It is necessary to study the work of Joseph Addison in close relation to the time in which he lived, for he was a true child of his century, and even in his most distinguishing qualities he was not so much in opposition to its ideas as in advance of them. The early part of the eighteenth century was a very middle-aged period: the dreamers of the seventeenth century had grown into practical men; the enthusiasts of the century before had sobered down into reasonable beings. We no longer have the wealth of detail, the love of stories, the delight in the concrete for its own sake of the Chaucerian and Elizabethan children; these men seek for what is typical instead of enjoying what is detailed, argue and illustrate instead of telling stories, observe instead of romancing. Captain Sentry 'behaved himself with great gallantry in several sieges' [Footnote: _Spectator_ 2.] but the Spectator does not care for them as Chaucer cares for the battlefields of his Knight. 'One might ... recount' many tales touching on many points in our speculations, and no child and no Elizabethan would refrain from doing so, but the Spectator will not 'go out of the occurrences of common life, but assert it as a general observation.' [Footnote: _Spectator_ 107] He is in perfect harmony with his age, too, in the intensely rational view which he takes of ghosts [Footnote: _Spectator_ 110] and witches, [Footnote: _Spectator_ 117] for it was a period in which men cared very little for things which 'the eye hath not seen'. In his use of mottoes, again, which are deliberately sought illustrations for his papers, [Footnote: _Spectator_ 221] and not the sparks which have fired his train of thought, he is typical of the period of middle-age in which men amuse themselves with such academic pastimes. Addison is the very antipodes of the kind of man who 'Loves t' have his sails fill'd with a lusty wind, Even till his sail-yards tremble, his masts crack'--