looks
from the world, whose weaknesses he describes so benevolently, up to the
Heaven which shines over us all, I can hardly fancy a human face lighted
up with a more serene rapture: a human intellect thrilling with a purer
love and adoration than Joseph Addison's. Listen to him: from your
childhood you have known the verses: but who can hear their sacred music
without love and awe?

Soon as the evening shades prevail,
The moon takes up the wondrous tale,
And nightly to the listening earth,
Repeats the story of her birth;
And all the stars that round her burn,
And all the planets in their turn,
Confirm the tidings as they roll,
And spread the truth from pole to pole.
What though, in solemn silence, all
Move round this dark terrestrial ball;
What though no real voice nor sound,
Among their radiant orbs be found;
In reason's ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice,
For ever singing as they shine,
The hand that made us is divine.

It seems to me those verses shine like the stars. They shine out of a
great deep calm. When he turns to Heaven, a Sabbath comes over that man's
mind: and his face lights up from it with a glory of thanks and prayer.
His sense of religion stirs through his whole being. In the fields, in the
town: looking at the birds in the trees: at the children in the streets:
in the morning or in the moonlight: over his books in his own room: in a
happy party at a country merry-making or a town assembly, goodwill and
peace to God's creatures, and love and awe of Him who made them, fill his
pure heart and shine from his kind face. If Swift's life was the most
wretched, I think Addison's was one of the most enviable. A life
prosperous and beautiful--a calm death--an immense fame and affection
afterwards for his happy and spotless name.(95)

Lecture The Third. Steele

What do we look for in studying the history of a past age? Is it to learn
the political transactions and characters of the leading public men? Is it
to make ourselves acquainted with the life and being of the time? If we
set out with the former grave purpose, where is the truth, and who
believes that he has it entire? What character of what great man is known
to you? You can but make guesses as to character more or less happy. In
common life don't you often judge and misjudge a man's whole conduct,
setting out from a wrong impression? The tone of a v