste of “English Poets as well as Readers” and
calling it “extremely Gothick”, he quotes Dryden, who in turn quotes Jean
Regnauld de Segrais who distinguishes the readers of poetry according to the
capacity of judging into three classes (I 269). Addison only quotes the first,
lowest class of the readers: “the Rabble of Readers” in other words “Les Petits
Esprits [who] “prefer a Quibble, a Conceit, an Epigram, before solid Sense and
elegant Expression: These are Mob-Readers” (I 269). In the very last paragraph
Addison returns to Locke’s definition of wit and expands it by suggesting that
“not only the Resemblance but the Opposition of Ideas does very often
produce Wit” (I 270).

Addison recounts his last night’s allegorical dream of several schemes of wit: In
his dream, he enters Region of false wit, governed by Goddess of Falsehood.
Nothing in this land appears natural – trees blossom in leaf-gold, produce
bone-lace and precious stones. The fountains bubble in opera tunes, are filled
with stags, wild-boars, and mermaids, dolphins and fish play on banks and
meadows. The birds have human voices; the winds are filled with sighs and
messages of distant lovers. Addison ventures upon a ‘gothic’ building in a dark
forest – it turns out to be a heathen temple of the God of Dullness. The god is
surrounded by his worshippers: Industry and Caprice. There is an altar covered
in offerings of axes, wings, cut in paper and inscribed with verses (picture-
poems). The votaries present include ‘Regiment of Anagrams,’ ‘Body of
Acrosticks,’ ‘files of Chronograms,’ ‘Phantom of Tryphiodorus

Joseph Addison and the Aesthetics of Neoclassical Wit 115 the

Lipogrammatist,’ all engaging in pastime like Rebus, Crambo, and Double
Rhymes (I 271-2). Outside the temple, Addison passes by ‘a Party of Punns,’
and on his way out of the region, he meets Goddess of Truth, whose arrival is
signalled by “a very shining Light”(I 273). On her right side, “there marched a
Male Deity, who bore several Quivers on his shoulders, and grasped several
Arrows in his hand. His name was Wit” (I 273). The frontiers of ‘the Enchanted
Region’ were inhabited by “the Species of MIXED WIT, who made a very odd
Appearance when they were mustered together in an Army” (ibid.). He goes on
to describe the members of the species as follows: “There were Men whose
Bodies were stuck full of Darts, and Women whose Eyes were burning Glasses:
Men that had Hearts of Fire, and Women that had Breasts of Snow”. This big

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group divided up into two parts, “one half throwing themselves behind the
Banners of TRUTH, and the others behind those of FALSEHOOD” (ibid.). The
brightness of Truth makes Falsehood fade away and with her the whole army
“shrunk into Nothing,” the temple sinks, the fountains recover their murmurs,
birds their voices, the trees their leaves, “and the whole Face of Nature its true
and genuine Appearance”(I 274).

Then Addison inspects the army of true wit: there is the ‘Genius of Heroic
Poetry,’ ‘Tragedy,’ ‘Satyr,’ ‘Rhetorick,’ ‘Comedy,’ and ‘Epigram,’ who “marched
up at the Rear” and “who had been posted there at the Beginning of the
Expedition, that he might not revolt to the Enemy, whom he was suspected to
favor in his Heart”(ibid.). Addison is “very much awed and delighted With the
Appearance of the God of Wit,” for “there was something so amiable and yet
so piercing in his Looks” that he feels himself inspired “with Love and Terror”
(ibid.). The God offers his quiver of arrows as a present to Addison who,
reaching his hand to accept it knocks it against the chair and wakes up.

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