William Spalding and Henry A. Dobson

“ To this series Addison gave 53 papers, being a very frequent writer during the latter half of its progress. None of his essays here aim so high as the best of those in the Spectator; but he often exhibits both his cheerful and well-balanced humour and his earnest desire to inculcate sound principles of literary judgment. In the last six months of the year 1714, the Spectator received its eighth and last volume; for which Steele appears not to have written at all, and Addison to have contributed 24 of the 80 papers. ”

“ Though the Whigs were out of office, the administration which succeeded them was, in all its earlier changes, of a complexion so mixed and uncertain that the influence of their leaders was not entirely lost. Not long after Marlborough’s great victory at Blenheim, it is said that Godolphin, the lord treasurer, expressed to Lord Halifax a desire to have the great duke’s fame extended by a poetical tribute. Halifax seized the opportunity of recommending Addison as the fittest man for the duty ”

“ In 1716 there was acted, with little success, Addison’s comedy of The Drummer, or the Haunted House. It contributes very little to his fame. From September 1715 to June 1716 he defended the Hanoverian succession, and the proceedings of the government in regard to the rebellion, in a paper called the Freeholder, which he wrote entirely himself, dropping it with the 55th number. It is much better tempered, not less spirited and much more able in thinking than his Examiner. The finical man of taste does indeed show himself to be sometimes weary of discussing constitutional questions ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ He took his master’s degree in 1693, and subsequently obtained a fellowship which he held until 1711. 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Further, he was Addison’s under-secretary and confidential friend; and Addison, cautious though he was, does appear to have said (quite truly) that Tickell’s translation was more faithful than the other. Pope’s anger could not be restrained. He wrote those famous lines in which he describes Addison under the name of Atticus, and although it seems doubtful whether he really sent a copy to Addison himself, he afterwards went so far as to profess a belief that the rival translation was really Addison’s own. ”

“ He was able, however, to visit a great part of Germany, and did not reach Holland till the spring of 1703. 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. ”