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ADDISON, JOSEPH (1672-1719)
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See also:ADDISON, See also:JOSEPH (1672-1719) , See also:English essayist, poet and See also:man of letters, eldest son of See also:Lancelot Addison, later See also:dean of See also:Lichfield, was See also:born at his See also:father's rectory of Milston in See also:Wiltshire, on the 1st of May 1672. After having passed through several See also:schools, the last of which was the See also:Charterhouse, he went to See also:Oxford when he was about fifteen years old. He was first entered a commoner of See also:Queen's See also:College, but after two years was elected to a defnyship of Magdalen College, having been recommended by his skill in Latin versification. He took his See also:master's degree in 1693, and subsequently obtained a fellowship which he held until 1711. His first See also:literary efforts were poetical, and, after the See also:fashion of his See also:day, in Latin. Many of these are pre-served in the Musae Anglicanae (1691-1699), and obtained See also:academic See also:commendation from academic See also:sources. But it was a poem in the third See also:volume of See also:Dryden's Miscellanies, followed in the next See also:series by a See also:translation of the See also:fourth Georgic, which brought about his introduction to See also:Tonson the bookseller, and (probably through Tonson) to See also:Lord See also:Somers and See also: His prospects were now sufficiently gloomy: he entered into treaty, oftener than once, for an engagement as a travelling See also:tutor; and the See also:correspondence in one of these negotiations has been preserved. Tonson had recommended him as the best See also:person to attend in this See also:character Lord See also:Hertford, the son of the See also:duke of See also:Somerset, commonly called " The Proud." The duke, a profuse man in matters of pomp, was economical in questions of See also:education. He wished Addison to name the See also:salary he expected; this being declined, he announced, with great dignity, that in addition to travelling expenses he would give a See also: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 See also: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 See also:England. The See also:works which belong to his See also:residence on the See also:continent were the earliest that showed him to have attained maturity ADDISON of skill and See also:genius. There is See also:good See also:reason for believing that his tragedy of See also: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 See also:age. In the See also:winter of 1701, amidst the stoppages and discomforts of a See also:journey across Mt. Cenis, he composed, wholly or partly, his rhymed See also:Letter from Italy to Charles Montagu. This contains some See also:fine touches of description, and is animated by a See also:noble See also:tone of classical See also:enthusiasm. While in Germany he wrote his Dialogues on Medals, which, however, were not published till after his death. These have much liveliness of See also:style and something of the See also:gay See also:humour which the author was afterwards to exhibit more strongly; but they show little either of antiquarian learning or of See also:critical ingenuity. In tracing out See also:parallels between passages of the See also:Roman poets and figures or scenes which appear in See also:ancient sculptures, Addison opened the easy course of inquiry which was afterwards prosecuted by See also:Spence; and this, with the apparatus of spirited metrical See also:translations from the See also:classics, gave the See also: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 See also:interest of See also: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. See also:Christian antiquities and the monuments of later See also:Italian See also:history had no interest for him. With the year 1704 begins a second era in Addison's See also:life, which extends to the summer of 1710, when his age was See also:thirty-eight. This was the first See also:term of his See also:official career; and though very barren of literary performance, it not only raised him from indigence, but settled definitely his position as a public man. His correspondence shows that, while on the continent, he had been admitted to confidential intimacy by diplomatists and men of See also:rank; immediately on his return he was enrolled in the See also:Kit-See also:Cat See also:Club, and brought thus and otherwise into communication with the gentry of the Whig party. Although all accounts agree in representing him as a shy man, he was at least saved from all See also:risk of making himself disagreeable in society, by his unassuming See also:manners, his extreme caution and that sedulous See also:desire to oblige, which his satirist See also:Pope exaggerated into a See also:positive See also:fault. His knowledge and ability were esteemed so highly as to confirm the expectations formerly entertained of his usefulness