Life
English essayist, poet and man of letters, eldest son of Lancelot Addison, later dean of Lichfield, was born at his father's rectory of Milston in Wiltshire, on the 1st of May 1672. After having passed through several schools, the last of which was the Charterhouse, he went to Oxford when he was about fifteen years old. He was first entered a commoner of Queen's College, but after two years was elected to a demyship of Magdalen College, having been recommended by his skill in Latin versification. He took his master's degree in 1693, and subsequently obtained a fellowship which he held until 1711.
Young Joseph Addison
First literary efforts
His first literary efforts were poetical, and, after the fashion of his day, in Latin. Many of these are preserved in the Musae Anglicanae (1691-1699), and obtained academic commendation from academic sources. But it was a poem in the third volume of Dryden's Miscellanies, followed in the next series by a translation of the fourth Georgic, which brought about his introduction to Tonson the bookseller, and (probably through Tonson) to Lord Somers and Charles Montagu. To both of these distinguished persons he contrived to commend himself by An Account of the Greatest English Poets (1694),
An Address to King William (1695), after Namur, and a Latin poem entitled Pax Gulielmi (1697), on the peace of Ryswick, with the result that in 1699 he obtained a pension of ?300 a year, to enable him (as he afterwards said in a memorial addressed to the crown) "to travel and qualify himself to serve his Majesty." In the summer of 1699 he crossed into France, where, chiefly for the purpose of learning the language, he remained till the end of 1700; and after this he spent a year in Italy.In Switzerland, on his way home, he was stopped by receiving notice that he was to attend the army under Prince Eugene,
then engaged in the war in Italy, as secretary from the king. But his Whig friends were already tottering in their places; and in March 1702 the death of King William at once drove them from power and put an end to the pension. Indeed Addison asserted that he never received but one year's payment of it, and that all the other expenses of his travels were defrayed by himself. He was able, however, to visit a great part of Germany, and did not reach Holland till the spring of 1703.
Sufficiently gloomy prospects
His prospects were now sufficiently gloomy: he entered into treaty, oftener than once, for an engagement as a travelling tutor; and the correspondence in one of these negotiations has been preserved.Tonson had recommended him as the best person to attend in this character Lord Hertford, the son of the duke of Somerset, commonly called "The Proud." The duke, a profuse man in matters of pomp, was economical in questions of education. He wished Addison to name the salary he expected; this being declined, he announced, with great dignity, that in addition to travelling expenses he would give a hundred guineas a year; Addison accepted the munificent offer, saying, however, that he could not find his account in it otherwise than by relying on his Grace's future patronage; and his Grace immediately intimated that he would look out for some one else. In the autumn of 1703 Addison returned to England.
Earliest genius works
The works which belong to his residence on the continent were the earliest that showed him to have attained maturity of skill and genius. There is good reason for believing that his tragedy of Cato, whatever changes it may afterwards have suffered, was in great part written while he lived in France, that is, when he was about twenty-eight years of age. In the winter of 1701, amidst the stoppages and discomforts of a journey across Mt. Cenis, he composed, wholly or partly, his rhymed Letter from Italy to Charles Montagu. This contains some fine touches of description, and is animated by a noble tone of classical enthusiasm.
While in Germany he wrote his Dialogues on Medals, which, however, were not published till after his death. These have much liveliness of style and something of the gay humour which the author was afterwards to exhibit more strongly; but they show little either of antiquarian learning or of critical ingenuity. In tracing out parallels between passages of the Roman poets and figures or scenes which appear in ancient sculptures, Addison opened the easy course of inquiry which was afterwards prosecuted by Spence; and this, with the apparatus of spirited metrical translations from the classics, gave the work a likeness to his account of his travels.
This account, entitled Remarks on Several Parts of Italy, &c. (1705), he sent home for publication before his own return. It wants altogether the interest of personal narrative: the author hardly ever appears. The task in which he chiefly busies himself is that of exhibiting the illustrations which the writings of the Latin poets, and the antiquities and scenery of Italy, mutually give and receive. Christian antiquities and the monuments of later Italian history had no interest for him.
Became one of the under-secretaries of state
In 1706 he became one of the under-secretaries of state, serving first under Sir Charles Hedges, who belonged to the Tory section of the government, and afterwards under Lord Sunderland, Marlborough's son-in-law, and a zealous follower of Addison's early patron, Somers. The work of this office, however, like that of the commissionership, must often have admitted of performance by deputy; for in 1707, the Whigs having become stronger, Lord Halifax was sent on a mission to the elector of Hanover; and, besides taking Vanbrugh the dramatist with him as king-at-arms, he selected Addison as his secretary. In 1708 Addison entered parliament, sitting at first for Lostwithiel, but afterwards for Malmesbury, which he represented from 1710 till his death. Here unquestionably he did fail.
What part he may have taken in the details of business we are not informed; but he was always a silent member, unless it be true that he once attempted to speak and sat down in confusion. In 1708 Lord Wharton, the father of the notorious duke, having been named lord-lieutenant of Ireland, Addison became his secretary, receiving also an appointment as keeper of records. This event happened only about a year and a half before the dismissal of the ministry. But there are letters showing that Addison made himself acceptable to some of the best and most distinguished persons in Dublin;
and he escaped without having any quarrel with Swift, his acquaintance with whom had begun some time before.The Tory administration which succeeded kept its place till the queen's death in 1714, and Addison was thus left to devote four of the best years of his life, from his thirty-ninth year to his forty-third, to occupations less lucrative than those in which his time had recently been frittered away, but much more conducive to the extension of his own fame and to the benefit of English literature.
Although our information as to his pecuniary affairs is very scanty, we are entitled to believe that he was now independent of literary labour. He speaks, in an extant paper, of having had (but lost) property in the West Indies; and he is understood to have inherited something from a younger brother, who had been governor of Madras. In 1711 he purchased, for ?10,000, the estate of Bilton, near Rugby — the place which afterwards became the residence of Mr Apperley, better known by his assumed name of "Nimrod." During those four years he produced a few political writings.
Joseph Addison and Sir Richard Steele
In Dublin
When, in April 1709, Steele published the first number of the Tatler, Addison was in Dublin, and knew nothing of the design. He is said to have detected his friend's authorship only by recognizing, in the sixth number, a critical remark which he remembered having himself communicated to Steele. Shortly afterwards he began to furnish hints and suggestions, assisted occasionally and finally wrote regularly. According to Mr Aitken (Life of Steele, i. 248), he contributed 42 out of the total of 271 numbers, and was part-author of 36 more. The Tatler exhibited, in more ways than one, symptoms of being an experiment.
For some time the projector, imitating the newssheets in form, thought it prudent to give, in each number, news in addition to the essay; and there was a want, both of unity and of correct finishing, in the putting together of the literary materials. Addison's contributions, in particular, are in many places as lively as anything he ever wrote; and his style, in its more familiar moods at least, had been fully formed before he returned from the continent. But, as compared with his later pieces, these are only what the painter's loose studies and sketches are to the landscapes which he afterwards constructs out of them.
In his invention of incidents and characters, one thought of ter another is hastily used and hastily dismissed, as if he were putting his own powers to the test or trying the effect of various kinds of objects on his readers; his most ambitious flights, in the shape of allegories and the like, are stiff and inanimate; and his favourite field of literary criticism is touched so slightly, as to show that he still wanted confidence in the taste and knowledge of the public.