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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. Speaking 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 com, position.

"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 411.
Spectator, No 185,

one would think that Nature had laid it out into such a variety of styles and governments as one finds in it *"

"The wisest of men are sometimes acted by such unaccountable motives, as the life of the fool, and the superstitious is guided by nothing else +."

"I have already given my reader an account of a set of merry fellows, who are passing their summer together in the country, being provided of a great house."

This last solecism frequently occurs in the writings of Sir Philip Sidney, an example of which may be seen in the commencement of the first quotation that we have given from this author.

The defects, however, which an accurate research may discover in the pages of Addison, are almost forgotten, when we take into consideration the many excellencies which have so justly given celebrity to his style and composition. These have been amply acknowledged, and by some of the first authors in our language, during the course of the last sixty years.

MR. MELMOTH thus admirably takes the lead in appreciating the merits of our author's diction and manner:

"I know not," says he, "whether Sir Wil+ Spectator, No 191.

* Travels.
Spectator, No 440.

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