he dawn of the modern novel. Of all his essays the best
known and loved are those which introduce us to Sir Roger de Coverley, the
genial dictator of life and manners in the quiet English country.

In style these essays are remarkable as showing the growing perfection of
the English language. Johnson says, "Whoever wishes to attain an English
style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give
his days and nights to the volumes of Addison." And again he says, "Give
nights and days, sir, to the study of Addison if you mean to be a good
writer, or, what is more worth, an honest man." That was good criticism for
its day, and even at the present time critics are agreed that Addison's
_Essays_ are well worth reading once for their own sake, and many times for
their influence in shaping a clear and graceful style of writing.

Addison's poems, which were enormously popular in his day, are now seldom
read. His _Cato_, with its classic unities and lack of dramatic power, must
be regarded as a failure, if we study it as tragedy; but it offers an
excellent example of the rhetoric and fine sentiment which were then
considered the essentials of good writing. The best scene from this tragedy
is in the fifth act, where Cato soliloquizes, with Plato's _Immortality of
the Soul_ open in his hand, and a drawn sword on the table before him:

It must be so--Plato, thou reason'st well!--
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?
Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror,
Of falling into nought? why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction?
'Tis the divinity that stirs within us;
'Tis heaven itself, that points out an hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man.

Many readers make frequent use of one portion of Addison's poetry without
knowing to whom they are indebted. His devout nature found expression in
many hymns, a few of which are still used and loved in our churches. Many a
congregation thrills, as Thackeray did, to the splendid sweep of his "God
in Nature," beginning, "The spacious firmament on high." Almost as well
known and loved are his "Traveler's Hymn," and his "Continued Help,"
beginning, "When all thy mercies, O my God." The latter hymn--written in a
storm at sea off the Italian coast, when the captain and crew were
demoralized by terror--shows that poetry, especially a good hymn that one
can sing in t