PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS. 1077 
were avoided, and he proved that in this simple form the English 
tongue was a perfect vehicle for the highest flights of the imagi- 
nation. Macaulay, no mean critic, has justly said: ‘ For 
magnificence, for pathos, for vehement exhortation, for subtle 
disquisition, for every purpose of the poet, the orator, and the 
divine, this homely dialect, the dialect of plain working men, was 
perfectly sufficient.” 
The accession of William ITT commenced the long struggle with 
France, which, after William’s death, by the skill and courage of 
Marlborough, crushed the power of Louis the Fourteenth, and 
made England the arbiter of Europe. This was “the Augustan 
Age of French literature, made memorable by the sermons of 
Bossuet, the devotional works of Fénélon, the cynical maxims of 
La Rochefoucauld, the tragedies of Racine and Corneille, and the 
comedies of Moliére.” This period of victory and exaltation was 
as fertile in the production of genius as the Elizabethan age ; and 
the times of Queen Anne can boast of Swift, Pope, Addison, and 
Steele, writers whose models were evidently from the French 
school. Under the last of the Stuart sovereigns the newspaper 
began to assume its modern form, mainly through the influence of 
Defoe. To this period may also be referred many of the stages in 
the development of the modern novel, afterwards further elabo- 
rated by Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, Sterne, and Goldsmith, 
The age of Addison was the era of the clubs and _ coffee-houses. 
In Pepys’ Diary, that series of literary photographs, we read of 
discussions at coffee-houses on music with Purcell the celebrated 
composer ; on a former land connection between England and 
France with James Moore the mathematician ; on the “ Religio 
Medici” of Sir Thomas Brown, Butler’s ‘ Hudibras,” and 
Osborne’s ‘ Advice to a Son,” with Sir George Ascue and others ; 
and on English poetry with Cocker the well-known arithmetician. 
Pepys is a member of the club to which Lilly the astrologer and 
Ashmole the antiquary belong ; and at the “ Crown Tavern” he 
hobnobs with members of the Royal Society. 
In the year 1705 Swift and Addison became intimate friends. In 
a copy of his ‘“ Travels to Italy,” Addison wrote: “To Jonathan 
Swift, the most agreeable companion, the truest friend, and the 
greatest genius of his age, this work is presented by his most humble 
servant, the author.” This friendship must have required much 
forbearance on the part of Addison, for Swift’s imperiousness, and 
audacious satire, are well known. Addison’s conversation was 
most charming when confined to a small party, and we can imagine 
the brilliant flow of wit when this party consisted of Swift, Steele, 
and Addison—the “triumvirate,” as the former termed it. 
Of Addison, Swift has said: “That man has virtue enough to 
give reputation to an age.” He was one of the first Englishmen, 
not a churchman, to rise from the ranks to a first-class pclitical 
