s
distinctly as those which were drawn more than a century later by the
hand of Thackeray, our greatest painter of manners. De Foe had not yet
published the first of the great modern novels of incident and adventure
in 'Robinson Crusoe,' and Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett were unborn
or unknown, when Addison was sketching Sir Roger de Coverley and Will
Honeycomb, and filling in the background with charming studies of life
in London and in the country. The world has instinctively selected Sir
Roger de Coverley as the truest of all the creations of Addison's
imagination; and it sheds clear light on the fineness of Addison's
nature that among the four characters in fiction whom English readers
have agreed to accept as typical gentlemen,--Don Quixote, Sir Roger de
Coverley, Henry Esmond, and Colonel Newcombe,--the old English baronet
holds a secure place.

Finished in style, but genuinely human in feeling, betraying the nicest
choice of words and the most studied care for elegant and effective
arrangement, and yet penetrated by geniality, enlivened by humor,
elevated by high moral aims, often using the dangerous weapons of irony
and satire, and yet always well-mannered and kindly,--these papers
reveal the sensitive nature of Addison and the delicate but thoroughly
tempered art which he had at his command.

Rarely has literature of so high an order had such instant success; for
the popularity of the Spectator has been rivaled in English literature
only by that of the Waverley novels or of the novels of Dickens. Its
influence was felt not only in the sentiment of the day, and in the
crowd of imitators which followed in its wake, but also across the
Channel. In Germany, especially, the genius and methods of Addison made
a deep and lasting impression.

No man could reach such eminence in the first quarter of the last
century without being tempted to try his hand at play-writing; and the
friendly fortune which seemed to serve Addison at every turn reached its
climax in the applause which greeted the production of 'Cato.' The
motive of this tragedy, constructed on what were then held to be classic
lines, is found in the two lines of the Prologue: it was an endeavor
to portray

"A brave man struggling in the storms of fate,
And greatly falling with a falling State."

The play was full of striking lines which were instantly caught up and
applied to the existing political situation; the theatre was crowded
night