e Cranes and Pygmies;
for in that piece we discern a gleam of the fancy and humor which many
years later enlivened thousands of breakfast tables. Swift boasted that
he was never known to steal a hint; and he certainly owed as little to
his predecessors as any modern writer. Yet we cannot help suspecting
that he borrowed, perhaps unconsciously, one of the happiest touches in
his voyage to Lilliput from Addison's verses. Let our readers judge.

"The Emperor," says Gulliver, "is taller by about the breadth of my nail
than any of his court, which alone is enough to strike an awe into the
beholders."

About thirty years before Gulliver's Travels appeared Addison wrote
these lines:--

"Jamque acies inter medias sese arduus infert
Pygmeadum ductor, qui, majestate verendus,
Incessuque gravis, reliquos supereminet omnes
Mole gigantea, mediamque exsurgit in ulnam."

The Latin poems of Addison were greatly and justly admired both at
Oxford and Cambridge, before his name had ever been heard by the wits
who thronged the coffee-houses round Drury Lane Theatre. In his
twenty-second year, he ventured to appear before the public as a writer
of English verse. He addressed some complimentary lines to Dryden, who,
after many triumphs and many reverses, had at length reached a secure
and lonely eminence among the literary men of that age. Dryden appears
to have been much gratified by the young scholar's praise; and an
interchange of civilities and good offices followed. Addison was
probably introduced by Dryden to Congreve, and was certainly presented
by Congreve to Charles Montague, who was then Chancellor of the
Exchequer, and leader of the Whig party in the House of Commons.

At this time Addison seemed inclined to devote himself to poetry. He
published a translation of part of the fourth Georgic, Lines to King
William, and other performances of equal value, that is to say, of no
value at all. But in those days, the public was in the habit of
receiving with applause pieces which would now have little chance of
obtaining the Newdigate prize or the Seatonian prize. And the reason is
obvious. The heroic couplet was then the favorite measure. The art of
arranging words in that measure, so that the lines may flow smoothly,
that the accents may fall correctly, that the rhymes may strike the ear
strongly, and that there may be a pause at the end of every distich, is
an art as mechanical as that of mending a kettle, or shoe