Chap. XXL] Literary Journals. 85 



Dr. Johnson, " adjusted, like Casa, the unsettled 

 practice of daily intercourse by propriety and po- 

 liteness ; and, like la Bruyere, exhibited the cha- 

 racters and manners of the age. But to say that 

 they united the plans of two or three eminent 

 writers, is to give them but a small part of their 

 due praise. They superadded literature and cri- 

 ticism, and sometimes towered far above their pre- 

 decessors, and taught, with great justness of argu- 

 ment, and dignity of language, the most impor- 

 tant duties and sublime truths. AH these topics 

 were happily varied with elegant fictions and re- 

 fined allegories, and illuminated with different 

 changes of style and felicities of invention. It is 

 said by Addison, in a subsequent work, that they 

 had a perceptible influence upon the conversation 

 of that time, and taught the frolic and the gay to 

 unite merriment with decency; an effect which 

 they can never wholly lose while they continue to 

 be among the first books by which both sexes are 

 initiated in the elegances of knowledge *." 



The Spectator had not beeu supported more 

 than eighteen months when it was discontinued. 

 The year after, viz, in 1713, the G^iardiaji was 

 undertaken by the same editor, assisted by the 

 gentlemen before mentioned, as well as by Mr. 

 Pope, Dr. Berkley, and others, and continued a 

 little more than six months, with nearly the same 

 respectability and success which had attended its 

 predecessor. It was natural for the excellence 

 and the reputation of these papers to produce 

 ^Tiany imitations. Accordingly, for a number of 



* Life of Addison, 



