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July 26, 2025 • 16 mins
Delve into the life and legacy of Joseph Addison (1672-1719), a renowned English essayist, poet, playwright, and politician. Best known for his contribution to The Spectator magazine alongside Richard Steele, Addisons remarkable life is brought to the fore in this engaging narrative. Explore the world of this gentle soul who managed to maintain his gentlemanly demeanor amidst the harsh world of political and literary rivalries. Commemorate the man who, through his persona in the Spectator, is loved by his contemporaries and continues to be respected by generations to come. This summary is brought to you by Pamela Nagami, M.D.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section six of Life and Writings of Addison by Thomas
Babington mac caulay. This librovox recording is in the public domain.
Read by Pamelinagami, Section six. One member of this little
society was Ustas Budgel, a young templar of some literature
in a distant relation of Addison. There was at this

(00:23):
time no stain on the character of Budgel, and it
is not improbable that his career would have been prosperous
and honorable if the life of his cousin had been prolonged.
But when the master was laid in the grave, the
disciple broke loose from all restraint, descended rapidly from one
degree of vice and misery to another, ruined his fortune

(00:46):
by follies, attempted to repair it by crimes, and at
length closed a wicked and unhappy life by self murder.
Yet to the last, the wretched man, gambler lampooner chi
forger as he was, retained his affection and veneration for Addison,
and recorded those feelings in the last lines which he

(01:08):
traced before he hid himself from infamy under London Bridge.
Another of Addison's favorite companions was Ambrose Phillips, a good
whig and a middling poet, who had the honor of
bringing into fashion a species of composition which has been
called after his name, Namby Pamby. But the most remarkable

(01:29):
members of the Little Senate, as Pope long afterwards called it,
were Richard Steele and Thomas Tickle. Steele had known Addison
from childhood. They had been together at the Charterhouse and
at Oxford, but circumstances had then for a time separated
them widely. Steele had left college without taking a degree,

(01:52):
had been disinherited by a rich relation, had led a
vagrant life, had served in the army, had tried to
find the philosopher's stone, and had written a religious treatise
in several comedies. He was one of those people whom
it is impossible either to hate or to respect. His
temper was sweet, his affections warm, his spirits lively, his

(02:16):
passions strong, and his principles weak. His life was spent
in sinning and repenting, in inculcating what was right and
doing what was wrong. In speculation, he was a man
of piety and honor. In practice, he was much of
the rake and a little of the swindler. He was, however,

(02:36):
so good natured that it was not easy to be
seriously angry with him, and that even rigid moralists felt
more inclined to pity than to blame him when he
diced himself into a sponging house or drank himself into
a fever. Addison regarded Steele with kindness not unmingled with scorn,
tried with little success to keep him out of scrapes,

(02:59):
introducing him to the great, procured a good place for him,
corrected his plays, and, though by no means rich, lent
him large sums of money. One of these loans appears
from a letter dated in August seventeen o eight to
have amounted to a thousand pounds. These pecuniary transactions probably

(03:20):
led to frequent bickerings. It is said that on one occasion,
Steele's negligence or dishonesty provoked Addison to repay himself by
the help of a bailiff. We cannot join with Miss
Aiken in rejecting this story. Johnson heard it from Savage,
who heard it from Steel. Few private transactions, which took

(03:43):
place one hundred and twenty years ago, are proved by
stronger evidence than this, But we can by no means
agree with those who condemn Addison's severity. The most amiable
of mankind may well be moved to indignation when what
he has earned, learned hardly, and lent with great inconvenience

(04:03):
to himself for the purpose of relieving a friend in
distress is squandered with insane profusion. We will illustrate our
meaning by an example, which is not the less striking
because it is taken from fiction. Doctor Harrison, in Fielding's Ameilia,
is represented as the most benevolent of human beings, yet

(04:23):
he takes in execution not only the goods but the
person of his friend Booth. Doctor Harrison resorts to this
strong measure because he has been informed that Booth, while
pleading poverty as an excuse for not paying just debts,
has been buying fine jewelry and setting up a coach.
No person who was well acquainted with Steele's life and

(04:44):
correspondence can doubt that he behaved quite as ill to
Addison as Booth was accused of behaving to doctor Harrison.
The real history, we have little doubt, was something like this.
A letter comes to Addison imploring help and pathetic terms
and promising reformation and speedy repayment. Poor Dick declares that

