ion; always equable, and always easy,
without glowing words or pointed sentences. Addison never deviates from
his track to snatch a grace; he seeks no ambitious ornaments, and tries
no hazardous innovations. His page is always luminous, but never blazes
in unexpected splendour.

It was apparently his principal endeavour to avoid all harshness
and severity of diction; he is therefore sometimes verbose in his
transitions and connections, and sometimes descends too much to the
language of conversation; yet if his language had been less idiomatical
it might have lost somewhat of its genuine Anglicism. What he attempted,
he performed; he is never feeble and he did not wish to be energetic;
he is never rapid and he never stagnates. His sentences have neither
studied amplitude nor affected brevity; his periods, though not
diligently rounded, are voluble and easy. Whoever wishes to attain
an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not
ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.

SAVAGE.

It has been observed in all ages that the advantages of nature or of
fortune have contributed very little to the promotion of happiness:
and that those whom the splendour of their rank, or the extent of their
capacity, has placed upon the summit of human life, have not often given
any just occasion to envy in those who look up to them from a lower
station; whether it be that apparent superiority incites great designs,
and great designs are naturally liable to fatal miscarriages; or that
the general lot of mankind is misery, and the misfortunes of those whose
eminence drew upon them universal attention have been more carefully
recorded, because they were more generally observed, and have in reality
been only more conspicuous than those of others, not more frequent, or
more severe.

That affluence and power, advantages extrinsic and adventitious, and
therefore easily separable from those by whom they are possessed, should
very often flatter the mind with expectations of felicity which they
cannot give, raises no astonishment: but it seems rational to hope
that intellectual greatness should produce better effects; that minds
qualified for great attainments should first endeavour their own
benefit, and that they who are most able to teach others the way to
happiness, should with most certainty follow it themselves. But this
expectation, however plausible, has been very frequently disappointed.