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gentlemen, than thrive in a trade or profession that is beneath their quality." To profess compassion after drawing such a picture is to add keenness to the sting.

Of his satires on society, very short examples must suffice. Any of his papers will illustrate the poignancy of the strokes, and the exceeding delicacy and ingenuity of the expression. Perhaps the most characteristic examples of this vein of his satire are seen in his delicate application of caustic to the foibles of women. He was animated by nothing like Steele's chivalrous gallantry towards the sex. Take the following on the female passion for china, his contribution to Steele's short-lived 'Lover:

"There are no inclinations in women which more surprise me than their passions for chalk and china. The first of these maladies wears out in a little time; but when a woman is visited with the second, it generally takes possession of her for life. China vessels are playthings for women of all ages. An old lady of fourscore shall be as busy in cleaning an Indian mandarin, as her great-granddaughter is in dressing her baby.

"The common way of purchasing such trifles, if I believe may female my informers, is by exchanging old suits of clothes for this brittle ware. The potters of China have, it seems, their factors at this distance, who retail out their several manufactures for cast clothes and superannuated garments. I have known an old petticoat metamorphosed into a punch-bowl, and a pair of breeches into a teapot," &c.

In this example the wit is not quite worthy of Addison, and the derision borders on coarseness. As an extreme contrast, take a passage from the exquisitely graceful paper on the 'Use of the Fan:'

"Women are armed with fans, as men with swords, and sometimes do more execution with them. To the end therefore that ladies may be entire mistresses of the weapon which they bear, I have erected an academy for the training up of young women in the exercise of the fan, according to the most fashionable airs and motions that are now practised at Court. The ladies who carry fans under me are drawn up twice a-day in my great hall, where they are instructed in the use of their arms, and exercised by the fol lowing words of command:-

Handle your fans,
Unfurl your fans,
Discharge your fans,
Ground your fans,
Recover your fans,
Flutter your fans,

By the right observation of these few plain words of command, a woman of a tolerable genius who will apply herself diligently to her exercise for the space of but one half-year, shall be able to give her fan all the can possibly enter into that little modish machine.

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"The Fluttering of the Fan is the last, and indeed the masterpiece of the whole exercise; but if a lady does not misspend her time, she may make herself mistress of it in three months. I generally lay aside the dog-days and the hot time of the summer for the teaching this part of the exercise, for as soon as ever I pronounce Futter your Fans, the place is filled with so many zephyrs and gentle breezes as are very refreshing in that

season of the year, though they might be dangerous to ladies of a tender constitution in any other.

"There is an infinite variety of motions to be made use of in the Flutter of a Fan: there is the angry flutter, the modest flutter, the timorous flutter, the confused flutter, the merry flutter, and the amorous flutter. Not to be tedious, there is scarce any emotion in the mind which does not produce a suitable agitation in the fan; insomuch, that if I only see the fan of a disciplined lady, I know very well whether she laughs, frowns, or blushes.

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Not content with satirising the ladies of his own generation, he carries his cynical raillery of the sex into imaginary generations before the Flood. In his papers on the loves of Shalum and Hilpah, the humour receives a satirical turn from the imputation of unworthy motives to Hilpah.

Besides the redeeming graces of expression, two things may be urged in extenuation of the malicious or satirical basis of Addison's wit. First, his ridicule is not personal; it is aimed at what the author takes to be vice, folly, or bad taste, not at an actual offender. Secondly, "it is justly observed by Tickell that he employed wit on the side of virtue and religion."

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Melody. A good deal of Johnson's panegyric of Addison's style is really the picture of an ideal to which, in his opinion, Addison approaches; but many of the particulars are happy, and none more so than this-that "it was his principal endeavour to avoid all harshness and severity of diction; he is therefore sometimes verbose in his transitions and connections, and sometimes descends too much to the language of conversation." The melodious flow of the diction is a very striking quality of our author's style; and doubtless his endeavour after this beauty accounts for many of his sins against precision. In the Appendix to Bain's 'Rhetoric,' a passage is analysed with a view to this quality, and it is traced to the fewness of abrupt consonants or harsh combinations, the variety of the vowels, and "the rhythmical construction, or the alternation of long and short, emphatic and unemphatic sounds."

