source is in some small lakes near the head of the Fraele
glen, but its volume is increased by the union with several
smaller streams, near the town of Bormio, at the Raetian
Alps. Thence it flows first S.W., then due W., through
the fertile Valtellina (q.v.), passing Tirano, where the
Poschiavino falls in on the right, and Sondrio, where is
the junction with the Malero, right. It falls into the
Lake of Como, at its northern end, and mainly forms that
fake. On issuing from its south-eastern or Lecco arm, it
crosses the plain of Lombardy, and finally, after a course
of about 150 m., joins the Po, 8 m. above Cremona. The lower
course of the Adda was formerly the boundary between the
territories of Venice and of Milan; and on its banks several
important battles have been fought, notably that of Lodi,
where Napoleon defeated the Austrians in 1796. (W. A. B. C.)
ADDAMS, JANE (1860- ), American sociologist, was born at
Cedarville, Illinois, on the 6th of September 1860. After
graduating at Rockford (Illinois) Female Seminary (now
Rockford College) in 1881, she spent several years in the
study of economic and sociological questions in both Europe and
America, and in 1889 with Miss Ellen Gates Starr established
in Chicago, Illinois, the social settlement known as Hull
House, of which she became the head-worker. The success of
this settlement, which became a great factor for good in the
city, was principally due to Miss Addams's rare executive
skill and practical common-sense methods. Her personal
participation in the life of the community is exemplified
in her acceptance of the office of inspector of streets and
alleys under the municipal government. She became widely
known as a lecturer and writer on social problems and published
Democracy and Social Ethics (1902), Newer Ideals of Peace
(1907), and The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets (1909).
ADDAX, a genus of antelopes, with one species (A.
nasomaculatus) from North Africa and Arabia. It is a little
over 3 ft. high, yellowish white in colour, with a brown mane
and a fringe of the same hue on the throat. Both sexes carry
horns, which are ringed and form an open spiral. The addax
is a desert antelope, and in habits probably resembles the
gemsbuck. It is hunted by the Arabs for its flesh and to test
the speed of their horses and greyhounds; it is during these
hunting parties that the young are captured for menagerie purposes.
ADDER, a name for the common viper ( Vipera cevus), ranging
from Wales to Saghalien island, and from Caithness to the north
of Spain. The puff-adder (Bitis s. Echidna arietans) of
nearly the whole of Africa, and the death-adder (Acanthophis
antarcticus) from Australia to the Moluccas, are both very
poisonous (see VIPER). The word was in Old Eng. noedre,
later nadder or naddre; in the 14th century ``a nadder''
was, like ``a napron,'' wrongly divided into ``an adder.'' It
appears with the generic meaning of ``serpent'' in the older
forms of many Teutonic languages, cf. Old High Ger. natra;
Goth. nadrs. It is thus used in the Old Eng. version of
the Scriptures for the devil, the ``serpent'' of Genesis.
ADDISON, JOSEPH (1672-1719), English essayist, poet and
man of letters, eldest son of Lancelot Addison, later dean of
Lichfield, was born at his father's rectory of Milston in
Wiltshire, on the 1st of May 1672. After having passed through
several schools, the last of which was the Charterhouse, he
went to Oxford when he was about fifteen years old. He was
first entered a commoner of Queen's College, but after two
years was elected to a demyship of Magdalen College, having
been recommended by his skill in Latin versification. 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. To both of these distinguished
persons he contrived to commend himself by An Account of the
Greatest English Poets (1694), An Address to King William
(1695), after Namur, and a Latin poem entitled Pax Gulielmi
(1697), on the peace of Ryswick, with the result that in 1699
he obtained a pension of L. 300 a year, to enable him (as he
afterwards said in a memorial addressed to the crown) ``to
travel and qualify himself to serve his Majesty.'' In the
summer of 1699 he crossed into France, where, chiefly for
the purpose of learning the language, he remained till the
end of 1700; and after this he spent a year in Italy. In
Switzerland, on his way home, he was stopped by receiving
notice that he was to attend the army under Prince Eugene,
then engaged in the war in Italy, as secretary from the
king. But his Whig friends were already tottering in their
places; and in March 1702 the death of King William at once drove
them from power and put an end to the pension. Indeed Addison
asserted that he never received but one year's payment of it,
and that all the other expenses of his travels were defrayed by
himself. 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.'' The duke, a
profuse man in matters of pomp, was economical in questions of
education. He wished Addison to name the salary he expected;
this being declined, he announced, with great dignity, that
in addition to travelling expenses he would give a hundred
guineas a year; Addison accepted the munificent offer, saying,
however, that he could not find his account in it otherwise
than by relying on his Grace's future patronage; and his Grace
immediately intimated that he would look out for some one
else. In the autumn of 1703 Addison returned to England.
