Amongst the characters in that work, that of Sir Roger de Coverly was the favourite with Mr. Addison; who a little before he laid down the Spectator, foreseeing that fome nimble gentleman would catch up his pen the moment he had quitted it, faid to an intimate friend, with a certain warmth in his expreffion, which he was not often guilty of, "By Gd, I'll kill Sir Roger, that no-body elfe may murder him." Accordingly the whole Spectator, No. 517, confifts of nothing elfe but an account of the Knight's death, and fome moving circumftances which attended it. At another time Sir Richard Steele, in one of his Spectators, having a little injudiciously made the old Knight pick up a loose woman in the Temple cloyfter, Mr. Addison was fo heartily vexed when he read

the

the paper, that he immediately called a coach, went to his friend Sir Richard, and never left him till he had made him promise that he would meddle no more with Sir Roger's character *.

Mr. Addifon certainly ranks among the fineft geniuses this ifland ever produced. He has a more refined, decent, judicious, and extenfive genius than Pope or Swift. To diftinguish this triumvirate from each other, and, like Newton, to difcover the different colours in these genuine and meridian rays of literary light, Swift is a fingular wit, Pope a correct poet, Addifon a great author. Swift looked on wit as the jus divinum to dominion and fway in the world; and confidered as ufurpation,

* See General Dictionary, Art. Addison.

all

This

all power that was lodged in perfons of lefs fparkling understandings. inclined him to tyranny in wit; Pope was fomewhat of his opinion, but was for foftening tyranny into lawful monarchy; yet were there fome acts of severity in his reign. Addison's crown was elective, he reigned by the public voice:

Volentes

Per populos dat jura, viamque affectat Olympo. VIRG.

But as good books are the medicine of the mind, if we should dethrone these authors, and confider them, not in their royal, but their medicinal capacity, might it not then be faid, that Addifon prescribed a wholesome and pleasant regimen, which was univerfally relished, and did much good? that Pope preferred a purgative of fatire, which, tho' wholefome,

fome, was too painful in its operation? and that Swift infifted on a large dofe of ipecacuanha, which, tho' readily fwallowed from the fame of the phyfician, yet, if the patient had any delicacy of taste, he threw up the remedy, instead of the disease?

Addison wrote little in verse, much in fweet elegant Virgilian profe; so let me call it, fince Longinus calls Herodotus mere Homeric, and Thucydides is faid to have formed his ftyle on Pindar. Addifon's compofitions are built with the finest materials, in the tafte of the antients, and (to fpeak his own language) on truly claffic ground: and tho' they are the delight of the prefent age, yet I am perfuaded they will receive more justice from pofterity. I never read him, but I am ftruck with fuch a difheartening

idea of perfection, that I drop my pen. And, indeed, far fuperior writers should forget his compofitions, if they would be greatly pleafed with their own.

And yet (perhaps you have not obferved it) what is the common language of the world, and even of his admirers, concerning him? They call him an elegant writer. That elegance which fhines on the surface of his compofitions, feems to dazzle their understanding, and render it a little blind to the depth of fentiment which lies beneath. Thus (hard fate!) he lofes reputation with them, by doubling his title to it. On fubjects the most interesting, and important, no author of his age has written with greater, I had almost faid with equal weight; and they who commend him for his elegance, pay him fuch a fort of compli

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