BOILEAU remarked, it is written without connec tion, certainly deferves great praife, for liveliness of defcription, and juftnefs of obfervation.

Before the TATLER and SPECTATOR, if the writers for the theatre are excepted, England had no mafters of common life. No writers had yet undertaken to reform either the favagenefs of neglect, or the impertinence of civility; to fhow when to speak, or to be filent; how to refufe, or how to comply. We had many books to teach us our more important duties, and to fettle opinions in philofophy or politics: but an Arbiter elegantiarum, a judge of propriety, was yet wanting, who fhould furvey the track of daily converfation, and free it from thorns and prickles, which teaze the paffer, though they do not wound him.

For this purpofe nothing is fo proper as the frequent publication of fhort papers, which we read not as ftudy, but amusement. If the subject be flight, the treatife likewife is fhort. The bufy may find time, and the idle may find patience.

1

This mode of conveying cheap and eafy knowledge began among us in the civil war, when it was much the intereft of either party to raife and fix the prejudices of the people. At that time appeared Mercurius Aulicus, Mercurius Rufticus, and Mercurius Civicus. It is faid, that when any title grew popular, it was ftolen by the antagonist, who by this ftratagem conveyed his notions to those who would not have received him, had he not worn the appearance of a friend. The tumult of thofe unhappy days left fcarcely any man leifure to treafure up occafional compofitions; and fo much were they neglected, that a complete collection is no where to be found.

Thefe Mercuries were fucceeded by L'ESTRANGE'S OBSERVATOR, and that by LESLEY'S REHEARSAL, and perhaps by others: but hitherto nothing had

been conveyed to the people, in this commodious manner, but controverfy relating to the church or ftate of which they taught many to talk, whom they could not teach to judge.

It has been fuggefted that the Royal Society was inftituted foon after the Reftoration, to divert the attention of the people from public difcontent. The TATLER and SPECTATOR had the fame tendency they were published at a time when two parties, loud, reftlefs, and violent, each with plaufible declarations, and each perhaps without any diftinct termination of its views, were agitating the nation; to minds heated with political conteft, they fupplied cooler and more inoffenfive reflections; and it is faid by ADDISON, in a fubfequent work, that they had a perceptible influence upon the converfation of that time, and taught the frolic and the gay to unite merriment with decency; an effect which they can never wholly lofe, while they continue to be among the first books by which both fexes are initiated in the elegances of knowledge."

In this sketch, we may obferve, that the praife of original defign is ftill referved for the author of the TATLER. If Cafa and Caftiglione were allowed to be exceptions, we might add to the number by reciting the titles of many works published in England, for the regulation of manners; among these PEACHAM, BRAITHWAITE, and Sir FRANCIS VERE, were writers of no inconfiderable fame; but, like many of their contemporaries, much more valuable for matter than manner. Effayifts on general fubjects were likewife numerous: FELTHAM'S Refolves was once a very popular book, and has more merit than will be allowed by thofe who are anxious rather to be pleased than to be inftructed; and it would be unpardonable to omit the Effays of LORD

• Johnson's Life of Addifon.

BACON, which for found philofophy and accurate obfervation, have not been exceeded, nor perhaps equalled. Tranflations were also published from Montaigne, and other foreign authors; but ftill no attempt had been made on the plan of the PERIODICAL ESSAY, confined alone to life and manners.

With regard to the theatre, much good could certainly not be expected from it. Perhaps in its nature, it is not a direct fource of inftruction. It reflects, but does not prefcribe manners; it reprefents, but does not invent. Common life and manners are unquestionably the materials upon which a dramatic writer is to exercife his wit; but the stage has never been confidered as a mafter of common life, or as editing the laws of manners. It has feldom fucceeded even in correcting what is amifs, although by flattering the depraved tafte or morals. of certain periods, it has often made bad worse. During the reign of CHARLES II. and JAMES II. the ftage was in all refpects fo licentious that the comedies then reprefented are now declared unfit to be read; and Dr. JOHNSON has acknowledged, when fpeaking of certainly not the worft dramatic writer of his age, that the perufal of his works will make no man better; and that their ultimate effect is to reprefent pleasure in alliance with vice; and to relax thofe obligations by which life ought to be regulated.

If it was the purpose of the firft ESSAYISTS to detach the public from political controverfy, and to direct their attention to fubjects that, like thofe of LORD VERULAM, came home to men's bufinefs and bofoms,' a moft extenfive field lay before them, for the cultivation of which little provifion had been made by preceding authors. There were innumer

b Beattie.

Johnfon's Life of Congreve.

able topics, which, though of great importance in promoting regularity and propriety in focial life, and fecuring the happiness of the domeftic relations, had been but flightly touched by any of the teachers of wisdom. The weightier morals and the Chriftian virtues, the groffer vices and depravities, were indeed fufficiently confidered in the public difcourfes of our English Divines, which form a body of religious and moral inftruction, fuch as no other nation can hope to rival; but the freaks and vagaries of fashion, operating upon various tempers, and creating many varieties of character, and many modifications of abfurdity, whatever influence they might have upon fociety, were excluded from a place where nothing can intrude but what is сараble of grave difcuffion. SENECA, and a few more modern writers, had given the world their thoughts on fuch fubjects, as they prefented themselves in the people whom they addreffed: but at this time, no nation on earth was fo happily favourable to the genius of the PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS as our own: and it is the peculiarity of our political conftitution and manners, which has fince enabled the English to maintain a preference in this fpecies of compofition, to which foreign writers have hitherto afpired in vain.

No man can make a juft eftimate of the literature of any country who does not take into his confideration its political government, and the advantages or obftructions which they may prefent to genius and imagination. If our ESSAYISTS have excelled in

d Too trivial for the chaftifement of the law, and too fantastical for the cognizance of the pulpit.' Spec. No 34, one of the pureft fpecimens of Addifonian humour. Pope. has harmonifed this obfervation :

Safe from the bar, the pulpit and the throne,
Yet touch'd and fham'd by RIDICULE alone.'

humour, they owe their materials and their opportunities to circumstances that are not known in other countries to the freedom of our conftitution, which interferes with no man's peculiarities of acting or thinking, while they do not injure his neighbourto the vaft extenfion of commerce, which has created a new race of men, more independent of fet forms and modes than any other clafs 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 eafily exhauft to the forms of focial intercourse, the growing and general relifh for conversation, and unconftrained interchange of fentiments; to a tafte for dress, sometimes reasonable and sometimes capricious; to the intermixture of the fexes in all companies-and to the operation of wealth, whether acquired by labour or inheritance, on minds of ftrong or weak texture. All these circumstances afford a numerous clafs of characters; which, as they display themselves openly, without fear and without fhame, become the prey of the wit, and prefent him with fuch opportunities of expofing improprieties and wrong notions to ridicule, as no fyftematic ftudy, or philofophical contemplation could fuggeft.

When the ESSAYISTS, whofe works compofe thefe volumes, began to write, they found this wide field almoft entirely unoccupied. Their predeceffors and their contemporaries, as Dr. JOHNSON has obferved, meddled only with politicks, which, as they difcuffed them, required neither wit nor learn

I must confefs I am amazed that the prefs fhould be only made ufe of in this way by News-writers, and the zealots of parties: as if it were not more advantageous to mankind, to be inftructed in wifdom and virtue, than in politicks; and to be made good fathers, hufbands, and