delight by stimulating the imagination, to give a new beauty
to existence by widening the realm of thought,--these are some of the
noblest purposes of literature; and while men and women of creative
genius are among our wisest teachers, the wisdom we gain from them comes
to us without direct enforcement. In the last century, however, authors
of good character, and authors who had no character to boast of, were
equally impressed with the necessity of adorning their pages with moral
maxims, and if this moral was not inserted in the body of the work, it
was inevitable that it should be tacked on to the end of it like a tail
to a kite. Steele in his artless way had a moral end in view, though his
method of reaching it was not always wise or even discreet. Addison had
his moral also. It pervades everything he wrote, but so artfully does
he make use of it, that the reader is not unpleasantly conscious of a
purpose. His allegories belong to an obsolete form of literature, but
one of them at least _The Vision of Mirza_, may be still read with
pleasure. His Saturday essays, which are nearly always serious in
character, are the sermons of a layman, expressed in the most lucid
style and in the purest English. His tales, like his allegories, have
lost much of their flavour, but the humorous essays, in which he depicts
the manners of the time, as well as the numbers devoted to the Spectator
Club and to Addison's beloved Sir Roger, have a perennial charm. There
is a felicity in the essayist's touch which is beyond imitation,
although a reader might give, as Johnson suggested, days and nights to
the study. The style is the man, and to write as Addison wrote it would
be necessary to reach his moral and intellectual level, to see with his
shrewd but kindly eyes, and to have his fine sense of humour. His
faults, too, must be shared by his imitator--the somewhat too delicate
refinement of a nature that never yields to impulse--the feminine
sensitiveness that is allied to jealousy. Addison, in the judgment of
his admirers, comes very near to perfection, and that is an irritating
quality in a fellow mortal. It is, if it be not paradoxical to say so,
the defect of his essays. There is nothing definite to find fault with
in them, but we feel that strength is wanting. The clear and silent
stream is a beautiful object, but after awhile it becomes monotonous,
and we long for the swift and impetuous movement of a mountain torrent.
It would be a tha