members the Shifts they were driven to in the Reign of King Charles the Second, when they could not furnish out a single Paper of News, without lighting up a Comet in Germany, or a Fire in Moscow. There scarce appeared a Letter without a Paragraph on an Earthquake. Prodigies were grown so familliar, that they had lost their Name, as a great Poet of that Age has it. I remember Mr. Dyer,10 who is justly looked upon by all the Fox-Hunters in the Nation as the greatest Statesman our Country has produced, was particularly famous for dealing in Whales; insomuch that in five Months Time (for I had the Curiosity to examine his Letters on that Occasion) he brought three into the mouth of the River Thames, besides two Porpusses and a Sturgeon. The judicious and wary Mr. Ichabod Dawks 11 hath all along been the Rival of this great Writer, and got himself a Reputation from Plagues and Famines: by which, in those Days, he destroyed as great Multitudes as he has lately done by the Sword. In every Dearth of News, Grand Cairo was sure to be unpeopled."

Thereafter Addison's contributions were fairly frequent. Of 271 Tatlers Steele wrote about 188, Addison 42, and they were jointly responsible for 36. Other contributors were Swift, Congreve, Harrison, and Ambrose Philips.

Addison brought to the new undertaking a mind stored with knowledge, which was in turn the fruit of long study, of much reading, of travel, and of keen observation; he was also, as appeared from the outset, gifted with a sly, pervasive, and captivating humour, which in its own kind has never been equalled, not to say surpassed; he had a certain dignity and poise; he was master of a fluent and easy style; and, above all, he was sincerely animated with a love of the beautiful, the good, and the true. What Addison's accession to the Tatler meant to literature and morals it has been the delight of successive generations of critics to dwell upon. He had as yet done nothing that was really great, but, in the words of Macaulay, "the time had come when he was to prove himself a man

10 Of Dyer's Letter.

11 Of Dawks's Letter.

of genius, and to enrich our literature with compositions which will live as long as the English language.'

12

Steele, ever generous, bore eloquent testimony to the value of the help of his friend. "I fared," he said, "like a distressed prince who calls in a powerful neighbour to his aid: I was undone by my Auxiliary; when I had once called him in I could not subsist without dependence on him." Elsewhere he says: "The paper was advanced indeed. paper was advanced indeed. It was raised to

a greater thing than I intended it." Steele, it is true, herein belittled himself in order to magnify his friend, and although we love and admire him for doing it, and would like to regard his expressions as the hyperbole of devotion and esteem, it must be confessed that there is a solid foundation of fact for his statement. Despite many personal faults and lapses from the straight path, Steele was essentially a moralist, if not a preacher, and he had a strong moral purpose in the Tatler; but it is probable that his scheme of reform was not on such a high plane as that to which, by his association with Addison, he was ultimately led. To publish items of foreign and domestic news, to give accounts of plays and players, to draw attention to the pulpit performances of noted preachers, to descant on the gossip of clubdom regarding the classics of old and the latest literary ventures, to pay compliments to women on their beauty or dress, to poke gentle fun at fashionable foibles, to condemn duelling, to pillory sharpers and ridicule bores, was about the ambit of Steele's aim, and in attaining that aim there was still ample opportunity for him, in his own telling phrase, to teach his readers what to think. But the loftier tone of Addison and his more subtle humour gradually infected his editor, and the result was that, like one actor responding to another more powerful actor on the stage, Steele played up to the pitch and standard set by his colleague. By the finished and careful papers sent in by Addison, Steele was stimulated to a higher ambition, and, as he himself tells us, to an elegance, a purity, and a correctness to which he had not at first aspired.

