Inna’s Reviews > History of English Literature > Status Update

CHAPTER FOURTH
Addison
Section I.—The Significance of the Writings of Addison and Swift
In this vast transformation of mind which occupies the whole eighteenth century, and gives England its political and moral standing, two eminent men appear in politics and morality, both accomplished writers—the most accomplished yet seen in England: both accredited mouthpieces of a party, masters in the art of persuasion and conv

With Addison, Steele, and Swift, taste and genius invade politics. Voltaire cannot say whether the meditated harangues once delivered in Athens and Rome excelled the unpremeditated speeches of Windham, Carteret, and their rivals. In short, discourse succeeds in overcoming the dryness of special questions and the coldness of compassed action, which had so long restricted it; it boldly and irregularly extends its force