An attempt has been made to compare the humour of Addison with that of Molière, of whom Lord Chesterfield said that no man ever had so much. But a parallel between an essayist and a dramatic writer will not run straight; the construction of the drama gives so much greater latitude to the display of humour, and allows of so much nearer an approach to extravagance, that there can be no drawn game between them, and the essayist will almost always be the loser. As a critic, Addison’s merit is impartially and ably set forth in the notes to his Life in Dr. Kippis’s edition of the ‘Biographia Britannica.’ On that subject Johnson is just and liberal. “Addison is now despised by some who perhaps would never have seen his defects, but by the lights which he afforded them.” By some of these arrogant despisers he has been blamed for deciding by taste rather than by principles. To this Dr. Warton, who thought him superior to Dryden as a critic, briefly answers, taste must decide. Addison’s style has been universally admired and thought a model. Lord Orford says of Addison, Swift, Bolingbroke, and Dr. Middleton, “Such authors fix a standard by their writings.” Johnson says he did not wish to be energetic; Dr. Warton affirms that he is so, and that often. Steele describes his habits of composition. “This was particular in this writer, that, when he had taken his resolution, or made his plan for what he designed to write, he would walk about a room, and dictate it into language with as much freedom and ease as any one could write it down, and attend to the coherence and grammar of what he dictated.” Pope says that he wrote with fluency; but if he had time to correct, did it slowly and cautiously; but that many of the ‘Spectators’ were written rapidly, and sent to the press in the instant; and he doubts whether much leisure for revisal would have led to improvement. “He would alter any thing to please his friends, before publication, but would not retouch his pieces afterwards; and I believe not one word in Cato, to which I made an objection, was suffered to stand.” The last line of Cato was Pope’s; a substitute for the original. We have neither room nor willingness to enter on the jealousy between these two eminent persons. Bowles vindicates Addison’s conduct, and relates the following fact to the credit of his disposition:—“Though attacked by Dennis as a critic, he never mentioned his name with asperity, and refused to give the least countenance to a pamphlet which Pope had written upon the occasion of Dennis’s stricture on Cato.” The piece here alluded to is the ‘Narrative of the Madness of John Dennis.’ Pope strangely imputed Addison’s pious compositions to the selfish motive of an intention to take orders and obtain a bishopric on quitting administration. Johnson cites this as the only proof that Pope retained some malignity from their ancient rivalship: with this opinion we cannot quite agree.