The Spectator, Volume 1 / Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays

Author: Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele

Pages: 1,852,093 Pages

Audio Length: 25 hr 43 min

Languages: en

Summary

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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.'

Even in distant Perthshire

'the gentlemen met after church on Sunday to discuss the news of the week; the Spectators were read as regularly as the Journal.'

So the political draught of bitterness came sweetened with the wisdom of good-humour. The good-humour of the essayists touched with a light and kindly hand every form of affectation, and placed every-day life in the light in which it would be seen by a natural and honest man. A sense of the essentials of life was assumed everywhere for the reader, who was asked only to smile charitably at its vanities. Steele looked through all shams to the natural heart of the Englishman, appealed to that, and found it easily enough, even under the disguise of the young gentleman cited in the 77th

Tatler

'so ambitious to be thought worse than he is that in his degree of understanding he sets up for a free-thinker, and talks atheistically in coffee-houses all day, though every morning and evening, it can be proved upon him, he regularly at home says his prayers.'

But as public events led nearer to the prospect of a Jacobite triumph that would have again brought Englishmen against each other sword to sword, there was no voice of warning more fearless than Richard Steele's. He changed the

Spectator

for the

Guardian

, that was to be, in its plan, more free to guard the people's rights, and, standing forward more distinctly as a politician, he became member for Stockbridge. In place of the

Guardian

, which he had dropped when he felt the plan of that journal unequal to the right and full expression of his mind, Steele took for a periodical the name of

Englishman

, and under that name fought, with then unexampled abstinence from personality, against the principles upheld by Swift in his

Examiner

. Then, when the Peace of Utrecht alarmed English patriots, Steele in a bold pamphlet on

The Crisis

expressed his dread of arbitrary power and a Jacobite succession with a boldness that cost him his seat in Parliament, as he had before sacrificed to plain speaking his place of Gazetteer.

Of the later history of Steele and Addison a few words will suffice. This is not an account of their lives, but an endeavour to show why Englishmen must always have a living interest in the

Spectator

, their joint production. Steele's

Spectator

ended with the seventh volume. The members of the Club were all disposed of, and the journal formally wound up; but by the suggestion of a future ceremony of opening the

Spectator's

mouth, a way was made for Addison, whenever he pleased, to connect with the famous series an attempt of his own for its revival. A year and a half later Addison made this attempt, producing his new journal with the old name and, as far as his contributions went, not less than the old wit and earnestness, three times a week instead of daily. But he kept it alive only until the completion of one volume. Addison had not Steele's popular tact as an editor. He preached, and he suffered drier men to preach, while in his jest he now and then wrote what he seems to have been unwilling to acknowledge. His eighth volume contains excellent matter, but the subjects are not always well chosen or varied judiciously, and one understands why the

Spectator

took a firmer hold upon society when the two friends in the full strength of their life, aged about forty, worked together and embraced between them a wide range of human thought and feeling. It should be remembered also that Queen Anne died while Addison's eighth volume was appearing, and the change in the Whig position brought him other occupation of his time.

In April, 1713, in the interval between the completion of the true

Spectator

and the appearance of the supplementary volume, Addison's tragedy of

Cato

, planned at College; begun during his foreign travels, retouched in England, and at last completed, was produced at Drury Lane.Addison had not considered it a stage play, but when it was urged that the time was proper for animating the public with the sentiments of Cato, he assented to its production.Apart from its real merit the play had the advantage of being applauded by the Whigs, who saw in it a Whig political ideal, and by the Tories, who desired to show that they were as warm friends of liberty as any Whig could be.

Upon the death of Queen Anne Addison acted for a short time as secretary to the Regency, and when George I appointed Addison's patron, the Earl of Sunderland, to the Lord-lieutenancy of Ireland, Sunderland took Addison with him as chief secretary. Sunderland resigned in ten months, and thus Addison's secretaryship came to an end in August, 1716. Addison was also employed to meet the Rebellion of 1715 by writing the

Freeholder

He wrote under this title fifty-five papers, which were published twice a week between December, 1715, and June, 1716; and he was rewarded with the post of Commissioner for Trade and Colonies.In August, 1716, he married the Countess Dowager of Warwick, mother to the young Earl of Warwick, of whose education he seems to have had some charge in 1708.Addison settled upon the Countess £4000 in lieu of an estate which she gave up for his sake.Henceforth he lived chiefly at Holland House.In April, 1717, Lord Sunderland became Secretary of State, and still mindful of Marlborough's illustrious supporter, he made Addison his colleague.Eleven months later, ill health obliged Addison to resign the seals; and his death followed, June 17, 1719, at the age of 47.

Steele's political difficulties ended at the death of Queen Anne. The return of the Whigs to power on the accession of George I brought him the office of Surveyor of the Royal Stables at Hampton Court; he was also first in the Commission of the peace for Middlesex, and was made one of the deputy lieutenants of the county. At the request of the managers Steele's name was included in the new patent required at Drury Lane by the royal company of comedians upon the accession of a new sovereign. Steele also was returned as M. P. for Boroughbridge, in Yorkshire, was writer of the Address to the king presented by the Lord-lieutenant and the deputy lieutenants of Middlesex, and being knighted on that occasion, with two other of the deputies, became in the spring of the year, 1714, Sir Richard Steele. Very few weeks after the death of his wife, in December, 1718, Sunderland, at a time when he had Addison for colleague, brought in a bill for preventing any future creations of peers, except when an existing peerage should become extinct. Steele, who looked upon this as an infringement alike of the privileges of the crown and of the rights of the subject, opposed the bill in Parliament, and started in March, 1719, a paper called the

Plebeian

, in which he argued against a measure tending, he said, to the formation of an oligarchy. Addison replied in the

Old Whig

, and this, which occurred within a year of the close of Addison's life, was the main subject of political difference between them.The bill, strongly opposed, was dropped for that session, and reintroduced (after Addison's death) in the December following, to be thrown out by the House of Commons.

