Such a
generation
might reform and, on occasion, take an interest
in the theatre or even cultivate belles lettres; but their true sphere
was found in the routine of daily life.
in the theatre or even cultivate belles lettres; but their true sphere
was found in the routine of daily life.
Cambridge History of English Literature - 1908 - v09
66, 72.
5 Nos. 112, 169, 203.
$ See preceding chap. of this volume.
7 No. 186.
Nos. 25 (influenced by Molière's Le Mariage forcé), 57, 83, 138, 186, 206, 227.
* No. 85. It is worth noting that Addison used the same simile in Spec. no. 495.
## p. 42 (#66) ##############################################
42
Steele and Addison
performs the tasks of its rulers, and cannot find out that they are
doing nothing?
These reflections are accidental and were probably shared by
many another coffeehouse critic of men and manners. Steele had
neither the talent nor the opportunity to work them up into a
philosophy. The same lack of system impairs his interpretation of
literature. At a time when the most enlightened critics admired a
poet for his rhetoric, Steele discovered in Shakespeare and Milton
the sublime moralists of middle class life, quoting from their pages
to show where the everyday virtues of fidelity, pity and conjugal
love have found their purest and noblest expression? He does not,
however, seek to impress this view on his public. Beyond retelling
the Bible story of Joseph and his brethren? , to illustrate how, in
moments of despondency, he 'turns his thoughts to the adversities
of persons of higher consideration in virtue and merit to regain
tranquillity,' he never taught his readers how to look for moral and
spiritual guidance in literature. They are left to glean what
they can from chance utterances. Had it been otherwise, these
papers would have been the most remarkable critical production
of Steele's generation.
The Tatler continued to appear three times a week until
2 January 1711 and then ceased abruptly. The loss of his
gazetteership, though it deprived Steele of access to first-hand
news, can hardly have influenced him, since foreign intelligence in
The Tatler had long dwindled into an occasional and perfunctory
paragraph. Possibly, he was allowed to retain his commissioner-
ship of stamps under the new government only on the understanding
that a paper connected with the whig party should be discontinued.
He may really have feared that the secret of authorship was now
widely divulged, and that the association of his not unblemished name
with moral counsels might revive the ridicule which had greeted The
Christian Hero. But, besides this, he was suffering the discourage-
ment of a man who wades beyond his depth. The self-imposed
task of censor had led him deeper and deeper into the complex
questions of his day, while his journalistic methods allowed of only
fleeting and superficial glimpses at truth. Had he been fully
conscious of his inability, he would probably, with characteristic
candour, have freely confessed it. As it was, he sank under a
temporary attack of weariness, all the more irresistible because
i No. 203. ? Nos. 40, 47, 53, 68, 102, 104, 188, 237. 3 No. 234.
• See no. 271. Swift (Journal to Stella) says he grew cruel dull and dry. To my
knowledge, he had several good hints to go upon; but he was so lazy and weary of
the work, that he would not improve them. '
## p. 43 (#67) ##############################################
Addison's Early Training
43
another writer, who had been intermittently associated with him
in the paper, seemed to have acquired without effort that art of
expression which Steele himself lacked.
This collaborator was Addison? In reality, his achievement
was the fruit of a mental readjustment more laborious and funda-
mental than Steele's, though of a different character. Like the
creator of The Tatler, Addison had to put new wine into old
bottles. He was a man of scholarly habits and unusual ability,
but taciturn and lacking in initiative. When Steele plunged into
London life, Addison was studying at Magdalen, where he peace-
fully won academic distinction and stored his mind with the wit
and wisdom of antiquity. At this time, the universities were far
removed from the outer world, and, if Oxford made him a distin-
guished Latinist, it also made him a recluse more competent to
imitate Vergilian hexameters than to lead the thought of his
generation. He left the university in 1699; but four years' travel
among the chief centres of European culture did not draw his mind
out of the academic mould into which it had been cast. There
were still patrons to reward the man of scholarly attainments;
and Addison, who had to make his own fortunes, seems to
have been content to revive his university reputation among the
few, by some work of graceful and recondite learning. A boyish
interest in the writing on London signposts had been developed
by his academic training into a taste for numismatics, and, of all
the resources of Europe, nothing seems to have left so deep an
impression on his mind as collections of coins. As a result, one
of the first fruits of his travels, printed posthumously, was Dialogues
upon the usefulness of Ancient Medals, a treatise which shows an
intimate familiarity with Latin poets and singular ingenuity in
elucidating obscure passages by the light of legends and devices,
1. That paper was advanced indeed I for it was raised to a greater thing than I
intended it! For the elegance, parity and correctness which appeared in his writings
were not so much my purpose, as (in any intelligible manner as I could) to rally all
those singularities of human life through the different professions and characters in it,
which obstruct anything that was truly good and great. ' Steele, in preface to
The Drummer (1721).
A glance at Addison's early successes will show how enduringly academio were
the influences which shaped his mind. He was elected demy of Magdalen 1689 and
pablished vol. 7 of Musae Anglicanae in 1691; composed Dissertatio de Romanorum
poetis in 1692; delivered Oratio de nova philosophia in 1693; engaged in translating
Herodotus in 1696; was elected to a fellowship 1698; published vol. II of Musae
Anglicanae (containing his own Latin poems) in 1699.
3 The Tatler, no. 18.
## p. 44 (#68) ##############################################
44
Steele and Addison
but touches no other human interest except curiosity in
Roman dress. About the same time, he prepared for publication
a diary of travel, recording faithfully his impressions of the
customs, character and polity of the people, on the model of
Bacon's Essays! . Even these notes, which appeared in 1705 as
Remarks on Italy, show little enthusiasm, except where his
wanderings lead him directly on the track of ancient literature.
The year before, he made a name for himself throughout
London, and thus assured his future, by producing The Campaign.
The origin of this celebrated piece was political. The whigs had
just vindicated their policy by the victory of Blenheim, and
Godolphin was looking for a party poet who should give voice to
the wave of triumph and patriotism which was passing over the
nation. Halifax suggested the distinguished writer of Latin verse
who had already produced a few scholarly verse translations and
some complimentary addresses to patrons in the courtly style. To
most writers, a theme such as the battle of Blenheim would
naturally have suggested an elegy or a pindaric ode. But Addison,
with characteristic judgment, cast his effusion into the form of an
epic; for, in this poetic form, a store of poetic imagery and poetic
exaggeration presented itself ready-made, and the author of The
Campaign found that his task was to select and apply expressions
such as would shed heroic grandeur on the achievements of the
British arms.
