Transcribed from the 1888 Cassell & Company edition byDavid Price,
cassell’snational library.
by
JOSEPH ADDISON.
CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited:
london, paris, newyork & melbourne.
1888.
Contents:
Introduction
Public Credit
Household Superstitions
Opera Lions
Women and Wives
The Italian Opera
Lampoons
True and False Humour
Sa Ga Yean Qua Rash Tow’s Impressions of London
The Vision of Marraton
Six Papers on Wit
Friendship
Chevy-Chase (Two Papers)
A Dream of the Painters
Spare Time (Two Papers)
Censure
The English Language
The Vision of Mirza
Genius
Theodosius and Constantia
Good Nature
A Grinning Match
Trust in God
The sixty-fourth volume of this Library contains those papersfrom the Tatler which were especially associated with theimagined character of IsaacBickerstaff, who was the central figure in that series;and in the twenty-ninth volume there is a similar collection ofpapers relating to the Spectator Club and SirRoger de Coverley, who was the central figure in Steeleand Addison’s Spectator. Those volumescontained, no doubt, some of the best Essays of Addison andSteele. But in the Tatler and Spectator arefull armouries of the wit and wisdom of these two writers, whosummoned into life the army of the Essayists, and led it on tokindly war against the forces of Ill-temper and Ignorance. Envy, Hatred, Malice, and all their first cousins of the familyof Uncharitableness, are captains under those twocommanders-in-chief, and we can little afford to dismiss from thefield two of the stoutest combatants against them. In thisvolume it is only Addison who speaks; and in another volume,presently to follow, there will be the voice of Steele.
The two friends differed in temperament and in many of theoutward signs of character; but these two little books will verydistinctly show how wholly they agreed as to essentials. For Addison, Literature had a charm of its own; he delighted indistinguishing the finer graces of good style, and he drew fromthe truths of life the principles of taste in writing. ForSteele, Literature was the life itself; he loved a true book forthe soul he found in it. So he agreed with Addison injudgment. But the six papers on “Wit,” the twopapers on “Chevy Chase,” contained in this volume;the eleven papers on “Imagination,” and the papers on“Paradise Lost,” which may be given in some futurevolume; were in a form of study for which Addison was far moreapt than Steele. Thus as fellow-workers they gave a breadthto the character of Tatler and Spectator that couldhave been produced by neither of them, singly.
The reader of this volume will never suppose that theartist’s pleasure in good art and in analysis of itsconstituents removes him from direct enjoyment of the life abouthim; that he misses a real contact with all the world gives thatis worth his touch. Good art is but nature, studied withlove trained to the most delicate perception; and the goodcriticism in which the spirit of an artist speaks is, likeAddison’s, calm, simple, and benign. Pope yearned toattack John Dennis, a rough critic of the day, who had attackedhis “Essay on Criticism.” Addison haddiscouraged a very small assault of words. When Dennisattacked Addison’s “Cato,” Pope thought himselffree to strike; but