The Tatler
The Tatler was dropped in January 1711, but only to be followed by the Spectator, which was begun on the 1st day of March, and appeared every week-day till the 6th day of December 1712. It had then completed the 555 numbers usually collected in its first seven volumes, and of these Addison wrote 274 to Steele's 236. He co-operated with Steele constantly from the very opening of the series; and they devoted their whole space to the essays.
They relied, with a confidence which the extraordinary popularity of the work fully justified, on their power of exciting the interest of a wide audience by pictures and reflexions drawn from a field which embraced the whole compass of ordinary life and ordinary knowledge, no kind of practical themes being positively excluded except such as were political, and all literary topics being held admissible, for which it seemed possible to command attention from persons of average taste and information.
A seeming unity was given to the undertaking, and curiosity and interest awakened on behalf of the conductors, by the happy invention of the Spectator's Club, for which Steele made the first sketch. The figure of Sir Roger de Coverley, however, the best even in the opening group, is the only one that was afterwards elaborately depicted; and Addison was the author of most of the papers in which his oddities and amiabilities are so admirably delineated. Six essays are by Steele, who gives Sir Roger's love-story, and one paper by Budgell describes a hunting party.
Rised into the region of moral and religious meditation
To Addison, further, belong those essays which (most frequently introduced in regular alternation in the papers of Saturday) rise into the region of moral and religious meditation, and tread the elevated ground with a step so graceful as to allure the reader irresistibly to follow; sometimes, as in the "Walk through Westminster Abbey," enlivening solemn thought by gentle sportiveness; sometimes flowing on with an uninterrupted sedateness of didactic eloquence, and sometimes shrouding sacred truths in the veil of ingenious allegory, as in the "Vision of Mirza."
While, in short, the Spectator, if Addison had not taken part in it, would probably have been as lively and humorous as it was, and not less popular in its own day, it would have wanted some of its strongest claims on the respect of posterity, by being at once lower in its moral tone, far less abundant in literary knowledge and much less vigorous and expanded in thinking. In point of style, again, the two friends resemble each other so closely as to be hardly distinguishable, when both are dealing with familiar objects, and writing in a key not rising above that of conversation.
But in the higher tones of thought and composition Addison showed a mastery of language raising him very decisively, not above Steele only, but above all his contemporaries. Indeed, it may safely be said, that no one, in any age of English literature, has united, so strikingly as he did, the colloquial grace and ease which mark the style of an accomplished gentleman, with the power of soaring into a strain of expression nobly and eloquently dignified.
Closing of career
The literary career of Addison might almost be held as closed soon after the death of Queen Anne, which occurred in August 1714, when he had lately completed his 42nd year. His own life extended only five years longer; and in this closing portion of it we are reminded of his more vigorous days by nothing but a few happy inventions interspersed in political pamphlets, and the gay fancy of a trifling poem on Kneller's portrait of George I.
Joseph Addison’s daily paper, The Spectator was unlike other papers in that each issue consisted of one long essay which appealed to the taste of a growing affluent middle class with no inclination to read lengthy books.
The lord justices who, previously chosen secretly by the elector of Hanover, assumed the government on the queen's demise, were, as a matter of course, the leading Whigs. They appointed Addison to act as their secretary. He next held, for a very short time, his former office under the Irish lord-lieutenant; and, late in 1716, he was made one of the lords of trade. In the course of the previous year had occurred the first of the only two quarrels with friends, into which the prudent, goodtempered and modest Addison is said to have ever been betrayed.
Marriage with Charlotte
His adversary on this occasion was Pope, who, a few years before, had received, with an appearance of humble thankfulness, Addison's friendly remarks on his Essay on Criticism (Spectator, No. 253); but who, though still very young, was already very famous, and beginning to show incessantly his literary jealousies and his personal and party hatreds.In August 1716, when he had completed his 44th year, Addison married Charlotte, countess-dowager of Warwick, a widow of fifteen years' standing. She seems to have forfeited her jointure by the marriage, and to have brought her husband nothing but the occupancy of Holland House at Kensington.
