S.A. Bent, comp. Familiar Short Sayings of Great Men. 1887.

Joseph Addison

[An English poet and essayist, born in Wiltshire, May 1, 1672; educated at Oxford; under-secretary of state, 1705; entered Parliament, 1708; commenced writing for the “Tatler,” 1709, and “Spectator,” 1711; chief secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, member of the Board of Trade, 1715; married the dowager-countess of Warwick, 1716; one of the principal secretaries of state, 1717; died June 17, 1719, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.]

I have sent for you that you may see how a Christian can die.

Shortly before his death, to his step-son, Lord Warwick, who was a young man of irregular life. “What effect this interview had,” says Johnson, “I know not: he likewise died himself in a short time.”—Life.

“There taught us how to live; and (oh! too high

The price for knowledge) taught us how to die.”

TICKELL: On the Death of Addison.

Marshal Ney exclaimed to the handful of men with whom he dashed upon the enemy at the close of the battle of Waterloo, “Come and see how a marshal of France can die!” (Venez voir comment meurt un maréchal de France!)

Once when a lady complained to Addison that he took but little part in conversation, he replied, “Madam, I have but ninepence in ready money, but I can draw for a thousand pounds.”—BOSWELL’S Johnson, 1773. Lady Mary Montague, however, declared him to be “the best company in the world;” but Pope’s testimony confines the “Spectator’s” agreeability to his friends: before strangers he maintained a stiff silence.

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