in public business; and the literary fame he had already acquired soon furnished an occasion for recommending him to public employment. Though the Whigs were out of See also:office, the See also:administration which succeeded them was, in all its earlier changes, of a complexion so mixed and uncertain that the See also:influence of their leaders was not entirely lost. Not See also:long after See also:Marlborough's great victory at See also:Blenheim, it is said that See also:Godolphin, the lord treasurer, expressed to Lord See also:Halifax a desire to have the great duke's fame extended by a poetical See also:tribute. Halifax seized the opportunity of recommending Addison as the fittest man for the See also:duty; stipulating, we are told, that the service should not be unrewarded, and doubtless satisfying the See also:minister that his protege possessed other qualifications for office besides dexterity in framing heroic See also:verse. The See also:Campaign (See also:December 1704), the poem thus written to See also:order, was received with extraordinary See also:applause; and it is probably as good as any that ever was prompted by no more worthy See also:inspiration. It has, indeed, neither the fiery spirit which Dryden threw into occasional pieces of the sort, nor the exquisite See also:polish that would have been given by Pope, if he had stooped to make such uses of his genius; but many of the details are pleasing; and in the famous passage of the See also:Angel, as well as in several others, there is even something of force and See also:imagination.
The See also:consideration covenanted for by the poet's friends was faithfully paid. A vacancy occurred by the death of another celebrated man, See also: 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 See also:Wharton, the father of the notorious duke, having been named lord-See also:lieutenant of See also:Ireland, Addison became his secretary, receiving also an See also:appointment as keeper of records. This event happened only about a year and a See also: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 See also:Dublin; and he escaped without having any See also:quarrel with See also:Swift, his acquaintance with whom had begun some time before.
In his literary history those years of official service are almost a See also:blank, till we approach their See also:close. Besides furnishing a See also:prologue to See also:Steele's See also:comedy of The See also:Tender See also:Husband (1705), he admittedly gave him some assistance in its See also:composition; he defended the government in an See also:anonymous pamphlet on The See also:Present State of the War (1707); he See also:united compliments to the all-powerful Marlborough with indifferent attempts at lyrical See also:poetry in his See also:opera of See also:Rosamond; and during the last few months of his See also:tenure of office he contributed largely to the Taller. His entrance on this new See also: In 1711 he See also:purchased, for £1o,000, the See also:estate of Bilton, near Rugby—the place which afterwards be-came the residence of Mr See also:Apperley, better known by his assumed name of " See also:Nimrod." During those four years he produced a few See also:political writings.Soon after the fall of the ministry, he started the Whig Examiner in opposition to the Tory Examiner, then conducted by See also:Prior, and afterwards the vehicle of Swift's most vehement invectives against the party he had once belonged to. These are certainly the most See also:ill-natured of Addison's writings, but they are neither lively nor vigorous, and the paper died after five See also:numbers (14th^ See also:September to 12th See also:October 1710). There is more spirit in his allegorical pamphlet, The Trial and Conviction of See also:Count See also:Tariff. But from the autumn of 1710 till the end of 1714 his See also:principal employment was the composition of his celebrated periodical essays. The See also:honour of inventing the See also:plan of such compositions, as well as that of first carrying the See also:idea into See also:execution, belongs to See also:Richard Steele, who had been a schoolfellow of Addison at the Charterhouse, continued to be on intimate terms with him after-wards and attached himself with his characteristic ardour to the same political party. When, in See also:April 1707, Steele published the first number of the Taller, Addison was in Dublin, and knew nothing of the See also:design. He is said to have detected his friend's authorship only by recognizing, in the See also: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 See also:total of 271 numbers, and was part-author of 36 more. The Taller exhibited, in more ways than one, symptoms of being an experiment. For some time the projector, imitating the See also:news-sheets in See also:form, thought it prudent to give, in each number, news in addition to the See also:essay; and there was a want, both of unity and of correct See also: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 See