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Unit 10: Addison -Pleasures Of Imagination: Introduction

honour to His Grace but to a posterity that he was not concerned in. Casar ... hoped ye Duke Notes
though he had been Victorious over the Enemy would not think of being so over a House of
Commons: which was said in pursuance to a Motion made by some of the Craftier sort that would
not oppose the proposition directly but turn it off by a Side-Wind pretending that it being a money
affaire it should be refer’d to a Committee of the whole House wch in all probability would have
defeated the whole affaire...’. Following the Duke of Marlborough’s highly successful campaigns
of 1706, he and George Stepney became the first English regents of the Anglo-Dutch condominium
for governing the southern Netherlands. It was Stepney who formally took possession of the
principality of Mindelheim in Marlborough’s name on 26 May, following the Battle of Ramillies.
On Marlborough’s return to London in November, Parliament granted his request that his grant
of £ 5,000 ‘out of ye Post-Office’ be made in perpetuity for his heirs.
A second letter to his friend Sir Richard Steele was also found, concerning the Tatler and other
matters. ‘I very much liked your last paper upon the Courtship that is usually paid to the fair sex.
I wish you had reserved the Letter in this days paper concerning Indecencies at Church for an
entire piece. It would have made as good a one as any you have published. Your Reflections upon
Almanza are very good.’ The letter concludes with references to impeachment proceedings against
Addison’s friend, Henry Sacheverell (‘I am much obliged to you for yor Letters relating to
Sackeverell’), and the Light House petition: ‘I am something troubled that you have not sent away
ye Letters received from Ireland to my Lord Lieutenant, particularly that from Mr Forster [the
Attorney General] with the Enclosed petition about the Light House, which I hope will be delivered
to the House before my Return’.

10.2 Analysis

Addison’s character has been described as kind and magnanimous, albeit somewhat cool and
unimpassioned. His appealing manners and conversation made him one of the most popular men
of his day; and while he laid his friends under obligations for substantial favours, he showed great
forbearance towards his few enemies. His essays are noted for their clarity and elegant style, as
well as their cheerful and respectful humour. One flaw in Addison character was a tendency to
convivial excess, which nonetheless should be judged in view of the somewhat lax manners of his
time.
“As a man, he may not have deserved the adoration which he received from those who, bewitched
by his fascinating society, and indebted for all the comforts of life to his generous and delicate
friendship, worshipped him nightly, in his favourite temple at Button’s. But, after full inquiry and
impartial reflection, we have long been convinced that he deserved as much love and esteem as
can be justly claimed by any of our infirm and erring race. Some blemishes may undoubtedly be
detected in his character; but the more carefully it is examined, the more it will appear, to use the
phrase of the old anatomists, sound in the noble parts, free from all taint of perfidy, of cowardice,
of cruelty, of ingratitude, of envy. Men may easily be named, in whom some particular good
disposition has been more conspicuous than in Addison. But the just harmony of qualities, the
exact temper between the stern and the humane virtues, the habitual observance of every law, not
only of moral rectitude, but of moral grace and dignity, distinguish him from all men who have
been tried by equally strong temptations, and about whose conduct we possess equally full
information.” – Lord Macaulay
Our Sight is the most perfect and most delightful of all our senses. It fills the mind with the largest
variety of ideas, converses with its objects at the greatest distance, and continues the longest in
action without being tired or satiated with its proper enjoyments. The sense of feeling can indeed
give us a notion of extension, shape, and all other ideas that enter at the eye, except colours; but
at the same time it is very much straitened and confined in its operations, to the number, bulk, and
distance of its particular objects. Our sight seems designed to supply all these defects, and may be

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