But time quickly puts an end to artificial and accidental fame; and Addison is to pass through futurity protected only by his genius. Every name which kindnefs or interest once raised too high is in danger, left the next age fhould, by the vengeance of criticism, fink it in the fame proportion. A great writer has lately styled him an indifferent poet, and a worfe critick.

His poetry is first to be confidered; of which it must be confeffed that it has not often thofe felicities of diction which give luftre to fentiments, or that vigour of fentiment that animates diction: there is little of ardour, vehemence, or transport; there is very rarely the awfulness of grandeur, and not very often the splendour of elegance. He thinks juftly; but he thinks faintly. This is his general character; to which, doubtless, many fingle paffages will furnish exceptions.

Yet, if he feldom reaches fupreme excellence, he rarely finks into dullness, and is ftill more rarely entangled in abfurdity. He did not truft his powers enough to be negligent. There is in most of his compofitions a calmnefs and equability, deliberate and cautious, fometimes with little that delights, but feldom with any thing that offends.

Of this kind feem to be his poems to Dryden, to Somers, and to the King. His ode on St. Cecilia has been imitated by Pope, and has fomething in it of Dryden's vigour. Of his Account of the English Poets, he used to speak as a poor thing*; but it is not worse than his ufual ftrain. He has faid, not very judiciously, in his character of Waller,

Thy verse could fhew ev'n Cromwell's innocence,
And compliment the ftorms that bore him hence.

O had thy Mufe not come an age too soon,
But feen great Naffau on the British throne,
How had his triumph glitter'd in thy page!-

What is this but to fay, that he who could compliment Cromwell had been the proper poet for king William? Addison, however, never printed the piece.

The Letter from Italy has been always praised, but has never been praised beyond its merit. It is more correct, with lefs appearance of labour, and more elegant, with less ambition of ornament, than any other of his poems. There is, however, one broken metaphor, of which notice may properly be taken : Fir'd with that name—

I bridle in my struggling Mufe with pain,
That longs to launch into a nobler ftrain.

To bridle a goddess is no very delicate idea; but why muft fhe be bridled? because the longs to launch; an act which was never hindered by a bridle: and whither will the launch? into a nobler ftrain. She is in the first line a horse, in the second a boat; and the care of the poet is to keep his horfe or his boat from finging.

The next compofition is the far-famed Campaign, which Dr. Warton has termed a Gazette in Rhyme, with harshness not often used by the good-nature of his criticifm. Before a cenfure fo fevere is admitted, let us confider that War is a frequent fubject of Poetry, and then enquire who has defcribed it with more juftness and force. Many of our own writers tried their powers upon this year of victory, yet Addifon's is confeffedly the best performance; his poem is the work of a man not blinded by the duft of learning; his images are not borrowed merely from books. The fuperiority which he confers upon his hero is not perfonal prowefs, and

mighty bone, but deliberate intrepidity, a calm command of his paffions, and the power of confulting hist own mind in the midst of danger. The rejection and contempt of fiction is rational and manly.

It may be obferved that the last line is imitated by Pope :

Marlb'rough's exploits appear divinely bright—

Rais'd of themselves their genuine charms they boast, And those that paint them trueft, praise them most. This Pope had in his thoughts; but, not knowing how to use what was not his own, he spoiled the thought when he had borrowed it:

The well-fung woes fhall foothe my ghoft;

He best can paint them who fhall feel them moft.

Martial exploits may be painted; perhaps woes may be painted; but they are furely not painted by being wellfung it is not easy to paint in fong, or to fing in colours.

No paffage in the Campaign has been more often mentioned than the fimile of the Angel, which is faid in the Tatler to be one of the nobleft thoughts that ever entered into the heart of man, and is therefore worthy of attentive confideration. Let it be firft enquired whether it be a fimile. A poetical fimile is the dif covery of likeness between two actions, in their general nature diffimilar, or of caufes terminating by different operations in fome refemblance of effect. But the mention of another like confequence from a like caufe, or of a like performance by a like agency, is not a fimile, but an exemplification. It is not a fimile to fay that the Thames waters fields, as the Po waters fields; or that as Hecla vomits flames in Iceland, fo Etna vomits flames in Sicily. When Horace

fays of Pindar, that he pours his violence and rapidity of verfe, as a river fwoln with rain rushes from the mountain; or of himself, that his genius wanders in queft of poetical decorations, as the bee wanders to collect honey; he, in either cafe, produces a fimile ; the mind is impreffed with the refemblance of things generally unlike, as unlike as intellect and body. But if Pindar had been defcribed as writing with the copioufnefs and grandeur of Homer, or Horace had told that he reviewed and finished his own poetry with the fame care as Ifocrates polifhed his orations, instead of fimilitude, he would have exhibited almost identity; he would have given the fame portraits with different names. In the poem now examined, when the English are represented as gaining a fortified pafs, by repetition of attack and perfeverance of refolution; their obstinacy of courage, and vigour of onfet, is well illuftrated by the sea that breaks, with inceffant battery, the dikes of Holland. This is a fimile: but when Addifon, having celebrated the beauty of Marlborough's perfon, tells us, that Achilles thus was formed with every grace, here is no fimile, but a mere exemplification. A fimile may be compared to lines converging at a point, and is more excellent as the lines approach from greater diftance: an exemplification may be confidered as two parallel lines which run on together without approximation, never far feparated, and never joined.

Marlborough is fo like the angel in the poem, that the action of both is almoft the fame, and performed by both in the fame manner. Marlborough teaches the battle to rage; the angel directs the form: Marlborough is unmoved in peaceful thought; the angel is calm and fe

rene;

rene; Marlborough stands unmoved amidst the fhock of bofts; the angel rides calm in the whirlwind. The lines on Marlborough are juft and noble; but the fimile gives almost the fame images a fecond time.

But perhaps this thought, though hardly a fimile, was remote from vulgar conceptions, and required great labour of research, or dexterity of application. Of this, Dr. Madden, a name which Ireland ought to honour, once gave me his opinion. If I had fet, faid he, ten School-boys to write on the battle of Blenheim, and eight had brought me the Angel, I should not have been furprised,

The opera of Rofamond, though it is feldom mentioned, is one of the first of Addison's compositions. The fubject is well chofen, the fiction is pleasing, and the praife of Marlborough, for which the scene gives an opportunity, is, what perhaps every human excellence must be, the product of good-luck improved by genius. The thoughts are sometimes great, and fometimes tender; the verfification is easy and gay. There is doubtless fome advantage in the fhortness of the lines, which there is little temptation to load with expletive epithets. The dialogue feems commonly better than the fongs. The two comic characters of Sir Trusty and Grideline, though of no great value, are yet fuch as the poet intended. Sir Trufty's account of the death of Rofamond is, I think, too grofsly abfurd. The whole drama is airy and elegant; engaging in its process, and pleafing in its conclufion. If Addifon had cultivated the lighter parts of poetry, he would probably have excelled.

The tragedy of Cato, which, contrary to the rule obferved in felecting the works of other poets, has by

the