Of Addison's smaller poems no particular mention is necessary; they
have little that can employ or require a critic. The parallel of
the princes and gods in his verses to Kneller is often happy, but is
too well known to be quoted. His translations, so far as I compared
them, want the exactness of a scholar. That he understood his
authors, cannot be doubted; but his versions will not teach others
to understand them, being too licentiously paraphrastical. They
are, however, for the most part, smooth and easy; and, what is the
first excellence of a translator, such as may be read with pleasure
by those who do not know the originals. His poetry is polished and
pure; the product of a mind too judicious to commit faults, but not
sufficiently vigorous to attain excellence. He has sometimes a
striking line, or a shining paragraph; but in the whole he is warm
rather than fervid, and shows more dexterity than strength. He was,
however, one of our earliest examples of correctness. The
versification which he had learned from Dryden he debased rather
than refined. His rhymes are often dissonant; in his Georgic he
admits broken lines. He uses both triplets and Alexandrines, but
triplets more frequently in his translation than his other works.
The mere structure of verses seems never to have engaged much of his
care. But his lines are very smooth in Rosamond, and too smooth in
Cato.

Addison is now to be considered as a critic: a name which the
present generation is scarcely willing to allow him. His criticism
is condemned as tentative or experimental rather than scientific;
and he is considered as deciding by taste rather than by principles.

It is not uncommon for those who have grown wise by the labour of