ABSTRACT
addison, joseph, 1672-1719 Whig statesman (rising to Secretary of State, 1717-18); poet (The Campaign was written for the Whig Government in 1705 to celebrate the victory at Blenheim); playwright (Cato. A Tragedy appeared in 1713); and essayist (best-known for his contributions to the Tatler and Spectator). He was the centre of the Whig circle of writers who met at Buttons' coffee-house, and who Pope satirized as 'his little Senate'. Pope fell out with Addison early in his life when Addison praised Philips's Pastorals above Pope's (see p. 13). Addison later backed Tickell's translation of the Iliad over Pope's, and it was in reply to this affront that Pope wrote his famous character sketch of Addison in the summer of 1715. Pope sent the lines to Addison who, as Pope later told Spence, 'used me very civilly ever after'. The lines were printed piratically in several journals of the time, but were not acknowledged by Pope until 1727. In 1734 they were worked into An Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot with the pseudonym Atticus substituted for Addison who had been dead for fifteen years by then.
