❝than two; there is therefore no proportion between "the good imparted and the evil fuffered."

He was in Ireland when Steele, without any com munication of his defign, began the publication of the Tatler but he was not long concealed; by inferting a remark on Virgil, which Addifon had given him, he discovered himself. It is indeed not eafy for any man to write upon literature or common life, fo as not to make himself known to those with whom he familiarly converfes, and who are acquainted with his track of study, his favourite topick, his peculiar notions, and his habitual phrases.

If Steele defired to write in fecret, he was not. lucky; a fingle month detected him. His firft Tatler was published April 22 (1709); and Addifon's contribution appeared May 26. Tickell obferves, that the Tatler began and was concluded without his concurrence. This is doubtlefs literally true;. but the work did not fuffer much by his unconfcioufnefs of its commencement, or his abfence at its ceffation; for he continued his affiftance to December 23, and the paper ftopped on January 2. He did not diftinguish his pieces by any fignature; and I know not whether his name was not kept fecret till the papers were collected into volumes.

To the Tatler, in about two months, fucceeded the Spectator; a feries of effays of the fame kind, but written with lefs levity, upon a more regular plan, and published daily. Such an undertaking fhewed the writers not to diftruft their own copioufnefs of materials or facility of compofition, and their performance juftified their confidence. They found however, in their progrefs, many auxiliaries. To

84 A D DISO N. ADDISON.

attempt a fingle paper was no terrifying labour; many pieces were offered, and many were received.

Addison had enough of the zeal of party; but Steele had at that time almoft nothing else. The Spectator, in one of the firft papers, fhewed the political tenets of its authors; but a refolution was foon taken, of courting general approbation by general topicks, and fubjects on which faction had produced no diverfity of fentiments; fuch as literature, morality, and familiar life. To this practice they adhered with few deviations. The ardour of Steele once broke out in praise of Marlborough; and when Dr. Fleetwood prefixed to fome fermons a preface, overflowing with whiggifh opinions, that it might be read by the Queen*, it was reprinted in the Spectator.

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To teach the minuter decencies and inferior duties, to regulate the practice of daily conversation, to correct those depravities which are rather ridiculous than criminal, and remove thofe grievances which, if they produce no lafting calamities, impress hourly vexation, was first attempted by Cafa in his book of Manners, and Caftiglione in his Courtier; two books yet celebrated in Italy for purity and elegance, and which, if they are now lefs read, are neglected only because they have effected that reformation which their authors intended, and their precepts now are no longer wanted. Their usefulness to the age in which they were written is fufficiently attefted by

* This particular number of the Spectator, it is faid, was not published till twelve o'clock, that it might come out precisely at the hour of her Majesty's breakfast, and that no time might be left for deliberating about serving it up with that meal, as usual. See the edition of the TATLER with notes, vol. VI. No. 271, note. P. 452, &c. N.

the

the translations which almost all the nations of Europe were in hafte to obtain.

This fpecies of inftruction was continued, and perhaps advanced, by the French; among whom La Bruyere's Manners of the Age, though, as Boileau remarked, it is written without connection, certainly deferves praise, for livelinefs of defcription, and juftnefs of obfervation.

Before the Tatler and Spectator, if the writers for the theatre are excepted, England had no masters of common life. No writers had yet undertaken to reform either the favagenefs of neglect, or the impertinence of civility; to fhew when to speak, or to be filent; how to refufe, or how to comply. We had many books to teach us our more important duties, and to fettle opinions in philofophy or politicks; but an Arbiter Elegantiarum, a judge of propriety, was yet wanting, who fhould furvey the track of daily conversation, and free it from thorns and prickles, which teaze the paffer, though they do not wound him.

For this purpofe nothing is so proper as the frequent publication of fhort papers, which we read not as study but amusement. If the subject be flight, the treatise is short. The bufy may find time, and the idle may find patience.

This mode of conveying cheap and easy knowledge began among us in the Civil War *, when it was

* Newspapers appear to have had an earlier date than here affigned. Cleiveland, in his Character of a London Diurnal, fays, "The original finner of this kind was Dutch; Gallo-belgicus the

Protoplas, and the Modern Mercuries but Hans en kelders." Some intelligence given by Mercurius Gallo-belgicus is mentioned in Carew's Survey of Cornwall, p. 126, originally published in 1602. These vehicles of information are often mentioned in the plays of James and Charles the Firft. R.

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much the interest of either party to raise and fix the prejudices of the people. At that time appeared Mercurius Aulicus, Mercurius Rufticus, and Mercurius Civicus. It is faid, that when any title grew popular, it was ftolen by the antagonist, who by this ftratagem conveyed his notions to thofe who would not have received him had he not worn the appearance of a friend. The tumult of those unhappy days left fcarcely any man leifure to treasure up occafional compofitions; and fo much were they neglected, that a complete collection is no where to be found.

Thefe Mercuries were fucceeded by L'Eftrange's Obfervator; and that by Lefley's Rehearfal, and perhaps by others; but hitherto nothing had been conveyed to the people, in this commodious manner, but controverfy relating to the Church or State; of which they taught many to talk, whom they could not teach to judge.

It has been fuggefted, that the Royal Society was inftituted foon after the Reftoration, to divert the attention of the people from publick difcontent. The Tatler and Spectator had the fame tendency; they were published at a time when two parties, loud, reftlefs, and violent, each with plaufible declarations, and each perhaps without any distinct termination of its views, were agitating the nation; to minds heated with political conteft they supplied cooler and more inoffenfive reflections; and it is faid by Addifon, in a fubfequent work, that they had a perceptible influence upon the converfation of that time, and taught the frolick and the gay to unite merriment with decency; an effect which they can never wholly lofe, while they continue to be among

the first books by which both fexes are initiated in the elegances of knowledge.

The Tatler and Spectator adjusted, like Cafa, the unsettled practice of daily intercourse by propriety and politeness; and, like La Bruyere, exhibited the Characters and Manners of the Age. The perfonages introduced in thefe papers were not merely ideal; they were then known, and confpicuous in various stations. Of the Tatler this is told by Steele in his laft paper; and of the Spectator by Budgel in the preface to Theophraftus, a book which Addifon has recommended, and which he was fufpected to have revised, if he did not write it. Of those portraits, which may be fuppofed to be fometimes embellished, and fometimes aggravated, the originals are now partly known, and partly forgotten.

But to fay that they united the plans of two or three eminent writers, is to give them but a small part of their due praife; they fuperadded literature and criticism, and fometimes towered far above their predeceffors; and taught, with great juftness of argument and dignity of language, the most important duties and fublime truths.

All these topicks were happily varied with elegant fictions and refined allegories, and illuminated with different changes of ftyle and felicities of invention.

It is recorded by Budgell, that of the characters feigned or exhibited in the Spectator, the favourité of Addison was Sir Roger de Coverley, of whom he had formed a very delicate and difcriminate idea, which he would not fuffer to be violated; and therefore, when Steele had fhewn him innocently picking up a girl in the Temple, and taking her to a tavern,