In fact, he treated his subject as if it were an
academic exercise in rhetoric; and, although the versification is
often prosaic and the vigorous passages are balanced by lapses
into platitude, he acquitted himself with remarkable ingenuity
and tact. While paying extravagant tributes to ‘Anna's royal
cares' and to 'Marlborough's mighty soul,' he succeeded in
addressing the nation at large. He flattered their most cherished
boasts—their pride in British freedom, their hero-worship, their
love of fighting-in phrases consecrated by Homer, Vergil, Lucan,
Statius, Silius Italicus, while the exigencies of the heroic couplet
almost necessarily involved 'turns' and 'points' such as the polite
age admired. The pamphlet in verses took the town by storm, and
the author, who had been given a commissionership of appeals
as a retaining fee, was now rewarded with an undersecretaryship
of state.
From this time forth, Addison was one of the elect. In 1706,
-
6
1
1 Essay on Travel. ? E. g. the celebrated simile in 11. 272–92.
3 It was followed, in 1707, by an anonymous pamphlet in prose, The Present State
of the War.
## p. 45 (#69) ##############################################
Addison as a Contributor to The Tatler 45
he became undersecretary of state to Lord Sunderland ; in 1707,
he accompanied Lord Halifax to Hanover; in 1709, he became chief
secretary to the marquis of Wharton, lord lieutenant of Ireland,
and, besides these experiences in administration, he held a seat in
parliament from 1708 till his death. So, he was never again in
want, and at no time passed through the stormy and varied experi-
ences which bring sympathy with human nature and insight into
character. Even during the lean years, he had been too reticent and
polite to become a bohemian, and, in the years of plenty, it seemed
inevitable that he should settle down to the leisurely discharge of
his public functions and keep up his literary studies merely as a
polite and elegant pastime. And yet, it was during this period of
his life that Addison immeasurably enlarged his intellectual out-
look. He made the acquaintance of Pope and Swift, renewed his
school and college friendship with Steele and, like other men of
culture, frequented the coffeehouses. Gradually, he came under
the full influence of the great social movement, and, as his thoughts
centred round questions of morals and manners, he achieved the
feat of bringing his vast classical learning to shed light on these
modern problems. Instead of using ancient literature to illustrate
medals, he discovered how to make it illustrate the weaknesses and
peculiarities of his contemporaries. He learned to refer the per-
plexities and doubts of his own day to the wisdom and experience
of antiquity. His scholarly instincts, instead of drawing him into
the library, sharpened his natural gift of silent observation and
provided unlimited material for his sense of humour.
The Tatler gave him just the opportunity which he needed.
After discovering, by a remark on Vergill, that Steele was the
author of the paper, Addison became an occasional contributor,
and, despite the distractions of his official life, began to adapt his
talents to the new literary art. Like Steele, he had to feel his
way, and seems to have gradually realized what was in his mind,
by the process of writing. His first papera bids good-bye to
pedantry by declaring that
men of wit do so much employ their thoughts upon fine speculations, that
things useful to mankind are wholly neglected: and they are busy in making
emendations upon some enclitics in a Greek author, while obvious things,
that every man may have use for are wholly overlooked ;
i See The Tatler, no. 6, on Vergil's choice of words, in which it is pointed out that,
whereas Aeneas, at other times, is called Pius or Bonus, he is termed Dux Trojanus
when about to seduce Dido. Addison had suggested this idea to Steele at Charter-
house.
? The Tatler, no. 18.
## p. 46 (#70) ##############################################
46
Steele and Addison
and then, as if dissatisfied with the recondite studies of his
manhood, he reverts to his boyish interest in signposts and writes
an essay on the inconveniences arising from their misspellings.
But his own habits of thought had been formed by the great
teachers of antiquity, and, the more he watched Bickerstaff's
attempts at sugaring the didactic pill, the more their arts suggested
themselves to him. Steele did, indeed, carelessly try his hand at
allegory'; and Addison, acting on a hint from Swift, revived the
classical myth, taking Plato and Ovid for his chief models. These
visions and dreams point very commonplace morals, but they
astonish by their boldness of fancy and compel belief by their realism
of detail? Steele had drawn realistic pictures of Grobianism and
immorality; Addison, by nature, was averse to anything primitive,
but had learnt from Theophrastus, Terence and Horace to expect
proportion in the most trivial details of conduct. Accordingly, the
more he studied men, the more he cultivated an eye for the little
inconsistencies and perversions of his fellow creatures. This
acquired appreciation of the golden mean' blended with a
natural gift for genial caricature. Wherever his abnormally
keen sense for proportion had detected some eccentric or un-
reasonable penchant, he pictured a man completely under its
domination, gravely worked out the irrational tendency to its
logical conclusion and then left his reader to laugh at the result.
The wellworn theme of bucolic self-importance is developed into
the delightful portrait of Sir Harry Quickset3; the self-absorption
of the half-educated appears in the comical account of the dancing
master who made the house shake while he studied 'orcheso-
graphy''; women's passion for pets is illustrated by the admirable
story of the maidservant (really 'an arch baggage') sent to
consult the astrologer on the health of Cupid, her mistress's lap-
dog 5; pedants are defined as 'all men of deep learning without
common-sense,' and their absurdities are exposed in the vagaries
of Tom Folio and the entomologist's will? The Londoner's
passion for news is caricatured in the person, of the political
upholsterers.
Addison indulged in many other graceful flights of fancy, which
1 The Tatler, no. 48.
6
• Swift had suggested, in no. 67, that the most famous characters of all time might
be represented as seated at a banquet. Addison produced bis first allegorical master.
piece on this theme in collaboration with Steele in no. 81 and followed it up with
others, nos. 97, 100, 120, 123, 146, 147, 161.
3 No. 86.
* No. 88.
