serves, " is in her desolation, and presents us with nothing but bleak and barren prospects, there is something unspeakably cheerful in a spot of ground which is covered with trees that smile amidst all the rigour of winter, and give us a view of the most gay season in the midst of that which is the most dead and melancholy. I have so far indulged myself in this thought, that I have set apart a whole acre of ground for the executing of it. The walls are covered with ivy instead of vines. The laurel, the horn-beam, and the holly, with many other trees and plants of the same nature, grow so thick in it that you cannot imagine a more lively scene. The glowing redness of the berries, with which they are hung at this time, vies with the verdure of their leaves, and is apt to inspire the heart of the beholder with that vernal delight which you have somewhere taken notice of in your former papers. It is very pleasant, at the same time, to see the several kinds of birds retiring into this little green spot, and enjoying themselves among the branches and foliage, when my great garden, which I have before mentioned to you, does not afford a single leaf for their shelter *."

On no topic, however, has he exhibited greater amenity and harmony of language than when he *Spectator, No 477.

describes the magic effect of light and colours; it is difficult to decide whether the imagery or the diction it is clothed in be most admirable. "We are every where entertained," he remarks, "with pleasing shows and apparitions; we discover imaginary glories in the heavens, and in the earth, and see some of this visionary beauty poured out upon the whole creation; but what a rough unsightly sketch of nature should we be entertained with, did all her colouring disappear, and the several distinctions of light and shade vanish? In short, our souls are at present delightfully lost and bewildered in a pleasing delusion; and we walk about like the enchanted hero in a romance, who sees beautiful castles, woods, and meadows; and at the same time hears the warbling of birds, and the purling of streams; but, upon the finishing of some secret spell, the fantastic scene breaks up, and the disconsolate knight finds himself on a barren heath, or in a solitary desart *."

.

Where the theme is such as to require much vigour and compression, the diction and collocation of our author will be often found to rival the most nervous writers in the language. Speak ing of the unbounded influence of the Deity over the intellect and imagination of man, he illus *Spectator, No 413,

trates the subject in the following emphatic

manner :

"He can excite images in the mind without the help of words, and make scenes rise up be fore us, and seem present to the eye, without the assistance of bodies or exterior objects. He can transport the imagination with such beautiful and glorious visions, as cannot possibly enter into our present conceptions, or haunt it with such ghastly spectres and apparitions, as would make us hope for annihilation, and think existence no better than a curse. In short, he can so exquisitely ravish or torture the soul through this single faculty, as might suffice to make the whole heaven or hell of any finite being *.”

In another part of the same paper, alluding to the dreadful symptoms of derangement, he employs language still more concise and energetic. "There is not a sight," says he, "in nature so mortifying as that of a distracted person, when his imagination is troubled, and his whole soul disordered and confused. Babylon in ruins is not so melancholy a spectacle."

There are passages also in the works of Addison which display the strength and elaboration, the point and antithesis for which modern composition, since the era of Johnson has been so re, * Spectator, No 421.

markably distinguished. One of these I shall quote from the Freeholder, the close of which will immediately strike the reader as the prototype of many a recent period. Reprobating the acrimony and party abuse of the political paper, entitled the Examiner, the author observes,

"No sanctity of character, or privilege of sex, exempted persons from this barbarous usage. Several of our prelates were the standing marks of public raillery, and many ladies of the first quality branded by name for matters of fact, which, as they were false, were not heeded, and if they had been true, were innocent *."

It is not meant to be denied, however, that the style of Addison partook, in some degree, of the inaccuracies and defects incident to the period of literature that we are contemplating. His grammar and syntax are not always correct, and what would now be termed inelegancies or vulgarisms, occasionally disfigure his pages. These blemishes, it must be remembered, are by no means frequent; but, as critical assertion is of little utility without proof, I shall adduce a few instances of the errors which sometimes violate the composition of this accomplished writer.

A strict attention to the laws of grammar and syntax is now exhibited by every writer who has * Freeholder, No 19.

any claims to literary distinction. In the days of Queen Anne, however, though termed the Augustan age of Great Britain, authors of the first eminence, and who have never been exceeded, perhaps, in the knowledge of the idiom and powers of the language, are not unfrequently found inattentive to the minutiae of grammar. Of the classics of this favoured age, I have ventured, though contrary to common opinion, to consider Addison as, in this respect, the most correct. That he was not entirely exempt, however, from errors of a similar description, the two following instances, the first a solecism in syntax, the second in grammar, will sufficiently prove :

"We have the power of retaining, altering, and compounding those images which we have once received, into all the varieties, &c. &c. *” "The last are, indeed, more preferable, &c. &c. + "

As I wish to be brief on this ungrateful subject, I shall subjoin but two examples of inelegant expression, and but two of inaccurate composition.

"I cannot stick to pronounce of such a one that whatever he may think, &c. "

"If a man considers the face of Italy in general,

*Spectator, No 411.

Spectator, No 185.

† Spectator, No 411,