STYLE.—­His style is full-sounding and antithetic, his periods are carefully balanced, his manner eminently respectable and good; but his words, very many of them of Latin derivation, constitute what the later critics have named Johnsonese, which is certainly capable of translation into plainer Saxon English, with good results.  Thus, in speaking of Addison’s style, he says:  “It is pure without scrupulosity, and exact without apparent elaboration; ... he seeks no ambitious ornaments, and tries no hazardous innovations; his page is always luminous, but never blazes in unexpected splendor.”  Very numerous examples might be given of sentences most of the words in which might be replaced by simpler expressions with great advantage to the sound and to the sense.

As a critic, his word was law:  his opinion was clearly and often severely expressed on literary men and literary subjects, and no great writer of his own or a past age escaped either his praise or his censure.  Authors wrote with the fear of his criticism before their eyes; and his pompous diction was long imitated by men who, without this influence, would have written far better English.  But, on the other hand, his honesty, his scholarship, his piety, and his championship of what was good and true, as depicted in his writings, made him a blessing to his time, and an honored and notable character in the noble line of English authors.

JUNIUS.—­Among the most significant and instructive writings to the student of English history, in the earlier part of the reign of George III., is a series of letters written by a person, or by several persons in combination, whose nom de plume was Junius.  These letters specified the errors and abuses of the government, were exceedingly bold in denunciation and bitter in invective.  The letters of Junius were forty-four in number, and were addressed to Mr. Woodfall, the proprietor of The Public Advertiser, a London newspaper, in which they were published.  Fifteen others in the same vein were signed Philo-Junius; and there are besides sixty-two notes addressed by Junius to his publisher.

The principal letters signed Junius were addressed to ministers directly, and the first, on the State of the Nation, was a manifesto of the grounds of his writing and his purpose.  It was evident that a bold censor had sprung forth; one acquainted with the secret movements of the government, and with the foibles and faults of the principal statesmen:  they writhed under his lash.  Some of the more gifted attempted to answer him, and, as in the case of Sir William Draper, met with signal discomfiture.  Vigorous efforts were made to discover the offender, but without success; and as to his first patriotic intentions he soon added personal spite, the writer found that his life would not be safe if his secret were discovered.  The rage of parties has long since died away, and the writer or writers have long been in their graves, but the curious secret still