Steele's argument against the government brought on him the hostility of the Duke of Newcastle, then Lord Chamberlain; and it was partly to defend himself and his brother patentees against hostile action threatened by the Duke, that Steele, in January, 1720, started his paper called the

Theatre

. But he was dispossessed of his government of the theatre, to which a salary of £600 a-year had been attached, and suffered by the persecution of the court until Walpole's return to power. Steele was then restored to his office, and in the following year, 1722, produced his most successful comedy,

The Conscious Lovers

. After this time his health declined; his spirits were depressed. He left London for Bath. His only surviving son, Eugene, born while the

Spectator

was being issued, and to whom Prince Eugene had stood godfather, died at the age of eleven or twelve in November, 1723. The younger also of his two daughters was marked for death by consumption. He was broken in health and fortune when, in 1726, he had an attack of palsy which was the prelude to his death. He died Sept. 1, 1729, at Carmarthen, where he had been boarding with a mercer who was his agent and receiver of rents. There is a pleasant record that

'he retained his cheerful sweetness of temper to the last; and would often be carried out, of a summer's evening, where the country lads and lasses were assembled at their rural sports, — and, with his pencil, gave an order on his agent, the mercer, for a new gown to the best dancer.'

Two editions of the

Spectator

, the tenth and eleventh, were published by Tonson in the year of Steele's death. These and the next edition, dated 1739, were without the translations of the mottos, which appear, however, in the edition of 1744. Notes were first added by Dr. Percy, the editor of the

Reliques of Ancient Poetry

, and Dr. Calder. Dr. John Calder, a native of Aberdeen, bred to the dissenting ministry, was for some time keeper of Dr. Williams's Library in Redcross Street. He was a candidate for the office given to Dr. Abraham Rees, of editor and general super-intendent of the new issue of

Chambers's Cyclopædia

, undertaken by the booksellers in 1776, and he supplied to it some new articles.The Duke of Northumberland warmly patronized Dr. Calder, and made him his companion in London and at Alnwick Castle as Private Literary Secretary.Dr. Thomas Percy, who had constituted himself cousin and retainer to the Percy of Northumberland, obtained his bishopric of Dromore in 1782, in the following year lost his only son, and suffered from that failure in eyesight, which resulted in a total blindness.

Having become intimately acquainted with Dr. Calder when at Northumberland House and Alnwick, Percy intrusted to him the notes he had collected for illustrating the

Tatler

Spectator

, and

Guardian

. These were after-wards used, with additions by Dr. Calder, in the various editions of those works, especially in the six-volume edition of the

Tatler

, published by John Nichols in 1786, where Percy's notes have a P. attached to them, and Dr. Calder's are signed 'Annotator.' The

Tatler

was annotated fully, and the annotated

Tatler

has supplied some pieces of information given in the present edition of the

Spectator

. Percy actually edited two volumes for R. Tonson in 1764, but the work was stopped by the death of the bookseller, and the other six were added to them in 1789. They were slightly annotated, both as regards the number and the value of the notes; but Percy and Calder lived when

Spectator

traditions were yet fresh, and oral information was accessible as to points of personal allusion or as to the authorship of a few papers or letters which but for them might have remained anonymous. Their notes are those of which the substance has run through all subsequent editions. Little, if anything, was added to them by Bisset or Chalmers; the energies of those editors having been chiefly directed to the preserving or multiplying of corruptions of the text. Percy, when telling Tonson that he had completed two volumes of the

Spectator

, said that he had corrected 'innumerable corruptions' which had then crept in, and could have come only by misprint.Since that time not only have misprints been preserved and multiplied, but punctuation has been deliberately modernized, to the destruction of the freshness of the original style, and editors of another 'understanding age' have also taken upon themselves by many a little touch to correct Addison's style or grammar.

This volume reprints for the first time in the present century the text of the

Spectator

as its authors left it. A good recent edition contains in the first 18 papers, which are a fair sample of the whole, 88 petty variations from the proper text (at that rate, in the whole work more than 3000) apart from the recasting of the punctuation, which is counted as a defect only in two instances, where it has changed the sense. Chalmers's text, of 1817, was hardly better, and about two-thirds of the whole number of corruptions had already appeared in Bisset's edition of 1793, from which they were transferred. Thus Bisset as well as Chalmers in the Dedication to Vol. I turned the 'polite

parts

of learning' into the 'polite

arts

of learning,' and when the silent gentleman tells us that many to whom his person is well known speak of him 'very currently by Mr. What-d'ye-call him,' Bisset before Chalmers rounded the sentence into 'very correctly by

the appellation

of Mr. What-d'ye-call him.' But it seems to have been Chalmers who first undertook to correct, in the next paper, Addison's grammar, by turning 'have laughed

to have seen

' into 'have laughed

to see

' and transformed a treaty '

with

London and Wise,' — a firm now of historical repute, — for the supply of flowers to the opera, into a treaty '

between

London and Wise,' which most people would take to be a very different matter. If the present edition has its own share of misprints and oversights, at least it inherits none; and it contains no wilful alteration of the text.

The papers as they first appeared in the daily issue of a penny (and after the stamp was imposed two-penny) folio half-sheet, have been closely compared with the first issue in guinea octavos, for which they were revised, and with the last edition that appeared before the death of Steele.

The original text is here given

precisely

as it was left after revision by its authors; and there is shown at the same time

the amount and character of the revision

Sentences added in the reprint are printed in brown without any appended note.
Sentences omitted, or words altered, are shown by printing the revised version in brown, and giving the text as it stood in the original daily issue as a foot-note¹

Thus the reader has here both the original texts of the

Spectator

. The

Essays

, as revised by their authors for permanent use, form the main text of the present volume. But if the words or passages in brackets be omitted; the words or passages in corresponding foot-notes, — where there are such foot-notes, — being substituted for them; the text becomes throughout that of the

Spectator

as it first came out in daily numbers.

As the few differences between good spelling in Queen Anne's time and good spelling now are never of a kind to obscure the sense of a word, or lessen the enjoyment of the reader, it has been thought better to make the reproduction perfect, and thus show not only what Steele and Addison wrote, but how they spelt,
while restoring to their style the proper harmony of their own methods of punctuating,
and their way of sometimes getting emphasis by turning to account the use of Capitals, which in their hands was not wholly conventional.
The original folio numbers have been followed also in the use of italics
and other little details of the disposition of the type; for example, in the reproduction of those rows of single inverted commas, which distinguish what a correspondent called the parts 'laced down the side with little c's.' [This last detail of formatting has not been reproduced in this file. html Ed.]
The translation of the mottos and Latin quotations, which Steele and Addison deliberately abstained from giving, and which, as they were since added, impede and sometimes confound and contradict the text, are here placed in a body at the end, for those who want them.

Again and again the essayists indulge in banter on the mystery of the Latin and Greek mottos; and what confusion must enter into the mind of the unwary reader who finds Pope's

Homer

quoted at the head of a

Spectator

long before Addison's word of applause to the young poet's

Essay on Criticism.