Taste.-Elegance is the ruling quality of Addison's style. He sacrifices everything to the unctuous junction of syllables, and the harmonious combination of ideas. The pedantic scholarship of Taylor, the rough vigour and profusion of Barrow, are illustrative by extreme contrast. But we might go the round of our great writers without finding such another example of superficial smoothness. We have remarked the studied refinement of Temple; but in Temple refinement is united with majesty and depth of feeling. Cowley's diction is studied, and his thoughts light and trivial; but as compared with Addison, his rhythm is often awkward and stumbling, his fancy exuberant, and his ridicule bare and undisguised.

The following is at once an illustration of his elegant treatment

of a theme that might easily be made pedantic, and an example of the principles that guided his own composition:

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Allegories, when well chosen, are like so many tracks of light in a discourse, that make everything about them clear and beautiful. A noble metaphor, when it is placed to an advantage, casts a kind of glory round it, and darts a lustre through a whole sentence. These different kinds of allusion are but so many different manners of similitude, and that they may please the imagination, the likeness ought to be very exact, or very agreeable, as we love to see a picture where the resemblance is just, or the posture and air graceful. But we often find eminent writers very faulty in this respect; great scholars are apt to fetch their comparisons and allusions from the sciences in which they are most conversant, so that a man may see the compass of their learning in a treatise on the most indifferent subject. I have read a discourse upon love which none but a profound chymist could understand, and have heard many a sermon that should only have been preached before a congregation of Cartesians. On the contrary, your men of business usually have recourse to such instances as are too mean and familiar. They are for drawing the reader into a game of chess or tennis, or for leading him from shop to shop, in the cant of particular trades and employments. It is certain there may be found an infinite variety of very agreeable allusions in both these kinds; but for the generality, the most entertaining ones lie in the works of nature, which are obvious to all cities, and more delightful than what is to be found in arts and sciences."

SIR RICHARD STEELE, 1675-1729.

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"When Mr Addison was abroad," writes Thackeray, "and after he came home in rather a dismal way to wait upon Providence in his shabby lodging in the Haymarket, young Captain Steele was cutting a much smarter figure than that of his classical friend of Charterhouse Cloister and Maudlin Walk." Steele, born in Dublin, of English parents, was also a Charterhouse boy and an Oxonian, his college being Merton. A gay, impetuous youth, overflowing with wit and good-nature, and fond of company, he yet gained some celebrity as a scholar, and before he graduated had written a poem and a comedy. When he had to choose a profession he fixed upon the army; and his friends refusing to buy him a commission, he enlisted as a private in the Horse Guards. His wit making him a general favourite, he had, by the year 1701, been promoted to the rank of captain in the Fusiliers. He is said to have passed a dissipated and reckless life: he "probably wrote and sighed for Bracegirdle, went home tipsy, in many a chair, after many a bottle, in many a tavern-fled from many a bailiff." But if this debauchery was as bad as has been represented, in the midst of it all he kept up his literary tastes. In 1701 he published "The Christian Hero,' a curious production for a dissipated officer, and an indication of the sinning and repenting character of the man. In the following year he produced a comedy, 'The Funeral, or, Grief à la Mode,' a satire on hired

