ADDISON, JOSEPH, the son of an eminent, clergyman of the church of England, was b. at Milston, near Amesbury, in Wiltshire, on the 1st May, 1672. After a preliminary education at various schools, he entered the university of Oxford when only fifteen years of age, where he greatly distinguished himself, especially by the facility with which he wrote Latin verse.. He was originally intended for the church, but various circumstances conspired to draw him aside intoliterature and polities; the principal of which were his acquaintance with Dryden, who honored the young poet with his patron age, and his intimacy with lord Somers, whose favor he gained by dedicating a poem to him on one of king William's campaigns. In 1699 he received a pension of £300 a year, and then set out on a continental tour. While in France lie perfected himself in the language of the country. (in the outbreak of the Spanish war of succession he departed to Italy, where he penned his charming Letter to lord Halifax. Towards the end of 1703, he returitedhoine.byway 94 Switzerland and Germany- but his expectations of a " place" were disappointed, for the Whigs were out of office The battle of Blenheim, however, which occurred in the next year, presented a brilliant opportunity to him, which he did not fail to make the most of. The ministry wished the victory commemo rated in verse, and A. was appointed to do it. Lord Godolphin, the treasurer, was so excessively delighted with the first half of the triumphal poem, that before the rest was finished he made A. a commisioner of appeals. The poet was now fairly involved in politics. He accompanied Halifax to Hanover, became under-secretary of state in 1706, and in 1709 went to Ireland in the capacity of secretary to the lord-lieutenant, where he also obtained the office of keeper of the records, worth £300 a year. In the same year his friend Steele commenced The Miler, to which A. soon became a frequent contribu tor. lie also wrote a number of political articles in the Whig Examiner. On the 1st of Mar. 1711, appeared The Spectator, the most popular and elegant miscellany in English litera ture. With an interruption from 6th Dec.. 1712, to ltith June, 1714, during part of which time The Guardian, a similar periodical, took its place, The Spectator was continued to 20th Dec., 1714. A.'s fame is inseparably associated with this periodical. The quality of his genius is now determined by it rather than by the artificial rhetoric of his Cute. He was the animating spirit of the magazine, and by far the most exquisite essays which appeared in it are by him. In 1713 appeared The Tragedy of Cato, the popularity of which, considering its total want of dramatic power, was amazing. It was generally understood to have a political as well as a poetical inspiration; but so prudently had A. expressed himself, that both parties, whig and tory, received its frigid declamation with rapture. It was translated into various European languages; and even the monarch of French criticism, Voltaire, held Shakespeare a barbarian in tragedy compared with our author. "All the laurels of Europe," says Thackeray, "were scarcely sufficient for the author of this prodigious' poem." Every one in England praised it except Dennis. A. was called the " great Mr. A." after that wonderful night in the theater, when, as Pope says, "tile numerous and violent claps of the whig party on the one side were echoed back by the tories on the other." This enthusiasm was a delusion which time has effec tually dispelled. In 1716, A. married the dowager-countess of Warwick, and in the fol lowing year was appointed secretary of state. For neither of his new situations was he at all suited. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, in a letter to Pope, expressed her fear
that "a day might conic when he would be heartily glad to resign both." He was so extremely timid and awkward in large companies that it was out of the question for him to attempt debating in parliament—a thing indispensable to one in his position. He con sequently resigned in 1718. Then as to the other matter, Dr. Johnson sarcastically remarks that " the lady was persuaded tO marry him on terms much like those on which a Turkish princess is espoused—to whom the sultan is reported to pronounce: 'Daugh ter, I give thee this man for thy slave.'" No one can doubt that this marriage was a mis• take on the part of A. His health had been for some time in a very precarious state; and at length, after an illness of a few months, lie died at Holland house, Kensington, on the 17th June, 1719, in the 48th year of his age, three years after what Thaekeray calls " his splendid but dismal union." A. had appointed Mr. Tickell his literary executor, who published his works shortly after in 4 vols. quarto. Besides those to which we have inci dentally alluded. he wrote A Treatise on the Usefulnees of Ancient ffedals, ETecially in Relation to the Latin and Greek Poets, which, however, excited little interest. Ile also left an unfinished work on The Evidences of the Christian Religion. But the most delight ful and original of all his productions is that series of sketches in The Spectator of which Sir Roger de Coverley is the central figure, and Sir Andrew Freeport and Will Honey comb the side ones. Sir Roger himself is an absolute creation; the gentle yet vivid imagination, the gay and cheerful spirit of humor. the keen, shrewd observation, and fine raillery of foibles which A. has displayed in this felicitous characterization, render it a work of pure genius. But A. in prose is always excellent. He has given a delicacy to English sentiment and a modesty to English wit which it never knew before. Ele gance, which in his predecessors had been the companion of immorality, now appeared as the advocate of virtue. Every grace was enlisted in the cause of a benign and beauti ful piety. His style, too, is perfect after its fashion. There are many nobler and grander forms of expression in English literature than A.'s, but there are none compar able to it in sweetness, propriety and natural dignity. "Whoever wishes," says Dr. Johnson, " to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not osten tatious, mnst give his days and nights to the volumes of A." His various wntings, but especially his essays, fully realized the purpose which he constantly had in view, "to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality." They materially helped to reform the manners of their time, and created, in addition, that class of readers, which has now become so prodigious in numbers, and on which all literature now depends for its support—the middle class. It must, however, be admitted that since the begin ning of the present c. their popularity has undergone a considerable decline. The chief cause of this is that much in them relates to temporary fashions, vices, rudnesses and absurdities which are now out of date. Yet, after making every abatement, it is certain that there arc in the collected works of A. so many admirably written essays on subjects of abiding interest and importance, on characters, virtues, vices and manners, which will checker society while the human race endures, that a judicious selection can never fail to present indescribable charms to the Man of taste, piety, refinement.