The mottos then are placed in an Appendix.
There is a short Appendix also of advertisements taken from the original number of the Spectator, and a few others, where they seem to illustrate some point in the text, will be found among the notes.

In the large number of notes here added to a revision of those bequeathed to us by Percy and Calder, the object has been to give information which may contribute to some nearer acquaintance with the writers of the book, and enjoyment of allusions to past manners and events.

Finally, from the General Index to the Spectators, &c., published as a separate volume in 1760, there has been taken what was serviceable, and additions have been made to it with a desire to secure for this edition of the Spectator the advantages of being handy for reference as well as true to the real text.

H. M.

Footnote 1:

"Sentences omitted, or words altered;" not, of course, the immaterial variations of spelling into which compositors slipped in the printing office. In the

Athenaeum

of May 12, 1877, is an answer to misapprehensions on this head by the editor of a Clarendon Press volume of

Selections from Addison

return to footnote mark

Contents

Original Dedication

To The Right Honourable John Lord Sommers, Baron Of Evesham¹

My Lord,

I should not act the Part of an impartial Spectator, if I Dedicated the following Papers to one who is not of the most consummate and most acknowledged Merit.

None but a person of a finished Character can be the proper Patron of a Work, which endeavours to Cultivate and Polish Human Life, by promoting Virtue and Knowledge, and by recommending whatsoever may be either Useful or Ornamental to Society.

I know that the Homage I now pay You, is offering a kind of Violence to one who is as solicitous to shun Applause, as he is assiduous to deserve it. But, my Lord, this is perhaps the only Particular in which your Prudence will be always disappointed.

While Justice, Candour, Equanimity, a Zeal for the Good of your Country, and the most persuasive Eloquence in bringing over others to it, are valuable Distinctions, You are not to expect that the Publick will so far comply with your Inclinations, as to forbear celebrating such extraordinary Qualities. It is in vain that You have endeavoured to conceal your Share of Merit, in the many National Services which You have effected. Do what You will, the present Age will be talking of your Virtues, tho' Posterity alone will do them Justice.

Other Men pass through Oppositions and contending Interests in the ways of Ambition, but Your Great Abilities have been invited to Power, and importuned to accept of Advancement. Nor is it strange that this should happen to your Lordship, who could bring into the Service of Your Sovereign the Arts and Policies of Ancient

Greece

and

Rome

; as well as the most exact knowledge of our own Constitution in particular, and of the interests of

Europe

in general; to which I must also add, a certain Dignity in Yourself, that (to say the least of it) has been always equal to those great Honours which have been conferred upon You.

It is very well known how much the Church owed to You in the most dangerous Day it ever saw, that of the Arraignment of its Prelates; and how far the Civil Power, in the Late and present Reign, has been indebted to your Counsels and Wisdom.

But to enumerate the great Advantages which the publick has received from your Administration, would be a more proper Work for an History, than an Address of this Nature.

Your Lordship appears as great in your Private Life, as in the most Important Offices which You have born. I would therefore rather chuse to speak of the Pleasure You afford all who are admitted into your Conversation, of Your Elegant Taste in all the Polite Parts of Learning, of Your great Humanity and Complacency of Manners, and of the surprising Influence which is peculiar to You in making every one who Converses with your Lordship prefer You to himself, without thinking the less meanly of his own Talents. But if I should take notice of all that might be observed in your Lordship, I should have nothing new to say upon any other Character of Distinction.

I am,

My Lord,

Your Lordship's

Most Obedient,

Most Devoted

Humble Servant,

The Spectator

Footnote 1:

In 1695, when a student at Oxford, aged 23, Joseph Addison had dedicated 'to the Right Honourable Sir George Somers, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal,' a poem written in honour of King William III after his capture of Namur in sight of the whole French Army under Villeroi. This was Addison's first bid for success in Literature; and the twenty-seven lines in which he then asked Somers to 'receive the present of a Muse unknown,' were honourably meant to be what Dr. Johnson called 'a kind of rhyming introduction to Lord Somers.' If you, he said to Somers then —

'If you, well pleas'd, shall smile upon my lays,
Secure of fame, my voice I'll boldly raise,
For next to what you write, is what you praise.'

Somers did smile, and at once held out to Addison his helping hand. Mindful of this, and of substantial friendship during the last seventeen years, Addison joined Steele in dedicating to his earliest patron the first volume of the

Essays

which include his best security of fame.

At that time, John Somers, aged 61, and retired from political life, was weak in health and high in honours earned by desert only. He was the son of an attorney at Worcester, rich enough to give him a liberal education at his City Grammar School and at Trinity College, Oxford, where he was entered as a Gentleman Commoner. He left the University, without taking a degree, to practise law. Having a strong bent towards Literature as well as a keen, manly interest in the vital questions which concerned the liberties of England under Charles the Second, he distinguished himself by political tracts which maintained constitutional rights. He rose at the bar to honour and popularity, especially after his pleading as junior counsel for Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Six Bishops, Lloyd, Turner, Lake, Ken, White, and Trelawney, who signed the petition against the King's order for reading in all churches a Declaration for Liberty of Conscience, which they said 'was founded upon such a dispensing power as hath been often declared illegal in Parliament.' Somers earned the gratitude of a people openly and loudly triumphing in the acquittal of the Seven Bishops. He was active also in co-operation with those who were planning the expulsion of the Stuarts and the bringing over of the Prince of Orange. During the Interregnum he, and at the same time also Charles Montague, afterwards Lord Halifax, first entered Parliament. He was at the conference with the Lords upon the question of declaring the Throne vacant. As Chairman of the Committee appointed for the purpose, it was Somers who drew up the Declaration of Right, which, in placing the Prince and Princess of Orange on the throne, set forth the grounds of the Revolution and asserted against royal encroachment the ancient rights and liberties of England. For these services and for his rare ability as a constitutional lawyer, King William, in the first year of his reign, made Somers Solicitor-General. In 1692 he became Attorney-General as Sir John Somers, and soon afterwards, in March 1692-3, the Great Seal, which had been four years in Commission, was delivered to his keeping, with a patent entitling him to a pension of £2000 a year from the day he quitted office. He was then also sworn in as Privy Councillor. In April 1697 Somers as Lord Keeper delivered up the Great Seal, and received it back with the higher title of Lord Chancellor. He was at the same time created Baron Somers of Evesham; Crown property was also given to him to support his dignity. One use that he made of his influence was to procure young Addison a pension, that he might be forwarded in service of the State. Party spirit among his political opponents ran high against Somers. At the close of 1699 they had a majority in the Commons, and deprived him of office, but they failed before the Lords in an impeachment against him. In Queen Anne's reign, between 1708 and 1710, the constitutional statesman, long infirm of health, who had been in retirement serving Science as President of the Royal Society, was serving the State as President of the Council. But in 1712, when Addison addressed to him this Dedication of the first Volume of the first reprint of

the Spectator

, he had withdrawn from public life, and four years afterwards he died of a stroke of apoplexy.

