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. nædre, 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 £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 him 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 himself 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 protégé 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
