New York Dispatch

How Addison Wrote.--An interesting literary relic has come to light unexpectedly in Scotland, where a gentleman, Mr. J. D. Campbell, of Glasgow, has printed an elegant quarto, the edition limited to 250 copies--"Some portions of the essays contributed to the Spectator, by Mr. Joseph Addison, now first printed from his MS. note book." The original manuscript from which the volume is printed was purchased for a small sum of a London bookseller in 1858. On examination, it was found to contain, though imperfect at the beginning, several of Addison's papers for the Spectator, written out in a neat, clerkly hand on one side of the leaves, like a first draft and numerous interlinear corrections and additions on the opposite blank pages, in the writing of Addison himself. These changes and enlargements are very curious, and show by what careful attention to minutiae, the style, "familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious" (to use the words of Johnson), that has conferred immortality upon its author, was acquired and perfected. Among the better known papers thus shown in progress of construction, are the essays on Jealousy and Fame, and a part of the celebrated essay on the Imagination. A more instructive lesson on composition could hardly be given than this work affords. Some critics have insinuated doubts, owing to a want of the history of the MS., but the internal evidence of its genuineness appears to be complete and satisfactory.