Of Somers as a patron Lord Macaulay wrote:

'He had traversed the whole vast range of polite literature, ancient and modern.He was at once a munificent and a severely judicious patron of genius and learning.Locke owed opulence to Somers.By Somers Addison was drawn forth from a cell in a college.In distant countries the name of Somers was mentioned with respect and gratitude by great scholars and poets who had never seen his face.He was the benefactor of Leclerc.He was the friend of Filicaja.Neither political nor religious differences prevented him from extending his powerful protection to merit.Hickes, the fiercest and most intolerant of all the non-jurors, obtained, by the influence of Somers, permission to study Teutonic antiquities in freedom and safety.Vertue, a Strict Roman Catholic, was raised, by the discriminating and liberal patronage of Somers, from poverty and obscurity to the first rank among the engravers of the age.'

return to footnote mark

Contents

No.1

Thursday, March 1, 1711

Addison

Non fumum ex fulgore, sed ex fumo dare lucem
Cogitat, ut speciosa dehinc miracula promat

Hor.

I have observed, that a Reader seldom peruses a Book with Pleasure 'till he knows whether the Writer of it be a black or a fair Man, of a mild or cholerick Disposition, Married or a Batchelor, with other Particulars of the like nature, that conduce very much to the right Understanding of an Author. To gratify this Curiosity, which is so natural to a Reader, I design this Paper, and my next, as Prefatory Discourses to my following Writings, and shall give some Account in them of the several persons that are engaged in this Work. As the chief trouble of Compiling, Digesting, and Correcting will fall to my Share, I must do myself the Justice to open the Work with my own History.

was born to a small Hereditary Estate, which

according to the tradition of the village where it lies,

was bounded by the same Hedges and Ditches in

William

the Conqueror's Time that it is at present, and has been delivered down from Father to Son whole and entire, without the Loss or Acquisition of a single Field or Meadow, during the Space of six hundred

Years

. There

runs

a Story in the Family, that when my Mother was gone with Child of me about three Months, she dreamt that she was brought to Bed of a Judge. Whether this might proceed from a Law-suit which was then depending in the Family, or my Father's being a Justice of the Peace, I cannot determine; for I am not so vain as to think it presaged any Dignity that I should arrive at in my future Life, though that was the Interpretation which the Neighbourhood put upon it. The Gravity of my Behaviour at my very first Appearance in the World, and all the Time that I sucked, seemed to favour my Mother's Dream: For, as she has often told me, I threw away my Rattle before I was two Months old, and would not make use of my Coral till they had taken away the Bells from it.

As for the rest of my Infancy, there being nothing in it remarkable, I shall pass it over in Silence. I find that, during my Nonage, I had the reputation of a very sullen Youth, but was always a Favourite of my School-master, who used to say,

that my parts were solid, and would wear well

I had not been long at the University, before I distinguished myself by a most profound Silence: For, during the Space of eight Years, excepting in the publick Exercises of the College, I scarce uttered the Quantity of an hundred Words; and indeed do not remember that I ever spoke three Sentences together in my whole Life.Whilst I was in this Learned Body, I applied myself with so much Diligence to my Studies, that there are very few celebrated Books, either in the Learned or the Modern Tongues, which I am not acquainted with.

Upon the Death of my Father I was resolved to travel into Foreign Countries, and therefore left the University, with the Character of an odd unaccountable Fellow, that had a great deal of Learning, if I would but show it.

insatiable Thirst after Knowledge carried me into all the Countries of

Europe

in which

there was any thing new or strange to be seen; nay, to such a Degree was my curiosity raised, that having read the controversies of some great Men concerning the Antiquities of

Egypt

, I made a Voyage to

Grand Cairo

, on purpose to take the Measure of a Pyramid; and, as soon as I had set my self right in that Particular, returned to my Native Country with great Satisfaction

⁴

I have passed my latter Years in this City, where I am frequently seen in most publick Places, tho' there are not above half a dozen of my select Friends that know me; of whom my next Paper shall give a more particular Account.

There

is no place of

general

⁵

Resort wherein I do not often make my appearance; sometimes I am seen thrusting my Head into a Round of Politicians at

Will's

⁶

and listning with great Attention to the Narratives that are made in those little Circular Audiences.

Sometimes

I smoak a Pipe at

Child's

⁷

; and, while I seem attentive to nothing but the

Post-Man

⁸

, over-hear the Conversation of every Table in the Room.

appear on

Sunday

nights at

St.James's

Coffee House

⁹

, and sometimes join the little Committee of Politicks in the Inner-Room, as one who comes there to hear and improve.

Face is likewise very well known at the

Grecian

¹⁰

the

Cocoa-Tree

¹¹

and in the Theaters both of

Drury Lane

and the

Hay-Market

¹²

have

been taken for a Merchant upon the

Exchange

for above these ten Years, and sometimes pass for a

Jew

in the Assembly of Stock-jobbers at

Jonathan's

¹³

In short, where-ever I see a Cluster of People, I always mix with them, tho' I never open my Lips but in my own Club.

Thus I live in the World, rather as a Spectator of Mankind, than as one of the Species; by which means I have made my self a Speculative Statesman, Soldier, Merchant, and Artizan, without ever medling with any Practical Part in Life. I am very well versed in the Theory of an Husband, or a Father, and can discern the Errors in the Œconomy, Business, and Diversion of others, better than those who are engaged in them; as Standers-by discover Blots, which are apt to escape those who are in the Game. I never espoused any Party with Violence, and am resolved to observe an exact Neutrality between the Whigs and Tories, unless I shall be forc'd to declare myself by the Hostilities of either side. In short, I have acted in all the parts of my Life as a Looker-on, which is the Character I intend to preserve in this Paper.

