of its criticism,--the everlasting April of the style, so soft and
vivid,--the purity and healthiness of the moral tone,--and the childlike
religion which breathes in the Saturday papers--one or two of which, such
as the "Vision of Mirza," are almost scriptural in spirit and beautiful
simplicity,--combine to throw a charm around the _Spectator_ which works
of far loftier pretensions, if they need not, certainly do not possess.
Macaulay (whom we love for his love of Addison and Bunyan more than
for aught else about his works) truly observes, that few writers have
discovered so much variety and inventiveness as Addison, who, in
the papers of a single week, sometimes traverses the whole gamut of
literature, supplying keen sarcasm, rich portraiture of character, the
epistle, the tale, the allegory, the apologue, the moral essay, and the
religious meditation,--all first-rate in quality, and all suggesting the
idea that his resources are boundless, and that the half has not been
told. His criticisms have been ridiculed as shallow; but while his
lucubrations on Milton were useful in their day as plain finger-posts,
quietly pointing up to the stupendous sublimities of the theme,
his essays on Wit are subtle, and his papers on the "Pleasures of
Imagination" throw on the beautiful topic a light like that of a red
evening west, giving and receiving glory from the autumnal landscape.

In the end of 1712 the _Spectator_, which had circulated at one time to
the extent of 4000 copies a-day, was discontinued, and in a few weeks the
_Guardian_ supplied its place. It was two months ere Addison began to
write, and during that time it was flippantly dull; but when he appeared
its character changed, and his contributions to the new periodical were
quite as good as the best of his _Spectators_.

In April 1713 his "Cato" was acted with immense success, and in
circumstances so well known that they need not be detailed at length.
Pope wrote the prologue; Booth enacted the hero; Steele packed the house;
peers, both Tory and Whig, crowded the boxes; claps of applause were
echoed back from High Churchmen to the members of the "Kit-Cat Club;"
Bolingbroke sent fifty guineas, during the progress of the play, to
Booth for defending the cause of liberty against a perpetual dictator,
(Marlborough;) and with the exception of growling Dennis, everybody was
in raptures. The play has long found its level. It has passages of
power and thoughts of beauty, b