also: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 after another is hastily used and hastily dismissed, as if he were putting his own See also:powers to the test or trying the effect of various kinds of See also: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 See also:criticism is touched so slightly, as to show that he still wanted confidence in the taste and knowledge of the public. The Taller was dropped in See also:January 1711, but only to be followed by the Spectator, which was begun on the 1st day of March, and appeared every See also: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 extra-See also:ordinary popularity of the work fully justified, on their power of exciting the interest of a wide See also:audience by pictures and reflexions See also:drawn from a field which embraced the whole See also:compass of ordinary life and ordinary knowledge, no See also: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 See also:attention from persons of See also: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 See also:sketch. The figure of Sir See also:Roger de Coverley, how-ever, the best even in the opening See also: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-See also:story, and one paper by See also:Budgell describes a See also:hunting party. To Addison the Spectator owed the most natural and elegant, if not the most See also:original, of its humorous sketches of human character and social eccentricities, its good-humoured satires on ridiculous features in manners and on corrupt symptoms in public taste; these topics, however, making up a See also:department in which Steele was fairly on a level with his more famous coadjutor. But Steele had neither learning, nor taste, nor critical acuteness sufficient to qualify him for enriching the series with such literary disquisitions as those which Addison insinuated so often into the lighter See also:matter of his essays, and of which he gave ,an elaborate specimen in his criticism on See also:Paradise Lost. Still farther beyond the powers of Steele were those speculations on the theory of literature and of the processes of thought analogous to it, which, in the essays " On the Pleasures of the Imagination," Addison prosecuted, not, indeed, with much of philosophical See also:depth, but with a sagacity and comprehensiveness which we shall undervalue much unless we remember how little of See also:philosophy was to be found in any critical views previously propounded in England. To Addison, further, belong those essays which (most frequently introduced in See also:regular See also: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 See also:Westminster See also:Abbey," enlivening See also:solemn thought by See also:gentle sportiveness; sometimes flowing on with an uninterrupted sedateness of didactic eloquence, and sometimes shrouding sacred truths in the See also:veil of ingenious See also:allegory, as in the "See also:Vision of Mirza." While, in See also: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 See also:lower in its moral tone, far less abundant in literary knowledge and much less vigorous and See also: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 See also:writing in a See also: 
The Whigs hailed it as a brilliant manifesto in favour of constitutional See also:free-dom. The Tories echoed the applause, to show themselves enemies of despotism, and professed to find in See also:Julius See also:Caesar a parallel to the formidable Marlborough. Even with such extrinsic See also:aids, and the See also:advantage derived from the established fame of the author, Cato could never have been esteemed a good dramatic work, unless in an age in which dramatic power and insight were almost See also:extinct. It is poor even in its poetical elements, and is redeemed only by the finely solemn tone of its moral reflexions and the singular refinement and equable smoothness of its diction. That it obtained the applause of Voltairemust be ascribed to the fact that it was written in accordance with the rules of See also:French classical See also:drama. 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 See also:pamphlets. and the gay See also:fancy of a trifling poem on See also:Kneller's portrait of See also:George I. The lord justices who, previously chosen secretly by the elector of Hanover, assumed the government on the queen's See also:demise, were, as a matter of course, the leading Whigs. They appointed Addison to See also:act as their secretary. He next held, for a very short time, his former office under the Irish lord-lieutenant; and, See also:late in 1716, he was made one of the lords of See also:trade. In the course of the previous year had occurred the first of the only two quarrels with friends, into which the prudent, good-tempered and modest Addison is said to have ever been betrayed. His adversary on this occasion was Pope, who, a few years before, had received, with an See also:appearance of humble thankfulness, Addison's friendly remarks on his Essay on Criticism (Spectator, No. 253); but who, though still very See