I have given the Reader just so much of my History and Character, as to let him see I am not altogether unqualified for the Business I have undertaken. As for other Particulars in my Life and Adventures, I shall insert them in following Papers, as I shall see occasion. In the mean time, when I consider how much I have seen, read, and heard, I begin to blame my own Taciturnity; and since I have neither Time nor Inclination to communicate the Fulness of my Heart in Speech, I am resolved to do it in Writing; and to Print my self out, if possible, before I Die. I have been often told by my Friends that it is Pity so many useful Discoveries which I have made, should be in the Possession of a Silent Man. For this Reason therefore, I shall publish a Sheet full of Thoughts every Morning, for the Benefit of my Contemporaries; and if I can any way contribute to the Diversion or Improvement of the Country in which I live, I shall leave it, when I am summoned out of it, with the secret Satisfaction of thinking that I have not Lived in vain.

There

are three very material Points which I have not spoken to in this Paper, and which, for several important Reasons, I must keep to my self, at least for some Time: I mean, an Account of my Name, my Age, and my Lodgings. I must confess I would gratify my Reader in any thing that is reasonable; but as for these three Particulars, though I am sensible they might tend very much to the Embellishment of my Paper, I cannot yet come to a Resolution of communicating them to the Publick. They would indeed draw me out of that Obscurity which I have enjoyed for many Years, and expose me in Publick Places to several Salutes and Civilities, which have been always very disagreeable to me; for the greatest

pain

I can suffer,

¹⁴

the being talked to, and being stared at. It is for this Reason likewise, that I keep my Complexion and Dress, as very great Secrets; tho' it is not impossible, but I may make Discoveries of both in the Progress of the Work I have undertaken.

After having been thus particular upon my self, I shall in to-Morrow's Paper give an Account of those Gentlemen who are concerned with me in this Work. For, as I have before intimated, a Plan of it is laid and concerted (as all other Matters of Importance are) in a Club.

However

, as my Friends have engaged me to stand in the Front, those who have a mind to correspond with me, may direct their Letters

To the Spectator

, at Mr.

Buckley's

, in

Little Britain

¹⁵

. For

must further acquaint the Reader, that tho' our Club meets only on

Tuesdays

and

Thursdays

, we have appointed a Committee to sit every Night, for the Inspection of all such Papers as may contribute to the Advancement of the Public Weal.

¹⁶

Footnote 1:

I find by the writings of the family,

return to footnote mark

Footnote 2:

goes

return

Footnote 3:

where

return

Footnote 4:

This is said to allude to a description of the Pyramids of Egypt, by John Greaves, a Persian scholar and Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford, who studied the principle of weights and measures in the Roman Foot and the Denarius, and whose visit to the Pyramids in 1638, by aid of his patron Laud, was described in his

Pyramidographia

. That work had been published in 1646, sixty-five years before the appearance of the

Spectator

, and Greaves died in 1652. But in 1706 appeared a tract, ascribed to him by its title-page, and popular enough to have been reprinted in 1727 and 1745, entitled,

The Origine and Antiquity of our English Weights and Measures discovered by their near agreement with such Standards that are now found in one of the Egyptian Pyramids.

It based its arguments on measurements in the

Pyramidographia

, and gave to Professor Greaves, in Addison's time, the same position with regard to Egypt that has been taken in our time by the Astronomer-Royal for Scotland, Professor Piazzi Smyth.

return

Footnote 5:

publick

return

Footnote 6:

Will's

Coffee House, which had been known successively as the

Red Cow

and the

Rose

before it took a permanent name from Will Urwin, its proprietor, was the corner house on the north side of Russell Street, at the end of Bow Street, now No. 21. Dryden's use of this Coffee House caused the wits of the town to resort there, and after Dryden's death, in 1700, it remained for some years the Wits' Coffee House. There the strong interest in current politics took chiefly the form of satire, epigram, or entertaining narrative. Its credit was already declining in the days of the

Spectator

; wit going out and card-play coming in.

return

Footnote 7:

Child's

Coffee House was in St. Paul's Churchyard. Neighbourhood to the Cathedral and Doctors' Commons made it a place of resort for the Clergy. The College of Physicians had been first established in Linacre's House, No. 5, Knightrider Street, Doctors' Commons, whence it had removed to Amen Corner, and thence in 1674 to the adjacent Warwick Lane. The Royal Society, until its removal in 1711 to Crane Court, Fleet Street, had its rooms further east, at Gresham College. Physicians, therefore, and philosophers, as well as the clergy, used

Child's

as a convenient place of resort.

return

Footnote 8:

The

Postman

, established and edited by M. Fonvive, a learned and grave French Protestant, who was said to make £600 a year by it, was a penny paper in the highest repute, Fonvive having secured for his weekly chronicle of foreign news a good correspondence in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Flanders, Holland. John Dunton, the bookseller, in his

Life and Errors,

published in 1705, thus characterized the chief newspapers of the day:

'the Observator is best to towel the Jacks, the Review is best to promote peace, the Flying Post is best for the Scotch news, the Postboy is best for the English and Spanish news, the Daily Courant is the best critic, the English Post is the best collector, the London Gazette has the best authority, and the Postman is the best for everything.'

return

Footnote 9:

St.James's

Coffee House was the last house but one on the south-west corner of St. James's Street; closed about 1806. On its site is now a pile of buildings looking down Pall Mall. Near St. James's Palace, it was a place of resort for Whig officers of the Guards and men of fashion. It was famous also in Queen Anne's reign, and long after, as the house most favoured Whig statesmen and members of Parliament, who could there privately discuss their party tactics.

return

Footnote 10:

The

Grecian

Coffee House was in Devereux Court, Strand, and named from a Greek, Constantine, who kept it. Close to the Temple, it was a place of resort for the lawyers. Constantine's Greek had tempted also Greek scholars to the house, learned Professors and Fellows of the Royal Society. Here, it is said, two friends quarrelled so bitterly over a Greek accent that they went out into Devereux Court and fought a duel, in which one was killed on the spot.

return

cross-reference: return to Footnote 1 of No.49

Footnote 11:

The

Cocoa Tree

was a Chocolate House in St. James's Street, used by Tory statesmen and men of fashion as exclusively as

St.James's

Coffee House, in the same street, was used by Whigs of the same class. It afterwards became a Tory club.

return

Footnote 12:

Drury Lane had a theatre in Shakespeare's time, 'the Phoenix,' called also 'the Cockpit.' It was destroyed in 1617 by a Puritan mob, re-built, and occupied again till the stoppage of stage-plays in 1648. In that theatre Marlowe's

