The sixty-fourth volume of this Library contains those papers from the
_Tatler_ which were especially associated with the imagined character of
ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, who was the central figure in that series; and in the
twenty-ninth volume there is a similar collection of papers relating to
the Spectator Club and SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY, who was the central figure
in Steele and Addison's _Spectator_. Those volumes contained, no doubt,
some of the best Essays of Addison and Steele. But in the _Tatler_ and
_Spectator_ are full armouries of the wit and wisdom of these two
writers, who summoned into life the army of the Essayists, and led it on
to kindly war against the forces of Ill-temper and Ignorance. Envy,
Hatred, Malice, and all their first cousins of the family of
Uncharitableness, are captains under those two commanders-in-chief, and
we can little afford to dismiss from the field two of the stoutest
combatants against them. In this volume it is only Addison who speaks;
and in another volume, presently to follow, there will be the voice of
Steele.
The two friends differed in temperament and in many of the outward signs
of character; but these two little books will very distinctly show how
wholly they agreed as to essentials. For Addison, Literature had a charm
of its own; he delighted in distinguishing the finer graces of good
style, and he drew from the truths of life the principles of taste in
writing. For Steele, Literature was the life itself; he loved a true
book for the soul he found in it. So he agreed with Addison in judgment.
But the six papers on "Wit," the two papers on "Chevy Chase," contained
in this volume; the eleven papers on "Imagination," and the papers on
"Paradise Lost," which may be given in some future volume; were in a form
of study for which Addison was far more apt than Steele. Thus as fellow-
workers they gave a breadth to the character of _Tatler_ and _Spectator_
that could have been produced by neither of them, singly.
The reader of this volume will never suppose that the artist's pleasure
in good art and in analysis of its constituents removes him from direct
enjoyment of the life about him; that he misses a real contact with all
the world gives that is worth his touch. Good art is but nature, studied
with love trained to the most delicate perception; and the good criticism
in which the spirit of an artist speaks is, like Addison's, calm, simple,
and benign. Pope yearned to attack John Dennis, a rough critic of the
day, who had attacked his "Essay on Criticism." Addison had discouraged
a very small assault of words. When Dennis attacked Addison's "Cato,"
Pope thought himself free to strike; but Addison took occasion to
express, through Steele, a serious regret that he had done so. True
criticism may be affected, as Addison's was, by some bias in the canons
of taste prevalent in the writer's time, but, as Addison's did in the
Chevy-Chase papers, it will dissent from prevalent misapplications of
them, and it can never associate perception of the purest truth and
beauty with petty arrogance, nor will it so speak as to give pain. When
Wordsworth was remembering with love his mother's guidance of his
childhood, and wished to suggest that there were mothers less wise in
their ways, he was checked, he said, by the unwillingness to join thought
of her "with any thought that looks at others' blame." So Addison felt
towards his mother Nature, in literature and in life. He attacked
nobody. With a light, kindly humour, that was never personal and never
could give pain, he sought to soften the harsh lines of life, abate its
follies, and inspire the temper that alone can overcome its wrongs.
Politics, in which few then knew how to think calmly and recognise the
worth of various opinion, Steele and Addison excluded from the pages of
the _Spectator_. But the first paper in this volume is upon "Public
Credit," and it did touch on the position of the country at a time when
the shock of change caused by the Revolution of 1688-89, and also the
strain of foreign war, were being severely felt.