INTRODUCTION. MACAULAY, in his " Essay upon Addison," has related the principal events in his life with a fullness of detail that makes it unnecessary to dwell upon them here, except incidentally and so far as they connect themselves with a discussion of his writings. Written in the maturity of his powers, and divested of some of the redundance attaching to his earlier style, Lord Macaulay presents to us a most winning portrait of this great master of English prose, with a truthfulness, a graphic power, and a beauty of diction, such as, up to the time of its appearance, fifty years ago, did not exist in the language. It forms at once a splendid tribute to Addison's genius and to his many virtues as a man. It is remarkable, in view of the unique and distinguished place occupied by Addison among English men of letters, that no. complete and carefully annotated edition of his works has yet been made; and, except for the narrative of Tickell prefixed to the edition of 1721, no account of him was published during his lifetime, or subsequently, by any of his contemporaries. If one whose acquaintance with English literature was precise as well as extensive, and who was thereby qualified for judgment, were asked to indicate which, among its eminent writers, had exerted the most salutary influence in his generation, in reforming and correcting, not only public taste, but public morals as well, he would with little hesitation, we think, point to Joseph Addison. As a poet, Addison's talents did not fit him to excel; and had his fame rested entirely upon his translations from the Latin poets, the "Campaign," an apotheosis of Marlborough, the tragedy of "Cato," and his other verses, he would have been assigned a niche in the British Temple of Fame, doubtless in a line with Gay, Tickell, and Parnell, but certainly much below Pope. In that kind of prose literature, however, which he may be said to have created in those charming papers in the "Tatler,” and in the "Spectator" particularly,—of which nearly one half emanated from his pen,—he was unapproachable. Imitators by the score he has had,—in the "World," to which Lord Chesterfield and Horace Walpole contributed, the "Connoisseur," the “Mirror,” the "Lounger," and Dr. Johnson's sententious "Rambler;" but, as Macaulay said of Boswell in his immortal biography, Addison distanced all competitors. "Eclipse is first, and all the rest nowhere." No example presents itself in our language, and certainly not in that of any other nation, of writings of such rare and precious merit, produced, as were Addison's essays in the "Spectator," from day to day, going to the press from his writing table, often with the ink scarcely dry upon them, unpremeditated, as in many cases they must have been, and with little or no opportunity of revision. Addison, as many other distinguished men have done, ripened slowly; and there is a broad line of distinction between his earlier prose works and the papers in the "Spectator," in which, later in life, he at last found his inspiration. It must be regarded as a misfortune, that with his powers of observation, and his lively |