Jew of Malta,

Massinger's

New Way to Pay Old Debts,

and other pieces of good literature, were first produced. Its players under James I were 'the Queen's servants.' In 1656 Davenant broke through the restriction upon stage-plays, and took actors and musicians to 'the Cockpit,' from Aldersgate Street. After the Restoration, Davenant having obtained a patent, occupied, in Portugal Row, the Lincoln's Inn Theatre, and afterwards one on the site of Dorset House, west of Whitefriars, the last theatre to which people went in boats. Sir William Davenant, under the patronage of the Duke of York, called his the Duke's Players. Thomas Killigrew then had 'the Cockpit' in Drury Lane, his company being that of the King's Players, and it was Killigrew who, dissatisfied with the old 'Cockpit,' opened, in 1663, the first

Drury Lane Theatre

, nearly upon the site now occupied by D. L. No. 4. The original theatre, burnt in 1671-2, was rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren, and opened in 1674 with a

Prologue

by Dryden. That (D. L. No. 2) was the house visited by

the Spectator

. It required rebuilding in 1741 (D. L. No. 3); and was burnt down, and again rebuilt, in 1809, as we now have it (D. L. No. 4). There was no Covent Garden Theatre till after

the Spectator's

time, in 1733, when that house was first opened by Rich, the harlequin, under the patent granted to the Duke's Company.

In 1711 the other great house was the theatre in the Haymarket, recently built by Sir John Vanbrugh, author of

The Provoked Wife,

and architect of Blenheim. This

Haymarket Theatre

, on the site of that known as 'Her Majesty's,' was designed and opened by Vanbrugh in 1706, thirty persons of quality having subscribed a hundred pounds each towards the cost of it. He and Congreve were to write the plays, and Betterton was to take charge of their performance. The speculation was a failure; partly because the fields and meadows of the west end of the town cut off the poorer playgoers of the City, who could not afford coach-hire; partly because the house was too large, and its architecture swallowed up the voices of the actors. Vanbrugh and Congreve opened their grand west-end theatre with concession to the new taste of the fashionable for Italian Opera. They began with a translated opera set to Italian music, which ran only for three nights. Sir John Vanbrugh then produced his comedy of

The Confederacy,

with less success than it deserved. In a few months Congreve abandoned his share in the undertaking. Vanbrugh proceeded to adapt for his new house three plays of Molière. Then Vanbrugh, still failing, let the Haymarket to Mr. Owen Swiney, a trusted agent of the manager of

Drury Lane

, who was to allow him to draw what actors he pleased from

Drury Lane

and divide profits. The recruited actors in the

Haymarket

had better success. The secret league between the two theatres was broken. In 1707 the

Haymarket

was supported by a subscription headed by Lord Halifax. But presently a new joint patentee brought energy into the counsels of

Drury Lane

. Amicable restoration was made to the Theatre Royal of the actors under Swiney at the

Haymarket

; and to compensate Swiney for his loss of profit, it was agreed that while

Drury Lane

confined itself to the acting of plays, he should profit by the new taste for Italian music, and devote the house in the

Haymarket

to opera. Swiney was content. The famous singer Nicolini had come over, and the town was impatient to hear him. This compact held for a short time. It was broken then by quarrels behind the scenes. In 1709 Wilks, Dogget, Cibber, and Mrs. Oldfield treated with Swiney to be sharers with him in the

Haymarket

as heads of a dramatic company. They contracted the width of the theatre, brought down its enormously high ceiling, thus made the words of the plays audible, and had the town to themselves, till a lawyer, Mr. William Collier, M. P. for Truro, in spite of the counter-attraction of the trial of Sacheverell, obtained a license to open

Drury Lane

, and produced an actress who drew money to Charles Shadwell's comedy,

The Fair Quaker of Deal.

At the close of the season Collier agreed with Swiney and his actor-colleagues to give up to them

Drury Lane

with its actors, take in exchange the

Haymarket

with its singers, and be sole Director of the Opera; the actors to pay Collier two hundred a year for the use of his license, and to close their house on the Wednesdays when an opera was played.

This was the relative position of

Drury Lane

and the

Haymarket

theatres when the

Spectator

first appeared.

Drury Lane

had entered upon a long season of greater prosperity than it had enjoyed for thirty years before. Collier, not finding the

Haymarket

as prosperous as it was fashionable, was planning a change of place with Swiney, and he so contrived, by lawyer's wit and court influence, that in the winter following 1711 Collier was at Drury Lane with a new license for himself, Wilks, Dogget, and Cibber; while Swiney, transferred to the Opera, was suffering a ruin that caused him to go abroad, and be for twenty years afterwards an exile from his country.

return

Footnote 13:

Jonathan's

Coffee House, in Change Alley, was the place of resort for stock-jobbers. It was to

Garraway's

, also in Change Alley, that people of quality on business in the City, or the wealthy and reputable citizens, preferred to go.

return

Footnote 14:

pains ... are.

return

Footnote 15:

The Spectator

in its first daily issue was

'Printed for Sam.Buckley, at the Dolphin in Little Britain; and sold by A.Baldwin in Warwick Lane.'

return

Footnote 16:

The initials appended to the papers in their daily issue were placed, in a corner of the page, after the printer's name.

return

Contents

No.2

Friday, March 2, 1711

Steele

...Ast Alii sex
Et plures uno conclamant ore.

Juv.

The

first of our Society is a Gentleman of

Worcestershire

, of antient Descent, a Baronet, his Name Sir

Roger De Coverly.

His great Grandfather was Inventor of that famous Country-Dance which is call'd after him. All who know that Shire are very well acquainted with the Parts and Merits of Sir

Roger

. He is a Gentleman that is very singular in his Behaviour, but his Singularities proceed from his good Sense, and are Contradictions to the Manners of the World, only as he thinks the World is in the wrong. However, this Humour creates him no Enemies, for he does nothing with Sourness or Obstinacy; and his being unconfined to Modes and Forms, makes him but the readier and more capable to please and oblige all who know him.

When

he is in town he lives in

Soho Square

: It is said, he keeps himself a Batchelour by reason he was crossed in Love by a perverse beautiful Widow of the next County to him.