also:young, was already very famous, and beginning to show incessantly his literary jealousies and his personal and party hatreds. Several little misunderstandings had paved the way for a See also:breach, when, at the same time with the first volume of Pope's Iliad, there appeared a translation of the first See also:book of the poem bearing the name of See also: In August 1716, when he had completed his 44th year, Addison married See also:Charlotte, countess-See also:dowager of See also:Warwick, a widow of fifteen years' See also:standing. She seems to have forfeited her See also:jointure by the See also:marriage, and to have brought her husband nothing but the occupancy of Holland House at See also: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 See also:evidence as exists tends rather to the contrary. What seems clear is, that, from obscure causes,—among which it is alleged a growing See also:habit of intemperance was one,—Addison's See also: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. See also:Townshend was dismissed, and See also:Walpole anticipated dismissal by resignation. There was now formed, under the leadership of See also:General See also:Stanhope and Lord Sunderland, an administration which, as resting on court-influence, was nicknamed the "See also:German ministry." Sunderland, Addison's former See also:superior, became one of the two principal secretaries of state; and Addison him-self was appointed as the other. His See also:elevation to such a See also:post had been contemplated on the See also:accession of George I., and pre-vented, we are told, by his own refusal; and it is asserted, on the authority of Pope, that his See also:acceptance now was owing only to the influence of his wife. 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 See also:face an opposition headed by See also:Robert Walpole. The decay of Addison's health, too, was going on rapidly, being, we may readily conjecture, precipitated by anxiety, if na worse causes were at work. I11-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.
Not long afterwards the divisions in the Whig party alienated him from his See also:oldest friend. The See also:Peerage See also:Bill, introduced in See also: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 See also: His See also:body, after lying in state, was interred in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey.
Addison's life was written in 1843 by See also:Lucy See also:Aikin. This was reviewed by See also:Macaulay in See also:July of the same year. A more See also:modern study is that in the " Men of Letters " series by W. J. See also:Courthope (1884). There is a convenient one-volume edition of the Spectator, by See also: (1898). A See also:complete edition of Addison's works (based upon See also:Hurd) is included in See also:Bohn's See also:British Classics. (W. S.; A. D.)
ADDISON'S DISEASE, a constitutional See also:affection manifesting itself in an exaggeration of the normal pigment of the skin, asthenia, irritability of the gastro-intestinal See also:tract, and weakness and irregularity of the See also:heart's See also:action: these symptoms being due to loss of See also:function of the suprarenal glands. It is important to See also:note, however, that Addison's Disease may occur without pigmentation, and pigmentation without Addison's Disease. The See also:condition was first recognized by Dr Thomas Addison of See also:Guy's See also:Hospital, who in 1855 published an important work on The Constitutional and See also:Local Effects of Diseases of the Suprarenal
Capsules. Sir See also:Samuel Wilks worked zealously in obtaining re-.
See also:cognition for these observations in England, and See also: This stimulated renewed interest in the subject, and work was carried on in many countries. But it remained for Schafer and See also:Oliver of University College, See also:London, to demonstrate the See also:internal secretion of the suprarenals, and its importance in normal See also:metabolism, thereby confirming Addison's original view that the disease was due to loss of function of these glands. They demonstrated that these glands contain a very powerful extract which produces toxic effects when administered to animals, and that an active principle " adrenalin " can be separated, which excites contraction of the small See also:blood vessels and thus raises blood pressure. The latest views of this disease thus stand: (1) that it is entirely dependent on suprarenal disease, being the result of a diminution or See also:absence of their internal secretion, or else of a perversion of their secretion; or (2) that it is of See also:nervous origin, being the result of changes in or irritation of the large sympathetic plexuses in the See also:abdomen; or else (3) that it is a combination of glandular inadequacy and sympathetic irritation. The morbid See also:anatomy shows (1) that in over 8o% of the cases the changes in the suprarenals are those See also:clue to See also:tuberculosis, usually beginning in the medulla and resulting in more