Joseph was educated at Charterhouse School, London, where he first met Richard Steele, and at The Queen's College, Oxford.

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.

Dryden, Lord Somers and Charles Montague, 1st Earl of Halifax, took an interest in Addison's work and obtained for him a pension of £300 a year to enable him to travel to Europe with a view to diplomatic employment, all the time writing and studying politics.

[4] In 1705, with the Whigs in power, Addison was made Under-Secretary of State and accompanied Lord Halifax on a diplomatic mission to Hannover, Germany.

General George Washington sponsored a performance of Cato for the Continental Army during the difficult winter of 1777–78 at Valley Forge.

These include: In 1789, Edmund Burke quoted the play in a letter to Charles-Jean-François Depont entitled Reflections on the revolution in France, saying that the French people may yet be obliged to go through more changes and "to pass, as one of our poets says, 'through great varieties of untried being,'" before their state obtains its final form.

[citation needed] The action of the play involves the forces of Cato at Utica, awaiting the attack of Caesar immediately following his victory at Thapsus (46 BC).

In 1718, Addison was forced to resign as Secretary of State because of his poor health, but he remained an MP until his death at Holland House, London, on 17 June 1719 (aged 47).

The Spectator began publication on 1 March of that year, and it continued – being issued daily, and achieving great popularity – until 6 December 1712.

It exercised an influence over the reading public of the time, and Addison soon became the leading partner in it, contributing 274 essays out of a total of 635; Steele wrote 236.

[16] Alexander Pope in his 1735 Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot made Addison an object of derision, naming him "Atticus", and comparing him to an adder, "willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike".

He wrote an essay entitled Dialogues on Medals which was translated into French by eighteenth-century priest and journalist Simon-Jérôme Bourlet de Vauxcelles (1733–1802).

In 2005, an Austrian banker and collector named Albin Schram died, and in a file cabinet next to his laundry room a collection of a thousand letters was found, some of them of interest to historians.

The first reported on a debate in the House of Commons about a grant to John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, and his heirs, following the Battle of Ramillies.

Addison explains that the motion was opposed by Misters Annesley, Ward, Casar, and Sir William Vevian.

Casar ... hoped ye Duke tho he had ben Victorious over the Enemy would not think of being so over a House of Commons: wch 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....[citation needed]Following the Duke of Marlborough's successful campaign of 1706, the Duke and George Stepney became the first English regents of the Anglo-Dutch condominium for governing the southern Netherlands.

Upon Marlborough's return to London in November, Parliament accepted the Duke's request that a grant of £5,000 'out of ye Post-Office' be made in perpetuity to his heirs.

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.Addison's character has been described as kind and magnanimous, albeit somewhat cool and unimpassioned, with a tendency for convivial excess.

Lord Macaulay wrote this generous tribute to Addison, which was published in 1866, seven years after Macaulay's death in 1859: 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, worshiped 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.