selves to be impressed, but demanded to be pleased. To please rationally was the object of their literature. Such is Addison's criticism, which resemb'es his art; born, like his art, of classical urbanity; fit, like his art, for the life of the world, having the same solidity and the same limits, because it had the Bame sources, namely, order and relaxation. VI. But we must consider that we are in England, and that we find there many hings not agreeable to a Frenchman. In France, the classical age attained perfection; so that, compared to it, other countries lack somewhat of fin' ish. Addison, elegant in his own native country, is not quite so in France. Compared with Tillotson, he is the most charming man possible; compared to Montesquieu, he is only half polished. His converse is hardly sparkling enough; the quick movement, the easy change of tone, the facile smile, readily uropt and readily resumed, are hardly visible. He drags on in long and too uniform phrases; his periods are too square; we might cull a load of useless words. He tells us what he is going to say: he marks divisions and subdivisions; he quotes Latin, even Greek; he displays and protracts without end the serviceable and sticky plaster of his morality. He has no fear of being wearisome. That is not what Englishmen fear. Men who love demonstrative sermons three hours long are not difficult to amuse. Remember that here the women like to go to meeting, and are entertained by listening for half a day to discourses on drunkenness, or On the sliding scale for taxes: these paDent creatures do not require that conversation should be always lively and piq aant. Consequently they can put up with a less refined politeness and less disguised compliments. When Addison bows to them, which happens often, it is gravely, and his reverence is always accompanied by a warning. Take the following on their gaudy dresses: " I looked with as much pleasure upon this little party-coloured assembly, as upon a bed of tulips, and did not know at first whether it might not be an embassy of Indian queens; but upon my going about into the pit, and takinė them in front, I was immediately undeceived, and saw so much beauty in every face, that I found them all to be English. Such eyes and lips, cheeks and foreheads, could be the growth of no other country. The complexion of their faces hindered me from observing any furthe the colour of their hoods, though I could easily perceive, by that unspeakable satisfaction which appeared in their looks, that their own thoughts were wholly taken up on those pretty orraments they wore upon their heads." * In this discreet raillery, modified by an almost official admiration, we perceive the English mode of treating women: man, by her side, is always a lay-preacher; they are for him charming children, or useful housewives, never queens of the drawing-room, or equals, as amongst the French. When Addison wishes to bring back the Jacobite ladies to the Protestant party, he treats them almost like little girls, to whom we promise, if they will be good, to restore their doll or their cake: "They should first reflect the great suf ferings and persecutions to which they expose themselves by the obstinacy of their behaviour. They lose their elections in every club where they are set up for toasts. They are obliged by their principles to stick a patch on the most unbecoming of their foreheads. They forego the advantage of birthday suits. They receive no benefit from the army, and are never the better for all the young fellows that wear hats and feathers. They are forced to live in the country and feed their chickens; at the same time that they might show themselves at court, and appear in brocade, if they behaved themselves well. In short, what must go to the heart of every fine woman, they throw themselves quite out of the fashion.. man is startled when he sees a pretty bosom heaving with such party-rage, as is disagreeable even in that sex which is of a more coarse and ... A rugged make. And yet such is our misfortune, that we sometimes see a pair of stays ready to burst with sedition; and hear the most masculine passions expressed in the sweetest voices. Where a number of flowers the ground at distance seems entirely covered with them, and we must walk into it before we can distinguish the several weeds that spring up in such a beautiful mass of colours." t This gallantry is too deliberate; we are somewhat shocked to see a woman touched by such thoughtful hands. It is the urbanity of a moralist; albeit he is well-bred, he is not quite amiable and if a Frenchman can receive f.om him lessons of pedagogy and conduct, Addison might come over to France to find models of manners and conversa tion. *Spectator, No. 265. + Freeholder, No 26. If the first care of a Frenchman in There is much originality in this grave society is to be amiable, that of an gayety. As a rule, singularity is in Englishman is to be