which politics, war, and commerce are but subordinate and instrumental. Indeed, one cannot always say so much in their praise; for, after all the noise which they make in the world, they are often injurious to every thing for which society appears, in the eye of reason, to have been originally instituted.

Under this conviction, I cannot help thinking that such writers as an Addison and a Steele have caused a greater degree of national good than a Marlborough and a Walpole. They have successfully recommended such qualities as adorn human nature, and such as tend also, in their direct consequences, to give grandeur and stability to empire. For, in truth, it is personal merit and private virtue which can alone preserve a free country in a prosperous state, and indeed render its prosperity desirable. How are men really the better for national prosperity when, as a nation grows rich, its morals are corrupted, mutual confidence lost, and debauchery and excess of all kinds pursued with such general and unceasing ardor, as seduces the mind to a state of abject slavery and impotence? If I am born in a country where my mind and body are almost sure to be corrupted by the influence of universal example, and my soul deadened in all its nobler energies, what avails it that the country extends its dominion beyond the Atlantic and the Ganges? It had been better for me that I had not been born than born in such a country.

Moralists, therefore, who have the art to convey their instruction successfully, are the most valuable patriots and the truest benefactors to their country. And among these I place in the highest rank, because of the more extensive diffusion of their labors, the successful writers of periodical lucubrations.

Among these, the "Tatler" is the first in the order of time who will claim attention. For those which preceded were entirely political and controversial, and soon sunk into oblivion when the violence of party which produced them had subsided. But the general purpose of the "Tatler," as Steele himself declares, was to expose the false arts of life, to pull off the disguises of cunning, vanity, and ostentation, and to recommend a general simplicity in our dress, discourse, and behavior.

The general state of conversation and of literary improvement among those who called themselves gentlemen, at the time in which the Tatler" was written, was low and contemptible. The men who, from their rank, fortune, and appearance, claimed the title of gentlemen, affected a contempt for learning, and seemed to consider ignorance as a mark of gentility. The "Tatler" gradually opened their understandings, and furnished matter for improving conversation.

Addison, who had appeared with peculiar lustre in the "Tatler," was to shine again in the "Spectator" with still brighter and more

permanent glory. The great charm of his diction, which has delighted readers of every class, appears to me to be a certain natural sweetness, ease, and delicacy, which no affectation can attain. Truths of all kinds-the sublime and the familiar, the serious and the comic are taught in that peculiar style which raises in the mind a placid and equable flow of emotions; that placidness and equability which are in a particular manner adapted to give permanency to all our pleasurable feelings. A work which warms our passions, and hurries us on with the rapid vehemence of its style, may be read once or twice with pleasure; but it is the more tranquil style which is most frequently in unison with our minds, and which, therefore, on the tenth repetition, as Horace says, will afford fresh pleasure. Addison rejected that levity and medley of matter which often appeared disadvantageously in a single paper of the "Tatler," and usually wrote regular treatises on the most important and most interesting subjects of taste and morality. Such subjects will never be out of date; but the strictures on the dresses and diversions of the times, whatever merit they possessed, could not have rendered the work immortal.

With respect to the "Rambler," if I have prejudices concerning it, they are all in its favor. I read it at a very early age with delight, and, I hope, with improvement. Every thing laudable and useful in the conduct of life is recommended in it, often in a new manner, and always with energy, and with a dignity which commands attention. When I consider it with a view to its effects on the generality of the people, on those who stand most in need of this mode of instruction, it appears greatly inferior to the easy and natural "Spectator." And, indeed, with all my prepossessions in favor of this writer, I cannot but agree with the opinion of the public which has condemned in his style an affected appearance of pomposity.

The "Adventurer" is an imitation of the "Rambler." It is written with remarkable spirit, and with the benevolent design of promoting all that is good and amiable. The stories make a very conspicuous figure in this work, and tend to diffuse its influence among those readers who might probably have been deterred from reading it had it consisted only of didactic discourses, written in a style approaching to the lexiphantic. Great, indeed, are its merits in every view; but I cannot discover, in the diction, the sweetness and the delicacy of Addison.

The "World" is written in a style different from all the preceding. There is a certain gayety and gentility diffused over it which gives it a peculiar grace when considered only as a book of amusement. That it inculcates morality with any peculiar force, cannot be said. But it gives many valuable instructions without assuming the solemn air of a severe moralist.

The "Connoisseur" abounds in wit and a very pleasant species of humor. The book, however, is rather diverting than improving; yet, under the form of irony, many useful truths are conveyed with great success. There is no elevation of sentiment, and no sublime discourses on religion and morality; but there is a great deal of good sense expressed with good-humored drollery. The authors were by nature possessed of wit, and had acquired a very considerable knowledge of the classics.

Every one of these works is calculated to promote good sense and virtue; and whatever may be the defects of each, the variety of their manners is well suited to the variety of dispositions and of tastes which occur in the mass of mankind.

Essays, No. xxviii.

ON THE HAPPINESS OF DOMESTIC LIFE.

An active life is exposed to many evils which cannot reach a state of retirement; but it is found, by the uniform experience of mankind, to be, upon the whole, productive of the most happiness. All are found desirous of avoiding the listlessness of an unemployed condition. Without the incentives of ambition, of fame, of interest, of emulation, men eagerly rush upon hazardous and painful enterprises. There is a quick succession of ideas, a warm flow of spirits, an animated sensation, consequent on exertion, which amply compensates the chagrin of disappointment and the fatigue of attention. One of the most useful effects of action is, that it renders repose agreeable. Perpetual rest is pain of the most intolerable kind. But a judicious interchange of rest and motion, of indolent enjoyment and strenuous efforts, gives a true relish of life, which, when too tranquil, is insipid, and when too much agitated, disgustful.

