Joseph Addison

In 1716, he married Dowager Countess of Warwick.

He died at the age of 48 at the Holland House, London. He was laid to rest at the Westminster Abbey, City of Westminster in London.

In March 1796, a town in upstate New York, Middletown, NY, was renamed Addison, NY.

Joseph Addison was born in Milston, Wiltshire, to Reverend Lancelot Addison, who was made the Dean of Lichfield after his birth. Soon the family moved into the cathedral close.

He attended the Charterhouse School, a boarding school in Godalming, Surrey, where he met his future business partner, Richard Steele. He later attended The Queen's College, Oxford, and was proficient in Latin verse.

In 1693, he graduated from Magdalen College and that year he addressed a poem to John Dryden, an English poet and literary critic. The following year, he published ‘Account of the Greatest English Poets’ and also translated Virgil's ‘Georgics’.

In 1699, he received a pension of �300, after Dryden, Lord Somers and Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, became interested in his work. On pension, he travelled Europe with view to diplomatic employment.

In 1702, he lost his pension upon the death of William III as his influential contacts had lost their job. He returned to England the following year.

After he returned to England in 1703, he was unemployed for over a year. Later, the government appointed him to write a commemorative poem and he consequently authored, ‘The Campaign’.

The popularity of the poem, ‘The Campaign’ immediately gained him an appointment as a Commissioner of Appeals in the government of the 1st Earl of Halifax, Charles Montagu. He later wrote a literary piece on his travels to Italy and the opera libretto ‘Rosamund’.

In 1705, he was appointed as the Under-Secretary of State. The same year he also went on a mission to Hanover with Charles Montagu 1st Earl of Halifax.

In 1707, his opera libretto ‘Rosamund’ failed to earn good reviews and had an unsuccessful premiere in London.

From 1708 to 1709, he served as the Member of Parliament for the rotten borough, a small electorate within the Unreformed House of Commons, in Lostwithiel.

The play, ‘Cato, a Tragedy’ was his seminal work and enjoyed success all over England, the New World and Ireland. The play is widely regarded as a literary inspiration behind the American Revolution.

He co-founded the daily ‘The Spectator’, which at that time was a well received and popular publication. An estimated one tenth of the population read the paper making it the most read publication.