sity to the student, or more unquestionable autthority in matters of taste.

Style, notwithstanding the many discussions with which it has been honoured by some of the first writers of our nation, is a subject still involved in obscurity. Blair acknowledges, that "the peculiar manner in which a man expresses his conceptions, by means of language," is the best definition he can give. Johnson says it is "the manner of writing with regard to language." Swift, long before, had laid down that proper words in proper places made the true definition of a style," which is not, however, a definition, but the character of a good style.

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The divisions of style are numerous, and have been multiplied by the critics as fast as they could multiply epithets to distinguish them; but in every nation, and at every period of its literary history, it has been the custom to bestow the honours of style on a few authors, in whom collectively all its excellences are supposed to be found. These in our country, in the prose style, are Hooker, Clarendon, Tillotson, Clarke, Barrow, Atterbury, Shaftesbury, Temple, Swift, Addison, Bolingbroke, Fielding, and Johnson: to whom of late have been added Hume, Robertson, Gibbon, Blair, and Burke*. But

"Such authors," says Lord Orford, speaking of Addison, Swift, Bolingbroke, and Dr. Middleton, "fix a standard by their writings. Grammarians regulate niceties, and try careless beauties in works, where carelessness often is a beauty, by the same rigorous laws that they have enacted against graver offenders. Such jurymen, no doubt, write their own letters with as much circumspection as their wills, and are ignorant that it is easier to observe

when we inquire how many of these are to be held up as models, the list becomes smaller as we approach nearer to the severe criticism of our own times. Hooker is now recommended principally for the importance of his matter. Clarendon is considered as an historian of unquestionable authority; but his lengthened periods and general prolixity are prohibited to the young writer. Tillotson, whom Birch characterized as the reformer of pulpit eloquence, is now said to be chiefly valuable for the religious instruction and biblical criticisms to be found in his works. Clarke, with more perspicuity, is cold and inanimate. The readers of Barrow are cautioned against his redundaney, and most of them with great safety, for it is the redundancy of an original and fertile genius. To Atterbury's style few objections have been offered on the score of purity and elegance; and his want of depth, or original thinking, will not be readily discovered by those who are forming a style only. Shaftesbury is generally and very justly pointed out as a dangerous precedent. Temple is allowed to excel Tillotson in all the estimable qualities of style, and, although he partakes of the common incorrectness attributed to writers of simplicity, familiarity, and ease, he is still recommended as an useful model. Bolingbroke is a declaimer, with many of those beauties of declamation which are too frequently contrived to conceal poverty of argument. Bo

some laws than to violate them with grace." Royal and Noble Authors, art. Roscommon.

lingbroke was an enemy to religion, probably because it did not flatter his practice. He is now, however, little read, and it is to the honour of our nation, that few infidel writers have enjoyed a long popularity. Fielding's style is original, and his humour, different from that of Addison, yet excellent in its kind, is so copious as to extend over his voluminous writings with undiminished force. He has had no successful imitators. Of the other names mentioned, it is not necessary to add more, than that they are the founders of different schools of style, which have as yet produced few scholars of great emi

nence.

From the whole list, therefore, we can only collect two or three who are universally acknowledged to deserve the attention of those who are ambitious to form a correct style. Yet when the beauties and defects of all are fully displayed before us, as they have been by modern critics of acknowledged taste, are we not induced to suspect that much of the improvement to be derived from such critical labour is impracticable? that between the style and the mind of every author the connexion is indissoluble? and that he who would write like another, must always have his genius, and sometimes even his subject *?

* Far be it from the writer of this, perhaps, impertinent digression, to decry the industry of criticism, to arraign its jealousy, or to undervalue the sagacity by which we are taught the right and wrong of language. All he would venture, and venture with submission, against the common opinion is, that critical rules, however useful in affairs of grammar, will not form a style; that style is as much an attribute of genius as invention; and that the varie

The Life of Addison was first written by Tickell, but his account is meagre and unsatisfactory. It was considerably enlarged in the first edition of the Biographia, and still more in the second; but the life prefixed to his poems, in Dr. Johnson's edition, is, with few exceptions, the most faithful and the most candid. This biographer had long revered Addison's character, and in one of the Ramblers, in which he is about to offer some criticisms on Milton, he modestly admits that "he may fall below the illustrious writer that has so long dictated to the commonwealth of learning." Nor was this the compliment of a junior, willing to recommend himself by deference to those who were already in possession of the public opinion. Thirty years afterwards, when his praise had its weight and value, he vindicated the originality and utility of Addison's criticisms with equal spirit and justice.

The limits of this preface will not admit us to dwell so long as would be agreeable on a character which every man loves to contemplate. "Of Addison's virtue, it is a sufficient testi-. mony, that the resentment of party has transmitted no charge of any crime." From the charge brought against him by the friends of Pope, he has been amply vindicated in the second edition of the Biographia, by Mr. Justice Blackstone: but for the publication of Pope's abusive cha

ties of manner to be found in English literature arise from the varieties of mind and of matter. Excellence in writing, as in painting, can be attained only by labour: rules and examples may improve, but nature only can initiate.

racter of him, after his death, no apology has yet been offered. That Addison had the jealousy of an author is an accusation which he shares in common with, perhaps, every author of celebrity, and that he was concious of his superiority is only saying that he was conscious of what his opponents have never denied. In that species of composition which gained him popularity, he had then no rival, and has had no rival since, whose pretensions it would not be absurd to admit. Amidst many revolutions of taste, the judgment of all readers, learned and illiterate, has selected his papers as excelling in the milder graces of composition, and the fascinations of wit.

It may not, however, be improper to advert to one circumstance in his private history, which has of late been brought before the public, it is hoped with some exaggeration :

"Narratur et prisci Catonis

Sæpe mero caluisse virtus.”

Dr. Johnson has mentioned this failing with moderation and delicacy. "He" (Addison) " often sat late, and drank too much wine. In the bottle discontent seeks for comfort, cowardice for courage, and bashfulness for confidence. It is not unlikely that Addison was first seduced to ex

"How noble does the character of Addison appear, who though equally (with Pope) attacked by Dennis as a critic, yet never mentioned his name with asperity, and refused to give the least countenance to a pamphlet which Pope had written upon the occasion of Dennis's strictures on Cato ?" Bowles's edition of Pope, vol. iv. p. 28. Addison's conduct to Pope is also ably vindicated in pp. 39-44, and vol. vii. P. 292.