panoply, if one could not allow for _Cato_ and the balanced antitheses
of the grand manner, or condone rhetoric infinitely remote from life
past, present or to come--well, one would never understand Addison, or
forgive him. This, for instance:--

CATO (_loq._): Thus am I doubly arm'd; my death and life,
My bane and antidote are both before me:
_This_ in a moment brings me to an end;
But _this_ informs me I shall never die.
The soul, secured in her existence, smiles
At the drawn dagger....

Ten pages more sententious and leisurely comment; then:

Oh! (_dies_).

There is much to be said for it, in a Ramillies wig. It is stately, it
is dignified, it is perhaps noble. If, as I say, it is not very much
like life, neither are you who enact it. But be sure that out of sight
or remembrance of the wig such a tragedy were not to be endured.

That is very well. The wig serves its turn, inspiring what without it
would be intolerable. I am sure my friend had no trouble in accounting
for Addison in full dress and his learned sock. Nor need he have had
with Addison the urbane, Addison of the _Spectator_ condescending to
Sir Roger de Coverley and Will Honeycomb. There is in that, the very
best gentlemanly humour our literature possesses, nothing inconsistent
with the full-bottomed wig and an elbow-chair. But when the right
honourable gentleman set himself to compose _Rosamond: an Opera_, and
disported himself thus: