Joseph Addison

The English essayist and politician Joseph Addison (1672-1719) founded the "Spectator" periodical with Sir Richard Steele.

Joseph Addison was born on May 1, 1672, the son of the rector of Milston, Wiltshire. He was educated at the Charterhouse, an important boarding school, and then at Oxford, where he received a bachelor's degree in 1691.

Addison used poetry to further his political ambitions; his earliest poems include flattering references to influential men. In 1699 Addison was rewarded with a grant of money which allowed him to make the grand tour, a series of visits to the main European capitals, which was a standard part of the education of the 18th-century gentleman. One record of his travels is his long poem Letter from Italy.

In 1703 Addison returned to England to find that the Whigs, the party with which he had allied himself, were out of power. But his poem on the Battle of Blenheim won him an appointment as commissioner of appeal in excise. Addison continued to combine literary with political success. He was elected to parliament in 1707, and in 1709 he went to Dublin as secretary to the lord lieutenant of Ireland. In 1710 he founded the Whig Examiner to counter the Tory views of the Examiner, a periodical managed by Jonathan Swift.

In 1709 Addison had begun to write for the Tatler, a magazine edited by his friend Sir Richard Steele; Addison contributed in all 42 essays. The last issue of this periodical was published in January 1711. Two months later, under the joint editorship of Addison and Steele, the first number of the Spectator appeared. Published every day, it ran for 555 numbers (the last issue appeared on Dec. 6, 1712). Although its circulation was small by modern standards, it was read by many important people and exercised a wide influence. Addison and Steele wrote 90 percent of the essays. Their purpose was, in their words, to bring "Philosophy out of Closets and Libraries, Schools and Colleges, to dwell in Clubs and Assemblies, at Tea-Tables, and in Coffee-Houses." Some of the essays are concerned with literary and philosophical questions; others comment on good manners and bad, life in the country and in the town. Addison and Steele invented characters who represent different types, notably the old-fashioned country gentleman, Sir Roger de Coverley.

In 1713 Addison wrote Cato: A Tragedy, a play in which he undertook to imitate and to improve upon classical Greek tragedy. The play was a success, probably because some of the audience took it to be a political allegory. Alexander Pope wrote the prologue, and Samuel Johnson later praised the play as Addison's noblest work.

In 1714 Queen Anne died, and Addison shared in the Whigs' rise to power. He was known as a temperate, conciliatory politician. In 1717 he was appointed secretary of state; he retired the next year with a generous pension. Addison died on June 17, 1719.

Further Reading

The best biography of Addison is Peter Smithers, The Life of Joseph Addison (1954; 2d ed. 1968). Addison was much admired by the Victorians, and there is a long biographical essay in Thomas Babington Macaulay, Essays: Critical and Miscellaneous (1843). For a more recent view see Bonamy Dobrée, Essays in Biography, 1680-1726 (1925). An invaluable guide to Addison's intellectual milieu is Alexandre Beljame, Men of Letters and the English Public in the Eighteenth Century: 1660-1744 (1881; 2d ed. 1897; trans. 1948).

Additional Sources

Addison and Steele, the critical heritage, London; Boston:Routledge & K. Paul, 1980.

Otten, Robert M., Joseph Addison, Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1982. □

Addison, Joseph (1672–1719), was educated at Charterhouse with Steele. He was a distinguished classical scholar and attracted the attention of Dryden by his Latin poems. He travelled on the Continent (1699–1703), and in 1705 he published The Campaign, a poem in heroic couplets in celebration of the victory of Blenheim. He was appointed under-secretary of state in 1706, and was MP from 1708 till his death. In 1709 he went to Ireland as chief secretary to Lord Wharton, the lord-lieutenant. He formed a close friendship with Swift, Steele, and other writers and was a prominent member of the Kit-Cat Club. Addison lost office on the fall of the Whigs in 1711. Between 1709 and 1711 he contributed a number of papers to Steele's Tatler and joined with him in the production of the Spectator in 1711–12. His neo-classical tragedy Cato was produced in 1713. He contributed to the Guardian and to the revived Spectator; his Spectator essays (1712) on Paradise Lost are an important landmark in literary criticism. On the return of the Whigs to power, Addison was again appointed chief secretary for Ireland and started the Free-holder (1715–16). In 1716 he became lord commissioner of trade, and married the countess of Warwick. He retired from office in 1718.

Addison was buried in Westminster Abbey, and lamented in an elegy by Tickell. He was satirized by Pope in the character of ‘Atticus’.

Addison's prose was acclaimed by Dr Johnson in his Life (1781) as ‘the model of the middle style; on grave subjects not formal, on light occasions not groveling…’. He admired Locke and did much to popularize his ideas. He attacked the coarseness of Restoration literature, and introduced new, essentially middle-class, standards of taste and judgement. One of his most original and influential contributions to the history of literary taste was his reassessment of the popular ballad, previously neglected as a form, in essays in the Spectator on Chevy Chase and The Children in the Wood.

