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Unit 10: Addison -Pleasures Of Imagination: Introduction

to the faculties, awaken them from sloth and idleness, without putting them upon any labour or Notes
difficulty.
We might here add, that the pleasures of the fancy are more conducive to health, than those of the
understanding, which are worked out by dint of thinking, and attended with too violent a labour
of the brain. Delightful scenes, whether in nature, painting, or poetry, have a kindly influence on
the body, as well as the mind, and not only serve to clear and brighten the imagination, but are
able to disperse grief and melancholy, and to set the animal spirits in pleasing and agreeable
motions. For this reason Sir Francis Bacon, in his Essay upon Health, has not thought it improper
to prescribe to his reader a poem or a prospect, where he particularly dissuades him from knotty
and subtle disquisitions, and advises him to pursue studies that fill the mind with splendid and
illustrious objects, as histories, fables, and contemplations of nature.
We, by way of introduction, settled the notion of those pleasures of the imagination which are the
subject of my present undertaking, and endeavoured, by several considerations, to recommend to
my reader the pursuit of those pleasures.

Self Assessment
1. Choose the correct options:
(i) Addison addressed a poem to John Dryden in
(a) 1693 (b) 1692 (c) 1685 (d) 1691
(ii) The first major work , ‘A book of the Lives of English Poets’ was published in
(a) 1693 (b) 1694 (c) 1692 (d) 1991
(iii) Addison’s tragedy ‘Cato’ was produced in
(a) 1713 (b) 1715 (c) 1725 (d) 1718
(iv) ‘ The Spectator’ was published in
(a) 1711 (b) 1712 (c) 1713 (d) 1714

10.3 Summary

• Joseph Addison was an English essayist, poet, playwright and politician. He was a man of
letters, eldest son of Lancelot Addison.
• Magdalen College. In 1693, he addressed a poem to John Dryden, and his first major work,
a book of the lives of English poets, was published in 1694. His translation of Virgil’s Georgics
was published the same year. Dryden, Lord Somers and Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax
took an interest in Addison’s work and obtained for him a pension of £300 to enable him
travel to Europe with a view to diplomatic employment, all the time writing and studying
politics. While in Switzerland in 1702, he heard of the death of William III, an event which
lost him his pension, as his influential contacts, Halifax and Somers, had lost their employment
with the Crown.
• Addison’s biographer states that “In the field of his foreign responsibilities Addison’s views
were those of a good Whig. He had always believed that England’s power depended upon
her wealth, her wealth upon her commerce, and her commerce upon the freedom of the seas
and the checking of the power of France and Spain”.
• From 1708 to 1709 he was MP for the rotten borough of Lostwithiel.
• In 1712, Addison wrote his most famous work of fiction, Cato, a Tragedy.
• It is mostly as an essayist that Addison is remembered today. Addison began writing essays
quite casually. In April 1709, his childhood friend, Richard Steele, started The Tatler. Addison
inspired him to write this essay. Addison contributed 42 essays while Steele wrote 188. Of

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