6 No. 121.
6 No. 158.
7 Nos. 216, 221. 8 Nos. 155, 160.
>
## p. 47 (#71) ##############################################
Addison's Style as an Essay-Writer 47
gave his satire- a charm of its own; but he showed little originality
of thought. And yet, though he was content to follow Bickerstaff
or, rather, the public opinion of coffeehouses, his few contri-
butions? are a turning point in the history of the essay. These
familiar topics became full of a new vitality under his pen. His
work, if anything, is less vigorous and less searching than Steele's;
but it has the other eloquence of form which turns human utter-
ance into literature. Until now, the essay had not completely
established itself as a literary type. In the hands of Bacon, it was
little more than a string of meditations, while the inventiveness of
popular writers had been lavished on character sketches, epigrams,
satires and revivals of medieval thought. Cowley, and, after him,
Temple, had, largely under the influence of Montaigne, given a
new turn to the essay, which had thus come to exercise an im-
portant effect upon the transformation of English prose®. Steele
and Addison entered into an inheritance which increased and
multiplied in their hands. With the first few numbers of The
Tatler, pre-restoration humour had been abandoned after a few
attempts, and Steele addressed himself to the intellect of the
middle class in the unliterary guise of a news-sheet, though his
ideas had long outgrown so restricted a compass. As has been
shown, his material was unmistakably leading him towards the
novel of domestic life. Addison probably retarded the transition,
by giving to an irresponsible and inadequate medium a complete-
ness and dignity which satisfied the intellectual and artistic needs
of his generation. For Addison not only endowed the essay with
the airs and graces of cultured writing-he discovered the prose
style which suits the genre. Steele had rightly conceived that The
Tatler must be written in a colloquial vein, and had dashed off
his
papers
with the freedom and effusiveness of his own conversa-
tion. Addison was too reserved ever to be a voluble talker; he
never became communicative except in a small circle of kindred
spirits. Thus, the riches of his mind had found expression only in
1 E. g. & court ‘for examining the pretensions of several who had applied to me
for canes, perspective glasses, snuff-boxes, orange-flower waters and the like orna-
ments of life,'nos. 103, 110, 116; talkers differentiated 48 musical instruments,
no. 153; inconstancy of life symbolised by a coach journey in which the occupants
anaccountably lose their tempers, no. 192; the ecclesiastical thermometer which
should register excess, even in the virtues of churchmanship, no. 220; frozen words,
no. 254 ; the court of honour, & pioturesque way of discussing points of etiquette
and good manners, nos. 250, 253, 256, 259, 262, 265.
• Forty-one papers contributed by Addison independently; thirty-four in conjunction
with Steele.
* Cf. ante, vol. vi, chap. XVI.
-
## p. 48 (#72) ##############################################
48
Steele and Addison
polished and confidential intercourse, and when, following the
example of Steele, he began to talk on paper, his subtle and
unaffected personality found free play with his pen as in conversa-
tion. And so, he created a perfect style for detached literature
lucid, colloquial, full of individuality and yet chastened by that
careful choice of words which, like other scholars, he had already
cultivated in writing Latin verse.
Addison had completely mastered the art of essay writing
when Steele discontinued The Tatler. The fall of the whig
ministry in the previous year, deprived both writers of lucrative
positions. But the reasons for resuming the interrupted work
were not merely financial. The production of The Tatler had
brought with it experiences such as no other contemporary
writer had been privileged to enjoy. While ransacking society,
clubland and literature for 'copy,' Steele and Addison had dis-
covered, partly in themselves and partly in others, a moral
and intellectual tone purer and more humane than the spirit
which they had breathed into their own paper. Greatly as
that periodical had developed, it could not altogether escape from
the desultory and superficial character which it had assumed at
its origin. Yet a new journal offered boundless possibilities, and
the artist's instinct, as well as the moralist's zeal, played a part
in founding The Spectator.
Thus, the new enterprise was not a mere sequel to The Tatler-
a pennyworth of diversion containing something to suit all tastes.
The old paper, in its primary conception, had been too much like
a medley in which social scandal, city gossip and foreign news
emulously claimed the reader's attention. Its successor was to
be a series of literary pamphlets, concerned only with morals and
manners, each number being confined to a single theme and bearing
a distinct message from the world of religion, thought or humour.
Though its appeals were narrowed in scope, they were to be more
often repeated. The paper appeared every day and, by sheer
frequency, grew into the life of its readers like an intimate
counsellor or a constant friend. Above all, the periodical was to
have the persuasiveness of personality. As the editors could not
write in their own names, they profited by the example of Isaac
Bickerstaff and published their reflections under a fictitious cha-
racter. While, however, the astrologer of The Tatler had been
merely an ingenious embellishment, a suggestive curiosity intro-
ducing its readers to truths which they could have appreciated
without him, Mr Spectator both gave his name to the paper and
## p. 49 (#73) ##############################################
The Spirit of The Spectator 49
typified the spirit in which it was written. The first number, on
1 March 1711, was given up to a sketch of his mind and this por-
trayal marks an epoch in the history of English culture. Addison,
who drew the picture and is, indeed, the inspiring genius of the
whole periodical, here really describes his own mental attitude since
he left . academic bowers,' taking with him all his classical learn-
ing, to join the observers of modern life. His ideas were largely
due to the new atmosphere in which he now found himself; but,
as his intellectual emancipation had cost him much, he realized his
purpose more intensely than did his fellows. For Mr Spectator is
the type of a new culture which grew out of puritanism. Men of
profound learning, had, under the old civilization, been specialists
-theologians, demonographers, jurists, philosophers or university
scholars. Mr Spectator is also profoundly learned; he is acquainted
with all celebrated books in ancient and modern tongues. Nay,
more, he is a traveller, and, like the great renascence scholars, has
visited every accessible country in search of knowledge. Yet he
has no profession; he does not belong to a school of thought. He
has simply stored his mind with the wisdom, wit and humour of
other countries and ages, and he spends his life in observing his
contemporaries and, consciously or unconsciously, comparing their
manners, customs and ideas with those of which he has read.
