pactly, artistically, in little, ready-made molds.
But his high-wrought brilliancy, this unceasing point, soon fatigue.
His {187} poems read like a series of epigrams; and every line has a
hit or an effect.

From the reign of Queen Anne date the beginnings of the periodical
essay. Newspapers had been published since the time of the Civil War;
at first irregularly, and then regularly. But no literature of
permanent value appeared in periodical form until Richard Steele
started the _Tatler_, in 1709. In this he was soon joined by his
friend, Joseph Addison and in its successor the _Spectator_, the first
number of which was issued March 1, 1711, Addison's contributions
outnumbered Steele's. The _Tatler_ was published on three, the
_Spectator_ on six, days of the week. The _Tatler_ gave political
news, but each number of the _Spectator_ consisted of a single essay.
The object of these periodicals was to reflect the passing humors of
the time, and to satirize the follies and minor immoralities of the
town. "I shall endeavor," wrote Addison, in the tenth paper of the
_Spectator_, "to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with
morality. . . . It was said of Socrates that he brought Philosophy
down from Heaven to inhabit among men; and I shall be ambitious to have
it said of me that I have brought Philosophy out of closets and
libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs and assemblies, at
tea-tables and in coffee-houses." Addison's satire was never personal.
He was a moderate man, and did what he could to restrain Steele's
intemperate party zeal. His character was dignified and pure, and his
strongest emotion seems to have {188} been his religious feeling. One
of his contemporaries called him "a parson in a tie wig," and he wrote
several excellent hymns. His mission was that of censor of the public
taste. Sometimes he lectures and sometimes he preaches, and in his
Saturday papers, he brought his wide reading and nice scholarship into
service for the instruction of his readers. Such was the series of
essays, in which he gave an elaborate review of _Paradise Lost_. Such
also was his famous paper, the _Vision of Mirza_, an oriental allegory
of human life. The adoption of this slightly pedagogic tone was
justified by the prevalent ignorance and frivolity of the age. But the
lighter portions of the _Spectator_ are those which have worn the best.
Their style is at once correct and easy, and it is as a hu