or less caseation; and that this See also:lesion is bilateral and usually secondary to tuberculous disease elsewhere, especially of the See also:spinal See also:column. In the remaining cases (2) See also:simple See also:atrophy has been noted, or (3) chronic interstitial inflammation which would See also:lead to atrophy; and finally (4) an apparently normal condition of the glands, but the neighbouring sympathetic ganglia diseased or involved in a See also:mass of fibrous See also:tissue. Other morbid conditions of the suprarenals do not give rise to the symptoms of Addison's Disease. The onset of the disease is extremely insidious, a slow but increasing condition of weakness being complained of by the patient. There is a feeble and irregular action of the heart 'resulting in attacks of See also:syncope which may prove fatal. Blood pressure is extremely See also:low. From time to time there may be severe attacks of See also:nausea, vomiting or See also:diarrhoea. The best known symptom, but one which only occurs after the disease has made considerable progress, is a gradually increasing pigmentation of the skin, ranging from a bronzy yellow to brown or even occasionally See also:black. This pigmentation shows itself (1) over exposed parts, as face and hands; (2) wherever pigment appears normally, as in the axillae and See also:round the nipples; (3) wherever pressure is applied, as round the See also:waist; and (4) occasionally on mucous membranes, as in the mouth. The patient's temperature is usually somewhat subnormal. The disease is found in See also:males far more commonly than in' See also:females, and among the lower classes more than the upper. But this latter fact is probably due to poor nourishment and See also:bad hygienic conditions rendering the poorer classes more susceptible to tuberculosis. The diagnosis, certainly in the early stages of the disease, and often in the later, is by no means easy. Pigmentation of the skin occurs in many conditions—as in normal pregnancy, uterine fibroids, abdominal growths, certain cases of heart disease, exophthalmic See also:goitre, &c., and after the prolonged use of certain drugs—as See also:arsenic and See also:silver. But the presence of a low blood pressure with weakness and irritability of the heart and some of the preceding symptoms render the diagnosis fairly certain. The latest researches on the subject tend to indicate a more certain diagnosis in the effect on the blood pressure of administering suprarenal extract, the blood pressure of the normal subject being unaffected thereby, that of the man suffering from suprarenal inadequacy being markedly raised. The disease is treated by promoting the general health in every possible way ; by See also:diet; by tonics, especially arsenic and See also:strychnine; by attention to the hygienic conditions; and always by the administration of one of the many preparations of the suprarenal gland extract. "ADDRESS, THE," an English parliamentary term for the reply of the Houses of Parliament (and particularly of the House of See also:Commons) to the speech of the See also:sovereign at the opening of a new parliament or session. There are certain formalities which distinguish this stage of parliamentary proceedings. The " king's speech " itself is divided into three sections: the first, addressed to " My Lords and Gentlemen," touches on See also:foreign affairs; the second, to the " Gentlemen of the House of Commons," has reference to the estimates; the third, to " My Lords and Gentlemen," outlines the proposed legislation for the session. Should the sovereign in person open parliament, he does so in the House of Lords in full state, and the See also:speaker and members of the House of Commons are summoned there into the royal presence. The sovereign then reads his speech. If the sovereign is not present in person, the speech is read by See also:commission. The Commons then return to their House, and an address in See also:answer is moved in both Houses. The government of the day selects two of its supporters in each House to move and second the address, and when carrying out this See also:honourable task they appear in See also:levee See also:dress. Previous to the session of 189o-1891, the royal'speech was answered See also:paragraph by paragraph, but " the address " is now moved in the form of a single See also:resolution, thanking the sovereign for his most gracious speech. The debate on the address is used as a means of ranging over the whole government policy, amendments being introduced by the opposition. A defeat on an See also:amendment to the address is generally regarded by the government as a See also:vote of no-confidence. After the address is agreed to it is ordered to be presented to the sovereign. The thanks of the sovereign for the address are then conveyed to the Lords by the lord steward of the See also:household and to the Commons by the See also:comptroller of the household. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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