May 1, 1672

We'll quote from the Britannica article on Joseph Addison, (May 1, 1672, to June 17, 1719),
'English essayist, poet, and dramatist'....to set a scene involving cats and culture.

'....Addison was the eldest son of the Reverend Lancelot Addison, later archdeacon of Coventry and dean of Lichfield. After schooling in Amesbury and Salisbury and at Lichfield Grammar School, he was enrolled at age 14 in the Charterhouse in London. Here began his lifelong friendship with Richard Steele, who later became his literary collaborator. Both went on to the University of Oxford, where Addison matriculated at Queen’s College in May 1687. Through distinction in Latin verse he won election as Demy (scholar) to Magdalen College in 1689 and took the degree of M.A. in 1693. He was a fellow from 1697 to 1711. At Magdalen he spent 10 years as tutor in preparation for a career as a scholar and man of letters...He also attained distinction by contributing the preface to Virgil’s Georgics, in John Dryden’s great translation of 1697.

...[A] European tour (1699–1704) enabled Addison not only to become acquainted with English diplomats abroad but also to meet contemporary European men of letters.....[R]eturning to England in 1704.... Addison renewed his friendship with ... members of the Kit-Cat Club, which was an association of prominent Whig leaders and literary figures of the day—among them [Richard] Steele, William Congreve, and Sir John Vanbrugh.

....The Whig success in the election of May 1705, ... brought Addison increased financial security in an appointment as undersecretary to the secretary of state, a busy and lucrative post. Addison’s retention in a new, more powerful Whig administration in the autumn of 1706 reflected his further rise in government service. .... In 1708 Addison was elected to Parliament for Lostwithiel in Cornwall, and later in the same year he was made secretary to the earl of Wharton, the new lord lieutenant of Ireland. Addison’s post was in effect that of secretary of state for Irish affairs, with a revenue of some £2,000 a year. He served as Irish secretary until August 1710.
...........The year 1710 was marked by the overturn of the Whigs from power and a substantial Tory victory at the polls. Although Addison easily retained his seat in the Commons, his old and powerful patrons were again out of favour, and, for the first time since his appointment as undersecretary in 1705, Addison found himself without employment. He was thus able to devote even more time to literary activity and to cultivation of personal friendships not only with Steele and other Kit-Cats but, for a short period, with Jonathan Swift—until Swift’s shift of allegiance to the rising Tory leaders resulted in estrangement. ....

'By the end of 1710 Steele ...and Addison decided to make a fresh start with a new periodical. The Spectator, which appeared six days a week, from March 1, 1711, to December 6, 1712, offered a wide range of material to its readers, from discussion of the latest fashions to serious disquisitions on criticism and morality, including Addison’s weekly papers on John Milton’s Paradise Lost and the series on the “pleasures of the imagination.” From the start, Addison was the leading spirit in The Spectator’s publication, contributing 274 numbers in all. In bringing learning “out of closets and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables, and in coffee-houses,” The Spectator was eminently successful. One feature of The Spectator that deserves particular mention is its critical essays, in which Addison sought to elevate public taste. He devoted a considerable proportion of his essays to literary criticism, which was to prove influential in the subsequent development of the English novel.....

Addison’s other notable literary production during this period was his tragedy Cato. Performed at Drury Lane on April 14, 1713, the play was a resounding success—largely, no doubt, because of the political overtones that both parties read into the play. To the Whigs Cato seemed the resolute defender of liberty against French tyranny, while the Tories were able to interpret the domineering Caesar as a kind of Roman Marlborough whose military victories were a threat to English liberties. The play enjoyed an unusual run of 20 performances in April and May 1713 and continued to be performed throughout the century.
....
With the death of Queen Anne on August 1, 1714, and the accession of George I, Addison’s political fortunes rose. He was appointed secretary to the regents (who governed until the arrival of the new monarch from Hanover) and in April 1717 was made secretary of state. Ill health, however, forced him to resign the following year. Meanwhile, he had married the dowager countess of Warwick and spent the remaining years of his life in comparative affluence at Holland House in Kensington.'

In the words of Samuel Johnson: 'Whoever wishes to attain an English style familiar but not coarse and elegant but not ostentatious must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.' Here is an example of Addison's writing, some parts of an essay published in the Spectator in 1711 or 1712. The subject is the catcall, which the dictionary now defines as
"a shrill whistle or shout of disapproval, typically one made at a public meeting or performance."

Joseph Addison elaborates:

....The cat call exerts itself to most advantage in the British theatre. [I]t very much improves the sound of nonsense, and often goes along with the voice of the actor ... as the violin or harpsichord accompanies ...[recitation]. It has often supplied the place of the ancient chorus .... In short a bad poet has as great an antipathy to a cat call as many people have to a real cat. Mr Collier in his ingenious essay upon music has the following passage[:] I believe it is possible to invent an instrument... [in which] the roaring of a lion, the warbling of cats and screech owls together with a mixture of the howling of dogs [is] judiciously imitated and compounded.... Whether such anti music as this might not be of service in a camp I shall leave to the military men to consider. What this learned gentleman supposes in speculation I have known actually verified in practice. The cat call has ...frighted heroes off the stage. At the first sound of it I have seen a crowned head tremble and a princess fall into fits. ....As it is of a dramatic nature and peculiarly appropriated to the stage, I can by no means approve the thought of that angry lover who after an unsuccessful pursuit of some years, took leave of his mistress in a serenade of cat calls. I must conclude this paper with the account I have lately received of an ingenious artist who has long studied this instrument and is very well versed in all the rules of the drama. He teaches to play on it by book and to express by it the whole art of criticism He has his base and his treble catcall[:] the former for tragedy, the latter for comedy, only in tragi -comedies, they may both play together in consort. He has a particular squeak to denote the violation of each of the unities [a classical standard in literature] and has different sounds to show ... the whole compass of the cat call.'

The whole compass of the cat call is as funny today as it was three centuries ago.