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scribing appeared to be an enthusiast," who pos sibly had his first education in the Peripatetic way, which was a sect of philosophers." Sense and precision are here violated, the dogmata of a system being confounded with the persons who professed them. It should have been "the Peripatetic way, which was founded or established by a sect of philosophers." This is a solecism, however, not frequent in the writings of Addison, and though glaring to the critic of the nineteenth century, was little liable to detection when he offered his compositions to the public.

On subjects of a dignified and serious cast, or which are decorated with the magic hues of fancy, the style of Addison is uncommonly beautiful. It is metaphorical and rich, without losing any portion of its sweetness and simplicity; it is clear, graceful, and pure, and charms the more durably as it is free from antithesis, point, and forced construction.

Innumerable are the passages which present themselves for selection, as instances of a style which on topics of this nature has probably never been surpassed. With what exquisite propriety and beauty our author could adapt his diction to his subject, the following extracts, taken from his Essay on Westminster Abbey, will abun

dantly prove. The theme is of the highest import, and the language correspondently solemn and impressive.

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Upon my going into the church," he remarks, "I entertained myself with the digging of a grave, and saw in every shovelful of it that was thrown up, the fragment of a bone or skull, intermixt with a kind of fresh mouldering earth, that some time or other had a place in the composition of a human body. Upon this, I began to consider with myself what innumerable multitudes of people lay confused together under the pavement of that ancient cathedral; how men and women, friends and enemies, priests and soldiers, monks and prebendaries, were crumbled amongst one another, and blended together in the same common mass; how beauty, strength, and youth, with old age, weakness, and deformity, lay undistinguished in the same promiscuous heap of matter.

"I know that entertainments of this nature are apt to raise dark and dismal thoughts in timorous minds and gloomy imaginations; but for my own part, though I am always serious, I do not know what it is to be melancholy, and can therefore take a view of Nature in her deep and solemn scenes, with the same pleasure as in her most gay and delightful ones. By this means I

can improve myself with those objects which others consider with terror. When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow. When I see kings lying by those who deposed them; when I consider rival wits placed side by side; or the holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes; I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind. When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great day, when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together *.”

Equally striking and appropriate is the style of Addison, when employed on subjects whose gaiety and beauty call for diction of the greatest sweetness, vivacity, and elegance. Expatiating on the pleasures of a winter-garden, the picture he has drawn is rendered still more lovely by the powers of contrast. "When nature," he ob*Spectator, No 26.

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" is in her desolation, and presents us with nothing but bleak and barren prospects, there is something unspeakably cheerful in a spot of ground which is covered with trees that smile amidst all the rigour of winter, and give us a view of the most gay season in the midst of that which is the most dead and melancholy. I have so far indulged myself in this thought, that I have set apart a whole acre of ground for the executing of it. The walls are covered with ivy instead of vines. The laurel, the horn-beam, and the holly, with many other trees and plants of the same nature, grow so thick in it that you cannot imagine a more lively scene. The glowing redness of the berries, with which they are hung at this time, vies with the verdure of their leaves, and is apt to inspire the heart of the beholder with that vernal delight which you have somewhere taken notice of in your former papers. It is very pleasant, at the same time, to see the several kinds of birds retiring into this little green spot, and enjoying themselves among the branches and foliage, when my great garden, which I have before mentioned to you, does not afford a single leaf for their shelter *.

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On no topic, however, has he exhibited greater amenity and harmony of language than when he * Spectator, No 477.

describes the magic effect of light and colours ; it is difficult to decide whether the imagery or the diction it is clothed in be most admirable. "We are every where entertained,” he remarks, "with pleasing shows and apparitions; we discover imaginary glories in the heavens, and in the earth, and see some of this visionary beauty poured out upon the whole creation; but what a rough unsightly sketch of nature should we be entertained with, did all her colouring disappear, and the several distinctions of light and shade vanish? In short, our souls are at present delightfully lost and bewildered in a pleasing delusion; and we walk about like the enchanted hero in a romance, who sees beautiful castles, woods, and meadows; and at the same time hears the warbling of birds, and the purling of streams; but, upon the finishing of some secret spell, the fantastic scene breaks up, and the disconsolate knight finds himself on a barren heath, or in a solitary desart *."

Where the theme is such as to require much vigour and compression, the diction and collocation of our author will be often found to rival the most nervous writers in the language. Speaking of the unbounded influence of the Deity over the intellect and imagination of man, he illus * Spectator, N° 413,

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