dignified; their mood leads them to immobility, as ours to gestures; and their pleasantry is as grave as ours is gay. Laughter with them is inward; they shun giving themselves up to it; they are amused silently. Let us make up our mind to understand this kind of temper, it will end by pleasing us. When phlegm is united to gentleness, as in Addison, it is as agreeable as it is piquant. We are charmed to meet a lively man, who is yet master of himself. We are astonished to see these contrary qualities together. Each heightens and modifies the other. We are not repelled by venomous bitterness, as in Swift, or by continuous buffoonery, as in Voltaire. We enjoy altogether the rare union, which for the first time combines serious bearing and good humor. Read this little satire against the bad taste of the stage and the public. "There is nothing that of late years has afforded matter of greater amusement to the town than Signor Nicolini's combat with a lion in the Haymarket, which has been very often exhibited to the general satisfaction of most of the nobility and gentry in the kingdom of Great Britain. The first lion was a candle-snufper, overdid his part, and would not suffer him being fellow a testy, choleric temself to be killed so easily as he ought to have done. The second lion was a tailor by trade, who belonged to the playhouse, and had the character of mild peaceable man in his profession. If the former was too furious, this was too sheepish for his part; insomuch that, after a short modest walk upon the stage, he would fall at the first touch of Hydaspes, without grappling with him, and giving him an opportunity of shewing his variety of Italian trips. It is said, indeed, that he once gave him a rip in his flesh-coloured doublet; but this was only to make work for himself, in his private character of a tailor.... The acting lion at present is as I am informed, a country gentleman, who does it for his diversion, but desires ais name may be concealed. He says, very handsomely, in his own excuse, that he does not act for gain, that he indulges an innocent pleasure in it; and that it is better to pass away an evening in this manner than in gaming and drinking. This gentleman's temper is made out of such a happy mixture of the mild and the choler's, that he outdoes both his predecessors, and nas drawn together greater audiences than have been known in the memory of man. In the meantime I have related this combat of the lion, to show what are at present the reigning entertainments of the politer part of Great Britain." * ... accordance with the taste of the nation, they like to be impressed strongly by contrasts. French literature seems to them threadtare; and the French find them often not very delicate. A number of the Spectator which seemed pleas ant to London ladies would have shock ed people in Paris. Thus, Addison relates in the form of a dream the dissec tion of a beau's brain: "The pinea gland, which many of our med ern philosophers suppose to be the seat of the soul, smelt very strong of essence and orangeflower water, and was encompassed with a kind of horny substance, cut into a thousand little faces or mirrors, which were imperceptible to the naked eye; insomuch that the soul, if there had been any here, must have been always taken up in contemplating her own beauties. We observed a large antrum or cavity in the sinciput, that was filled with ribbons, lace, and embroidery. We did not find anything very remarkable in the eye, saving only, that the musculi amatorii, or, as we may translate it into English, the ogling muscles, were very much worn, and decayed with use; whereas on the contrary, the elevator, or the muscle which turns the eye towards heaven, did not appear to have been used at all." * ... These anatomical details, which would disgust the French, amuse a matter-of fact mind; harshness is for him only accuracy; accustomed to precise im ages, he finds no objectionable odor ir the medical style. Addison does not share our repugnance. To rail at a vice, he becomes a mathematician, an economist, a pedant, an apothecary. Technical terms amuse him. He sets up a court to judge crinolines, and condemns petticoats in legal formulas. He teaches how to handle a fan as if he were teaching to prime and load muskets. He draws up a list of men dead or injured by love, and the ridiculous causes which have reduced them to such a condition : "Will Simple, smitten at the Opera by the glance of an eye that was aimed at one whe stood by him. "Sir Christopher Crazy, Bart., hurt by the brush of a whalebone petticoat. "Ned Courtly, presenting Flavia with her glove (which she had dropped on purpose) she received it and took away his life with a curtsey. "John Gosselin, having received a slight hurt from a pair of blue eyes, as he was making his escape, was dispatched by a smile." ↑ *Spectator, No. 13. *Ibid. No. 275. ↑ Ibid. No. 377 Other statistics, with recapitulations and