in this vein and in one less lofty, are among the best known,
if not the finest, of all his essays. Such are the ``Mountain
of Miseries''; the antediluvian novel of ``Shalum and Hilpa'';
the ``Reflections by Moonlight on the Divine Perfections.''
In April 1713 Addison brought on the stage, very reluctantly,
as we are assured, and can easily believe, his tragedy of
Cato. Its success was dazzling; but this issue was mainly
owing to the concern which the politicians took in the
exhibition. The Whigs hailed it as a brilliant manifesto
in favour of constitutional freedom. The Tories echoed
the applause, to show themselves enemies of despotism,
and professed to find in Julius Caesar a parallel to the
formidable Marlborough. Even with such extrinsic aids,
and the advantage derived from the established fame of the
author, Cato could never have been esteemed a good dramatic
work, unless in an age in which dramatic power and insight
were almost extinct. It is poor even in its poetical
elements, and is redeemed only by the finely solemn tone of
its moral reflexions and the singular refinement and equable
smoothness of its diction. That it obtained the applause
of Voltaire must be ascribed to the fact that it was written
in accordance with the rules of French classical drama.
The literary career of Addison might almost be held as closed
soon after the death of Queen Anne, which occurred in August
1714, when he had lately completed his 42nd year. His own life
extended only five years longer; and in this closing portion of
it we are reminded of his more vigorous days by nothing but a
few happy inventions interspersed in political pamphlets, and the
gay fancy of a trifling poem on Kneller's portrait of George I.
The lord justices who, previously chosen secretly by the elector
of Hanover, assumed the government on the queen's demise,
were, as a matter of course, the leading Whigs. They appointed
Addison to act as their secretary. He next held, for a very
short time, his former office under the Irish lord-lieutenant;
and, late in 1716, he was made one of the lords of trade.
In the course of the previous year had occurred the first of
the only two quarrels with friends, into which the prudent,
good-tempered and modest Addison is said to have ever been
betrayed. His adversary on this occasion was Pope, who, a
few years before, had received, with an appearance of humble
thankfulness, Addison's friendly remarks on his Essay
on Criticism (Spectator, No. 253); but who, though still
very young, was already very famous, and beginning to show
incessantly his literary jealousies and his personal and party
hatreds. Several little misunderstandings had paved the way
for a breach, when, at the same time with the first volume of
Pope's Iliad, there appeared a translation of the first book
of the poem bearing the name of Thomas Tickell. Tickell, in
his preface, disclaimed all rivalry with Pope, and declared
that he wished only to bespeak favourable attention for his
contemplated version of the Odyssey. But the simultaneous
publication was awkward; and Tickell, though not so good a
versifier as Pope, was a dangerous rival, as being a good
Greek scholar. Further, he was Addison's under-secretary
and confidential friend; and Addison, cautious though he
was, does appear to have said (quite truly) that Tickell's
translation was more faithful than the other. Pope's anger
could not be restrained. He wrote those famous lines in
which he describes Addison under the name of Atticus, and
although it seems doubtful whether he really sent a copy
to Addison himself, he afterwards went so far as to profess
a belief that the rival translation was really Addison's
own. Addison, it is pleasant to observe, was at the pains,
in his Freeholder, to express hearty approbation of the
Iliad of Pope, who, on the contrary, after Addison's
death, deliberately printed his matchlessly malignant verses
in the ``Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot.'' In 1716 there was acted,
with little success, Addison's comedy of The Drummer, or
the Haunted House. It contributes very little to his
fame. From September 1715 to June 1716 he defended the
Hanoverian succession, and the proceedings of the government
in regard to the rebellion, in a paper called the Freeholder,
which he wrote entirely himself, dropping it with the 55th
number. It is much better tempered, not less spirited and
much more able in thinking than his Examiner. The finical
man of taste does indeed show himself to be sometimes weary of
discussing constitutional questions; but he aims many enlivening
thrusts at weak points of social life and manners; and the
character of the Fox-hunting Squire, who is introduced as the
representative of the Jacobites, is drawn with so much humour
and force that we regret not being allowed to see more of him.
In August 1716, when he had completed his 44th year, Addison
married Charlotte, countess-dowager of Warwick, a widow of
fifteen years' standing. She seems to have forfeited her
jointure by the marriage, and to have brought her husband
nothing but the occupancy of Holland House at Kensington.
The assertion that the courtship was a long one is probably
as erroneous as the contemporary rumour that the marriage was
unhappy. Such positive evidence as exists tends rather to the
contrary. What seems clear is, that, from obscure causes,--among
which it is alleged a growing habit of intemperance was
one---Addison's health was shattered before he took the last, and
certainly the most unwise, step in his ascent to political power.