Thus between these two minds there was produced a new spe

Essay on The Life and Writings of Addison (July, 1843).

cies of writing in the Periodical Essay. As Mr. Austin Dobson says: "It was when the scholarly secretary to Lord Wharton commenced to print . . . the delightful La Bruyère-like studies of Tom Folio and Ned Softly and the Political Upholsterer, the Adventures of a Shilling, and the Rabelaisian Frozen Voices, that a new thing began to be born which was the Essay of Addison and Steele." 13 Under this benign influence Steele produced those affecting domestic scenes in which he was so expert, and thus in one direction anticipated the function of the Novel that was in due course to come. If Steele did much for Addison by affording him the opportunity of showing the latent powers that he possessed, Addison repaid the obligation by bringing out from Steele the best that was in him, and by giving to his inventive genius a bent in the direction of higher and nobler things than he had hitherto dreamt of. This was plainly seen in the next venture in which the friends joined.

(To be continued.)

CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA,
WASHINGTON, D. C.

P. J. LENNOX.

"Article "The Eighteenth Century," in Chambers's Cyclopaedia of English Literature," Vol. II., p. 3.

JOHN XXII AND THE BEATIFIC VISION

A CONTRIBUTION TO DOMINICAN THEOLOGICAL HISTORY.

During all his long and eventful life John XXII had been a warm and admiring friend of the Order of St. Dominic. From its friars he had received his early education in his native town of Cahors, Gascony. Though raised in after years to the bishopric of Fréjus (1300), later transferred to the See of Avignon (1310), and finally elevated to the Pontifical Throne, August 7, 1316, he did not forget his old-time friendship, or lose the memory of the many favors he had received at their hands. Possibly, too, his election to the chair of Peter in the Dominican Monastery of Lyons may have given an additional strength to the already strong chain of friendship that bound him to the order. Like his predecessor, Clement V, who during his pontificate lived as a guest in the Dominican Monastery of that city, John chose Avignon as his place of permanent residence. It was he who raised the great Thomas Aquinas to the honor of the Altar; and so ardent was his admiration for the learned and saintly Dominican, that he preached three sermons during the ceremonies of the canonization, extending from the 14th to the 18th of July, 1323, (in one of which he declared that Thomas had performed as many miracles as he had written articles 1), and celebrated, at the end, the first Mass ever offered in honor of the saint.

At the time of John's accession to the Papal Throne the Order of Preachers was in the zenith of its power and glory; strong in the vast numbers of its subjects, stronger still in their zeal, learning and eloquence. From the beginning it had been placed under the immediate jurisdiction and protection of the Sovereign Pontiff; and consecrated to the defence of the faith

1 Percin, Monumenta Conventus Tolosani, p. 229; Frigerio, Vita di San Tomaso, Lib. I, C. vII, p. 44.

and the Church it constituted in the hands of the Successors of Peter a power to be reckoned with. For one hundred years successive Popes had not hesitated to call on its friars to undertake the most difficult and perilous missions. This Gascon Pontiff, a learned man himself, a keen judge of men, an astute statesman, fully abreast of his times,2 was quick to see that he, too, might find a tower of strength in these same friars. History told him of their courage and faithfulness in the execution of the charges confided to them by his predecessors; and he was not slow in exacting the same tribute for himself, employing them in every capacity and in every country to spread the faith, to uphold the cause of religion, to stem the turmoil of the troublous times in which his pontificate was thrown.

They were his arm of strength in putting down the turbulent Fraticelli, then disturbing the peace of the world; they were sent as papal envoys to restore harmony between warring potentates; they were employed to bring the excomunicated Visconti of Milan into subjection to the Church and to calm anarchical uprisings in different parts of the Italian peninsula; they fulminated John's anathemas against the powerful Louis of Bavaria. Though because of their faithfulness in executing the papal commands laid upon them they had often to undergo bitter persecution, to suffer the loss of their houses, exile or even imprisonment, few were found wanting in their duty; and if at times some hesitated in the face of perils, their Masters General were there to enforce literal obedience to the orders of the Head of the Church.

The stress of putting down revolt against the Holy See and upholding the politico-ecclesiastical interests of the Papacy did not consume all the energies of John's active mind. One of the most apostolical of the Popes who have ruled over the destinies of the Church, he kept a watchful eye on the advancement of the spiritual interests of the faithful and did much for

'John's voluminous correspondence shows how closely he followed the political and religious events of the world in his day; how he sought in every way to further the interests both spiritual and temporal of the Church.