tables of numbers, relate the history of the Leucadian leap: Aridæ a beautiful youth of Epirus, in ove with Praxinoe, the wife of the Thespis, escaped without damage, saving only that two ot his foreteeth were struck out, and his nose a kitt e flatted. Hipparchus, being passionately fond of his owa wife, who was enamoured of Bathyllus, leaped and died of his fall; upon which his wife married her gallant." * We see this strange mode of painting human folly: in England it is called 'humor. It consists of an incisive good sense, the habit of restraint, business habits, but above all a fundamental energy of invention. The race is less refined, but stronger than the French; and the pleasures which content its mind and taste are like the liquors which suit its palate and its stomach. This potent Germanic spirit breaks out even in Addison through his classical and Latin exterior. Albeit he relishes art, he still loves nature. His education, which loaded him with maxims, has not destroyed his virgin sentiment of truth. In his travels in France he preferred the wildness of Fontainebleau to the correctness of Versailles. He shakes off worldly refinement to praise the simplicity of the old national ballads. He explains to his public the sublime images, the vast passions, the deep religion of Paradise Lost. It is curious to see him, compass in hand, kept back by Bossu, fettered in endless arguments and academical phrases, attaining with one spring, through the strength of natural emotion, the lofty unexplored nexplored regions to which Milton rose by the inspiration of faith and genius. Addison does not say, as Voltaire does, that the allegory of Sin and Death is enough to make people sick. He has a foundation of grand imagination, which makes him Indifferent to the little refinements of social civilization. He sojourns will'ngly amid the grandeur and marvels of the other world. He is penetrated by the presence of the Invisible, he must escape from the interests and hopes of the petty life in which we crawl. This source of faith gushes from him in all directions in vain is it enclosed in the regular channel of official dogma; the text and arguments with which it is covered do not hide its true origin. It springs from the grave and fertile imagination which can only be satisfied with a sight of what is beyond. Such a faculty swallows a man up, and if we descend to the examination of literary qualities, we find it at the bottom as well as at the top. Nothing in Addison is more varied and rich than the changes and the scenery. The driest morality is transformed under his hand into pictures and stories. There are letters from all kinds of men, clergymen, common people, men of fashion, who keep their own style, and disguise their advice under the form of a little novel. An ambassador from Bantam jests, like Montesquieu, at the lies of European politeness. Greek or Oriental tales, imaginary travels, the vision of a Scottish seer, the memoirs of a rebel, the history of ants, the transformations of an ape, the journal of an idle man, a walk in Westminster, the genealogy of humor, the laws of ridiculous clubs; in short, an inexhaustible mass of pleasant or solid fictions. The allegories are most frequent. We feel that the author delights in this magnificent and fantastic world; he is acting for himself a sort of opera; his eyes must look on colors. Here is a paper on religions, very Protestant, but as sparkling as it is ingenious: relaxation in England does not consist, as in France, in the vivacity and variety of tone, but in the splendor and correctness of invention: "The middle figure, which immediately ather, more my melted with the tracted the eyes of the whole company, and was much bigger than the rest, was formed like a matron, dressed in the habit of an elderly woman of quality in Queen Elizabeth's days. The most remarkable parts of her dress were the beaver with the steeple crown, the scarf that was darker than sable, and the lawn apron that was whiter than ermine. Her gown was of the richer black velvet, and just upon her heart studder with large diamonds of an inestimable value, disposed the form of a cross. She bore an inexpressible cheerfulness and dignity in her aspect; and though she seemed in years, appeared with so much spirit and vivacity, as gave her at the same time an air of old age and immortality. I found my heart touched with † See the last thirty numbers of the Sperta- so much love and reverence at the sight of her, that the tears ran down my face as I looked * Spectator, No. 233. tor. upon her; and still the more I looked upon ing it, at the same time and in the same cards to each poor family in the parish. from me, where I discovered one in the habit sentiments of filial tenderness and duty. I dise covered every moment something so charming in this figure, that I could scarce take my eyes off it. On its right hand there sat the figure of woman so covered with