From “English Humorists.”

WE love him for his vanities as much as his virtues. What is ridiculous is delightful in him; we are so fond of him because we laugh at him so. And out of that laughter, and out of that sweet weakness, and out of those harmless eccentricities and follies, and out of that touched brain, and out of that honest manhood and simplicity—we get a result of happiness, goodness, tenderness, pity, piety; such as, if my audience will think their reading and hearing over, doctors and divines but seldom have the fortune to inspire. And why not? Is the glory of heaven to be sung only by gentlemen in black coats? Must the truth be only expounded in gown and surplice, and out of those two vestments can nobody preach it? Commend me to this preacher without orders—this parson in the tiewig. When this man looks from the world, whose weaknesses he describes so benevolently, up to the heaven which shines over us all, I can hardly fancy a human face lighted up with a more serene rapture: a human intellect thrilling with a purer love and adoration than Joseph Addison’s. Listen to him: from your childhood you have known the verses; but who can hear their sacred music without love and awe?—

  “Soon as the Evening Shades prevail,
The Moon takes up the wondrous tale,
And nightly to the listening Earth,
Repeats the story of her birth;
And all the Stars that round her burn,
And all the Planets in their turn,
Confirm the tidings as they roll,
And spread the truth from pole to pole.
What though, in solemn silence, all
Move round this dark terrestrial ball?
What though no real voice nor sound,
Among their radiant orbs be found;
In Reason’s ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice,
Forever singing as they shine,
The Hand that made us is Divine.”

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  It seems to me those verses shine like the stars. They shine out of a great, deep calm. When he turns to heaven, a Sabbath comes over that man’s mind; and his face lights up from it with a glory of thanks and prayer. His sense of religion stirs through his whole being. In the fields, in the town; looking at the birds in the trees; at the children in the streets; in the morning or in the moonlight; over his books in his own room; in a happy party at a country merrymaking or a town assembly, good-will and peace to God’s creatures, and love and awe of him who made them, fill his pure heart and shine from his kind face. If Swift’s life was the most wretched, I think Addison’s was one of the most enviable. A life prosperous and beautiful—a calm death—an immense fame and affection afterwards for his happy and spotless name.

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