'The Accomplishment of the first of Mr. Bickerstaff's Predictions:
being an account of the death of Mr. Partridge, the almanack-maker,
upon the 29th instant.'
Other wits kept up the joke, and, in his next year's almanac (that for
1709), Partridge advertised that,
'whereas it has been industriously given out by Isaac Bickerstaff,
Esq., and others, to prevent the sale of this year's almanack, that
John Partridge is dead, this may inform all his loving countrymen that
he is still living, in health, and they are knaves that reported it
otherwise.'
Steele gave additional lightness to the touch of his 'Tatler', which
first appeared on the 12th of April, 1709, by writing in the name of
Isaac Bickerstaff, and carrying on the jest, that was to his serious
mind a blow dealt against prevailing superstition. Referring in his
first 'Tatler' to this advertisement of Partridge's, he said of it,
'I have in another place, and in a paper by itself, sufficiently
convinced this man that he is dead; and if he has any shame, I do not
doubt but that by this time he owns it to all his acquaintance. For
though the legs and arms and whole body of that man may still appear
and perform their animal functions, yet since, as I have elsewhere
observed, his art is gone, the man is gone.'
To Steele, indeed, the truth was absolute, that a man is but what he can
do.
In this spirit, then, Steele began the 'Tatler', simply considering that
his paper was to be published 'for the use of the good people of
England,' and professing at the outset that he was an author writing for
the public, who expected from the public payment for his work, and that
he preferred this course to gambling for the patronage of men in office.
Having pleasantly shown the sordid spirit that underlies the
mountebank's sublime professions of disinterestedness,
'we have a contempt,' he says, 'for such paltry barterers, and have
therefore all along informed the public that we intend to give them
our advices for our own sakes, and are labouring to make our
lucubrations come to some price in money, for our more convenient
support in the service of the public. It is certain that many other
schemes have been proposed to me, as a friend offered to show me in a
treatise he had writ, which he called, "The whole Art of Life; or, The
Introduction to Great Men, illustrated in a Pack of Cards." But being
a novice at all manner of play, I declined the offer.'
Addison took these cards, and played an honest game with them
successfully. When, at the end of 1708, the Earl of Sunderland,
Marlborough's son-in-law, lost his secretaryship, Addison lost his place
as under-secretary; but he did not object to go to Ireland as chief
secretary to Lord Wharton, the new Lord-lieutenant, an active party man,
a leader on the turf with reputation for indulgence after business hours
according to the fashion of the court of Charles II.
Lord Wharton took to Ireland Clayton to write him musical
entertainments, and a train of parasites of quality. He was a great
borough-monger, and is said at one critical time to have returned thirty
members. He had no difficulty, therefore, in finding Addison a seat, and
made him in that year, 1709, M.P. for Malmesbury. Addison only once
attempted to speak in the House of Commons, and then, embarrassed by
encouraging applause that welcomed him he stammered and sat down. But
when, having laid his political cards down for a time, and at ease in
his own home, pen in hand, he brought his sound mind and quick humour to
the aid of his friend Steele, he came with him into direct relation with
the English people. Addison never gave posterity a chance of knowing
what was in him till, following Steele's lead, he wrote those papers in
'Tatler', 'Spectator', and 'Guardian', wherein alone his genius abides
with us, and will abide with English readers to the end. The 'Tatler',
the 'Spectator', and the 'Guardian' were, all of them, Steele's, begun
and ended by him at his sole discretion. In these three journals Steele
was answerable for 510 papers; Addison for 369. Swift wrote two papers,
and sent about a dozen fragments. Congreve wrote one article in the
'Tatler'; Pope wrote thrice for the 'Spectator', and eight times for the
'Guardian'. Addison, who was in Ireland when the 'Tatler' first
appeared, only guessed the authorship by an expression in an early
number; and it was not until eighty numbers had been issued, and the
character of the new paper was formed and established, that Addison, on
his return to London, joined the friend who, with his usual complete
absence of the vanity of self-assertion, finally ascribed to the ally he
dearly loved, the honours of success.
It was the kind of success Steele had desired--a widely-diffused
influence for good. The 'Tatlers' were penny papers published three
times a week, and issued also for another halfpenny with a blank
half-sheet for transmission by post, when any written scraps of the
day's gossip that friend might send to friend could be included. It was
through these, and the daily 'Spectators' which succeeded them, that the
people of England really learnt to read. The few leaves of sound reason
and fancy were but a light tax on uncultivated powers of attention.
Exquisite grace and true kindliness, here associated with familiar ways
and common incidents of everyday life, gave many an honest man fresh
sense of the best happiness that lies in common duties honestly
performed, and a fresh energy, free as Christianity itself from
malice--for so both Steele and Addison meant that it should be--in
opposing themselves to the frivolities and small frauds on the
conscience by which manliness is undermined.