ornaments, that her wace, her body, and her hands were almost ensurely hid under them. The little you could see of her face was painted, and what I thought very odd, had something in it like artificial wrinkles; but I less surprised at it, when I saw upon her forehead an old-fashioned tower of grey hairs. Her head-dress 1ose very high by three several stories or degrees; her garments had a thousand colours in them, and were embroidered with crosses in gold, silver, and silk; she had nothing on, so much as a glove or a slipper, which was not marked with this figure; nay, so superstitiously fond did she of it, that she sat cross-legged.... The next to her was a figure which somewhat puzzled me; it was that of a man looking with horror in his eyes, upon a silver bason filled with water. Observing something in his counfirst that he was to express that kind of distract tenance that looked like lunacy, fancied tion which the physicians call the Hydrophobia; but considering what the intention of the show was, I immediately recollected myself, and concluded it to be Anabaptism." * The reader must guess what these two first figures mean. They will please a member of the Episcopal Church more than a Roman Catholic; but I think that a Roman Catholic himself cannot help recognizing the fulness and freshness of the fiction. Genuine imagination naturally ends in the invention of characters. For, if we clearly represent to ourselves a situation or an action, we will see at the same time the whole network of its connection; the passion and faculties, all the gestures and tones of voice, all details of dress, dwelling, social intercourse, which flow from it, will be connected in our mind, and bring their precedents and their consequences; and this multitude of ideas, slowly organized, will at last be concentrated in a single sentiment, from which, as from a deep spring, will break forth the portrait and the history of complete character. There are several such in Addison; the quiet observer Will Honeycomb, the country Tory Sir Roger de Coverley, which are not satirical theses, like those of La Bruyère, but genuine individuals, like, and sometimes equal to, the characters of the great contemporary novels. In reality, he invents the novel without suspect * Tatler, No. 257. a way as his most illustrious neighbors His characters are taken from life, from the manners and conditions of the age, described at length and minutely in all the details of their education and surroundings, with a precise and positive observation, marvellously real and English. A masterpiece as well as an historical record is Sir Roger de Coverley, the country gentleman. a loyal servant of State and Church, a justice of the peace, with a chaplain of his own, and whose estate shows on a small scale the structure of the English nation. This domain is a little kingdom, paternally governed, but still gov erned. Sir Roger rates his tenants, passes them in review in church, knows their affairs, gives them advice, assistance, commands; he is respected, obeyed, loved, because he lives with them, because the simplicity of his tastes and education puts him almost on a level with them; because as a magistrate, a landed proprietor of many years standing, a wealthy man, a benefactor and neighbor, he exercises a moral and legal, a useful and respected authority. Addison at the same time shows in him the solid and peculiar English character, built of heart of oak, with all the ruggedness of the primitive bark, which can neither be softened nor planed down, a great fund of kindness which extends even to an imals, a love for the country and for bodily exercises, an inclination to com mand and discipline, a feeling of subordination and respect, much common sense and little finesse, a habit of displaying and practising in public his singularities and oddities, careless of ridicule, without thought of bravado, solely because these men acknowledge no judge but themselves. A hundred traits depict the times; a lack of love for reading, a , a lingering belief in witches, rustic and sporting manners, the igno rances of an artless or backward mind. Sir Roger gives the children, who answer their catechism well, a Pible for themselves, and half a flitch oft bacon for their mothers. When a verse pleases him, he sings it for half a min ute after the congregation has finished. He kills eight fat pigs at Christmas, and sends a pudding and a pack of When he goes to the theatre, he supplies his servants with cudgels to protect themselves from the thieves which, he says, infest London. Addison returns a score of times to the old knight, always showing some new aspect of his character, a disinterested observer of humanity, curiously assiduous and discerning, a true creator, having but one step farther to go to enter, like Richardson and Fielding, upon the great work of modern literature, the novel of manners and customs. There is an undercurrent of poetry in all this. It has flowed through his prose a thousand times more sincere and beautiful than in his verses. Rich oriental fancies are displayed, not with a shower of sparks as in Voltaire, but in a calm and abundant light, which makes the regular folds of their purple and gold undulate.