(05:05):
he has not an inch of candle, or a bushel
of coals, or credit with the butcher for a shoulder
of mutton. Addison is moved. He determines to deny himself
some medals which are wanting to his series of the
Twelve Caesars, to put off buying the new edition of
Bale's Dictionary, and to wear his old sword and buckles

(05:26):
another year. In this way he manages to send a
hundred pounds to his friend. The next day, he calls
on Steel and find scores of gentlemen and ladies assembled.
The fiddles are playing, the table is groaning under champagne, burgundy,
and pyramids of sweetmeats. Is it strange that a man

(05:46):
whose kindness is thus abused should send sheriff's officers to
reclaim what is due to him? Tickle was a young
man fresh from Oxford, who had introduced himself to public
notice by writing a most ingenious and grateful little poem
in praise of the opera Rosamond. He deserved and at
length attained the first place in Addison's friendship for a

(06:09):
time Steele and Tickle were on good terms, but they
loved Addison too much to love each other, and at
length became as bitter enemies as the rival Bulls and Virgil.
At the close of seventeen o eight, Wharton became Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland and appointed Addison Chief Secretary. Addison was
consequently under the necessity of quitting London for Dublin. Besides

(06:34):
the Chief secretaryship, which was then worth about two thousand
pounds a year, he obtained a patent appointing him Keeper
of the Irish Records for life, with a salary of
three or four hundred a year. Budgel accompanied his cousin
in the capacity of Private Secretary. Wharton and Addison had
nothing in common but Whigism. The Lord Lieutenant was not

(06:57):
only licentious and corrupt, but was distinguished from other libertines
and jobbers by a callous impudence, which presented the strongest
contrast to the Secretary's gentleness and delicacy. Many parts of
the Irish administration of this time appear to have deserved
serious blame, but against Addison there was not a murmur.

(07:18):
He long afterwards asserted, what all the evidence which we
have ever seen tends to prove that his diligence and
integrity gained the friendship of all the most considerable persons
in Ireland. The parliamentary career of Addison in Ireland has
we think escaped the notice of all his biographers. He
was elected Member for the Borough of Cavan in the

(07:40):
summer of seventeen o nine, and in the journals of
two sessions his name frequently occurs. Some of the entries
appear to indicate that he so far overcame his timidity
as to make speeches. Nor is this by any means improbable,
for the Irish House of Commons was a far less
formidable audience than the English House, and many tongues which

(08:02):
were tied by fear in the greater assembly became fluent,
and the smaller. Gerard Hamilton, for example, who, from fear
of losing the fame gained by his single speech, sat
mute at Westminster during forty years, spoke with great effect
at Dublin when he was secretary to Lord Halifax. While

(08:22):
Addison was in Ireland, an event occurred to which he
owes his high and permanent rank among British writers. As yet,
his fame rested on performances, which, though highly respectable, were
not built for duration, and would, if he had produced
nothing else, have now been almost forgotten. On some excellent
Latin verses, on some English verses which occasionally arose above mediocrity,

(08:46):
and on a book of travels, agreeably written but not
indicating any extraordinary powers of mind. Those works showed him
to be a man of taste, sense and learning. The
time had come when he was to prove himself a
man of genius, and to enrich our literature with compositions
which will live as long as the English language. In

(09:08):
the spring of seventeen o nine, Steele formed a literary
project of which he was far indeed from foreseeing the consequences.
Periodical papers had during many years been published in London.
Most of these were political, but in some of them
questions of morality, taste, and love kasuistry had been discussed.

(09:29):
The literary merit of these works was small, indeed, and
even their names are now known only to the curious.
Steele had been appointed gazetteer by Sunderland at the request,
that is said, of Addison, and thus had access to
foreign intelligence earlier and more authentic than was in those times.
Within the reach of an ordinary newswriter. This circumstance seems

(09:53):
to have suggested to him the scheme of publishing a
periodical paper on a new plan. It was to appear
on the day days on which the post left London
for the country, which were in that generation the Tuesdays,
Thursdays and Saturdays. It was to contain the foreign news,
accounts of theatrical representations, and the literary gossip of wills