A pamphlet by John Gay--'The Present State of Wit, in a Letter to a
Friend in the Country'--was dated May 3, 1711, about two months after
the 'Spectator' had replaced the 'Tatler'. And thus Gay represents the
best talk of the town about these papers:
"Before I proceed further in the account of our weekly papers, it will
be necessary to inform you that at the beginning of the winter, to the
infinite surprise of all the Town, Mr. Steele flung up his 'Tatler',
and instead of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, subscribed himself Richard
Steele to the last of those papers, after a handsome compliment to the
Town for their kind acceptance of his endeavours to divert them.
The chief reason he thought fit to give for his leaving off writing
was, that having been so long looked on in all public places and
companies as the Author of those papers, he found that his most
intimate friends and acquaintance were in pain to speak or act before
him.
The Town was very far from being satisfied with this reason, and most
people judged the true cause to be, either
That he was quite spent, and wanted matter to continue his
undertaking any longer; or
That he laid it down as a sort of submission to, and composition
with, the Government for some past offences; or, lastly,
That he had a mind to vary his Shape, and appear again in some new
light.
However that were, his disappearance seemed to be bewailed as some
general calamity. Every one wanted so agreeable an amusement, and the
Coffee-houses began to be sensible that the Esquire's 'Lucubrations'
alone had brought them more customers than all their other newspapers
put together.
It must indeed be confessed that never man threw up his pen, under
stronger temptations to have employed it longer. His reputation was at
a greater height, than I believe ever any living author's was before
him. It is reasonable to suppose that his gains were proportionably
considerable. Every one read him with pleasure and good-will; and the
Tories, in respect to his other good qualities, had almost forgiven
his unaccountable imprudence in declaring against them.
Lastly, it was highly improbable that, if he threw off a Character,
the ideas of which were so strongly impressed in every one's mind,
however finely he might write in any new form, that he should meet
with the same reception.
To give you my own thoughts of this gentleman's writings I shall, in
the first place, observe, that there is a noble difference between him
and all the rest of our gallant and polite authors. The latter have
endeavoured to please the Age by falling in with them, and encouraging
them in their fashionable vices and false notions of things. It would
have been a jest, some time since, for a man to have asserted that
anything witty could be said in praise of a married state, or that
Devotion and Virtue were any way necessary to the character of a Fine
Gentleman. 'Bickerstaff' ventured to tell the Town that they were a
parcel of fops, fools, and coquettes; but in such a manner as even
pleased them, and made them more than half inclined to believe that he
spoke truth.
Instead of complying with the false sentiments or vicious tastes of
the Age--either in morality, criticism, or good breeding--he has
boldly assured them that they were altogether in the wrong; and
commanded them, with an authority which perfectly well became him, to
surrender themselves to his arguments for Virtue and Good Sense.
It is incredible to conceive the effect his writings have had on the
Town; how many thousand follies they have either quite banished or
given a very great check to; how much countenance they have added to
Virtue and Religion; how many people they have rendered happy, by
shewing them it was their own fault if they were not so; and, lastly,
how entirely they have convinced our young fops and young fellows of
the value and advantages of Learning.
He has indeed rescued it out of the hands of pedants and fools, and
discovered the true method of making it amiable and lovely to all
mankind. In the dress he gives it, it is a most welcome guest at
tea-tables and assemblies, and is relished and caressed by the
merchants on the Change. Accordingly there is not a Lady at Court, nor
a Banker in Lombard Street, who is not verily persuaded that Captain
Steele is the greatest scholar and best Casuist of any man in England.
Lastly, his writings have set all our Wits and men of letters on a new
way of thinking, of which they had little or no notion before: and,
although we cannot say that any of them have come up to the beauties
of the original, I think we may venture to affirm, that every one of
them writes and thinks much more justly than they did some time since.
The vast variety of subjects which Mr. Steele has treated of, in so
different manners, and yet all so perfectly well, made the World
believe that it was impossible they should all come from the same
hand. This set every one upon guessing who was the Esquire's friend?
and most people at first fancied it must be Doctor Swift; but it is
now no longer a secret, that his only great and constant assistant was
Mr. Addison.
This is that excellent friend to whom Mr. Steele owes so much; and who
refuses to have his name set before those pieces, which the greatest
pens in England would be proud to own. Indeed, they could hardly add
to this Gentleman's reputation: whose works in Latin and English
poetry long since convinced the World, that he was the greatest Master
in Europe in those two languages.
I am assured, from good hands, that all the visions, and other tracts
of that way of writing, with a very great number of the most exquisite
pieces of wit and raillery through the 'Lucubrations' are entirely of
this Gentleman's composing: which may, in some measure, account for
that different Genius, which appears in the winter papers, from those
of the summer; at which time, as the 'Examiner' often hinted, this
friend of Mr. Steele was in Ireland.
Mr. Steele confesses in his last Volume of the 'Tatlers' that he is
obliged to Dr. Swift for his 'Town Shower', and the 'Description of
the Morn', with some other hints received from him in private
conversation.
