more than any other writer of English essays-with the single exception of Bacon, who belongs to a wholly different school. Addison was born May 1st, 1672, in Wiltshire, where his father Lancelot Addison was dean of Litchfield. At Oxford where he graduated with honors, he showed the taste for classical verse which characterized him all his life and contributed no doubt to give his style the easy elegance in which it approximates the highest productions of classical antiquity. In his politics he was a Whig; and after holding various positions under Whig administrations, he became, under George I., one of the principal Secretaries of State,- a position from which he retired after eleven months with a pension of £1,500 a year. His work as a politician and as a poet need be touched on in this connection only as it is connected with the great work of his life,the essays which created what is likely always to remain a distinct school of English prose in strong contrast, both of motive and method, with the academic style of prose Latin and its imitations in Ciceronian English. The Spectator, in which Addison's best work appeared, issued its first number on March 1st, 1711, succeeding the Tatler to which Addison was also a contributor. When the Spectator ceased to appear, Steele founded the Guardian to which Addison contributed fifty-three essays on much the same range of topics as characterized the Spectator. The superior popularity of the Spectator is largely due to Steele's invention of the Spectator club and the character of Sir Roger de Coverley which was developed, chiefly by Addison, with an ease and naturalness not attained in the character studies of any other essays of the time. The Coverley papers are rightly a favorite with his readers because of their fine and free humor and the loving care with which they depict the virtuous simplicity of the good nature Addison so valued. They are perhaps his masterpieces, but, in contrast with the interminable prolixity of the later critical review, even the most careless of his essays is a model of expression. Of his pedantry, his love of snatches of classical verse which in later times may seem to deform the page with a display of outlandish learning, it must be remembered that in the time of Queen Anne there may have still existed those to whom such quotations from the "dead languages" stood for strains of living melody, rarer than we can imagine from our own verse and full of the same magic of expression which compels the eye in the Apollo Belvedere and the Venus of Milo. If such a one then survived from the time when the realities of the classics were still something more than a scholastic tradition, Addison might well have been that one. If such a one come again, he may find the simple grace of Addison's prose in harmony with the subtlest secrets of form in the great works of those mastersingers of antiquity whom he studied with admiration so loving that we have no right to call it pedantry. W. V. B. I THE SPECTATOR INTRODUCES HIMSELF Non fumum ex fulgore, sed ex fumo dare lucem One with a flash begins, and ends in smoke; -Roscommon. HAVE observed that a reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure till he know whether the writer of it be a black or a fair man, of a mild or choleric disposition, married or a bachelor, with other particulars of the like nature, that conduce very much to the right understanding of an author. To gratify this curiosity, which is so natural to a reader, I design this paper and my next as prefatory discourses to my following writings, and shall give some account in them of the several persons that are engaged in this work. As the chief trouble of compiling, digesting, and correcting, will fall to my share, I must do myself the justice to open the work with my own history. I was born to a small hereditary estate, which, according to the tradition of the village where it lies, was bounded by the same hedges and ditches in William the Conqueror's time that it is at present, and has been delivered down from father to son whole and entire, without the loss or acquisition of a single field or meadow, during the space of six hundred years. There runs a story in the family, that before I was born my mother dreamt that she was to bring forth a judge; whether this might proceed from a lawsuit which was then depending in the family, or my father's being a justice of the peace, I cannot determine; for I am not so vain as to think it presaged any dignity that I should arrive at in my future life, though that was the interpretation which the neighborhood put upon it. The gravity of my behavior at my very first appearance in the world seemed to favor my mother's dream: for, as she has often told me, I threw away my rattle before I was two months old, and would not make use of my coral till they had taken away the bells from it. As for the rest of my infancy, there being nothing in it remarkable, I shall pass it over in silence. I find, that, during my nonage, I had the reputation of a very sullen youth, but was always a favorite of my schoolmaster, who used to say that my parts were solid and would wear well. I had not been long at the University, before I distinguished myself by a most profound silence; for, during the space of eight years, excepting in the public exercises of the college, I scarce uttered the quantity of an hundred words; and indeed do not remember that I ever spoke three sentences together in my whole life. Whilst I was in this learned body, I applied myself with so much diligence to my studies, that there are very few celebrated books, either in the learned or modern tongues, which I am not acquainted with. Upon the death of my father, I was resolved to travel into foreign countries, and therefore left the University with the character of an odd unaccountable fellow, that had a great deal of learning, if I would but show it. An insatiable thirst after knowledge carried me into all