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mourners and will-making lawyers. By the death of King William he lost his chances of promotion in the army, and turned all his powers to literature and politics. In 1703 appeared his comedy of The Tender Husband; in 1704 the Lying Lovers,' a piece too tame and moralising to succeed on the stage of those days. About 1705, through the influence of his friend Addison, he was appointed Gazetteer-"the lowest Minister of State,' as he facetiously styled himself. We shall not follow the windings of his fortunes chronologically. His literary projects were 'The Tatler,' 'The Spectator,' The Guardian,' and 'The Lover,' already mentioned; The Englishman' and 'The Crisis,' 1714 (two intense political pamphlets, which led to his expulsion from the House of Commons); "The Reader,' 1714, also political, like Addison's 'Whig Examiner,' an opposition print to the Tory Examiner;' occasional political and anti-Popery tracts; a collection of his political writings, 1715; 'The Town-Talk,' 'The Tea-Table,' "The Chit-Chat,' short-lived periodicals, 1716; in 1719 'The Plebeian,' which was opposed by Addison in the 'Old Whig,' and produced a quarrel between the two friends; The Theatre,' a periodical, 1719-20, under the feigned name of Sir John Edgar; The Conscious Lovers,' his best comedy, 1722. His Government appointments were, after the Gazetteership, Commissionership of Stamps, 1710; Surveyorship of the Royal Stables at Hampton Court, and Governorship of the Royal Company of Comedians, 1715; Commissionership of Forfeited Estates in Scotland, 1717.

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His personal appearance would seem to have been rather unfavourable. The satirical portrait by John Dennis is said by Thackeray to bear "a dreadful resemblance to the original "Sir John Edgar, of the county of in Ireland, is of a middle stature, broad shoulders, thick legs, a shape like the picture of somebody over a farmer's chimney-a short chin, a short nose, a short forehead, a broad flat face, and a dusky countenance."

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As we may judge from this picture, he possessed great bodily energy, and his constitutional vigour supported him in the heartiest enjoyment of life. Living in a whirl of social dissipation, he yet, as Gazetteer, as editor of periodicals, and in other offices, went through a great deal of worrying business; and in the hurry of his active life was constantly snatching moments to despatch little notes to his "dearest Prue." Of these affectionate billets, Mrs

Steele preserved no less than 400.

His intellect was of a rougher cast than his friend's. It is the emotional character of the man that renders him interesting, and entitles him to a good secondary place among our great writers of prose. Probably a large fraction of his energy was spent in the rollicking enjoyment of existence; otherwise his rank would have been higher than it is. His contributions to the 'Spectator' and

allied periodicals take their distinction from his prevailing tenderness of heart and wide acquaintance with human life. To him these papers owe their pathos, their humour, and their extraordinary variety of characters. He loved company, and the quickness of his sympathies made him constantly alive to differences in the personalities of his companions.

His habits were irregular; he had not the familiar routine and select circle of Addison. He was under no necessity of economising his energies; he seems to have been capable of bearing practically any amount of work and dissipation. He had small power of resisting the impulses of emotion. His plans for the day were easily disconcerted by the entrance of a good companion. In politics, when any of his darling principles seemed to be in danger, he rushed to the rescue without regard to consequences.

In this place we shall remark upon and exemplify chiefly his pathos and his humour. His characters are really artistic creations, and belong to poetry and fiction.

On the other qualities of his style we remark cursorily. In command of words he is not equal to Addison; his choice is much less felicitous. His sentence composition is irregular and careless, often ungrammatical: writing in the character of a Tatler, he thought it incumbent to assume "incorrectness of style, and an air of common speech -a style very agreeable to his own inclinations. He has not the polished and felicitous melody of Addison. His language and sentiments are much more glowing and extravagant; his papers may be distinguished by this feature

alone.

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The chief differences between his own style and Addison's are well summed up by himself "The elegance, purity, and correctness in his writings were not so much my purpose as, in any intelligible manner as I could, to rally all those singularities of human life, through the different professions and characters in it, which obstruct anything that was truly good and great."

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Pathos.-Steele is one of the most touching of our writers. Himself of a nature the reverse of melancholy, he yet at certain seasons "resolved to be sorrowful; and when the sorrowful mood was upon him, the incidents that he recalled or imagined were of the most heartrending character. The kind of pathos that we find in him would not be pathetic at all, in a poetic sense, to the more delicate order of sensibilities: it would be a pain, and not an æsthetic pleasure. There are not many of these affecting papers in either Tatler,' 'Spectator,' or 'Guardian.' Most of those that do appeal to our tender sensibilities lay before us situations of extreme anguish. We shall quote two examples, in which the extreme painfulness of the incidents is relieved only

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