Essay The west minister Abbey by Joseph Addison
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Joseph Addison
Poet and Playwright
In Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey is a white marble statue of Joseph Addison, poet and essayist, by the sculptor Sir Richard Westmacott, erected in 1809. He is dressed in classical drapery (although Macaulay thought it looked more like a dressing gown), holding a scroll in his left hand. At his feet is an open scroll and several books. Around the pedestal are depicted the nine Muses, together with their symbols. Lord Bradford, who inherited the property of Joseph’s daughter, paid for the statue. There had apparently been a proposal to erect the statue in the chapel of St Edward the Confessor on the grave of Thomas of Woodstock but fortunately this did not go ahead. The Latin inscription can be translated:
Whoever thou art who lookest upon this marble respect the memory of Joseph Addison; whom Christian piety, whom virtue and politeness, have ever found their indefatigable patron. His genius in poetry as well as in every other kind of exquisite writing, by which he has bequeathed to posterity the finest example of a pure style of composition, and learnedly developed the discipline of an upright life – stands sacred, and sacred must remain. In argument he happily blended gravity with mildness and in judgment, tempered its severity with urbanity: he upheld the good, and roused the imprudent, and, by a peculiar charm, turned even the guilty round to virtue. He was born in the year of Our Lord 1672, and augmenting his fortune by moderate degrees, at length arrived at the highest honours of the State. He died, in the 48th year of his age, the charm and ornament of Britain