century. Addison also exhibited a graceful imagination in his allegorical inventions; and of these "The Vision of Mirza" stands in the first rank of this class of writing. But in his dramatic inventions he has betrayed how very little genius he possessed for that department of composition; his "Cato" being totally barren both of plot and character; while his "Drummer" (taken for a sample of comic humour) is as melancholy as a morass. The brilliant quality of Addison's genius displayed itself in the sterling purity and elegance of his wit, with a classical correctness of diction. These phases of his intellectual character Steele placed constantly in his view for the purpose of his own improvement in style; and the result was, that his latter papers bear so strong a resemblance to the manner of his model, that it is difficult to distinguish them. The style and manner of this era, and of those two graceful writers in particular, bear a close affinity to the social deportment of the intellectual better circles of the same period: precise, and yet gay; fluent and easy, yet unfrivolous; graceful, polished, and keen, yet not acrimonious-never indeed ill-tempered, and therefore gentlemanly. I do not think that our feelings ever rise into the glow of admiration at their effusions, either of wit or pathos; at the same time, they rarely sink into indifference; and never into contempt. Some of Steele's little stories, written for a social and moral purpose, will be read with a grateful interest so long as true love, and the principles of just equality are held in any esteem in the world: while the wickedness of avarice, selfishness, and cruelty stand illustrated for ever in that most bitter of all sarcasms upon commercial cupidity, the "History of Inkle and Yarico."

In the first paper of the Tatler, Steele in his pleasant and gay manner announces that he had "invented its title in honour of the fair sex." The Tatler, in fact, consists of a running fire of comment upon the follies, the gaieties, the levities, the humours, the absurdities, the fashions, and the vices of the wits, the beauties, and the "pretty fellows" about town; recording the sayings and doings, and comings and goings, the hundred thousand nothings that comprise the life of the fashionable world-and a most faithful mirror of the age it is. He (the Tatler) laughed at frivolity, rebuked vice, and reformed both with a quill of spontaneous natural wit and buoyant humour; and effected with the airy wave of his pen, what might have been attempted in vain by a whole crusade of ponderous moralists, with voluminous gravity. He rallies the women out of the preposterous amplitude of their hoop-petticoats; and laughs the beaux out of the ridiculous length of their swords; he banters and shames the ladies

out of the scantiness of their tuckers, while he mocks the gentlemen out of the extravagance of their wigs. His manner were well worth the consideration of many a censor and critic of our own day; for he is never rough and unkind, and consequently he is always the gentleman.

Almost the only occasions on which Steele allows himself to be seriously sedate, and to argue gravely-are, when he is upon the subject of seduction or duelling. On the latter point he felt deeply -as has already been recorded in a former essay. A quarrel was fastened upon him, which he endeavoured to avoid; and when forced into the fight, he killed his antagonist by accident.

It is to be observed that in questions involving an arbitration of justice between the two sexes, Steele is uniformly inclined to favour the women. He was a true " knight of dames." He chivalrously pleads the cause of the weak against the strong; and almost forgets the sternness of the judge in the zeal and warmth of the advocate. It was Steele who uttered that ever memorable and witty sentence upon the subject of seduction. He said: "To the eternal infamy of the male sex, falsehood among men is not reproachful; but credulity in women is infamous."

Upon the subject of marriage too, although he is wonderfully outspeaking on those alliances of worldly convenience, he yet frequently expresses himself with so tender a consideration, and with such gentleness of feeling towards the feebler party, that his precepts contributed in no slight degree to induce a better state of social feeling between man and wife than had ever existed before the period when those essays were written. Here is a passage on this same subject which affords a good specimen of Steele's style—sufficiently earnest to gain attention; yet sly and playful enough to attract the butterfly readers to whom he addressed himself.

