United States or United States Virgin Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
One more characteristic feature of the early part of the century must be mentioned. The essayists belong not only to the social history of the period, but also to that of the Church. Few preachers were so effective from their pulpits as were Addison and his fellow-contributors in the pages of the 'Spectator' and other kindred serials.
As we were going from one spruce to another, Addison stopped suddenly and pointed to a little round hole with hard ice about it, near a large, overhanging rock across which a tree had fallen. "Sh!" he exclaimed. "I believe that's a bear's breath-hole!" We reconnoitered the place at a safe distance. "That may be Old Three Paws himself," Addison said. "If it is, we must put an end to him."
Johnson also to the failure of this poem, which is Blackmore's best. From its religious side, then, it may be that Addison, when a student at Oxford, first took his impressions of the poetry of Milton. At Oxford he accepted the opinion of France on Milton's art, but honestly declared, in spite of that, unchecked enthusiasm:
Those readers who did not like it were driven to the works of other ages and other countries, had to despise the 'trash of the day, as they would call it. The age of Anne patronised Steele, the beginner of the essay, and Addison its perfecter, and it neglected writings in a wholly discordant key.
Johnson, that the much admired Epilogue to The Distressed Mother, which came out in Budgell's name, was in reality written by Addison. 'The mode of government by one may be ill adapted to a small society, but is best for a great nation. The characteristick of our own government at present is imbecility. The magistrate dare not call the guards for fear of being hanged.
The glamour of Henry Esmond was all the deeper because I was reading the 'Spectator' then, and was constantly in the company of Addison, and Steele, and Swift, and Pope, and all the wits at Will's, who are presented evanescently in the romance.
There is nothing to support Steele's assertion that it was at his instigation that Addison distinguished his contributions to the Spectator and the Guardian. Addison, as his last injunctions showed, must have contemplated a collective edition of his works, and must have desired therefore that they should be identified.
Addison had the effeminate complaisance to soften the severity of his dramatic character, so as to adapt it to the manners of the age, and, from an endeavour to please, quite ruined a masterpiece in its kind. Since his time the drama is become more regular, the audience more difficult to be pleased, and writers more correct and less bold.
There were no doubt physical causes for those defects; but Addison and I thought he might do better if he pleased. He and Addison were about the same age, and I was two and a half years younger. Halstead, in fact, was slightly taller than Addison, but not so strong. His complexion was darker and not so clear; and I imagine that he was not so healthy. Once, I remember, when Dr.
Addison and Videra, when they read about it as sneeringly set forth in the news columns of the papers, lifted and then wrinkled their eyebrows. "That looks like pretty rough work to me," commented Addison. "I thought McKenty had more tact. That's his early Irish training."
Word Of The Day