He visits 'The Exchange,' theatres, coffeehouses ; wherever men
gather he is to be found, until, as Addison says, 'he has made
himself a speculative statesman, soldier, merchant or artisan
without ever meddling with any practical part in life. Such
Addison had learnt to be, and such, also, without the concluding
qualification, was the ideal of the protestant middle class of
this century. Now that the great disputes as to religion and
government had been settled, the descendants of the puritans
were free, fifty years before Voltaire, 'to cultivate their garden. '
They brought to the task of self-education an ever growing know-
ledge of books and the same seriousness and humanity which
began to guide the more enlightened so far back as the civil war.
Such a generation might reform and, on occasion, take an interest
in the theatre or even cultivate belles lettres; but their true sphere
was found in the routine of daily life. Conversation and study
made them thoughtful; yet it was a practical thoughtfulness
centring round their institutions, manners and intellectual de-
velopment. Steele, and especially Addison, while writing for The
Tatler, had hinted that the wisdom and integrity of other ages
1 Ante, vol. vii, chap. XVI, pp. 384–8, 392—7.
4
E. L. IX.
св. ІІ.
## p. 50 (#74) ##############################################
50
Steele and Addison
were the best guides towards the improvement of their own; but
it was one of the distinguishing marks of the new journal that
both essayists avowedly adopted this principle.
After Addison had portrayed Mr Spectator, it was inevitable in
the day of cliques and coffeehouses that he should be made a
member of a club. Steele undertook this task, as he had per-
formed it for Mr Bickerstaff. But ‘the Trumpet Club", like nearly
all the creations of The Tatler, had been hardly more than an after-
thought : an incidental piece of monitory satire, conceived with
insight and humour, warning us against the consequence of an
ill-spent youth by the portraits of five tedious and futile old men.
Steele had learnt much by the time he came to sketch the Spectator's
club? He appears to have derived the idea from the numerous
ssical dialogues then fashionable, in which each interlocutor
is intended to have a character of his own and represent a
point of view. He pictured five men who moved in different
spheres of life and could uphold different opinions on social
and moral questions. Yet, from their first appearance, Mr
Spectator's friends did more than lend dramatic or dialectical
interest to their discussions. The new journal was conceived
in a spirit of restrained idealism, and its types were intended,
each in his own character, to be an object lesson to his class.
They are not introduced to us merely as men who hold theories.
Just as Mr Spectator is the perfected student of humanity, so
his companions retain a certain mellowness and suavity of dis-
position, though, like other ordinary people, they are cramped
and misdirected by their petty destinies. It is significant that
three, at least, of these creations are represented as triumphing
just where their prototypes in The Tatler failed. The first is Sir
Roger de Coverly, a man of naturally strong intelligence and
physical vigour, whose enthusiasm for life has been temporarily
blasted by a rather mysterious love affair. But he did not become
listless, like Cynthios after Clarissa had broken his heart, nor futile,
like the old man brought up before the court of honour who talked
only of Madame Frances. He has, indeed, resigned himself to an
inglorious existence among his bucolic and admiring tenants; but
he has not fallen a victim to a sense of self-importance like the
pompous and empty-headed Sir Harry Quickset5. He overflows
with lovingkindness, and his long career of feudal autocracy has
only added a touch of independence and eccentricity to his
1 The Tatler, no. 132.
a The Spectator, no. 2.
3 The Tatler, no. 58.
5 Ibid. no. 86.
4 Ibid. no. 110.
## p. 51 (#75) ##############################################
Character-types in The Spectator 51
benevolence. There is captain Sentry, a man of unquestioned
energy, ability and personal courage, who has retired from the
army, because he lacks the gift of self-advertisement. Yet he does
not spend his time in detracting from the success of other soldiers,
like the major of whom Bickerstaff had heard', but has withdrawn
to the social pleasures of London and resigned himself good-
humouredly to a life of leisurely obscurity. There is a lawyer,
who has no taste for his profession and resides at the Inner Temple
'to obey the direction of an old humoursome father. Yet, in-
stead of wasting his life, he devotes his ample leisure to Aristotle,
Longinus and the theatre, until he has cultivated much of The
Spectator's own character, since ‘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. '
Another member, Will Honeycomb the fop, had been for centuries
a butt in comedy and satire. Tudor moralists? had denounced the
man of fashion as guilty of deadly sins. Jacobean free-lances,
again and again, had depicted him as ignorant, indolent and inso-
lent. During the civil war, this antipathy against the type had
grown into hatred through association with cavaliers, and, even
after the revolution, many regarded the man of fashion as vicious
and ridiculous. Steele, who had followed the puritan tradition in
several numbers of The Tatler, still retained the old standpoint.
But the satire has gone. Will is portrayed as vain and worldly-
so a fop must always seem to the serious middle class but not as
depraved. He is the best of his type, a brilliant talker, with a
kind heart and an irresistible charm of manner. The spirit of The
Spectator is most clearly seen in the figure of Sir Andrew Freeport
the merchant. For more than a century, traders had been charac-
terised as dishonest and avaricious, because playwrights and
pamphleteers generally wrote for the leisured classes and were
themselves too poor to have any but unpleasant relations with
men of business Commerce was, however, now a great power in
society and politics. Merchants were ambassadors of civilization,
and had developed intellect so as to control distant, and, as it
seemed, mysterious, sources of wealth by a stroke of the pen“.
Thanks to coffeehouses, merchants now had the opportunity of
1 The Tatler, no. 202.
2 E. g. Tottel's Dice Play, 1532; W. de Worde's A Treatise of a Gallant, n. d. ;
Robin Conscience, 1550, and Crowley's Tracts. See ante, vol. in, chap. v.
• E. g. Greene, Nashe, Dekker, Rowlands, etc. Cf. ante, vol. iv, chap. XVI.
* See The Spectator, no. 174.
442
## p. 52 (#76) ##############################################
52
Steele and Addison
coming to understand their own importance through mutual dis-
cussion, and Steele had already, in The Tatler, given glimpses of
their prudence or dignity and claimed that they had as much right
to the title of gentlemen as courtiers and scholars had! . Still, it
was something new in literature to show how a man trained in a
counting-house could be the intellectual equal of the Spectator
and his friends. Sir Andrew is not a wit; his conversation
abounds in homely phrases ; his mind is not stored with the
wisdom of books; yet he has made himself an original thinker,
with ideas not fettered by tradition, but derived from experience
in trade and expressed with the lucidity of conviction.
