opportunities to circumstances that are not known in other countries-to the freedom of our constitution, which interferes with no man's peculiarities of acting or thinking, while they do not injure his neighbour-to the vast extension of commerce, which has created a new race of men, more independent of set forms and modes than any other class of the community, and productive of that infinite variety of character, of which a writer of humour knows how to avail himself, and which he cannot easily exhaust-to the forms of social intercourse, the growing and general relish for conversation, and unconstrained interchange of sentiments; to a taste for dress, sometimes reasonable and sometimes capricious; to the intermixture of the sexes in all companies; and to the operation of wealth, whether acquired by labour or inheritance, on minds of strong or weak texture. All these circumstances afford a numerous class of characters; which, as they display themselves openly, without fear and without shame, become the prey of the wit, and present him with such opportunities of exposing improprieties and wrong notions to ridicule, as no systematic study, or philosophical contemplation could suggest.

When the ESSAYISTS, whose works compose these volumes, began to write, they found this wide field almost entirely unoccupied. Their predecessors and their contemporaries, as Dr. JOHNSON has observed, meddled only with poli

tics* which, as they discussed them, required neither wit nor learning. Elegance of style was but little known at that time in any prose compositions and wit, confined chiefly to the stage, was associated with the grossest immorality. It was left for STEELE and ADDISON to rescue those valuable accomplishments from obscurity or abuse, and to unite wit, learning, and elegant sentiments, in the service of cheerful piety, and decorous man

ners.

In such an undertaking, the regulation of TASTE became a principal object. England had not been unproductive of genius of the first class, for to HOMER and VIRGIL, the boast of Greece and Rome, she could proudly join the names of SHAKSPEARE and MILTON; but hitherto few attempts had been made to

*I must confess I am amazed that the press should be only made use of in this way by News-writers, and the zealots of parties; as if it were not more advantageous to mankind, to be instructed in wisdom and virtue, than in politicks; and to be made good fathers, husbands, and sons, than counsellors and statesmen. Had the philosophers and great men of antiquity, who took so much pains in order to instruct mankind, and leave the world wiser and better than they found it; had they, I say, been possessed of the art of printing, there is no question but they would have made such an advantage of it, in dealing out their lectures to the public. Our common prints would be of great use were they thus calculated to diffuse good sense through the bulk of a people, to clear up their understandings, animate their minds with virtue, dissipate the sorrows of a heavy heart, or unbend the mind from its more severe employments with innocent amusements.' ADDISON, Spec. No. 124.

reduce the common notions of taste to any regular form. It is not easy, perhaps, to prescribe rules for critical acumen; but it is certain, that the faculty of discerning and appreciating the beauties of nature or art may be assisted by a reference to the best models, and to the remarks of men of cultivated minds and acknowledged sagacity. And if, with philosophers, we determine that the component parts of a good taste, are, a lively imagination, a clear and distinct apprehension of objects, a quick perception, sensibility, and judgment, it cannot be denied that STEELE, in a considerable degree, and ADDISON in a very high degree, were qualified to correct the opinions of the public, in matters of that kind. On these principles their criticisms are generally founded; while their acquaintance with the Greek and Roman classics furnished them with apt allusions and illustrations, and enabled them, without the folly of presumption, or the harshness of pedantry, to refine the taste of a people to whom the elegancies of literature had not yet become familiar, and whose anthors had seldom studied correctness, and not always perspicuity. If it be true also that a good taste requires purity of moral and religious principle, and in few instances, I believe, have they ever been found far apart, it cannot be denied that the most celebrated of our ESSAYISTS united these qualities in no common degree.

To such attentive observers of human na

ture, the PASSIONS would prove a rich source of remark, both serious and humorous. The varieties of the passions, indeed, compose a fund for the ESSAYIST, which he must in vain hope to exhaust, as they shift their forms and appearances with the revolutions of public manners, and habits of thinking, or rather habits of acting without thought. ANGER alone may be sub-divided so as to afford an infinite variety of expression, from foible to crime, many examples of which are happily illustrated in these volumes by characteristic sketches, and portraits, which, perhaps, appear not less natural for being sometimes imaginary.

Philosophers and divines had treated the passions with the method and gravity becoming their respective professions; but they could not bring their precepts so closely home, as the ESSAYIST, who follows his pupil into domestic privacy, catches him in the moment of error, shews him its consequences, and administers a cure adapted to the immediate necessity. Philosophers and even poets could lay down the law respecting the extremity of wrath, and the savage horrors of revenge; and point out the danger of unrestrained fury to individuals and to society; but they could not be expected to pourtray the many little objects which excite it, weigh their importance in the scales of ridicule or common sense, and exhibit the varieties it assumes in the different classes of rich and

poor, learned and illiterate; nor could they with becoming gravity exemplify the whimsical effects of petulance and irritability, provoked by trifles, exasperated by sullenness or contradiction, and appeased by flattery and servility.

To treat of LOVE is the peculiar province of the ESSAYIST*. That passion, although acknowledged to be the same in its effects, in all ages and conditions, has nevertheless been more regulated by custom in its modes of address than any other that can be mentioned. Of this we need no more convincing proof, than what is afforded by one of its revolutions, when the age of chivalry and pure affection was succeeded by that of settlements and pin-money, when those pretensions which were founded on valorous acts, long perseverance, and a time of rigid trial and probation, gave way to the intrigues and plots, stratagems and elopements, by which the lady was to be tricked out of her money, and the father compelled to surrender his consent. Instead of being regulated by certain and almost invariable formalities, courtships came to be practised in a thousand various ways; and the transfer of affections being subjected to cool calculation and expedience, soon partook of the fate of other bargains, and was sometimes a lucky hit, and some

* What COWLEY says of Poets, may be applied to Essayists; they are scarce thought freemen of their company without paying some duties, or obliging themselves to be true to Love.'