Joseph Addison (1672-1719)
Born in Wiltshire in 1672, of a respected and cultured family, Joseph Addison went to Oxford, and began his literary life by writing Latin verses. In 1699 he travelled on the Continent by way of preparation for a political career. But on the death of the King in 1703 his hopes of advancement were shattered.The next year, however, he celebrated Marlborough`s victory at Blenheim in his poem The Campaign, which attracted considerable notice. In 1709 he collaborated with his friend Richard Steele in the recently founded periodical, The Taller, and later in the better-known Spectator, contributing essays and sketches and several charmingly written tales which are among the most finished and neatly turned stories in the language.
The Story of an Heir
From The SpectatorAs I was yesterday taking the air with my friend Sir Roger, we were met by a fresh-colored ruddy young man who rid by us full speed, with a couple of servants behind him. Upon my inquiry who he was, Sir Roger told me that he was a young gentleman of a considerable estate, who had been educated by a tender mother that lived not many miles from the place where we were. She is a very good lady, says my friend, but took so much care of her son`s health that she has made him good for nothing.She quickly found that reading was bad for his eyes, and that writing made his head ache. He was let loose among the woods as soon as he was able to ride on horseback, or to carry a gun upon his shoulder. To be brief, I found, by my friend`s account of him, that he had got a great stock of health, but nothing else; and that if it were a man`s business only to live, there would not be a more accomplished young fellow in the whole country.The truth of it is, since my residing in these parts I have seen and heard innumerable instances of young heirs and elder brothers who either from their own reflecting upon the estates they are born to, and therefore thinking all other accomplishments unnecessary, or from hearing these notions frequently inculcated to them by the flattery of their servants and domestics, or from the same foolish thought prevailing in those who have the care of their education, are of no manner of use but to keep up their families, and transmit their lands and houses in a line to posterity.
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