Addison is essentially a townsman, and his treatment of nature is always
cold. The one passage in these papers which evinces a genuine love of
the country is Steele's description of his enjoyment when he is
strolling in the widow's grove. He is 'ravished with the murmur of
waters, the whisper of breezes, the singing of birds; and whether I
looked up to the heavens, down on the earth, or turned to the prospects
around me, still struck with new sense of pleasure'. [Footnote:
_Spectator_ 118.] The style of the two writers reflects the
qualities of their minds. Addison's writing is fluent, easy, and lucid.
He wrote and corrected with great care, and his words very closely
express his thought. Landor speaks of his prose as a 'cool current of
delight', and Dr. Johnson, in an often quoted passage, calls it 'the
model of the middle style ... always equable and always easy, without
glowing words or pointed sentences.... His page is always luminous, but
never blazes in unexpected splendour. He is never feeble, and he did not
wish to be energetic.... Whoever wishes to attain an English style,
familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his
days and nights to the volumes of Addison.'

Steele was a far more rapid writer, and even grammatical faults are not
infrequent in his papers. He explicitly declares that 'Elegance, purity,
and correctness were not so much my purpose, as in any intelligible
manner as I could to rally all those singularities of human life ...
which obstruct anything that was really good and great'. [Footnote:
Dedication to _The Drummer_.] His style varies with his mood, and
with the degree of his interest. Occasionally it reaches the simple,
rhythmic prose of the passage quoted above, but generally it is somewhat
abrupt and a little toneless. But now and again we find the 'unexpected
splendour' in which Addison is wanting, in phrases like 'a covered
indigence, a magnificent poverty', [Footnote: _Spectator_ 114.] or