The assertion that the courtship was a long one is probably as erroneous as the contemporary rumour that the marriage was unhappy. Such positive evidence as exists tends rather to the contrary. What seems clear is, that, from obscure causes — among which it is alleged a growing habit of intemperance was one — Addison's health was shattered before he took the last, and certainly the most unwise, step in his ascent to political power.
For a considerable time dissensions had existed in the ministry; and these came to a crisis in April 1717, when those who had been the real chiefs passed into the ranks of the opposition. Townshend was dismissed, and Walpole anticipated dismissal by resignation. There was now formed, under the leadership of General Stanhope and Lord Sunderland, an administration which, as resting on court-influence, was nicknamed the "German ministry." Sunderland, Addison's former superior, became one of the two principal secretaries of state; and Addison himself was appointed as the other. His elevation to such a post had been contemplated on the accession of George I, and prevented, we are told, by his own refusal; and it is asserted, on the authority of Pope, that his acceptance now was owing only to the influence of his wife.
Decay of health
Even if there is no ground, as there probably is not, for the allegation of Addison's inefficiency in the details of business, his unfitness for such an office in such circumstances was undeniable and glaring. It was impossible that a government, whose secretary of state could not open his lips in debate, should long face an opposition headed by Robert Walpole. The decay of Addison's health, too, was going on rapidly, being, we may readily conjecture, precipitated by anxiety, if no worse causes were at work. Ill-health was the reason assigned for retirement, in the letter of resignation which he laid before the king in March 1718, eleven months after his appointment. He received a pension of ?1500 a year.
Joseph Addison
Not long afterwards the divisions in the Whig party alienated him from his oldest friend. The Peerage Bill, introduced in February 1719, was attacked, on behalf of the opposition, in a weekly paper called the Plebeian, written by Steele. Addison answered the attack in the Old Whig, and this bellum plusquam civile — as Johnson calls it — was continued, with increased acrimony, through two or three numbers. How Addison, who was dying, felt after this painful controversy we are not told directly;
but the Old Whig was excluded from that posthumous collection of his works (1721-1726) for which his executor Tickell had received from him authority and directions. It is said that the quarrel in politics rested on an estrangement which had been growing for some years. According to a rather nebulous story, for which Johnson is the popular authority, Addison, or Addison's lawyer, put an execution for ?100 in Steele's house by way of reading his friend a lesson on his extravagance. This well-meant interference seems to have been pardoned by Steele, but his letters show that he resented the favour shown to Tickell by Addison and his own neglect by the Whigs.
Death
The disease under which Addison laboured appears to have been asthma. It became more violent after his retirement from office, and was now accompanied by dropsy. His deathbed was placid and resigned, and comforted by those religious hopes which he had so often suggested to others, and the value of which he is said, in an anecdote of doubtful authority, to have now inculcated in a parting interview with his step-son. He died at Holland House on the 17th of June 1719, six weeks after having completed his 47th year. His body, after lying in state, was interred in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey.
Ode
The spacious firmament on high
With all the blue ethereal sky,
And spangled heavens, a shining frame,
Their great Original proclaim.
The unwearied sun from day to day
Does his Creator's power display,
And publishes in every land
The work of an almighty hand.
Soon as the evening shades prevail,
The moon takes up the wondrous tale,
And nightly to the listening earth
Repeats the story of her birth ;
Whilst all the stars that round her burn,
And all the planets in their turn,
Confirm the tidings as they roll,
And spread the truth from pole to pole.
What though in solemn silence, all
Move round this dark terrestrial ball ?
What though nor real voice nor sound
Amidst their radiant orbs be found ?
In Reason's ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice,
Forever singing as they shine :
"The hand that made us is divine !"
Joseph Addison, The Spectator, 1712