When Steele sat down to sketch this group, he probably intended
each to be little more than a figurehead, enlivened with a few
touches of individuality. Yet, so introspective was the age in
.
which he wrote, that, as if unconsciously, he has made them, in
this his first description, hardly less than studies of social environ-
ment and character. After this brilliant beginning, it is dis-
appointing to find that, though the characters frequently reappear,
they are afterwards employed only to maintain an argument or
give information about the world which each represents or,
again, in imitation of dramatic technique, merely as confidants
of Mr Spectator and foils to throw into relief his views and
peculiarities. They are interwoven with lines of thought which
run through the periodical only by way of embroidery; at the
most, they are used as living examples of some habit or quality
which defies ordinary description. We are not vouchsafed any
glimpse of their progress through the world or of the development
of their minds. Even the Coverly papers are not really an excep-
tion to this. Steele first showed what was the knight's true function
when he depicted Sir Roger as protesting against the over-civiliza-
tion of city life and declaring himself to be 'so whimsical in a
corrupt age as to act according to nature and reason? ' Henceforth,
the country baronet became the type of Arcadian simplicity. From
the days of Tudor jestbooks, the city man had laughed at the
backwardness of the provincial, and the sense of urban superiority
is not missing in the Coverly papers. It is most significant that
Addison, with an idealist's instinct, endowed Sir Roger with all the
guilelessness and piety which London society lacked, and lovingly
1. That tradesman who deals with me in a commodity which I do not understand
with uprightness, has much more right to that character (i. e. of a gentleman), than
the courtier who gives me false hopes, or the scholar who laughs at my ignorance. '
The Tatler, no. 207.
? The Spectator, no. 6.
3 Cf, ante, vol. III, chap. v.
>
## p. 53 (#77) ##############################################
The Coverly Group
53
a
returned again and again to the theme, as if he found in it a
refuge from the artificiality of his own life. In his enthusiasm for
the golden age, which he pictured among the villages and manors
of old England, Addison created a whole society round Sir Roger-
including Will Wimble, the cadet of an ancient family, too brainless
for a liberal profession, too proud to enter business, really of the
same class as the odious Mr Thomas Gules", but portrayed as gentle
and lovable, like all the other inhabitants of the smiling land.
And yet the Coverly papers are only a series of sketches. The
Spectator spends a month in the country, and Sir Roger makes
a few visits to town. Nothing else is recorded until the knight's
unexpected death, except smalltalk. It is true that his most
trifling utterance has an irresistible charm, because it contributes
towards the picture of ideal simplicity, godliness and nobleness
of heart Even his little weaknesses and touches of vanity,
recorded with exquisite bumour, are the defects of his qualities.
In truth, these essays are the first masterpiece of humanised
puritanism ; though, as regards the history of the novel, they do
not mark an advance on the story of Jenny Distaff,
In any case, Steele and Addison could hardly have created the
novel, after creating Mr Spectator as their ideal of editorship.
That taciturn and contemplative investigator has intellectual
curiosity, but little sympathy. He ranges over a field so incredibly
wide that he is forced to see life from a distance. Steele and
Addison do not always stand aloof. They had shown, in occasional
papers, that they understood the human heart and the pathos of
unrecorded destiny; but they never, for long, escape from their
own conception of sporadic and dispassionate observation. It was
no small effort of creativeness to unify in one clear-cut character
vague tendencies towards critical contemplation, though the
spectacle of a half-formed and half-humanised democracy was too
engrossing in its outlines to leave room for the intensive study of
a novelist. So, the personalities of the Spectator's club tend to
fade out of importance, and the journal confined its development
to the lines which Addison had already marked out. It covered
practically the same ground as The Tatler, ridiculing or inveighing
against old-fashioned ideals of gallantry and self-indulgences, urgi
that kindness is better than cleverness", that self-suppression is
the essence of good breeding5; penetrating the secrets of home life
i The Tatler, no. 256.
2 Cf. The Spectator, nos. 4, 270, 454.
: See, especially, ibid. nos. 158, 182, 261, 244, 318.
* Ibid. nog. 23, 151, 169, 172, 177, 348.
5 Ibid. nos. 24, 286, 422, 438.
4
## p. 54 (#78) ##############################################
54
Steele and Addison
and exposing the humiliations of citizens who affect aristocratic
immorality', the stupidity of husbands who tyrannise over their
wives? or fathers over their children, the folly of women who
marry for money' or think that the pleasures of society are
preferable to the duties of the household. As Steele took the
responsibility of seeing that 'copy' was forthcoming day by day,
a few of his papers are still written with that hurried diffuseneng
which has lost The Tatler many readers. In his best work, he
conforms to the studied simplicity and artistic concentration which
Addison had developed in The Tatler and was continuing to
cultivate with great success.
But, if The Spectator surpassed its predecessor in style, it
achieved an even greater advance in thought. The moralists of
the seventeenth century bad drawn their wisdom from books,
Bickerstaff had drawn his from experience; while Addison showed
how to draw from both sources. It is surprising how much quaint
and curious lore is introduced into the pages of The Spectator
merely to give point or freshness to an uninspiring theme', as
where the buyers of lottery tickets suggest the legend of Mahomet's
coffin suspended in mid-air by the force of two magnets', or the
curiosity of the town concerning the letter with which each essay
was signed is mocked by means of a dissertation on cabalism? It
is, however, when these writers continue Bickerstaff's more serious
duties of censorship that the full influence of literature becomes
most marked. The Tatler had criticised the follies and foibles of
society by the light of common sense ; The Spectator never fails
in its higher criterion—the mellow and dignified experience of
antiquity. Sometimes, the petulant efforts of modern writers are
compared with the noble simplicity of ancient literature. Some-
times, the pettiness or malice of the writers themselves is reproved
on the authority of Simonides? , Cicero 10, Epictetus", or by a de-
scription of the Augustan circle 12 In these respects, Addison
differed only in method and thoroughness from Jacobean essayists,
who quoted Roman or Italian authors whenever their reading
rendered them discontented with the worn-out traditions of their
own society. But Mr Spectator went far deeper than this. Not
only did he quote the judgments and counsels of the ancients on
1 The Spectator, nos. 33, 91, 41, 45, 89, 260, 288, 298, 299, 342.
2 No. 236.
8 No. 431.
* Nos. 149, 268, 311, 320,
6 No. 191,
7 No. 221.
6 Nos. 94, 191, 211, 221, 343, 439.
9 No. 209.
8 Nos. 223, 229, 249, 446.
10 No. 243.
il No. 355.