Before

this Disappointment, Sir

Roger

was what you call a fine Gentleman, had often supped with my Lord

Rochester

and Sir

George Etherege

⁴

, fought a Duel upon his first coming to Town, and kick'd Bully

Dawson

⁵

in a publick Coffee-house for calling him Youngster. But being ill-used by the above-mentioned Widow, he was very serious for a Year and a half; and tho' his Temper being naturally jovial, he at last got over it, he grew careless of himself and never dressed afterwards; he continues to wear a Coat and Doublet of the same Cut that were in Fashion at the Time of his Repulse, which, in his merry Humours, he tells us, has been in and out twelve Times since he first wore it. 'Tis said Sir

Roger

grew humble in his Desires after he had forgot this cruel Beauty, insomuch that it is reported he has frequently offended in Point of Chastity with Beggars and Gypsies: but this is look'd upon by his Friends rather as Matter of Raillery than Truth. He is now in his Fifty-sixth Year, cheerful, gay, and hearty, keeps a good House in both Town and Country; a great Lover of Mankind; but there is such a mirthful Cast in his Behaviour, that he is rather beloved than esteemed. His Tenants grow rich, his Servants look satisfied, all the young Women profess Love to him, and the young Men are glad of his Company: When he comes into a House he calls the Servants by their Names, and talks all the way Up Stairs to a Visit. I must not omit that Sir

Roger

is a Justice of the

Quorum

; that he fills the chair at a Quarter-Session with great Abilities, and three Months ago, gained universal Applause by explaining a Passage in the Game-Act.

The Gentleman next in Esteem and Authority among us, is another Batchelour, who is a Member of the

Inner Temple

: a Man of great Probity, Wit, and Understanding; but he has chosen his Place of Residence rather to obey the Direction of an old humoursome Father, than in pursuit of his own Inclinations. He was plac'd there to study the Laws of the Land, and is the most learned of any of the House in those of the Stage.

Aristotle

and

Longinus

are much better understood by him than

Littleton

Cooke

. The Father sends up every Post Questions relating to Marriage-Articles, Leases, and Tenures, in the Neighbourhood; all which Questions he agrees with an Attorney to answer and take care of in the Lump. He is studying the Passions themselves, when he should be inquiring into the Debates among Men which arise from them. He knows the Argument of each of the Orations of

Demosthenes

and

Tully

, but not one Case in the Reports of our own Courts. No one ever took him for a Fool, but none, except his intimate Friends, know he has a great deal of Wit. This Turn makes him at once both disinterested and agreeable: As few of his Thoughts are drawn from Business, they are most of them fit for Conversation. His Taste of Books is a little too just for the Age he lives in; he has read all, but Approves of very few. His Familiarity with the Customs, Manners, Actions, and Writings of the Antients, makes him a very delicate Observer of what occurs to him in the present World.

is an excellent Critick, and the Time of the Play is his Hour of Business; exactly at five he passes through

New Inn

, crosses through

Russel Court

; and takes a turn at

Will's

till the play begins; he has his shoes rubb'd and his Perriwig powder'd at the Barber's as you go into the Rose

⁶

— It is for the Good of the Audience when he is at a Play, for the Actors have an Ambition to please him.

The Person of next Consideration is Sir

Andrew Freeport

, a Merchant of great Eminence in the City of

London

: A Person of indefatigable Industry, strong Reason, and great Experience. His Notions of Trade are noble and generous, and (as every rich Man has usually some sly Way of Jesting, which would make no great Figure were he not a rich Man) he calls the Sea the

British Common

. He is acquainted with Commerce in all its Parts, and will tell you that it is a stupid and barbarous Way to extend Dominion by Arms; for true Power is to be got by Arts and Industry. He will often argue, that if this Part of our Trade were well cultivated, we should gain from one Nation; and if another, from another. I have heard him prove that Diligence makes more lasting Acquisitions than Valour, and that Sloth has ruin'd more Nations than the Sword. He abounds in several frugal Maxims, amongst which the greatest Favourite is, 'A Penny saved is a Penny got.' A General Trader of good Sense is pleasanter Company than a general Scholar; and Sir

Andrew

having a natural unaffected Eloquence, the Perspicuity of his Discourse gives the same Pleasure that Wit would in another Man. He has made his Fortunes himself; and says that

England

may be richer than other Kingdoms, by as plain Methods as he himself is richer than other Men; tho' at the same Time I can say this of him, that there is not a point in the Compass, but blows home a Ship in which he is an Owner.

to Sir

Andrew

in the Club-room sits Captain

Sentry

⁷

, a Gentleman of great Courage, good Understanding, but Invincible Modesty. He is one of those that deserve very well, but are very awkward at putting their Talents within the Observation of such as should take notice of them. He was some Years a Captain, and behaved himself with great Gallantry in several Engagements, and at several Sieges; but having a small Estate of his own, and being next Heir to Sir

Roger

, he has quitted a Way of Life in which no Man can rise suitably to his Merit, who is not something of a Courtier, as well as a Soldier.I have heard him often lament, that in a Profession where Merit is placed in so conspicuous a View, Impudence should get the better of Modesty.When he has talked to this Purpose, I never heard him make a sour Expression, but frankly confess that he left the World, because he was not fit for it.A strict Honesty and an even regular Behaviour, are in themselves Obstacles to him that must press through Crowds who endeavour at the same End with himself, the Favour of a Commander.He will, however, in this Way of Talk, excuse Generals, for not disposing according to Men's Desert, or enquiring into it: For, says he, that great Man who has a Mind to help me, has as many to break through to come at me, as I have to come at him: Therefore he will conclude, that the Man who would make a Figure, especially in a military Way, must get over all false Modesty, and assist his Patron against the Importunity of other Pretenders, by a proper Assurance in his own Vindication.He says it is a civil Cowardice to be backward in asserting what you ought to expect, as it is a military Fear to be slow in attacking when it is your Duty.With this Candour does the Gentleman speak of himself and others.The same Frankness runs through all his Conversation.The military Part of his Life has furnished him with many Adventures, in the Relation of which he is very agreeable to the Company; for he is never over-bearing, though accustomed to command Men in the utmost Degree below him; nor ever too obsequious, from an Habit of obeying Men highly above him.

