have secured this distinction by virtue of harmony of
character and work, of breadth of interest, and of that fine
intelligence which instinctively allies itself with the best in its
time. Of this class Addison is an illustrious example. His gifts are not
of the highest order; there was none of the spontaneity, abandon, or
fertility of genius in him; his thought made no lasting contribution to
the highest intellectual life; he set no pulses beating by his eloquence
of style, and fired no imagination by the insight and emotion of his
verse; he was not a scholar in the technical sense: and yet, in an age
which was stirred and stung by the immense satiric force of Swift,
charmed by the wit and elegance of Pope, moved by the tenderness of
Steele, and enchanted by the fresh realism of De Foe, Addison holds the
most representative place. He is, above all others, the Man of Letters
of his time; his name instantly evokes the literature of his period.

[Illustration: JOSEPH ADDISON.]

Born in the rectory at Milston, Wiltshire, on May Day, 1672, it was
Addison's fortune to take up the profession of Letters at the very
moment when it was becoming a recognized profession, with a field of its
own, and with emoluments sufficient in kind to make decency of living
possible, and so related to a man's work that their acceptance involved
loss neither of dignity nor of independence. He was contemporary with
the first English publisher, Jacob Tonson. He was also contemporary with
the notable reorganization of English prose which freed it from
exaggeration, complexity, and obscurity; and he contributed not a little
to the flexibility, charm, balance, and ease which have since
characterized its best examples. He saw the rise of polite society in
its modern sense; the development of the social resources of the city;
the enlargement of what is called "the reading class" to embrace all
classes in the community and all orders in the nation. And he was one of
the first, following the logic of a free press, an organized business
for the sale of books, and the appearance of popular interest in
literature, to undertake that work of translating the best thought,
feeling, sentiment, and knowledge of his time, and of all times, into
the language of the drawing-room, the club, and the street, which has
done so much to humanize and civilize the modern world.

To recognize these various opportunities, to feel intuitively the drift
of sentiment and convic