12 No. 253.
## p. 55 (#79) ##############################################
The Spectator and The Tatler compared 55
questions common to all moralists of all ages; but, when straying
from the beaten track, and counselling his contemporaries on their
peculiarities and eccentricities, he was still guided by a Roman
sense of self-respect and reasonableness. His exquisite portrait of
the valetudinarian who took his meals in a weighing chair is really
inspired by Martial's contempt for those who are more anxious to
live than to live rightly? . The sense of solemnity which comes
over Mr Spectator in Westminster abbey descends on him from
Lucretius, and Seneca would have approved of the diary of an
idle man and of that of a woman of fashion s.
Steele, as usual, followed his master's lead and introduced
copious quotations and allusions into his more serious papers.
But, at best, he was an indifferent scholar, and, except in the
Pbaramond papers", he never approached Addison's tact and
felicity. Much as he admired Mr Spectator's cultured and con-
templative mind, his own experience was leading him to work out
a philosophy of life on different lines. As, in The Tatler, he had
taken refuge in sentimentality, so now, in The Spectator, he still
fought against his own inborn unconventionality by advocating a
regularity of conduct which he could not practise. The puritans
had always disliked what was unusual or self-willed, and Steele
brought Cicero and the Stoics to their help, showing how the
recklessness of the spendthrift, the capriciousness of the man
who varies his greetings according to his mood, or even the
impertinence of fops who affect hurry or indolence, are really
offences against 'decency' and 'decorum ' Such observances,
which had formerly been the creed of the middle class, began to
have a universal binding force, now that they were backed by the
authority of culture. It is significant that some of his leading
ideas on education, on the evils of vanity in dress and on the
reading of romances? , had already been fully put forward by Ascham
in The Scholemaster. This strengthening of public opinion was
undoubtedly important in a half-formed society, but it was soon
to grow into the narrow British insistence on respectability, bitterly
satirised by Victorian writers. Even at this early stage, the ap-
pearance of a girl riding in man's clothes, after the French fashion,
suggests to Steele the reflection that eccentricity of dress is nothing
less than an offence against virtues. Sometimes, Steele breaks away
i No. 25.
2 No. 26.
3 Nos. 317, 323.
• Nos. 76, 84, 97, 480. Pharamond was borrowed from La Calprenedo's novel.
5 Nos. 222, 259, 284.
® Nos. 157, 168, 230.
7 See Steele's comedies.
8 No. 104.
## p. 56 (#80) ##############################################
56
Steele and Addison
from the social formulae which he helped to codify and gives free
play to his gift of seeing things in a natural, almost a primitive,
light. Returning to one of the favourite themes of The Tatler, he
has independence enough to show how there existed among traders
a whole world of romance and destiny undreamt of by the politer
classes?
5 Nos. 112, 169, 203.
$ See preceding chap. of this volume.
7 No. 186.
Nos. 25 (influenced by Molière's Le Mariage forcé), 57, 83, 138, 186, 206, 227.
* No. 85. It is worth noting that Addison used the same simile in Spec. no. 495.
## p. 42 (#66) ##############################################
42
Steele and Addison
performs the tasks of its rulers, and cannot find out that they are
doing nothing?
These reflections are accidental and were probably shared by
many another coffeehouse critic of men and manners. Steele had
neither the talent nor the opportunity to work them up into a
philosophy. The same lack of system impairs his interpretation of
literature. At a time when the most enlightened critics admired a
poet for his rhetoric, Steele discovered in Shakespeare and Milton
the sublime moralists of middle class life, quoting from their pages
to show where the everyday virtues of fidelity, pity and conjugal
love have found their purest and noblest expression? He does not,
however, seek to impress this view on his public. Beyond retelling
the Bible story of Joseph and his brethren? , to illustrate how, in
moments of despondency, he 'turns his thoughts to the adversities
of persons of higher consideration in virtue and merit to regain
tranquillity,' he never taught his readers how to look for moral and
spiritual guidance in literature. They are left to glean what
they can from chance utterances. Had it been otherwise, these
papers would have been the most remarkable critical production
of Steele's generation.
The Tatler continued to appear three times a week until
2 January 1711 and then ceased abruptly. The loss of his
gazetteership, though it deprived Steele of access to first-hand
news, can hardly have influenced him, since foreign intelligence in
The Tatler had long dwindled into an occasional and perfunctory
paragraph. Possibly, he was allowed to retain his commissioner-
ship of stamps under the new government only on the understanding
that a paper connected with the whig party should be discontinued.
He may really have feared that the secret of authorship was now
widely divulged, and that the association of his not unblemished name
with moral counsels might revive the ridicule which had greeted The
Christian Hero. But, besides this, he was suffering the discourage-
ment of a man who wades beyond his depth. The self-imposed
task of censor had led him deeper and deeper into the complex
questions of his day, while his journalistic methods allowed of only
fleeting and superficial glimpses at truth. Had he been fully
conscious of his inability, he would probably, with characteristic
candour, have freely confessed it. As it was, he sank under a
temporary attack of weariness, all the more irresistible because
i No. 203. ? Nos. 40, 47, 53, 68, 102, 104, 188, 237. 3 No. 234.
• See no. 271. Swift (Journal to Stella) says he grew cruel dull and dry. To my
knowledge, he had several good hints to go upon; but he was so lazy and weary of
the work, that he would not improve them. '
## p. 43 (#67) ##############################################
Addison's Early Training
43
another writer, who had been intermittently associated with him
in the paper, seemed to have acquired without effort that art of
expression which Steele himself lacked.
