6

1672-1719. THE TATLER' AND THE SPECTATOR.'

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'Observator,' and that by Leslie's 'Rehearsal,' and perhaps by others; but hitherto nothing had been conveyed to the people, in this commodious manner, but controversy relating to the church or state, of which they taught many to talk whom they could not teach to judge.

It has been suggested, that the Royal Society was instituted soon after the Restoration to divert the attention of the people from public discontent.13 The Tatler' and 'Spectator' had the same tendency; they were published at a time when two parties, loud, restless, and violent, each with plausible declarations, and each perhaps without any distinct termination of its views, were agitating the nation; to minds heated with political contest they supplied cooler and more inoffensive reflections; and it is said by Addison, in a subsequent work,44 that they had a perceptible influence upon the conversation of that time, and taught the frolic and the gay to unite merriment with decency—an effect which they can never wholly lose, while they continue to be among the first books by which both sexes are initiated in the elegances of knowledge.

The 'Tatler' and 'Spectator' adjusted, like Casa, the unsettled practice of daily intercourse by propriety and politeness; and, like La Bruyère, exhibited the Characters and Manners of the Age.' The personages introduced in these papers were not merely ideal-they were then known, and conspicuous in various stations. Of The Tatler' this is told by Steele in his last paper; and of The Spectator' by Budgell," in the preface to Theophrastus,' a book which Addison has recommended, and which he was suspected to have revised, if he did not write it. Of those portraits, which may be supposed to be sometimes

43 Compare vol. i. p. 178. (Life of Butler.)

44 They diverted raillery from improper objects, and gave a new turn to ridicule, which for many years had been exerted on persons and things of a sacred and serious nature. They endeavoured to make mirth instructive, and if they failed in this great end, they must be allowed, at least, to have made it innocent.-ADDISON: The Freeholder, No. 45.

45 Eustace Budgell (d. 1737), a kinsman of Addison: "To this great man [Addison] I am the nearest male relation now living; I owe part of my education to him."-BUDGELL: Liberty and Property, 8vo., 1732, p. 143-4.

embellished, and sometimes aggravated, the originals are now partly known, and partly forgotten.

But to say that they united the plans of two or three eminent writers, is to give them but a small part of their due praise; they superadded literature and criticism, and sometimes towered far above their predecessors; and taught, with great justness of argument and dignity of language, the most important duties and sublime truths.

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

It is recorded by Budgell, that of the characters feigned or exhibited in The Spectator,' the favourite of Addison was Sir Roger de Coverley, of whom he had formed a very delicate and discriminate idea, which he would not suffer to be violated; and, therefore, when Steele had shown him innocently picking up a girl in the Temple, and taking her to a tavern, he drew upon himself so much of his friend's indignation, that he was forced to appease him by a promise of forbearing Sir Roger for the time to come.

The reason which induced Cervantes to bring his hero to the grave, para mi sola nacio Don Quixote, y yo para el, made Addison declare, with undue vehemence of expression, that he would kill Sir Roger, being of opinion that they were born for one another, and that any other hand would do him wrong.

It may be doubted whether Addison ever filled up his original delineation. He describes his knight as having his imagination somewhat warped; but of this perversion he has made very little use. The irregularities in Sir Roger's conduct seem not so much the effects of a mind deviating from the beaten track of life by the perpetual pressure of some overwhelming idea, as of habitual rusticity, and that negligence which solitary grandeur naturally generates.

The variable weather of the mind, the flyi: g vapours of incipient madness, which from time to time cloud reason, without eclipsing it, it requires so much nicety to exhibit, that seems to have been deterred from prosecuting his o

1672-1719.

SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY.

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To Sir Roger, who, as a country gentleman, appears to be a Tory, or, as it is gently expressed, an adherent to the landed interest, is opposed Sir Andrew Freeport, a new man, a wealthy merchant, zealous for the moneyed interest, and a Whig. Of this contrariety of opinions it is probable more consequences were at first intended than could be produced when the resolution was taken to exclude party from the paper. Sir Andrew does but little, and that little seems not to have pleased Addison, who, when he dismissed him from the club, changed his opinions. Steele had made him, in the true spirit of unfeeling commerce, declare that he "would not build an hospital for idle people;" but at last he buys land, settles in the country, and builds, not a manufactory, but an hospital for twelve old husbandmen-for men with whom a merchant has little acquaintance, and whom he commonly considers with little kindness.

Of essays thus elegant, thus instructive, and thus commodiously distributed, it is natural to suppose the approbation general, and the sale numerous. I once heard it observed, that the sale may be calculated by the product of the tax, related in the last number [No. 555] to produce more than twenty pounds a week, and therefore stated at one-and-twenty pounds, or three pounds ten shillings a day; this, at a halfpenny a paper, will give sixteen hundred and eighty for the daily number."

