I shall endeavor to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality.

Joseph Addison (1672–1719), a leading English essayist of the early Enlightenment, helped found the periodical essay as a vehicle for shaping public taste and manners. The line is associated with the aims of The Spectator (1711–1712; revived 1714), the daily paper Addison produced with Richard Steele for a growing, coffeehouse-reading public. In its programmatic statements, the paper presents itself as a moral instructor that avoids sermonizing by using urbane humor, character sketches, and social observation. The remark encapsulates Addison’s self-appointed role: to make virtue attractive and to keep comedy from sliding into mere ridicule or vice.

Addison proposes a balance between ethical instruction and entertainment. “Enliven morality with wit” suggests that moral counsel is more persuasive when it is engaging, socially attuned, and pleasurable to read; wit becomes a rhetorical tool that draws readers in rather than repels them with severity. “Temper wit with morality” adds a reciprocal check: humor should be governed by ethical purpose, not used to excuse cruelty, cynicism, or licentiousness. The couplet-like symmetry expresses a central ideal of polite culture in the early eighteenth century—using literature and conversation to refine conduct—while also defining a standard for satire that reforms without corrupting.