The Life of Joseph Addison

Introductory remarks. Account of the Rev. Dr. Addison, his father. His epitaph. Birth of Joseph Addison. His brothers and sisters. Anecdote of his childhood. His first schools. Is removed to the Charter-House. a friendship with Richard Steele. Account of him.

Forms

THE study of biography brings home to the mind no one truth with greater force and distinctness than the impossibility of explaining, on any general system, the formation of human character. Hereditary or innate propensities appear to afford the solution of one set of facts, the power of early associations, of another; the influence of education, of outward circumstances, of imitation, must all in turn be called in to solve the different classes of examples; no single theory will account for all. There evidently lies at the root a great mystery inscrutable by man.

On this account every life should be written on the plan suited to itself, and no general rule can be given with regard to the insertion or omission of accessory circumstances. Thus, the instances are many in which the judicious biographer will find no inducement to dwell at any length on the parentage of his subject; for although this circumstance can seldom be considered as totally insignificant, its operation is often not clearly distinguishable; sometimes even the results are in direct opposition to what might naturally have been expected. It can rarely be made to appear, either that genius ran in the blood, or that the particular direction which

it took in any given instance was a designed or calculated effect of parental agency. Nay, the examples are not a few in which the vehement opposition of a father to the native bent of his child's genius, has only served, like most other surmountable obstacles, to add strength to the original propensity, by calling forth the energy of resistance.

With respect to Addison the case is different. In his modest and amiable character there were few striking peculiarities, in his conduct there were no eccentricities, in his opinions no tendency to startling paradox.

An admirable, and certainly a very original genius in his own line, that of wit and humor, combined with fancy and an indescribable grace,—in the other parts of literature he was rather the judicious and discriminating follower of the best classical models, than the inventor of any new style of excellence; and the exquisite taste which is one of his most pervading qualities, was doubtless in great part the product of early and well-adapted culture. When, therefore, after running over in the mind his life and conduct, the career which he chose, his favorite studies, and the general current of his sentiments, we turn to contemplate in a father, whom he revered, the united characters of the churchman, the scholar, the traveler, and the perspicuous, lively, and instructive writer, it is obvious to conclude, that it was hence that his mind received its determining bias, and his genius its peculiar dress and coloring. A brief account of the father thus becomes a proper, almost an indispensable introduction to the biography of the son.

Lancelot Addison, born in the year 1632, at the obscure village of Maltesmeaburn, in the parish of Corby Ravensworth and the county of Westmoreland, was the son of a person described in the phrase of the time as a minister of the Gospel," but in circumstances so humble, that it was in the character of "a poor child" that Lancelot, after passing through the grammar school of Appleby, was received into Queen's College, Oxford. Here, however, his quick and lively parts, seconded by steady application to the studies of the place, speedily raised him above obscurity. Having obtained his bachelor's degree in 1654, and his master's in 1657, he was the next year chosen a terræ filius at the commencement, the Oxford terræ filius being a kind of licensed jester, after the manner of Shakspeare's fools:-a dangerous office, since amid the seeming license of a Saturnalia, the scourge was in reality kept suspended over the head of the luckless jester whose gibes should come too near the consciences or the dignity

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