Addison, Joseph (the English Atticus)

1672 - Born on the 1st of May in Milston, Wiltshire.

1693 - He addressed a poem to John Dryden the former Poet Laureate.

1694 - His first major work, a book about the lives of English poets, was published.

1699 - He received a pension of £300 to enable him to travel widely in Europe the continent.

1702 - He heard of the death of William III, an event which lost him his pension.

1704 - He was commissioned to write and produce a poem "The Campaign".

1705 - He was appointed Under-Secretary of State and accompanied Halifax on a mission to Hanover.

1708 - He became MP for Malmesbury in his home county of Wiltshire.

        - He was appointed as Chief Secretary for Ireland and Keeper of the Records of that country.

1712 - He wrote his most famous work of fiction, a play entitled Cato, a Tragedy.

1716 - He married the Dowager Countess of Warwick.

1717 - He served Secretary of State for the Southern Department for one year.

1718 - He was forced to resign as secretary of state because of his poor health.

1719 - He remained an MP until his death at Holland House on the 17th of June, in his 48th year, and was

                buried in Westminster Abbey.

• "Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for."
• "Ridicule is generally made use of to laugh men out of virtue and good sense, by attacking everything praiseworthy in human life."
• "I value my garden more for being full [of] blacbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs."
• "The greatest sweetener of human life is Friendship.

  To raise this to the highest pitch of enjoyment, is a secret which but few discover."

• "What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable."