or a much instructed woman, but merely one whose intercourse is with cultivated people, and written. merely to tell you something that interests her and that she wishes you to know, with much care about what she says, and no care as to how she says it, will, in twelve cases out of the baker's dozen, be not only irreproachably correct in expression, but very charming. Some literary women, though few, are able to carry this clear, fluent, idiomatic English style into their books. Mrs. Jameson, Charlotte Bronté, and perhaps George Eliot (Miss Evans), are prominent instances in point. Mrs. Trollope's book, "The Domestic Manners of the Americans," which made her name known, and caused it to be detested, unjustly, in this country,* is written in this delightful style-easy-flowing and clear, like a beautiful stream, reflecting from its placid surface whatever it passes by, adding in the reflection a charm to the image which is not in the object, and distorting only when it is dimpled by gayety or crisped by a flaw of satire or a ripple of humor. Its style alone will reward its perusal. It may be studied to advantage and emulated, but not imitated; for all about it that is worthy of emulation is inimitable. Mr. Anthony Trollope's mastery of our language is inherited; but he has not come into possession of quite all the maternal estate. For at least a hundred years the highest reputa Unjustly, because all of Mrs. Trollope's descriptions were true to life, and were evidently taken from life. She, however, described only that which struck her as peculiar; and her acquaintance with the country was made among the most uncultivated people, and chiefly in the extreme South-west and West, thirty-five years ago; which was much like going into "the bush" of Australia ten years ago. With society in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia Mrs. Trollope was charmed; but of it she, apparently for that reason, says comparatively little. tion for purity of style in the writing of English prose has been Addison's. Whether or not he deserves, or ever did deserve, the eminence upon which he has been placed, he certainly is one of the most elegant and correct writers of the last century. Johnson's formal and didactic laudation, with which he rounds off his criticism of this author, "whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison," has been worth a great deal to the booksellers, and has stimulated the purchase of countless copies of "The Spectator," and, let us hope, the perusal of not a few. But in the face of so weighty a judgment, let us test Addison, not merely by comparison with other writers, but by the wellestablished rules of the language, and by those laws of thought the governing power of which is admitted in every sound and educated intellect, and to which every master of style unconsciously conforms. Seeing thus what manner of man he is who has been held up to three generations as the bright exemplar of purity, correctness, and grace in English style, we may intelligently determine what we can reasonably expect of the great mass of unpretending writers in our hard-working days. I have been led to this examination by recently reading, for the first time, the "Essay upon the Pleasures of the Imagination," which runs through ten numbers of the "Spectator,"* and which is one of Addison's most elaborate performances. Bishop Hurd says of it, in his edition of this author's writ Nos. 411 to 421. ings, that it is "by far the most masterly of all Mr. Addison's critical works," and that "the style is finished with so much care as to merit the best attention of the reader." The first number of the Essay appeared on Saturday, June 21, 1712, with a motto from Lucretius, which intimates that Mr. Addison broke his own path across a trackless country to drink from an untasted spring." * This should excuse some deviation from the line of our now well-beaten road of criticism; but there are other errors for which it is no apology. The first sentence tells us that "our sight is the most perfect and delightful of all our senses." A careless use of language, to begin with; for sight is not more perfect than any other sense. Perfect hearing is just as perfect as perfect sight; that is, it is simply perfect. But passing by this as à venial error, we find the third sentence beginning thus: "The sense of feeling can indeed give us a notion of extension, shape, and all other ideas that enter at the eye, except colours." Now, we may be sure that Addison did not mean to say what he does say - that the sense of feeling can give us the notion of ideas, and that colors are an idea. His meaning, we may be equally sure was this: The sense of feeling can indeed give us a notion of extension and of shape, and every other idea that can enter at the eye, except that of color. A little farther on we find this explanation of the subject of his Essay:— "Avia Pieridum peragere loca, nullius ante "so that by the pleasures of imagination or of fancy (which I shall use promiscuously), I here mean such as arise from visible objects." Here the strange confounding of imagination with fancy faculties which had been clearly distinguished a hundred years before the time of Addison-first attracts attention. But not insisting upon that mistake, let us pass on to learn immediately that he means to use the pleasures of those faculties promiscuously. But he manifestly intended to say that he would use the words imagination and fancy promiscuously. The confusion in his sentence is produced by his first mentioning the faculties, and then using "which" to refer, not to the faculties, but to the words which are their names. he says, Again "but we have the power of retaining, altering, and compounding those images which we have once received into all the varieties of picture and vision that are most agreeable to the imagination." Did Addison mean that we have the power of retaining images into" all the varieties of picture, and so forth? Certainly not; although that is what he says. Here again is confusion of thought. He groups together and connects by a conjunction three verbs, retain, alter, and compound, only two of which can be united to the same preposition. This fault is often committed by writers who do not think clearly, or who will not take the trouble to perfect and balance their sentences by repeating a word or two, and by looking after the fitness of their particles. What Addison meant to say was, but we have the power of retaining those images which we have once received, and of altering and compounding them into all the varieties of picture, and so forth. A few lines below we find this sentence: “There are few words in the English language which are employed in a more loose and uncircumscribed sense than those of the fancy and imagination." The confusion here is great and of a very vulgar kind. It is produced by the superfluous words those of the." Addison meant to say—in a more loose and uncircumscribed sense, not than the words of the fancy and imagination, but than fancy and imagination. In the same paragraph which furnishes the foregoing example, the writer says, divide these pleasures in two kinds." It is English to say, I divide these pleasures into two kinds. The next paragraph opens thus: ee "The pleasures of the imagination, taken in their full extent, are not so gross as those of sense, nor so-refined as those of the understanding." Here again is confusion produced by a careless use of language- careless even to blundering. Addison did not mean to speak of taking pleasures, either of the imagination, the sense, or the understanding. If he had written - The pleasures of imagination, regarded, or considered, in their full extent, are not so gross, and so forth- he would have uttered what the whole context shows to have been his thought. The next paragraph makes the following assertions in regard to what is called a man "of polite imagination:"— "He meets with a secret refreshment in a description, and often feels a greater satisfaction in the prospect of fields and |