Joseph Addison 1672–1719, English essayist, poet, and statesman. He was educated at Charterhouse, where he was a classmate of Richard Steele, and at Oxford, where he became a distinguished classical scholar. His travels on the Continent from 1699 to 1703 were recorded in Remarks on Italy (1705). Addison first achieved prominence with The Campaign (1704), an epic celebrating the victory of Marlborough at Blenheim. The poem was commissioned by Lord Halifax, and its great success resulted in Addison's appointment in 1705 as undersecretary of state and in 1709 as secretary to the lord lieutenant of Ireland. He also held a seat in Parliament from 1708 until his death. Addison's most enduring fame was achieved as an essayist. In 1710 he began his contributions to the Tatler, which Richard Steele had founded in 1709. He continued to write for successive publications, including the Spectator (1711–12), the Guardian (1713), and the new Spectator (1714). His contributions to these periodicals raised the English essay to a degree of technical perfection never before achieved and perhaps never since surpassed. In a prose style marked by simplicity, order, and precision, he sought to engage men's thoughts toward reason, moderation, and a harmonious life. His works also include an opera libretto, Rosamund (1707); a prose comedy, The Drummer (1716); and a neoclassical tragedy, Cato (1713), which had an immense success in its own time, but has since been regarded as artificial and sententious. In his last years Addison received his greatest prominence. In 1717 he was made secretary of state, an office he resigned the following year. But the period (1714–19) was also marked by failing health, a supposedly unhappy marriage, and the severing of his relations with his good friend Richard Steele.

Bibliography: See biography by P. H. B. O. Smithers (1954, repr. 1968).

Addison, Joseph (1672–1719). English writer and politician. Educated at Charterhouse, Queen's College, and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he became a fellow, Addison found favour with the Whigs on account of The Campaign (1705), a poem celebrating Marlborough's victory at Blenheim. Appointed under-secretary of state in 1706, he was elected MP for Lostwithiel in 1708, accompanying the lord-lieutenant, Lord Wharton, to Ireland in 1709. Addison's close friendship with Richard Steele and Jonathan Swift led to his involvement in the Tatler (1709–10), but he is best known for his contributions to the Spectator, which included most of the ‘Sir Roger de Coverley’ papers and important essays on Milton and Locke. Addison was a crucial figure in the development of a ‘polite and commercial’ Whig ideology, and the morality propounded in the Spectator is the basis of his description as ‘The First Victorian’. Addison's other works included the seminal travel book Remarks on Several Parts of Italy (1705), a tragedy, Cato (1713), which was favourably compared to Shakespeare by his contemporaries, and the stridently anti-Jacobite periodical the Freeholder (1715–16). Returning to office on the accession of George I in 1714, Addison became secretary of state, marrying the countess of Warwick in 1716.

J. A. Downie

Addison, Joseph (1672–1719), English politician and man of letters, author of Cato, a tragedy on the French classical model seen at Drury Lane in April 1713. It was supported by the Whigs for political reasons, and by the Tories for effect. Written in unrhymed heroic couplets, it contains some fine poetry, but is not theatrically effective. The part of Cato was originally offered to Colley Cibber, who declined it, and it was finally played by Barton Booth, with Anne Oldfield as Lucia. Addison's only other play was a short comedy, The Drummer; or, The Haunted House (1716), also performed at Drury Lane. His dramatic theories and criticisms can be found in several papers of the Spectator, which he edited with Richard Steele, while the Tatler, 42 (1709), which he also edited, contains an amusing mock inventory of the properties and furnishings of Drury Lane.

Addison, Joseph (1672–1719). English writer and politician. Educated at Charterhouse, Queen's College, and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he became a fellow, Addison found favour with the Whigs on account of The Campaign (1705), a poem celebrating Marlborough's victory at Blenheim. Appointed under‐secretary of state in 1706, he was elected MP for Lostwithiel in 1708, accompanying the lord‐lieutenant, Lord Wharton, to Ireland in 1709. Addison's close friendship with Richard Steele and Jonathan Swift led to his involvement in the Tatler (1709–10), but he is best known for his contributions to the Spectator, which included most of the ‘Sir Roger de Coverley’ papers. Returning to office on the accession of George I in 1714, Addison became secretary of state, marrying the countess of Warwick in 1716.

Addison, Joseph (1672–1719) English essayist, poet, and politician. Addison's poetic celebration of Marlborough's victory at the Battle of Blenheim, The Campaign (1704), led to a government appointment. He is remembered as a brilliant essayist and his stylish articles were a major reason for the success of the newly established Tatler and Spectator periodicals. He was secretary of state (1717–18) and an MP (1708–19).