The works which belong to his residence on the continent were the
earliest that showed hm to have attained maturity of skill and
genius. There is good reason for believing that his tragedy of
Cato, whatever changes it may afterwards have suffered, was
in great part written while he lived in France, that is, when
he was about twenty-eight years of age. In the winter of 1701,
amidst the stoppages and discomforts of a journey across Mt.
Cenis, he composed, wholly or partly, his rhymed Letter from
Italy to Charles Montagu. This contains some fine touches
of description, and is animated by a noble tone of classical
enthusiasm. While in Germany he wrote his Dialogues on
Medals, which, however, were not published till after his
death. These have much liveliness of style and something of
the gay humour which the author was afterwards to exhibit more
strongly; but they show little either of antiquarian learning
or of critical ingenuity. In tracing out parallels between
passages of the Roman poets and figures or scenes which appear
in ancient sculptures, Addison opened the easy course of
inquiry which was afterwards prosecuted by Spence; and this,
with the apparatus of spirited metrical translations from the
classics, gave the work a likeness to his account of his
travels. This account, entitled Remarks on Several Parts of
Italy, &c. (1705), he sent home for publication before his own
return. It wants altogether the interest of personal narrative:
the author hardly ever appears. The task in which he chiefly
busies himsell is that of exhibiting the illustrations which the
writings of the Latin poets, and the antiquities and scenery of
Italy, mutually give and receive. Christian antiquities and
the monuments of later Italian history had no interest for him.
With the year 1704 begins a second era in Addison's life, which
extends to the summer of 1710, when his age was thirty-eight.
This was the first term of his official career; and though very
barren of literary performance, it not only raised him from
indigence, but settled definitely his position as a public
man. His correspondence shows that, while on the continent,
he had been admitted to confidential intimacy by diplomatists
and men of rank; immediately on his return he was enrolled
in the Kit-Cat Club, and brought thus and otherwise into
communication with the gentry of the Whig party. Although
all accounts agree in representing him as a shy man, he was
at least saved from all risk of making himself disagreeable
in society, by his unassuming manners, his extreme caution
and that sedulous desire to oblige, which his satirist Pope
exaggerated into a positive fault. His knowledge and ability
were esteemed so highly as to confirm the expectations formerly
entertained of his usefulness in public business; and the
literary fame he had already acquired soon furnished an occasion
for recommending him to public employment. 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;
stipulating, we are told, that the service should not be
unrewarded, and doubtless satisfying the minister that his
protege possessed other qualifications for office besides
dexterity in framing heroic verse. The Campaign (December
1704), the poem thus written to order, was received with
extraordinary applause; and it is probably as good as any
that ever was prompted by no more worthy inspiration. It
has, indeed, neither the fiery spirit which Dryden threw into
occasional pieces of the sort, nor the exquisite polish that
would have been given by Pope, if he had stooped to make such
uses of his genius; but many of the details are pleasing;
and in the famous passage of the Angel, as well as in several
others, there is even something of force and imagination.
The consideration covenanted for by the poet's friends was
faithfully paid. A vacancy occurred by the death of another
celebrated man, John Locke; and Addison was appointed one
of the five commissioners of appeal in Excise. The duties
of the place must have been as light for him as they had
been for his predecessor, for he continued to hold it with
all the appointments he subsequently received from the same
ministry. But there is no reason for believing that he
was more careless than other public servants in his time;
and the charge of incompetency as a man of business, which
has been brought so positively against him, cannot easily
be true as to this first period of his official career.
Indeed, the specific allegations refer exclusively to the last
years of his life; and, if he had not really shown practical
ability in the period now in question, it is not easy to
see how he, a man destitute alike of wealth, of social or
fashionable liveliness and of family interest, could have been
