of the language, preference had been given to
French words of Latin origin. French being one of those languages in
which Latin is the chief constituent, this was but a fair following of
the desire to make it run pure from its source.

If the English critics who, in Charles the Second's time, submitted to
French law, had seen its spirit, instead of paying blind obedience to
the letter, they also would have looked back to the chief source of
their language. Finding this to be not Latin but Saxon, they would have
sought to give it strength and harmony, by doing then what, in the
course of nature, we have learnt again to do, now that the patronage of
literature has gone from the cultivated noble who appreciates in much
accordance with the fashion of his time, and passed into the holding of
the English people. Addison and Steele lived in the transition time
between these periods. They were born into one of them and--Steele
immediately, Addison through Steele's influence upon him--they were
trusty guides into the other. Thus the 'Spectator' is not merely the
best example of their skill. It represents also, perhaps best
represents, a wholesome Revolution in our Literature. The essential
character of English Literature was no more changed than characters of
Englishmen were altered by the Declaration of Right which Prince William
of Orange had accepted with the English Crown, when Addison had lately
left and Steele was leaving Charterhouse for Oxford. Yet change there
was, and Steele saw to the heart of it, even in his College days.

Oxford, in times not long past, had inclined to faith in divine right of
kings. Addison's father, a church dignitary who had been a Royalist
during the Civil War, laid stress upon obedience to authority in Church
and State. When modern literature was discussed or studied at Oxford
there would be the strongest disposition to maintain the commonly
accepted authority of French critics, who were really men of great
ability, correcting bad taste in their predecessors, and conciliating
scholars by their own devout acceptance of the purest Latin authors as
the types of a good style or proper method in the treatment of a
subject. Young Addison found nothing new to him in the temper of his
University, and was influenced, as in his youth every one must and
should be, by the prevalent tone of opinion in cultivated men. But he
had, and felt that he had, wit and genius of his own. His sensitive mind
was simply