This collaborator was Addison? In reality, his achievement
was the fruit of a mental readjustment more laborious and funda-
mental than Steele's, though of a different character. Like the
creator of The Tatler, Addison had to put new wine into old
bottles. He was a man of scholarly habits and unusual ability,
but taciturn and lacking in initiative. When Steele plunged into
London life, Addison was studying at Magdalen, where he peace-
fully won academic distinction and stored his mind with the wit
and wisdom of antiquity. At this time, the universities were far
removed from the outer world, and, if Oxford made him a distin-
guished Latinist, it also made him a recluse more competent to
imitate Vergilian hexameters than to lead the thought of his
generation. He left the university in 1699; but four years' travel
among the chief centres of European culture did not draw his mind
out of the academic mould into which it had been cast. There
were still patrons to reward the man of scholarly attainments;
and Addison, who had to make his own fortunes, seems to
have been content to revive his university reputation among the
few, by some work of graceful and recondite learning. A boyish
interest in the writing on London signposts had been developed
by his academic training into a taste for numismatics, and, of all
the resources of Europe, nothing seems to have left so deep an
impression on his mind as collections of coins. As a result, one
of the first fruits of his travels, printed posthumously, was Dialogues
upon the usefulness of Ancient Medals, a treatise which shows an
intimate familiarity with Latin poets and singular ingenuity in
elucidating obscure passages by the light of legends and devices,
1. That paper was advanced indeed I for it was raised to a greater thing than I
intended it! For the elegance, parity and correctness which appeared in his writings
were not so much my purpose, as (in any intelligible manner as I could) to rally all
those singularities of human life through the different professions and characters in it,
which obstruct anything that was truly good and great. ' Steele, in preface to
The Drummer (1721).
A glance at Addison's early successes will show how enduringly academio were
the influences which shaped his mind. He was elected demy of Magdalen 1689 and
pablished vol. 7 of Musae Anglicanae in 1691; composed Dissertatio de Romanorum
poetis in 1692; delivered Oratio de nova philosophia in 1693; engaged in translating
Herodotus in 1696; was elected to a fellowship 1698; published vol. II of Musae
Anglicanae (containing his own Latin poems) in 1699.
3 The Tatler, no. 18.
## p. 44 (#68) ##############################################
44
Steele and Addison
but touches no other human interest except curiosity in
Roman dress. About the same time, he prepared for publication
a diary of travel, recording faithfully his impressions of the
customs, character and polity of the people, on the model of
Bacon's Essays! . Even these notes, which appeared in 1705 as
Remarks on Italy, show little enthusiasm, except where his
wanderings lead him directly on the track of ancient literature.
The year before, he made a name for himself throughout
London, and thus assured his future, by producing The Campaign.
The origin of this celebrated piece was political. The whigs had
just vindicated their policy by the victory of Blenheim, and
Godolphin was looking for a party poet who should give voice to
the wave of triumph and patriotism which was passing over the
nation. Halifax suggested the distinguished writer of Latin verse
who had already produced a few scholarly verse translations and
some complimentary addresses to patrons in the courtly style. To
most writers, a theme such as the battle of Blenheim would
naturally have suggested an elegy or a pindaric ode. But Addison,
with characteristic judgment, cast his effusion into the form of an
epic; for, in this poetic form, a store of poetic imagery and poetic
exaggeration presented itself ready-made, and the author of The
Campaign found that his task was to select and apply expressions
such as would shed heroic grandeur on the achievements of the
British arms.
In fact, he treated his subject as if it were an
academic exercise in rhetoric; and, although the versification is
often prosaic and the vigorous passages are balanced by lapses
into platitude, he acquitted himself with remarkable ingenuity
and tact. While paying extravagant tributes to ‘Anna's royal
cares' and to 'Marlborough's mighty soul,' he succeeded in
addressing the nation at large. He flattered their most cherished
boasts—their pride in British freedom, their hero-worship, their
love of fighting-in phrases consecrated by Homer, Vergil, Lucan,
Statius, Silius Italicus, while the exigencies of the heroic couplet
almost necessarily involved 'turns' and 'points' such as the polite
age admired. The pamphlet in verses took the town by storm, and
the author, who had been given a commissionership of appeals
as a retaining fee, was now rewarded with an undersecretaryship
of state.
From this time forth, Addison was one of the elect. In 1706,
-
6
1
1 Essay on Travel. ? E. g. the celebrated simile in 11. 272–92.
3 It was followed, in 1707, by an anonymous pamphlet in prose, The Present State
of the War.
## p. 45 (#69) ##############################################
Addison as a Contributor to The Tatler 45
he became undersecretary of state to Lord Sunderland ; in 1707,
he accompanied Lord Halifax to Hanover; in 1709, he became chief
secretary to the marquis of Wharton, lord lieutenant of Ireland,
and, besides these experiences in administration, he held a seat in
parliament from 1708 till his death. So, he was never again in
want, and at no time passed through the stormy and varied experi-
ences which bring sympathy with human nature and insight into
character. Even during the lean years, he had been too reticent and
polite to become a bohemian, and, in the years of plenty, it seemed
inevitable that he should settle down to the leisurely discharge of
his public functions and keep up his literary studies merely as a
polite and elegant pastime. And yet, it was during this period of
his life that Addison immeasurably enlarged his intellectual out-
look. He made the acquaintance of Pope and Swift, renewed his
school and college friendship with Steele and, like other men of
culture, frequented the coffeehouses. Gradually, he came under
the full influence of the great social movement, and, as his thoughts
centred round questions of morals and manners, he achieved the
feat of bringing his vast classical learning to shed light on these
modern problems. Instead of using ancient literature to illustrate
medals, he discovered how to make it illustrate the weaknesses and
peculiarities of his contemporaries. He learned to refer the per-
plexities and doubts of his own day to the wisdom and experience
of antiquity. His scholarly instincts, instead of drawing him into
the library, sharpened his natural gift of silent observation and
provided unlimited material for his sense of humour.
The Tatler gave him just the opportunity which he needed.
After discovering, by a remark on Vergill, that Steele was the
author of the paper, Addison became an occasional contributor,
and, despite the distractions of his official life, began to adapt his
talents to the new literary art. Like Steele, he had to feel his
way, and seems to have gradually realized what was in his mind,
by the process of writing. His first papera bids good-bye to
pedantry by declaring that
men of wit do so much employ their thoughts upon fine speculations, that
things useful to mankind are wholly neglected: and they are busy in making
emendations upon some enclitics in a Greek author, while obvious things,
that every man may have use for are wholly overlooked ;
i See The Tatler, no. 6, on Vergil's choice of words, in which it is pointed out that,
whereas Aeneas, at other times, is called Pius or Bonus, he is termed Dux Trojanus
when about to seduce Dido. Addison had suggested this idea to Steele at Charter-
house.
