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Critical Appreciations V: Joseph Addison, Pax Gulielmi Auspiciis Europae Reddita, 1697, Lines 96–132 and 167–End

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

R. D. Williams  and
Malcolm Kelsall
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Extract

The following text and translation is extracted from Joseph Addison's Pax Gulielmi Auspiciis Europae Reddita, 1697 (lines 96–132 and 167–end). The poem celebrates the peace of Ryswick in which William III and his continental allies had halted the territorial ambitions of Louis XIV, and France had recognized William as King of England. The poem describes, in general terms, William's unification of the allied forces against France, the siege warfare which distinguished the campaigns, and the coming again of agricultural prosperity to war-ravaged Europe. The first extract begins with William's return to England. The omitted lines describe the young William, Dukeof Gloucester, the eldest son of the future Queen Anne, and a firework display in London. The Duke of Gloucester shortly died, and the death of the King himself in 1702 coincided with the outbreak of even fiercer war to prevent the potential unification of the thrones of France and Spain (the War of the Spanish Succession) in which Louis XIV returnedto the support of Jacobite claims to the English crown.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , April 1980 , pp. 48 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1980

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References

Notes

1. The First Satire of the Second Book of Horace: ‘Or nobly wild, with Budgell's Fire and Force,/Paint Angels trembling round his falling Horse?’ (27–8), alluding to the Killing of the future George II's steed under him at the battle of Oudenarde.

2. ‘So when an angel by divine command

With rising tempests shakes a guilty land,

Such as of late o'er pale Britannia past,

Calm and serenehe drives the fuious blast,

And, pleased the Almighty's order to perform,

Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm.’

(Bohn edition of Addison's Works i.50–1)

3. In a passage not included in this extract, Addison celebrates the young Duke of Gloucester: Iamque nepos tibi parvus adest. To consider the passage wouldinvolve too detailed an examination of Addison's politics. Since, like Marcellus, theboy did not live, and since he plays at war games, there is nothing in the passage whichinvalidates the ironic reading of the ending of the panegyric.