is a meaning, there is as lively expression, and, may I say, more
humanity than many times in the tragical flights of Shakespeare.'

Addison, with a genius of his own helped to free movement by the
sympathies of Steele, did break through the cobwebs of the critics; but
he carried off a little of their web upon his wings. We see it when in
the 'Spectator' he meets the prejudices of an 'understanding age,' and
partly satisfies his own, by finding reason for his admiration of 'Chevy
Chase' and the 'Babes in the Wood', in their great similarity to works
of Virgil. We see it also in some of the criticisms which accompany his
admirable working out of the resolve to justify his true natural
admiration of the poetry of Milton, by showing that 'Paradise Lost' was
planned after the manner of the ancients, and supreme even in its
obedience to the laws of Aristotle. In his 'Spectator' papers on
Imagination he but half escapes from the conventions of his time, which
detested the wildness of a mountain pass, thought Salisbury Plain one of
the finest prospects in England, planned parks with circles and straight
lines of trees, despised our old cathedrals for their 'Gothic' art, and
saw perfection in the Roman architecture, and the round dome of St.
Paul's. Yet in these and all such papers of his we find that Addison had
broken through the weaker prejudices of the day, opposing them with
sound natural thought of his own. Among cultivated readers, lesser
moulders of opinion, there can be no doubt that his genius was only the
more serviceable in amendment of the tastes of his own time, for
friendly understanding and a partial sharing of ideas for which it gave
itself no little credit.

It is noticeable, however, that in his Account of the Greatest English
Poets, young Addison gave a fifth part of the piece to expression of the
admiration he felt even then for Milton. That his appreciation became