For a considerable time dissensions had existed in the
ministry; and these came to a crisis in April 1717, when those
who had been the real chiefs passed into the ranks of the
opposition. Townshend was dismissed, and Walpole anticipated
dismissal by resignation. There was now formed, under
the leadership of General Stanhope and Lord Sunderland, an
administration which, as resting on court-influence, was
nicknamed the ``German ministry.'' Sunderland, Addison's
former superior, became one of the two principal secretaries
of state; and Addison himself was appointed as the other.
His elevation to such a post had been contemplated on the
accession of George I., and prevented, we are told, by his
own refusal; and it is asserted, on the authority of Pope,
that his acceptance now was owing only to the influence of his
wife. Even if there is no ground, as there probably is
not, for the allegation of Addison's inefficiency in the
details of business, his unfitness for such an office in such
circumstances was undeniable and glaring. It was impossible
that a government, whose secretary of state could not open his
lips in debate, should long face an opposition headed by Robert
Walpole. The decay of Addison's health, too, was going on
rapidly, being, we may readily conjecture, precipitated by
anxiety, if no worse causes were at work. Ill-health was the
reason assigned for retirement, in the letter of resignation
which he laid before the king in March 1718, eleven months
after his appointment. He received a pension of L. 1500 a year.
Not long afterwards the divisions in the Whig party alienated
him from his oldest friend. The Peerage Bill, introduced
in February 1719, was attacked, on behalf of the opposition,
in a weekly paper called the Plebeian, written by
Steele. Addison answered the attack in the Old VVhig,
and this belum plusquam civile--as Johnson calls it--was
continued, with increased acrimony, through two or three
numbers. How Addison, who was dying, felt after this painful
controversy we are not told directly; but the Old Whig
was excluded from that posthumous collection of his works
(1721-1726) for which his executor Tickell had received from
him authority and directions. It is said that the quarrel
in politics rested on an estrangement which had been growing
for some years. According to a rather nebulous story, for
which Johnson is the popular authority, Addison, or Addison's
lawyer, put an execution for L. 100 in Steele's house by
way of reading his friend a lesson on his extravagance.
This well-meant interference seems to have been pardoned by
Steele, but his letters show that he resented the favour
shown to Tickell by Addison and his own neglect by the Whigs.
The disease under which Addison laboured appears to have been
asthma. It became more violent after his retirement from
office, and was now accompanied by dropsy. His deathbed was
placid and resigned, and comforted by those religious hopes
which he had so often suggested to others, and the value of
which he is said, in an anecdote of doubtful authority, to
have now inculcated in a parting interview with his step-son.
He died at Holland House on the 17th of June 1719, six weeks
after having completed his 47th year. His body, after lying in
state, was interred in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey.
Addison's life was written in 1843 by Lucy Aikin. This
was reviewed by Macaulay in July of the same year. A more
modern study is that m the ``Men of Letters'' series by W. J.
Courthope (1884). There is a convenient one-volume edition
of the Spectator, by Henry Morley (Routledge, 1868), and
another in 8 vols. (1897-1898) by G. Gregory Smith. Of
the Tatler there is an edition by G. A. Aitken in 8 vols.
(1898). A complete edition of Addison's works (based upon
Hurd) is included in Bohn's British Classics. (W. S.; A. D.)
ADDISON'S DISEASE, a constitutional affection manifesting
itself in an exaggeration of the normal pigment of the skin,
asthenia, irritability of the gastro-intestinal tract, and
weakness and irregularity of the heart's action: these symptoms
being due to loss of function of the suprarenal glands. It
is important to note, however, that Addison's Disease may
occur without pigmentation, and pigmentation without Addison's
Disease. The condition was first recognized by Dr Thomas
Addison of Guy's Hospital, who in 1855 published an important
work on The Constitutional and Local Effects of Diseases of
the Suprarenal Capsules. Sir Samuel Wilks worked zealously
in obtaining recognition for these observations in England,
and Brown-Sequard in France was stimulated by this paper to
investigate the physiology of these glands. Dr Trousseau,
many years later, first called the condition by Addison's
name. Dr Headlam Greenhow worked at the subject for many
years and embodied his observations in the Croonian Lectures of
1875. But from this time on no further work was undertaken
until the discovery of the treatment of myxoedema by thyroid
extract, and the consequent researches into the physiology of
the ductless glands. This stimulated renewed interest in the
subject, and work was carried on in many countries. But it
remained for Schafer and Oliver of University College, London,
to demonstrate the internal secretion of the suprarenals,
and its importance in normal metabolism, thereby confirming
Addison's original view that the disease was due to loss of
function of these glands. They demonstrated that these glands
contain a very powerful extract which produces toxic effects
when administered to animals, and that an active principle
``adrenalin'' can be separated, which excites contraction
of the small blood vessels and thus raises blood pressure.
The latest views of this disease thus stand: (1) that it is
entirely dependent on suprarenal disease, being the result of
a diminution or absence of their internal secretion, or else of
a perversion of their secretion; or (2) that it is of nervous
origin, being the result of changes in or irritation of the large