* The music of the vast cadenced and tranquil phrases leads the mind gently amidst romantic splendors and enchantments, and the deep sentiment of ever young nature recalls the happy quietude of Spenser. Through gentle railleries or moral essays we feel that the author's imagination is happy, delighted in the contemplation of the swaying to and fro of the forest-tops which clothe the mountains, the eternal verdure of the valleys, invigorated by fresh springs, and the wide view undulating far away on the distant horizon. Great and simple sentiments naturally join these noble images, and their measured harmony creates a unique spectacle, worthy to fascinate the heart of a good man by its gravity and sweetness. Such are the Visions of Mirza, which I wil. give almost entire : "On the fifth day of the moon, which according to the custom of my forefathers I always keep holy, after having washed myself, and offered up my morning devotions, I ascended the high hills of Bagdat, in order to pass the rest of the day in meditation and prayer. As I was here airing myself on the tops of the mountains, I fell into a profound contemplation on the vanity of human life; and passing from one thought to another: Surely, said I, man is but a shadow and life a dream. Whilst I was thus musing, I cast my eyes towards the summit of a rock that was not far * See the history of Alnaschar in the Spectator, No. 535, and also that of Hilpa ir the same paper, Nos. 584, 585. of shepherd, with a musical instrument in his hand. I looked upon him he applied it to his lips, and began to play upon it. The sound of it was exceeding sweet, and wrought into a variety of tunes that were inexpressibly melodious, and altogether different from anything I had ever heard. They put me in mind of those heavenly airs that are played to the departed souls of good men upon their first ar rival in Paradise, to wear out the impression? of the last agonies, and qualify them for the pleasures of that happy place. My heart melted away in secret raptures "He (the Genius) then lead me to the highest pinns.cle of the rock, and placing me on the top of it, Cast thy eyes eastward, said he, and tell me what thou seest. Í see, said I, a huge valley, and a prodigious tide of water rolling through it. The valley that thou seest, said he, is the vale of misery, and the tide of water that thou seest is part of the great tide of Eternity. What is the reason, said I, that the tide I see rises out of a thick mist at one end, and again loses itself in a thick mist at the other? What thou seest, said he, is that portion of Eternity which is called Time, measured out by the Sun, and reaching from the beginning of the world to its consummation. Examine now, said he, this sea that is bounded with darkness at both er.ds, and tell me what thou discoverest in it. I see a bridge, said I, standing in the midst of the tide. The bridge thou seest, said he, is human life; consider it attentively. Upon a more leisurely survey of it, I found that it consisted score and ten entire arches, with several broken arches, which added to those that were entire, made up the number about an hundred. As I was counting the arches, the genius told me that this bridge consisted at first of a thousand arches: but that a great flood swept away the rest, and left the bridge in the ruinous condition I now beheld it. But tell me further, said he, what thou discoverest on it. I see multitudes of people passing over it, said I, and a black cloud hanging on each end of it. As I looked more attentively, I saw several of the passengers dropping through the bridge into the great tide that flowed underneath it; and upon further examination, perceived there were innumerable trap-doors that lay concealed in the bridge, which the passengers no sooner trod upon, but they fell through them into the tide, and immediately disappeared. These hidden pit-falls were set very thick at the entrance of the bridge, so that throngs of people no sooner broke through the cloud, but many of them fell into them. They grew thinner to wards the middle, but multiplied and ay closes together towards the end of the arches that were entire. "There were indeed some persons, but their number was very small, that continued a kind of hobbling march on the broken arches, but fell through one after another, being quite tired and spent with so long a walk. "I passed some time in the contemplation of this wonderful structure, and the great variety of objects which it presented. My heart was filled with a deep melancholy to see several dropping unexpectedly in the midst of mirth and jollity, and catching at everything tha |