the countries of Europe in which there was anything new or strange to be seen; nay, to such a degree was my curiosity raised, that having read the controversies of some great men concerning the antiquities of Egypt, I made a voyage to Grand Cairo, on purpose to take the measure of a pyramid: and, as soon as I had set myself right in that particular, returned to my native country with great satisfaction. I have passed my latter years in this city, where I am frequently seen in most public places, though there are not above half a dozen of my select friends that know me: of whom my next paper shall give a more particular account. There is no place of general resort wherein I do not often make my appearance; sometimes I am seen thrusting my head into a round of politicians at Will's, and listening with great attention to the narratives that are made in those little circular audiences. Sometimes I smoke a pipe at Child's, and, while I seem attentive to nothing but the Postman, overhear the conversation of every table in the room. I appear on Sunday nights at St. James's coffeehouse, and sometimes join the little committee of politics in the inner room, as one who comes there to hear and improve. My face is likewise very well known at the Grecian, the Cocoa Tree, and in the theatres both of Drury Lane and the Hay Market. I have been taken for a merchant upon the Exchange for above these ten years, and sometimes pass for a Jew in the assembly of stockjobbers at Jonathan's. In short, wherever I see a cluster of people, I always mix with them, though I never open my lips but in my own club. Thus I live in the world rather as a spectator of mankind than as one of the species; by which means I have made myself a speculative statesman, soldier, merchant, and artisan, without ever meddling with any practical part in life. I am very well versed in the theory of a husband or a father, and can discern the errors in the economy, business, and diversion of others, better than those who are engaged in them: as standers-by discover blots, which are apt to escape those who are in the game. I never espoused any party with violence, and am resolved to observe an exact neutrality between the Whigs and Tories, unless I shall be forced to declare myself by the hostilities of either side. In short, I have acted in all the parts of my life as a looker-on, which is the character I intend to preserve in this paper. I have given the reader just so much of my history and character, as to let him see I am not altogether unqualified for the business I have undertaken. As for other particulars in my life and adventures, I shall insert them in following papers, as I shall see occasion. In the meantime, when I consider how much I have seen, read, and heard, I begin to blame my own taciturnity; and since I have neither time nor inclination to communicate the fullness of my heart in speech, I am resolved to do it in writing, and to print myself out, if possible, before I die. I have been often told by my friends, that it is a pity so many useful discoveries which I have made should be in the possession of a silent man. For this reason, therefore, I shall publish a sheet full of thoughts every morning for the benefit of my contemporaries; and if I can in any way contribute to the diversion or improvement of the country in which I live, I shall leave it when I am summoned out of it, with the secret satisfaction of thinking that I have not lived in vain. There are three very material points which I have not spoken to in this paper, and which, for several important reasons, I must keep to myself, at least for some time: I mean, an account of my name, my age, and my lodgings. I must confess I would gratify my reader in anything that is reasonable; but as for these three particulars, though I am sensible they might tend very much to the embellishment of my paper, I cannot yet come to a resolution of communicating them to the public. They would indeed draw me out of that obscurity which I have enjoyed for many years, and expose me in public places to several salutes and civilities, which have been always very disagreeable to me; for the greatest pain I can suffer is the being talked to, and being stared at. It is for this reason likewise that I keep my complexion and dress as very great secrets; though it is not impossible but I may make discoveries of both in the progress of the work I have undertaken. After having been thus particular upon myself, I shall in tomorrow's paper give an account of those gentlemen who are concerned with me in this work; for, as I have before intimated, a plan of it is laid and concerted (as all other matters of impor tance are) in a club. However, as my friends have engaged me to stand in the front, those who have a mind to correspond with me may direct their letters to the SPECTATOR, at Mr. Buckley's in Little Britain. For I must further acquaint the reader, that though our club meets only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we have appointed a committee to sit every night, for the inspection of all such papers as may contribute to the advancement of the public weal. Complete. From the Spectator of March 1st, 1711 I THE MESSAGE OF THE STARS Auream quisquis mediocritatem Sordibus tecti, caret invidendâ Sobrius aulâ. - Hor. Od. x. Lib. II. 5. The golden mean, as she's too nice to dwell So is her modesty withal as great, - Norris. AM wonderfully pleased when I meet with any passage in an old Greek or Latin author that is not blown upon, and which I have never met with in a quotation. Of this kind is a beautiful saying in Theognis: "Vice is covered by wealth, and virtue by poverty"; or, to give it in the verbal translation, "Among men there are some who have their vices concealed by wealth, and others who have their virtues concealed by poverty." Every man's observation will supply him with instances of rich men, who have several faults and defects that are overlooked, if |