I have also heard that several of those 'Letters', which came as from
unknown hands, were written by Mr. Henley: which is an answer to your
query, 'Who those friends are whom Mr. Steele speaks of in his last
'Tatler?''
But to proceed with my account of our other papers. The expiration of
'Bickerstaff's Lucubrations' was attended with much the same
consequences as the death of Meliboeus's 'Ox' in Virgil: as the latter
engendered swarms of bees, the former immediately produced whole
swarms of little satirical scribblers.
One of these authors called himself the 'Growler', and assured us
that, to make amends for Mr. Steele's silence, he was resolved to
'growl' at us weekly, as long as we should think fit to give him any
encouragement. Another Gentleman, with more modesty, called his paper
the 'Whisperer'; and a third, to please the Ladies, christened his the
'Tell tale'.
At the same-time came out several 'Tatlers'; each of which, with equal
truth and wit, assured us that he was the genuine 'Isaac Bickerstaff'.
It may be observed that when the 'Esquire' laid down his pen; though
he could not but foresee that several scribblers would soon snatch it
up, which he might (one would think) easily have prevented: he scorned
to take any further care about it, but left the field fairly open to
any worthy successor. Immediately, some of our Wits were for forming
themselves into a Club, headed by one Mr. Harrison, and trying how
they could shoot in this Bow of Ulysses; but soon found that this sort
of writing requires so fine and particular a manner of thinking, with
so exact a knowledge of the World, as must make them utterly despair
of success.
They seemed indeed at first to think that what was only the garnish of
the former 'Tatlers', was that which recommended them; and not those
Substantial Entertainments which they everywhere abound in. According
they were continually talking of their 'Maid', 'Night Cap',
'Spectacles', and Charles Lillie. However there were, now and then,
some faint endeavours at Humour and sparks of Wit: which the Town, for
want of better entertainment, was content to hunt after through a heap
of impertinences; but even those are, at present, become wholly
invisible and quite swallowed up in the blaze of the 'Spectator'.
You may remember, I told you before, that one cause assigned for the
laying down the 'Tatler' was, Want of Matter; and, indeed, this was
the prevailing opinion in Town: when we were surprised all at once by
a paper called the 'Spectator', which was promised to be continued
every day; and was written in so excellent a style, with so nice a
judgment, and such a noble profusion of wit and humour, that it was
not difficult to determine it could come from no other hands but those
which had penned the 'Lucubrations'.
This immediately alarmed these gentlemen, who, as it is said Mr.
Steele phrases it, had 'the Censorship in Commission.' They found the
new 'Spectator' came on like a torrent, and swept away all before him.
They despaired ever to equal him in wit, humour, or learning; which
had been their true and certain way of opposing him: and therefore
rather chose to fall on the Author; and to call out for help to all
good Christians, by assuring them again and again that they were the
First, Original, True, and undisputed 'Isaac Bickerstaff'.
Meanwhile, the 'Spectator', whom we regard as our Shelter from that
flood of false wit and impertinence which was breaking in upon us, is
in every one's hands; and a constant for our morning conversation at
tea-tables and coffee-houses. We had at first, indeed, no manner of
notion how a diurnal paper could be continued in the spirit and style
of our present 'Spectators': but, to our no small surprise, we find
them still rising upon us, and can only wonder from whence so
prodigious a run of Wit and Learning can proceed; since some of our
best judges seem to think that they have hitherto, in general,
outshone even the 'Esquire's' first 'Tatlers'.
Most people fancy, from their frequency, that they must be composed by
a Society: I withal assign the first places to Mr. Steele and his
Friend.
So far John Gay, whose discussion of the 'Tatlers' and 'Spectators'
appeared when only fifty-five numbers of the 'Spectator' had been
published.
There was high strife of faction; and there was real peril to the
country by a possible turn of affairs after Queen Anne's death, that
another Stuart restoration, in the name of divine right of kings, would
leave rights of the people to be reconquered in civil war. The chiefs of
either party were appealing to the people, and engaging all the wit they
could secure to fight on their side in the war of pamphlets. Steele's
heart was in the momentous issue. Both he and Addison had it in mind
while they were blending their calm playfulness with all the clamour of
the press. The spirit in which these friends worked, young Pope must
have felt; for after Addison had helped him in his first approach to
fame by giving honour in the 'Spectator' to his 'Essay on Criticism,'
and when he was thankful for that service, he contributed to the
'Spectator' his 'Messiah.' Such offering clearly showed how Pope
interpreted the labour of the essayists.
In the fens of Lincolnshire the antiquary Maurice Johnson collected his
neighbours of Spalding.
'Taking care,' it is said, 'not to alarm the country gentlemen by any
premature mention of antiquities, he endeavoured at first to allure
them into the more flowery paths of literature. In 1709 a few of them
were brought together every post-day at the coffee-house in the Abbey
Yard; and after one of the party had read aloud the last published
number of the 'Tatler', they proceeded to talk over the subject among
themselves.'