There is a relation of life (he says) much more near than the most strict and sacred friendship; that is to say, marriage. This union is of too close and delicate a nature to be easily conceived by those who do not know that condition by experience. Here a man should, if possible, soften his passions [Steele here means his temper]; if not for his own ease, in compliance with a creature formed with a mind of a quite different make from his own. I am sure I do not mean it an injury to women, when I say there is a sort of sex in souls. I am tender of offending them, and know it is hard not to do so on this subject: but I must go on to say that the soul of a man, and that of a woman, are made very unlike, according to the employments for which they are designed. The ladies will please to observe, I say, our minds have different, not superior qualities to theirs. The Virtues have respectively a masculine and a feminine cast. What we call in men Wisdom, is in women Prudence. It is a partiality to call one greater than the other. A prudent woman is in the same class of honour as a wise man, and the VOL. VIII., N.S. 1872.

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scandals in the way of both are equally dangerous. But to make this state anything but a burden, and not hang a weight upon our very beings, it is proper each of the couple should frequently remember that there are many things which grow out of their very natures that are pardonable,―nay becoming, when considered as such, but without that reflection, must give the quickest pain and vexation. To manage well a great family is as worthy an instance of capacity as to execute a great employment; and for the generality, as women perform the considerable part of their duties as well as men do theirs; so, in their common behaviour, females of ordinary genius are not more trivial than the common rate of men; and in my opinion, the playing of a fan is every whit as good an entertainment as the beating of a snuff-box.

Steele will sometimes hit off a satire in a few words, or in a happilyturned sentence. Here is one where he is animadverting on the folly of giving children an indiscriminately similar education, and one unfitted for their mental constitution, as well as for their future sphere in life (a sentence accurately in tone with the present educational question); and of setting them all to learn the classics, whether they will hereafter require them or not. He says in the character of Old

Isaac Bickerstaff :--

The pastry-cook here in the lane the other night told me, he would not yet take away his son from his learning; but has resolved, as soon as he had a little smattering in the Greek, to put him apprentice to a soap-boiler.

The papers in the Guardian (as may be expected from its name) are of a graver tone generally than those in the Tatler and Spectator; but there is one playful paper by Steele upon those pestilent burrs in society, who may be called the "button-holders." He files a vehement protest against these "ingenious gentlemen" (as he styles them), who, he pronounces, "are not able to advance three words until they have got fast hold of one of your buttons; but as soon as they have procured such excellent handle for discourse, they will indeed proceed with great elocution." He complains that "this humour of theirs of twisting off your buttons" leads him into some cost; as he is compelled to order his tailor to bring him home with every suit at least a dozen spare ones, to supply the place of the buttons he thus loses. He tells of one of these active and boring arguers, who, while he is discoursing to him of the Siege of Dunkirk, “makes an assault upon one of his buttons, and carries it in less than two minutes, notwithstanding as handsome a defence as possible." He computes his losses on these occasions, and winds up with the following estimate :

In the coffee-houses here, about the Temple, you may harangue, even among our dabblers in politics, for about two buttons a day, and many times for less. I had yesterday the good fortune to receive very considerable additions to my knowledge in state affairs, and find this morning that it has not stood me in above one button.

Swift contributed some papers to these periodicals; but I do not recollect any that would be apt for quotation, being imbued with his bitterly cynical faculty, and not distinguished for their delicacy. I have heretofore said so much (and with mental recreation) of this extraordinary genius, that I may, without offence, pass him upon the present. occasion with a bare record among his contemporaries. One specimen of Swift's quieter satire in essay-composition occurs in a parody upon the philosophy of the Honourable Robert Boyle; who with all his undisputed excellences was not untinged with a pompous pedantry. Swift has humorously imitated his manner in a paper which he entitles "Thoughts on a Broomstick." By the way, that homely implement appears to have been a favourite object with Swift for comical illustration. In the "Tale of a Tub" the reader will remember that he makes Brother Peter interpret one of the injunctions in their father's will that his sons shall in no wise wear silver fringe upon their coats. Peter, who is the learned brother, observes, that he finds the same word, "fringe," also to mean a "broomstick;" he therefore concludes that their father never intended to prohibit their wearing broomsticks on their clothes. How fine this satire upon the warping of texts in Scripture for the purpose of evasion, or of propping a rickety argument. No wonder that Swift was an object of aversion to the temporisers and the self-seeking.

