character of ages, as well as of nations; and as we have full
histories of many such periods, we can examine exactly when and how
the mental peculiarity of each began, and also exactly when and how
that mental peculiarity passed away. We have an idea of Queen Anne's
time, for example, or of Queen Elizabeth's time, or George II.'s
time; or again of the age of Louis XIV., or Louis XV., or the French
Revolution; an idea more or less accurate in proportion as we study,
but probably even in the minds who know these ages best and most
minutely, more special, more simple, more unique than the truth was.
We throw aside too much, in making up our images of eras, that which
is common to all eras. The English character was much the same in
many great respects in Chaucer's time as it was in Elizabeth's time
or Anne's time, or as it is now; But some qualities were added to
this common element in one era and some in another; some qualities
seemed to overshadow and eclipse it in one era, and others in
another. We overlook and half forget the constant while we see and
watch the variable. But--for that is the present point--why is there
this variable? Everyone must, I think, have been puzzled about it.
Suddenly, in a quiet time--say, in Queen Anne's time--arises a
special literature, a marked variety of human expression, pervading
what is then written and peculiar to it: surely this is singular.

The true explanation is, I think, something like this. One
considerable writer gets a sort of start because what he writes is
somewhat more--only a little more very often, as I believe--
congenial to the minds around him than any other sort. This writer
is very often not the one whom posterity remembers--not the one who
carries the style of the age farthest towards its ideal type, and
gives it its charm and its perfection. It was not Addison who began
the essay-writing of Queen Anne's time, but Steele; it was the