(10:15):
and of the gression. It was also to contain remarks
on the fashionable topics of the day, compliments to beauties,
pasquinades on noted sharpers, and criticisms on popular preachers. The
aim of Steele does not appear to have been at
first higher than this. He was not ill qualified to
conduct the work which he had planned. His public intelligence

(10:39):
he drew from the best sources. He knew the town,
and had paid dear for his knowledge. He had read
much more than the dissipated men of that time were
in the habit of reading. He was a rake among scholars,
and a scholar among rakes. His style was easy and
not incorrect, and though his wit and humor were of

(11:00):
no higher order, his gay animal spirits imparted to his
compositions an air of the vacity which ordinary readers could
hardly distinguish from comic genius. His writings had been well
compared to those light wines, which, though deficient in body
and flavor, are yet a pleasant small drink if not

(11:20):
kept too long or carried too far. Isaac Bickerstaff, esquire Astrologer,
was an imaginary person, almost as well known in that
age as mister Paul Pry or mister Pickwick. In ours,
Swift had assumed the name of Bickerstaff and a satirical
pamphlet against Partridge, the almanac maker. Partridge had been fool

(11:42):
enough to publish a furious reply. Bickerstaff had rejoined in
a second pamphlet, still more diverting than the first. All
the wits had combined to keep up the joke, and
the town was long in convulsions of laughter. Steele determined
to employ the name which this controverty he had made popular,
and in April seventeen o nine it was announced that

(12:05):
Isaac Bickerstaff, esquire Astrologer, was about to publish a paper
called The Tatler. Addison had not been consulted about this scheme,
but as soon as he heard of it, he determined
to give it his assistance. The effect of that assistance
cannot be better described than in Steel's own words. I feared,

(12:26):
he said, like a distressed prince who calls in a
powerful neighbor to his aid. I was undone by my auxiliary.
When I had once called him in, I could not
subsist without dependence on him. The paper, he says elsewhere,
was advanced. Indeed it was raised to a greater thing
than I intended it. It is possible that Addison, when

(12:50):
he sent across Saint George's channel his first contributions to
the Tatler, had no notion of the extent and variety
of his own powers. He was the possessor of a
vast mind, rich with a hundred oars. But he had
been acquainted only with the least precious part of his treasures,
and had hitherto contented himself with producing sometimes copper and

(13:13):
sometimes lead, intermingled with a little silver. All at once,
and by mere accident, he had lighted on an inexhaustible
vein of the finest gold. The mere choice and arrangement
of his words would have sufficed to make his essays classical,
For never not even by Dryden, not even by Temple,

(13:34):
had the English language been written with such sweetness, grace,
and facility. But this was the smallest part of Addison's praise.
Had he clothed his thoughts in the half French style
of Horace Walpole, or in the half Latin style of
Doctor Johnson, or in the half German jargon of the
present day, his genius would have triumphed over all faults

(13:57):
of manner. As a moral satirist, he stands unrivaled. If ever,
the best tatlers and spectators were equaled in their own kind,
we should be inclined to guess that it must have
been by the lost comedies of menander in wit properly
so called Addison was not inferior to Cowley or Butler.

(14:19):
No single ode of Cowley contains so many happy analogies
as are crowded into the lines of Sir Godfrey Kneller,
and we would undertake to collect from the spectators as
great a number of ingenious illustrations as can be found
in Houdebras. The still higher faculty of invention Addison possessed
in still larger measure the numerous fictions generally original often

(14:43):
wild and grotesque, but always singularly graceful and happy, which
are found in his essays fully entitle him to the
rank of a great poet, a rank to which his
metrical compositions give him no claim. As an observer of life,
of manners, of all the shades of human character, he
stands in the first class. And what he observed he

(15:07):
had the art of communicating in two widely different ways.
He could describe virtues, vices, habits, whims as well as Clarendon.
But he could do something better. He could call human
beings into existence and make them exhibit themselves. If we
wish to find anything more vivid than Addison's best portraits,

(15:29):
we must either go to Shakespeare or to servants. But
what shall we say of Addison's humor, of his sense
of the ludicrous, of his power of awakening that sens
in others, and of drawing mirth from incidents which occur
every day, and from little peculiarities of temper and manner,
such as may be found in every man. We feel

(15:53):
the charm, we give ourselves up to it, but we
strive in vain to analyze it. End of Section six
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