Addison sat for Malmsbury in the House of Commons which was elected in 1708.But the House of Commons was not the field for him.The bashfulness of his nature made his wit and eloquence useless in debate.He once rose, but could not overcome his diffidence, and ever after remained silent.Nobody can think it strange that a great writer should fail as a speaker.But many, probably, will think it strange that Addison's failure as a speaker should have had no unfavourable effect on his success as a politician.In our time, a man of high rank and great fortune might, though speaking very little and very ill, hold a considerable post.But it would now be inconceivable that a mere adventurer, a man who, when out of office, must live by his pen, should in a few years become successively Under-Secretary of State, Chief Secretary for Ireland, and Secretary of State, without some oratorical talent.Addison, without high birth, and with little property, rose to a post which Dukes the heads of the great Houses of Talbot, Russell, and Bentinck, have thought it an honour to fill.Without opening his lips in debate, he rose to a post, the highest that Chatham or Fox ever reached.And this he did before he had been nine years in Parliament.We must look for the explanation of this seeming miracle to the peculiar circumstances in which that generation was placed.During the interval which elapsed between the time when the Censorship of the Press ceased, and the time when parliamentary proceedings began to be freely reported, literary talents were, to a public man, of much more importance, and oratorical talents of much less importance, than in our time.At present, the best way of giving rapid and wide publicity to a fact or an argument is to introduce that fact or argument into a speech made in Parliament.If a political tract were to appear superior to the Conduct of the Allies, or to the best numbers of the Freeholder, the circulation of such a tract would be languid indeed when compared with the circulation of every remarkable word uttered in the deliberations of the legislature.A speech made in the House of Commons at four in the morning is on thirty thousand tables before ten.A speech made on the Monday is read on the Wednesday by multitudes in Antrim and Aberdeenshire.The orator, by the help of the shorthand writer, has to a great extent superseded the pamphleteer.It was not so in the reign of Anne.The best speech could then produce no effect except on those who heard it.It was only by means of the press that the opinion of the public without doors could be influenced: and the opinion of the public without doors could not but be of the highest importance in a country governed by parliaments, and indeed at that time governed by triennial parliaments.The pen was therefore a more formidable political engine than the tongue.Mr.Pitt and Mr.Fox contended only in Parliament.But Walpole and Pulteney, the Pitt and Fox of an earlier period, had not done half of what was necessary, when they sat down amidst the acclamations of the House of Commons.
They had still to plead their cause before the country, and this they could do only by means of the press.Their works are now forgotten.But it is certain that there were in Grub Street few more assiduous scribblers of Thoughts, Letters, Answers, Remarks, than these two great chiefs of parties.Pulteney, when leader of the Opposition, and possessed of thirty thousand a year, edited the Craftsman.Walpole, though not a man of literary habits, was the author of at least ten pamphlets, and retouched and corrected many more.These facts sufficiently show of how great importance literary assistance then was to the contending parties.St.John was, certainly, in Anne's reign, the best Tory speaker; Cowper was probably the best Whig speaker.But it may well be doubted whether St.John did so much for the Tories as Swift, and whether Cowper did so much for the Whigs as Addison.When these things are duly considered, it will not be thought strange that Addison should have climbed higher in the State than any other Englishman has ever, by means merely of literary talents, been able to climb.Swift would, in all probability, have climbed as high, if he had not been encumbered by his cassock and his pudding sleeves.As far as the homage of the great went, Swift had as much of it as if he had been Lord Treasurer.
To the influence which Addison derived from his literary talents was added all the influence which arises from character.The world, always ready to think the worst of needy political adventurers, was forced to make one exception.Restlessness, violence, audacity, laxity of principle, are the vices ordinarily attributed to that class of men.But faction itself could not deny that Addison had, through all changes of fortune, been strictly faithful to his early opinions, and to his early friends; that his integrity was without stain; that his whole deportment indicated a fine sense of the becoming; that, in the utmost heat of controversy, his zeal was tempered by a regard for truth, humanity, and social decorum; that no outrage could ever provoke him to retaliation unworthy of a Christian and a gentleman; and that his only faults were a too sensitive delicacy, and a modesty which amounted to bashfulness.