This sweet repose, which is necessary to restore, by relaxing the tone of the weary mind, has been sought for by the wisest and greatest of men at their own fireside. Senators and heroes have shut out the acclamations of an applauding world to enjoy the prattling of their little ones, and to partake the endearments of family conversation. They knew that even their best friends, in the common intercourse of life, were in some degree actuated by interested motives in displaying their affection; that many of their followers applauded them in hopes of reward; and that the giddy multitude, however zealous, were not always judicious in their approbation. But the attentions paid them at their fireside, the smiles which exhilarated their own table, were the genuine result of undissembled love.

The nursery has often alleviated the fatigues of the bar and the senate-house. Nothing contributes more to raise the gently-pleasing emotions than the view of infant innocence, enjoying the rap

tures of a game at play. All the sentiments of uncontrolled nature display themselves to the view, and furnish matter for agreeable reflection to the mind of the philosophical observer. To partake with children in their little pleasures is by no means unmanly. It is one of the purest sources of mirth. It has an influence in amending the heart, which necessarily takes a tincture from the company that surrounds us. Innocence as well as guilt is communicated and increased by the contagion of example. And the great Author of evangelical philosophy has taught us to emulate the simplicity of the infantine age. He seems indeed himself to have been delighted with young children, and found in them, what he in vain sought among those who judged themselves their superiors, unpolluted purity of heart.

Among the great variety of pictures which the vivid imagination of Homer has displayed throughout the Iliad, there is not one more pleasing than the family piece which represents the parting interview between Hector and Andromache. It deeply interests the heart while it delights the imagination. The hero ceases to be terrible, that he may become amiable. We admire him while he stands completely armed in the field of battle; but we love him more while he is taking off his helmet that he may not frighten his little boy with its nodding plumes. We are refreshed with the tender scene of domestic love, while all around breathes rage and discord. We are pleased to see the arm which is shortly to deal death and destruction among a host of foes, employed in caressing an infant son with the embraces of paternal love. A professed critic would attribute the pleasing effect entirely to contrast; but the heart has declared, previously to the inquiries of criticism, that it is chiefly derived from the satisfaction which we naturally take in beholding great characters engaged in tender and amiable employ

ments.

Essays, No. xl.

ON SIMPLICITY OF STYLE.

Food that gives the liveliest pleasure on the first taste frequently disgusts on repetition; and those things which please the palate without satiety, are such as agitate but moderately, and perhaps originally caused a disagreeable sensation. Mental food is also found by experience to nourish most and delight the longest when it is not lusciously sweet. Profuse ornament and unnecessary graces, though they may transport the reader on a first perusal, commonly occasion a kind of intellectual surfeit, which prevents a second.

The Bible, the Iliad, and Shakspeare's works, are allowed to be

'He should have added Milton, and placed him next to the Bible.

the sublimest books that the world can exhibit. They are also truly simple; and the reader is the more affected by their indisputable sublimity, because his attention is not wearied by ineffectual attempts at it. He who is acquainted with Longinus will remember that the instances adduced by that great pattern of the excellence he describes, are not remarkable for a glaring or a pompous style, but derive their claim to sublimity from a noble energy of thought, modestly set off by a proper expression.

No author has been more universally approved than Xenophon. Yet his writings display no appearance of splendor or majesty; nothing elevated or adorned with figures; no affectation of superfluous ornament. His merit is an unaffected sweetness which no affectation can obtain. The graces seem to have conspired to form the becoming texture of his composition. And yet, perhaps, a common reader would neglect him, because the easy and natural air of his narrative rouses no violent emotion. More refined understandings peruse him with delight; and Cicero has recorded that Scipio, when once he had opened the books of Xenophon, would with difficulty be prevailed with to close them. His style, says the same great orator and critic, is sweeter than honey, and the muses themselves seem to have spoken from his mouth.

To write in a plain style appears easy in theory; but how few in comparison have avoided the fault of unnecessary and false ornament! The greater part seem to have mistaken unwieldy corpuience for robust vigor, and to have despised the temperate habit of sound health as meagreness. The taste for finery is more general than for symmetrical beauty and chaste elegance; and many, like Nero, would not be content till they should have spoiled, by gilding it, the statue of a Lysippus.

Essays, No. xv.

CHARLES WOLFE, 1791-1823.

CHARLES WOLFE, the youngest son of Theobald Wolfe, Esq., was born in Dublin on the 14th of December, 1791. As a youth, he showed great precocity of talent, united to a most amiable disposition. After the usual preparatory studies, in which he distinguished himself, he entered the University of Dublin in 1809. He immediately attained a high rank for his classical attainments, and for his true poetic talent; and the first year of his college course he obtained a prize for a poem upon "Jugurtha in Prison." Before he left the university, he wrote a number of pieces of poetry that were truly beautiful, but especially that one on which his fame chiefly rests, the "Lines on the Burial of Sir John Moore." In 1814, he took his bachelor's degree, and entered at once upon the study of divinity. In 1817, he was ordained as curate of the church of Ballyclog, in