46

This sale is not great; yet this, if Swift be credited, was likely to grow less; for he declares that 'The Spectator,' whom he ridicules for his endless mention of the fair sex, had before his recess wearied his readers.47

The next year (1713), in which Cato' came upon the stage, was the grand climacteric of Addison's reputation. Upon the death of Cato he had, as is said, planned a tragedy in the time

46 The number of copies daily distributed was at first three thousand. It subsequently increased, and had risen to near four thousand when the stamptax was imposed. That tax was fatal to a crowd of journals. "The Spectator,' however, stood its ground, doubled its price, and, though its circulation fell off, still yielded a large revenue both to the state and to the authors.MACAULAY'S Essays, 1 vol. ed., p. 710. (Compare Nichols, in 'Tatler,' ed. 1786, vi. 452.)

47 Swift, Journal to Stella, 2 Nov. 1711.

48

of his travels, and had for several years the four first acts finished, which were shown to such as were likely to spread their admiration. They were seen by Pope and by Cibber, who relates that Steele, when he took back the copy, told him, in the despicable cant of literary modesty, that, whatever spirit his friend had shown in the composition, he doubted whether he would have courage sufficient to expose it to the censure of a British audience.

The time, however, was now come when those who affected to think liberty in danger, affected likewise to think that a stage-play might preserve it; and Addison was importuned, in the name of the tutelary deities of Britain, to show his courage and his zeal by finishing his design.

To resume his work he seemed perversely and unaccountably unwilling; and by a request which perhaps he wished to be denied, desired Mr. Hughes to add a fifth act. Hughes supposed him serious; and, undertaking the supplement, brought in a few days some scenes for his examination; but he had in the mean time gone to work himself, and produced half an act, which he afterwards completed, but with brevity irregularly disproportionate to the foregoing parts, like a task performed with reluctance, and hurried to its conclusion.

It may yet be doubted whether Cato' was made public by any change of the author's purpose; for Dennis charged him with raising prejudices in his own favour by false positions of preparatory criticism, and with poisoning the town by contradieting in The Spectator' the established rule of poetical justice, because his own hero, with all his virtues, was to fall

48 See Note 21, p. 125.

Cibbers Apology, 2nd ed. 8vo., 1740, p. 377.

1st April, 1713. Addison is to have a play on Friday in Easter week: 'tis a tragedy, called 'Cato.' I saw it unfinished some years ago.-SWIFT: Jontrwał to Stella.

6th April, 1713. I was this morning, at ten, at the rehearsal of Mr. Addison's play called Cato.' There were not above half a score of us to see it. We stood on the stage, and it was foolish enough to see the actors prompted every moment, and the poet directing them; and the drab [Mrs. Oldfield] that acts Cato's daughter out in the midst of a passionate part, and then calling out "What next?"-SWIFT: Journal to Stella.

1672-1719.

'CATO.'

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before a tyrant. The fact is certain; the motives we must guess.

Addison was, I believe, sufficiently disposed to bar all avenues against all danger. When Pope brought him the prologue, which is properly accommodated to the play, there were these words, "Britons, arise! be worth like this approved; meaning nothing more than, Britons, erect and exalt yourselves Addison was frighted lest

to the approbation of public virtue. he should be thought a promoter of insurrection, and the line was liquidated to "Britons, attend." 50

Now, "heavily in clouds came on the day, the great, the important day," when Addison was to stand the hazard of the theatre. That there might, however, be left as little hazard as was possible on the first night [14th April, 1713], Steele, as himself relates, undertook to pack an audience. This, says Pope, had been tried for the first time in favour of ‘The Distrest Mother; and was now, with more efficacy, practised for 'Cato.'

752

The danger was soon over. The whole nation was at that time on fire with faction. The Whigs applauded every line in which liberty was mentioned as a satire on the Tories; and the Tories echoed every clap to show that the satire was unfelt. The story of Bolingbroke is well known. He called Booth to his box, and gave him fifty guineas for defending the cause of liberty so well against a perpetual dictator. The Whigs, says Pope, design a second present, when they can accompany it with as good a sentence.54

53

The play, supported thus by the emulation of factious praise, was acted night after night for a longer time than, I believe,

50 Warburton's Pope, ed. 1752, 8vo., iv. 177.

51 Spence.-JOHNSON. Spence by Singer, p. 46.

52 Booth (the original Cato), in a letter to Aaron Hill, states that Addison "took whole years to bespeak and court friends, in order to secure the success of 'Cato.'"-Letters to Aaron Hill, 12mo., 1751, p. 82.

53 Pope to Trumbull, 30th April, 1713. This was a pungent allusion to the attempt which Marlborough had made, not long before his fall, to obtain a patent creating him Captain-General for life.-MACAULAY's Essays, 1 vol. ed., p. 712.

54 Pope to Truinbull, 30th April, 1713.