But

that our Society may not appear a Set of Humourists unacquainted with the Gallantries and Pleasures of the Age, we have among us the gallant

Will.Honeycomb

⁸

, a Gentleman who, according to his Years, should be in the Decline of his Life, but having ever been very careful of his Person, and always had a very easy Fortune, Time has made but very little Impression, either by Wrinkles on his Forehead, or Traces in his Brain. His Person is well turned, and of a good Height. He is very ready at that sort of Discourse with which Men usually entertain Women. He has all his Life dressed very well, and remembers Habits as others do Men. He can smile when one speaks to him, and laughs easily. He knows the History of every Mode, and can inform you from which of the French King's Wenches our Wives and Daughters had this Manner of curling their Hair, that Way of placing their Hoods; whose Frailty was covered by such a Sort of Petticoat, and whose Vanity to show her Foot made that Part of the Dress so short in such a Year. In a Word, all his Conversation and Knowledge has been in the female World: As other Men of his Age will take Notice to you what such a Minister said upon such and such an Occasion, he will tell you when the Duke of

Monmouth

danced at Court such a Woman was then smitten, another was taken with him at the Head of his Troop in the

Park

. In all these important Relations, he has ever about the same Time received a kind Glance, or a Blow of a Fan, from some celebrated Beauty, Mother of the present Lord such-a-one. If you speak of a young Commoner that said a lively thing in the House, he starts up,

'He has good Blood in his Veins, Tom Mirabell begot him, the Rogue cheated me in that Affair; that young Fellow's Mother used me more like a Dog than any Woman I ever made Advances to.'

This Way of Talking of his, very much enlivens the Conversation among us of a more sedate Turn; and I find there is not one of the Company but myself, who rarely speak at all, but speaks of him as of that Sort of Man, who is usually called a well-bred fine Gentleman. To conclude his Character, where Women are not concerned, he is an honest worthy Man.

I cannot tell whether I am to account him whom I am next to speak of, as one of our Company; for he visits us but seldom, but when he does, it adds to every Man else a new Enjoyment of himself. He is a Clergyman, a very philosophick Man, of general Learning, great Sanctity of Life, and the most exact good Breeding. He has the Misfortune to be of a very weak Constitution, and consequently cannot accept of such Cares and Business as Preferments in his Function would oblige him to: He is therefore among Divines what a Chamber-Counsellor is among Lawyers. The Probity of his Mind, and the Integrity of his Life, create him Followers, as being eloquent or loud advances others. He seldom introduces the Subject he speaks upon; but we are so far gone in Years, that he observes when he is among us, an Earnestness to have him fall on some divine Topick, which he always treats with much Authority, as one who has no Interests in this World, as one who is hastening to the Object of all his Wishes, and conceives Hope from his Decays and Infirmities.

These

are my ordinary Companions.

⁹

Footnote 1:

The character of Sir Roger de Coverley is said to have been drawn from Sir John Pakington, of Worcestershire, a Tory, whose name, family, and politics are represented by a statesman of the present time. The name, on this its first appearance in the

Spectator

, is spelt Coverly; also in the first reprint.

return to footnote mark

Footnote 2:

Soho Square

was then a new and most fashionable part of the town. It was built in 1681. The Duke of Monmouth lived in the centre house, facing the statue. Originally the square was called King Square. Pennant mentions, on Pegg's authority, a tradition that, on the death of Monmouth, his admirers changed the name to Soho, the word of the day at the field of Sedgemoor. But the ground upon which the Square stands was called Soho as early as the year 1632. 'So ho' was the old call in hunting when a hare was found.

return

Footnote 3:

John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, b. 1648, d. 1680. His licentious wit made him a favourite of Charles II. His strength was exhausted by licentious living at the age of one and thirty. His chief work is a poem upon 'Nothing.' He died repentant of his wasted life, in which, as he told Burnet, he had 'for five years been continually drunk,' or so much affected by frequent drunkenness as in no instance to be master of himself.

return

Footnote 4:

Sir George Etherege, b. 1636, d. 1694. 'Gentle George' and 'Easy Etherege,' a wit and friend of the wits of the Restoration. He bought his knighthood to enable him to marry a rich widow who required a title, and died of a broken neck, by tumbling down-stairs when he was drunk and lighting guests to their apartments. His three comedies,

The Comical Revenge, She Would if she Could,

and

The Man of Mode, or Sir Fopling Flutter,

excellent embodiments of the court humour of his time, were collected and printed in 8vo in 1704, and reprinted, with addition of five poems, in 1715.

return

Footnote 5:

Bully Dawson, a swaggering sharper of Whitefriars, is said to have been sketched by Shadwell in the Captain Hackum of his comedy called

The Squire of Alsatia.

return

Footnote 6:

The

Rose

Tavern was on the east side of Brydges Street, near Drury Lane Theatre, much favoured by the looser sort of play-goers. Garrick, when he enlarged the Theatre, made the

Rose

Tavern a part of it.

return

Footnote 7:

Captain Sentry was by some supposed to have been drawn from Colonel Kempenfelt, the father of the Admiral who went down with the

Royal George

return

Footnote 8:

Will. Honeycomb was by some found in a Colonel Cleland.

return

Footnote 9:

Steele's signature was

till No. 91; then

, and occasionally

, till No. 134; then always

Addison signed

till No. 85, when he first used

; and was

till No. 265, then

, till he first used

in No. 372. Once or twice using

, he was

till No. 405, which he signed

, and by this letter he held, except for a return to

(with a single use of

), from 433 to 477.

Contents

No.3

Thursday, March 1, 1711

Addison

Quoi quisque ferè studio devinctus adhæret:
Aut quibus in rebus multùm sumus antè morati:
Atque in quâ ratione fuit contenta magis mens;
In somnis eadem plerumque videmur obire

Lucr. L. 4.

one of my late Rambles, or rather Speculations, I looked into the great Hall where the Bank

is kept, and was not a little pleased to see the Directors, Secretaries, and Clerks, with all the other Members of that wealthy Corporation, ranged in their several Stations, according to the Parts they act in that just and regular Œconomy. This revived in my Memory the many Discourses which I had both read and heard, concerning the Decay of Publick Credit, with the Methods of restoring it, and which, in my Opinion, have always been defective, because they have always been made with an Eye to separate Interests and Party Principles.

The Thoughts of the Day gave my Mind Employment for the whole Night, so that I fell insensibly into a kind of Methodical Dream, which disposed all my Contemplations into a Vision or Allegory, or what else the Reader shall please to call it.

Methoughts I returned to the Great Hall, where I had been the Morning before, but to my Surprize, instead of the Company that I left there, I saw, towards the Upper-end of the Hall, a beautiful Virgin seated on a Throne of Gold. Her Name (as they told me) was

Publick Credit