Thy mercy sweeten'd every soil, Think, O my soul, devoutly think, Confusion dwelt in every face, And fear in every heart: When waves on waves, and gulfs on gulfs, O'ercame the pilot's art. Yet then from all my griefs, O Lord, Whilst in the confidence of prayer My soul took hold on thee. For though in dreadful whirls we hung I knew thou wert not slow to hear, The storm was laid, the winds retired, The sea that roar'd at thy command, At thy command was still. In midst of dangers, fears, and death, And praise thee for thy mercies past, My life, if thou preserv'st my life, Thy sacrifice shall be ; And death, if death must be my doom, Shall join my soul to thee. MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. (JULY, 1843.) The Life of Joseph Addison. By LUCY AIKIN. London: 1843. SOME reviewers are of opinion that a lady who dares to publish a book renounces by that act the franchises appertaining to her sex, and can claim no exemption from the utmost rigor of critical procedure. From that opinion we dissent. We admit, indeed, that in a country which boasts of many female writers, eminently qualified by their talents and acquirements to influence the public mind, it would be of most pernicious consequence that inaccurate history or unsound philosophy should be suffered to pass uncensured, merely because the offender chanced to be a lady. But we conceive that, on such occasions, a critic would do well to imitate the courteous knight who found himself compelled by duty to keep the lists against Bradamante. He, we are told, defended successfully the cause of which he was the champion; but, before the fight began, exchanged Balisarda for a less deadly sword, of which he carefully blunted the point and edge.1 Nor are the immunities of sex the only immunities which Miss Aikin may rightfully plead. Several of her works, 1 Orlando Furioso, xlv., 68. and especially the very pleasing Memoirs of the Reign of James the First, have fully entitled her to the privileges enjoyed by good writers. One of those privileges we hold to be this, that such writers, when, either from the unlucky choice of a subject, or from the indolence too often produced by success, they happen to fail, shall not be subjected to the severe discipline which it is sometimes necessary to inflict upon dunces and impostors, but shall merely be reminded by a gentle touch, like that with which the Laputan flapper roused his dreaming lord, that it is high time to wake. Our readers will probably infer from what we have said that Miss Aikin's book has disappointed us. The truth is, that she is not well acquainted with her subject. No person who is not familiar with the political and literary history of England during the reigns of William the Third, of Anne, and of George the First, can possibly write a good life of Addison. Now, we mean no reproach to Miss Aikin, and many will think that we pay her a compliment when we say that her studies have taken a different direction. She is better acquainted with Shakspeare and Raleigh than with Congreve and Prior; and is far more at home among the ruffs and peaked beards of Theobald's than among the Steenkirks and flowing periwigs which surrounded Queen Anne's tea-table at Hampton. She seems to have written about the Elizabethan Age because she had read much about it; she seems, on the other hand, to have read a little about the age of Addison because she had determined to write about it. The consequence is that she has had to describe men and things without having either a correct or a vivid idea of them, and that she has often fallen into errors of a very serious kind. The reputation which Miss Aikin has justly earned stands so high, and the charm of Addison's letters is so great, that a second edition of this work may probably be required. If so, we hope that every |