ADDISON, JOSEPH.
When I was a little girl, I sat listening one day while several
gentlemen who were visiting my father, talked together, and one of them
told a queer story which interested me very much, and called forth
bursts of laughter from the gentlemen. Then, one said, "That is almost
equal to Addison's time."
Over this sentence I puzzled. The only person whom I knew by that name
was an old lame man who lived at the lower end of a long straggling
street, and who was not remarkable for anything but laziness. What could
the gentlemen who were visiting my father know about him, and what did
they mean by "Addison's time?" I hovered around my father for quite a
while, looking for a chance to ask questions, but there was no break in
the conversation, so I gave it up. Something recalled the matter to me
during the afternoon, and I asked a boy who lived near us, and with whom
I was on quite friendly terms, if old Joe Addison had a clock that was
queer; explaining to him at the same time why I wanted to know. He
replied that he had seen a very large and very ugly-looking watch
hanging in the shoe shop by old Joe's bench, and that Joe called it his
turnip, and could take the outside casing all off, just as one could
take a thing out of a box. This then was the explanation, I thought, but
though we talked it over very thoroughly, we failed to see any
connection between the story that the gentlemen had laughed over, and
old Joe Addison's watch.
Something else came up to interest us, and we forgot all about it. And
it was more than a year afterwards that I learned that my father's
friends did not refer to old Joe at all, but to another Joseph Addison
who was quite a different character.
I want you all to become acquainted with the real Joseph Addison; enough
to know what it means when you hear him mentioned.
So, if you please, set down his name in your alphabetical dictionary:
Joseph Addison.
He was born on a May-day, so it will not be hard to remember so much of
his birthday. But how shall we remember the date? Well, you know the
first figure of course, for as we count time, it is always one. Now jump
to six. Sixteen hundred? Yes; that's it. Two more figures. What is the
next figure to six? Set it down. And the next figure to one? Set that
down. Now what have you? Sixteen hundred and seventy-two. A little
thinking will fix that date so you will not be likely to forget it, and
it is really quite nice to know just when people lived. Now what was
Addison, that people are remembering him for two hundred years? First a
scholar. Then he must have studied hard. Also he was an author--a poet.
When he was about twenty-one he wrote a poem addressed to Dryden. Just
remember that man's name, will you? Some day we will make his
acquaintance. Then he translated Latin poetry, and wrote several
descriptive poems. People do not seem to have thought any of them
remarkable, and for my part I don't know how he made his living.
[Illustration: JOSEPH ADDISON.]
We next hear of him as a traveller. His friends managed to get a pension
for him from the king, which was to give him a chance to travel and
qualify himself to serve his Majesty.
Imagine our government giving a young man a salary to travel around
with, just so that he might get ready to work for it! Joseph went to
France, and to Italy, and to Switzerland. Wait, did I tell you where he
was born? In Wiltshire, England. His father was a minister. I don't
think the government was so very good to him, though, for it forgot to
pay his salary, after the first year, and he had to pay his own
travelling expenses. He seems to have worked hard at his writing, and
some of the poems which people read and admire to-day were written
during these journeys. One named the "Letter From Italy." Some people
think it is the very best of all his poems.
When he was thirty-eight years old his life began to grow brighter. His
friends succeeded in getting him a government office, and there was a
certain great duke about whose victories Addison made a poem for which
he was paid a large price. From that time he steadily rose in power. He
became secretary to Lord Halifax, and then entered Parliament. In this
place he knew one thing which great men do not always learn. That was,
how to keep still. He was spoken of as "the silent member." A good deal
of his writing is in the form of plays which were acted in the theatres.
He had a friend named Richard Steele, with whom we must sometime get
acquainted. This Mr. Steele was editor of a paper called _The Tattler_,
for which Addison wrote a great deal. The paper which followed _The
Tattler_ was named _The Spectator_, and in these two papers are gathered
some of the finest writings of the two men. Newspapers were not so
plenty then as now, and _The Spectator_ became famous. Everybody took
it. Addison's essays which were written for it are still read and
admired.
When he was about forty-six years old, he quarrelled with his old friend
Steele, and they took to writing against each other in the papers, and
calling one another names, like naughty children. At least Steele did; I
am not sure that Addison ever stooped so low. He did not live long after
that. In fact, he died in the June after he was forty-seven. He was
buried in Westminster Abbey in the Poets' Corner.
Now you have been introduced to him, I hope as you grow older you will
be interested to study his character.