Addison, Jospeh
b: May 1, 1672; Milston, near Aylesbury, Wiltshire
d: June 17, 1719; Kensington, London
Education
- Educated at Charterhouse and Magdalen College, Oxford (BA 1691, MA 1693)
Highlights & Accomplishments
- Wrote the poem The Campaign (1704) to celebrate the Duke of Marlborough‘s victory at Blanheim
- Extremely active politically in Whig circles
- Later on he became a Member of Parliament and an Under-Secretary of State
- Known for his collaborations with Sir Richard Steele in The Tatler (1709-11), and in The Spectator (1711-1712)
*JRW wrote, “Addison’s writing is noble and uplifting, dignified and balanced. He believed in the power of religion to bring happiness, not in any superficial way but in a deep and settled spiritual content…His hymns on the providence of God reflect the intellectual ideas of his time, particularly the discoveries of Newtonian physics, and they also suggest a mind at peace with itself, in which reason and religious experience go together. There is little anguish in Addison’s hymns: rather a recognition that, whatever the human state, religion can make it more acceptable and even cheerful. He is also a hymn writer who can express, as well as anyone, the emotion of gratitude.”
*JRW. “Joseph Addison.” The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology. Canterbury Press. Web. 11 Jul. 2017.<http://www.hymnology.co.uk/j/joseph-addison>.
**Request a correction or addition to this article by emailing us at hymns4worship@gmail.com
Hymns for Worship review these requests regularly and updates will be published as soon as possible
Like this? Share it!