There are two agreeable papers in the Guardian ascribed to the pen of that very amiable man and sterling wit, John Gay: one on "Flattery," where he acutely says: "Of all flatterers, the most skilful is he who can do what you like, without saying anything which argues that he does it for your sake." The other essay is on "Dress;" wherein he deduces an ingenious analogy between the sciences of Poetry and Dress, declaring that "the rules of the one, with very little variation, may serve for the other." This he proceeds to show in a playful argument, and then says:—

A poet will now and then, to serve his purpose, coin a word; so will a lady of genius venture at an innovation in the fashion: but, as Horace advises that all new-minted words should have a Greek derivation to give them an indisputable authority, so I would counsel all our improvers of fashion always to take the hint from France, which may as properly be called the fountain of dress as Greece was of literature. Dress may bear parallel to poetry with respect to moving the passions. The greatest motive to love, as daily experience shows us, is dress. I have known a lady, at sight, fly to a red feather, and readily give her hand to a fringed pair of gloves. At another time, I have seen the awkward appearance of her rural "humble servant" move her indignation. She is jealous every time her rival hath a new suit; and in a rage when her woman pins her mantua to disadvantage. Unhappy, unguarded woman! Alas! what moving rhetoric has she often found in the seducing full-bottomed wig! Who can tell the resistless

eloquence of the embroidered coat, the gold snuff-box, and the amber-headed cane?

In the Guardian, again, there is a sprightly picture of the French people by Addison, which in its sarcastic painting is still so faithful to the national character that it shall be quoted; also as a specimen of his well-bred and pointed style.

It may not be irrelevant to notice, by the way, how palpably each era in our literature has its distinctive feature and manner, as generic of its class of writers; so much so, and so decided in their several characters, that an essay of no ordinary interest might be composed upon the collective individuality of the writers in the great ages of our literary history: the brawny and Atlean strength of the Elizabethan era; the light horseman and foraging scamper and vivacity of the Cavalier style, in the Second Charles's reign; and the refinement upon that, with the courtly and epigrammatic sententiousness, that distinguishes the Augustan age of Queen Anne, and which, to a certain extent, is a reflex of the manner belonging to the Academy of Louis XIV.

The short specimen just quoted from Gay might easily be mistaken for an extract from Addison, so strong is the family likeness of that school of writers. Speaking of the French people, Addison says:

One can scarce conceive the pomp that appears in everything about the king; but at the sametime it makes half his subjects go barefoot [this was in the socalled "good old times" of the ancien régime]. The people, however, are the happiest in the world, and enjoy-from the benefit of their climate and natural constitution—such a perpetual gladness of heart and easiness of temper, as even liberty and plenty cannot bestow on those of other nations. It is not in the power of want or slavery to make them miserable. There is nothing to be met with in the country but mirth and poverty. Everyone sings, laughs, and starves Their conversation is generally agreeable; for if they have any wit or sense they are sure to show it. They never mend upon a second meeting, but use all the freedom and familiarity at first sight that a long intimacy or abundance of wine can scarce draw from an Englishman. Their women are perfect mistresses in the art of showing themselves to the best advantage. They are always gay and sprightly, and set off the worst faces in Europe with the best airs.

The polished antithesis of Addison's style here is almost like French writing itself; for that language is remarkable for its susceptibility of such treatment, and its authors are prone to a frequent employment of this kind of rhetorical inversion; a peculiarity of style so predominant among them that I have been struck with the character of wit which is thus given to some of their gravest compositions. In the classical tragic writers, for instance, Corneille