Note 8 — I. THE FUNCTION OF CRITICISM AT THE PRESENT TIME. (continued 2)
Reading edition
A critic says this is paradoxical, and urges that many second-rate French academicians have uttered the most commonplace ideas possible. I agree that many second-rate French academicians have uttered the most commonplace ideas possible; but Addison is not a second-rate man. He is a man of the order, I will not say of Pascal, but at any rate of La Bruyère and Vauve-nargues; why does he not equal them? I say because of the medium in which he finds himself, the atmosphere in which he lives and works; an atmosphere which tells unfavorably, or rather tends to tell unfavorably (for that is the truer way of putting it) either upon style or else upon ideas; tends to make even a man of great ability either a Mr. Carlyle or else a Lord Macaulay.
It is to be observed, however, that Lord Macaulay’s style has in its turn suffered by his failure in ideas, and this cannot be said of Addison’s.