Addison, Joseph. English author, pre-eminent as an essayist, humorist, and moralist; was born in Milston, in Wiltshire, 1672; died, 1719, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His father was a clergyman. In 1708, he was elected to Parliament, but failing in his first attempt to make a speech, on account of native diffidence, he abandoned the political for the literary field, by which all the world was the gainer. In connection with Steele, he created the Periodical Essay, and was the chief contributor to the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian, and furnished most of the contributions of "Sir Roger de Coverley." Mandeville calls him "a parson in a tye-wig," because his father had instilled into him so much clerical dignity. "Addison was the best company in the world," wrote Lady Wortley Montagu. "It is as a tatler of small talk and a spectator of mankind that we cherish and love him, and owe as much pleasure to him as to any human being who ever wrote. He came in that artificial age, and began to speak with his noble, natural voice. He came, the gentle artist, who hit no unfair blows; the kind judge, who castigates only in smiling," wrote Thackeray. He was addicted to the free use of port and claret, and while pondering a theme on which he wished to write, would stimulate his brain with frequent sips of wine. It was at Holland House, of which he became possessed by marriage, that he

Among his best sayings may be cited: "When I behold a fashionable table set out in all magnificence, I fancy that I see gouts and dropsies, fevers and lethargies, with other innumerable distempers, lying in ambuscade among the dishes." "Every animal but man keeps to one dish." At the age of forty-four, and three years before his death, he married the dowager Countess of Warwick, to whose graceless son, Lord Warwick, he had been a kind of mentor. It was an unhappy connection; and during its brief continuance, Addison was always glad when he could escape form madam's drawing-room, and enjoy a chat with this cronies over a bottle of wine at their old haunts. His last words were, "See how a Christian can die."

Adams, Robert Chamblet. Born in Massachusetts in 1839. Son of Nehemiah Adams, supra. Writings: History of England in Rhyme; History of the United States in Rhyme; On Board the Rocket; Aids to Endeavour, Evolution, a Summary of Evidence; Travels in Faith from Tradition to Reason; Pioneer Pith. Published by Lothrop Publishing Co., Boston.