The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface
• Key to Abbreviations and References
• Introduction
• 1.: The Manuscript
• 2.: The Lectures
• 3.: Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages
• 4.: Rhetoric and Literary Criticism
• 5.: System and Aesthetics
• Bibliographical Note
• Lectures On Rhetoric and Belles Lettres: Lecture 2D.
• Lecture 3D.: Of the Origin and Progress of Language 1
• Lecture 4tha
• Lecture 5. A
• Lecture 6.THA: Of What Is Called the Tropes and Figures of Speech. B
• Lecture. 7. A
• Lecture. 8. A
• Lecture. 9tha
• Lecture. 10tha
• Lecture. 11 a
• Lecture. 12.THA: Of Composition
• Lecture. 13 a
• | Lecture. 14 a
• Lecture 15tha
• Lecture. 16th. a
• Lecture XVII. A
• Lecture Xviii a
• Lecture. Xixth. a
• Lecture. XX.THA
• Lecture Xxist. a
• Lecture Xxiida
• Lecture Xxiiida
• Lecture Xxivtha
• Lecture XXV. A
• Lecture Xxvitha
• Lecture Xxvii a
• Lecture Xxviiitha
• Lecture Xxix a
• Lecture. Xxx a
• Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages,&c. &c.1
• Appendix 1 (see P. 32) the Bee, Or Literary Weekly Intelligencer, For Wednesday, May 11, 1791.
• Appendix 2 Table of Corresponding Passages

Lecture. 10^tha

Monday Dec.^r 13 1762

126There is perhaps no English writer who has more of this Gaiety ^b than Mr Addison, neither ^c has he so much as Lucian. This is the chief character of all his prose works: he frequently in the manner of Lucian begins his discourses with a story which he places before the subject itself, as in his address to the Tory Ladies in the Freeholder; 1 but he ^d never carries [carries] these so far as Lucian does, nor so minutely. This perhaps may be owing to ^e a sort of modesty which he is said to have been possessed in a very [a] great degree, in the common affairs | 127 of <life> {and which breaths indeed thro all his works} ^f and which the other author does not appair to have had in any considerable share, from severall stories he tells of himself, as that of his biting the thumb of the Imposter Alexander. {The Ludicrous incident of biting Alexanders thumb is related in his Life of that imposter, 2 than which few things are more entertaining.} ^g {His modesty hinders him from those ^h bold and extrava<ga>nt strokes of humour which Lucian uses (he would not for instance put a Ludicrous speech into the mouths of a dead man or a god) ⁱ or from throwing out such biting sarcasms in his own person as Swift often does.} The flowryness of Mr Addison naturally lead him to ^j make frequent use of figures in his discourses, the chief of these are metaphors, similies and Allegories. But in the use of these he always displays the modesty of his character. It may seem strange how the use of Allegories especially should seem consistent with that modesty we have attributed to him {as they are the boldest and strongest kind of figures ^k }, but the manner in which he introduces them is always such as makes it appear that there was nothing forced or uneasy in the reforming them. He often introduces them in the form | 128 of a dream, 3 and at the same time shews us the train of thought that led him into such conceptions, and by this means makes us imagine that the circumstances he was in naturally Suggested them without his being at any pains about it. {As that where he compares the different characters of men to different musicall instruments.} 4

In the same manner his similes are always represented as naturally presenting themselves. This modesty we have ascribed to him ^l causes him likewise deliver his sentiments in the least assuming manner; and this would incline him rather to narrate what he had seen and heard than to deliver his opinions in his own person; and at the same time he will not seem to be at great pains to ^m give nice and curious circumstances; it is more consistent with | 129 the naturall modesty of his temper to give us only a few of the most striking and interesting. He ⁿ neither presumes as Shaftesbury and Bollingbroke, nor dictates as Swift. {Shaftesbury and Bolinbroke display their ^o superior dignity etc. Swift his superiority of Sense.} ^p For the same reason he neither writes with the precision and nice propriety of the latter, nor have his sentences that Uniform cadence in their severall members as the two former writers always affected: ^q His Sentences are neither long nor short but of a length suited to the character he has of a modest man; who naturally delivers himself in Sentences of a moderate length and with a uniform tone. Accordingly we find those of Mr Addeson are of this sort. They generally consist of 3, 4 or 5 phrases and are so uniform in their | 130 manner that we read them with a sort of monotony. The modest man will not use long sentences as they are either proper for declamation, which he never uses, or bespeak a confusion of Ideas that is not to be attributed to Mr Addison. He would not either deliver himself in short sentences, as that would appear either like Snip–snap or the language of presumption and a dictating temper. {As he does not pretend that every thing he says is of the utmost importance, and an infallible rule, so he is much more lax in his writings than Dr Swift: every word of his writings is of importance; when on the other hand Mr Addison frequently turns up the same thought in the different phrases of a sentence only placing it in a different light, ^r and is rather inaccurate in the use of words and repetition of Synonymes , which the concluding of the Essay on the Pleasures of the imagination 5 will be an example of if examined with that view.^r}

He frequently makes quotations from the Poets, which gives his writings an air of gaiety and good humour. This Gaiety joined to the modesty that appears in his works has gained him the character of a most polite and elegant writer. His descriptions are not near so animated as those of Lucian, and this may proceed both from his naturall modesty and | 131 from his imagination not being altogether so lively. This will appear to be the case in any of his descriptions if compared with <that> of Jupiter carrying of Europa in Lucian 6 which is remarkably animated, and gives as compleat a notion of the severall transactions as ^s words can convey. ^t

[a]MS 9th

[b]of S deleted

[c]replaces tho he

[1 ]The Free–holder: or political essays, 23 Dec. 1715 to 29 June 1716, 55 numbers, often reprinted in one volume; ed. J. Leheny (1979). ‘Future Readers may see, in them, the Complexion of the Times in which they were written (55).

[d]but he replaces he never howe

[e]that deleted

[f]Hand B. v.125 foot

[2 ]Lucian met the false priest Alexander of Abonuteichos, who as ‘prophet’ of Asclepius conducted mysteries and had a considerable following from ad 150 to 170, and his satire on him is one of his bitterest (LCL iv; reference to p. 145).

[g]Hand B, below Hand A’s His modesty . . . does

[h]strong and deleted

[i]and at the same time deleted

[j]use deleted

[k]of deleted

[3 ]Addison on allegory: Guardian 152; Spectator 55, 63, 183, 315, 464. For dreams and visions, which as suggested are often the vehicle, see Guardian 106, 158; Tatler 81, 97, 100, 117, 119, 120, 123, 146, 154, 161; Spectator 110, 159 (Vision of Mirzah), 275, 487 (essay on Dreams), 505, 558–9.

[4 ]Tatler 153.

[l]prevents his deleted

[m]choose out deleted

[n]has deleted

[o]dignity deleted

[p]Hand B

[q]the Language deleted

[r–r]and is . . . view, Hand B

[5 ]The pleasures of the imagination are the subject of Spectator 411–21 (21 June–3 July 1712).

[6 ]Dialogues of the Sea–Gods (fifteen, a shorter work than the superior Dialogues of the Gods) drew on Homer, the pastoral poets, and paintings: LCL vii. 178–237. Reference to no. 15.

[s]any thing can deleted

[t]the rest of 131, and 132 are blank