Addison's papers, in the Tatler, the Spectator, and the Guardian, may be divided into the comic, the se rious, and the critical.
His humour is peculiar to himself. He employed his wit against the approaches of scepticism and immorality ; and such is the force of good example, that, since his time, it has generally been found in alliance with truth and virtue. His court of honour in the Tatler, and the papers relating to sir Roger de Coverley lit the Spec tator, may be selected as the best specimens of his comic powers. For easy and delicate satire they are perhaps unequalled in any language. Addison has risen " above all Greek, above all Roman fame." His serious pap. rs, Allich arc written with a beauty and propriety of lan guage not inferior to any thing in his comic productions, were uniformly designed to ameliorate the dispositions, and to reform the conduct, of his readers ; and it cannot be denied, that they had the effect which they were meant to have, and that such as perused them were ren dered not only wiser, but better than they were before. He recommended knowledge to those who were not of the learned prolessions, at a time when ignorance was considered as no disgrace; and he taught the females of his clays, that they had minds as well as those of the opposite sex, and that these minds desel red to be culti vated and improved. l le may safely be regarded, as one of those who have contributed most to change is into a nation of readers. lie has been called a bad cri tic; but they, who censure him, should remember, that he was the first who exhibited the canons of criticism in an easy and popular manlier, and enabled those to judge of poetry who were not so desirous of proffiund know ledge, as of sufficient information to qualify themselves for talking of the rules by which books ought to be written. Ile did not publish a system of criticism ; but
what he offered was just. The precepts of the ancients had remained concealed in the poetics of Aristotle, or scattered over the irregular prefaces of Dryden, till Ad dison gave to the general reader his observations on the Paradise Lost. And so preferable are case and elegance of composition to the system and deep investigations of science, that Milton was brought into universal notice, and became the favourite of all who had pretensions to literature : for, besides the inherent excellence of the poem, all were pleased with what had been so agreeably recommended to their approbation. He descended, how ever, " in a dying fall," from the epic dignity, and wrote comments on the ballad of Chevy Chase, which acre read, only because they were of his writing. No quota tions from Virgil, and of these he employed not a few, could make the world believe, that the story was either very interesting in itself, or told in such a way as to give pleasure to the reader.
It may be said of his " Evidences of the Christian Religion," that they were well intended, and that they may be perused with advantage by those who have not time to read larger treatises : but, as the subject has engaged the attention of others, since Addison wrote. they are inferior to the works of Paley and Beattie, and the Apologies of Watson; men, who stood forth in de fence of Christianity, when it was attacked by the impu dence of Paine, the wit of Voltaire, and the subtle insi nuations of the historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. (h)