? The Tatler, no. 18.
## p. 46 (#70) ##############################################
46
Steele and Addison
and then, as if dissatisfied with the recondite studies of his
manhood, he reverts to his boyish interest in signposts and writes
an essay on the inconveniences arising from their misspellings.
But his own habits of thought had been formed by the great
teachers of antiquity, and, the more he watched Bickerstaff's
attempts at sugaring the didactic pill, the more their arts suggested
themselves to him. Steele did, indeed, carelessly try his hand at
allegory'; and Addison, acting on a hint from Swift, revived the
classical myth, taking Plato and Ovid for his chief models. These
visions and dreams point very commonplace morals, but they
astonish by their boldness of fancy and compel belief by their realism
of detail? Steele had drawn realistic pictures of Grobianism and
immorality; Addison, by nature, was averse to anything primitive,
but had learnt from Theophrastus, Terence and Horace to expect
proportion in the most trivial details of conduct. Accordingly, the
more he studied men, the more he cultivated an eye for the little
inconsistencies and perversions of his fellow creatures. This
acquired appreciation of the golden mean' blended with a
natural gift for genial caricature. Wherever his abnormally
keen sense for proportion had detected some eccentric or un-
reasonable penchant, he pictured a man completely under its
domination, gravely worked out the irrational tendency to its
logical conclusion and then left his reader to laugh at the result.
The wellworn theme of bucolic self-importance is developed into
the delightful portrait of Sir Harry Quickset3; the self-absorption
of the half-educated appears in the comical account of the dancing
master who made the house shake while he studied 'orcheso-
graphy''; women's passion for pets is illustrated by the admirable
story of the maidservant (really 'an arch baggage') sent to
consult the astrologer on the health of Cupid, her mistress's lap-
dog 5; pedants are defined as 'all men of deep learning without
common-sense,' and their absurdities are exposed in the vagaries
of Tom Folio and the entomologist's will? The Londoner's
passion for news is caricatured in the person, of the political
upholsterers.
Addison indulged in many other graceful flights of fancy, which
1 The Tatler, no. 48.
6
• Swift had suggested, in no. 67, that the most famous characters of all time might
be represented as seated at a banquet. Addison produced bis first allegorical master.
piece on this theme in collaboration with Steele in no. 81 and followed it up with
others, nos. 97, 100, 120, 123, 146, 147, 161.
3 No. 86.
* No. 88.
6 No. 121.
6 No. 158.
7 Nos. 216, 221. 8 Nos. 155, 160.
>
## p. 47 (#71) ##############################################
Addison's Style as an Essay-Writer 47
gave his satire- a charm of its own; but he showed little originality
of thought. And yet, though he was content to follow Bickerstaff
or, rather, the public opinion of coffeehouses, his few contri-
butions? are a turning point in the history of the essay. These
familiar topics became full of a new vitality under his pen. His
work, if anything, is less vigorous and less searching than Steele's;
but it has the other eloquence of form which turns human utter-
ance into literature. Until now, the essay had not completely
established itself as a literary type. In the hands of Bacon, it was
little more than a string of meditations, while the inventiveness of
popular writers had been lavished on character sketches, epigrams,
satires and revivals of medieval thought. Cowley, and, after him,
Temple, had, largely under the influence of Montaigne, given a
new turn to the essay, which had thus come to exercise an im-
portant effect upon the transformation of English prose®. Steele
and Addison entered into an inheritance which increased and
multiplied in their hands. With the first few numbers of The
Tatler, pre-restoration humour had been abandoned after a few
attempts, and Steele addressed himself to the intellect of the
middle class in the unliterary guise of a news-sheet, though his
ideas had long outgrown so restricted a compass. As has been
shown, his material was unmistakably leading him towards the
novel of domestic life. Addison probably retarded the transition,
by giving to an irresponsible and inadequate medium a complete-
ness and dignity which satisfied the intellectual and artistic needs
of his generation. For Addison not only endowed the essay with
the airs and graces of cultured writing-he discovered the prose
style which suits the genre. Steele had rightly conceived that The
Tatler must be written in a colloquial vein, and had dashed off
his
papers
with the freedom and effusiveness of his own conversa-
tion. Addison was too reserved ever to be a voluble talker; he
never became communicative except in a small circle of kindred
spirits. Thus, the riches of his mind had found expression only in
1 E. g. & court ‘for examining the pretensions of several who had applied to me
for canes, perspective glasses, snuff-boxes, orange-flower waters and the like orna-
ments of life,'nos. 103, 110, 116; talkers differentiated 48 musical instruments,
no. 153; inconstancy of life symbolised by a coach journey in which the occupants
anaccountably lose their tempers, no. 192; the ecclesiastical thermometer which
should register excess, even in the virtues of churchmanship, no. 220; frozen words,
no. 254 ; the court of honour, & pioturesque way of discussing points of etiquette
and good manners, nos. 250, 253, 256, 259, 262, 265.
• Forty-one papers contributed by Addison independently; thirty-four in conjunction
with Steele.
* Cf. ante, vol. vi, chap. XVI.
-
## p. 48 (#72) ##############################################
48
Steele and Addison
polished and confidential intercourse, and when, following the
example of Steele, he began to talk on paper, his subtle and
unaffected personality found free play with his pen as in conversa-
tion. And so, he created a perfect style for detached literature
lucid, colloquial, full of individuality and yet chastened by that
careful choice of words which, like other scholars, he had already
cultivated in writing Latin verse.
Addison had completely mastered the art of essay writing
when Steele discontinued The Tatler. The fall of the whig
ministry in the previous year, deprived both writers of lucrative
positions. But the reasons for resuming the interrupted work
were not merely financial. The production of The Tatler had
brought with it experiences such as no other contemporary
writer had been privileged to enjoy. While ransacking society,
clubland and literature for 'copy,' Steele and Addison had dis-
covered, partly in themselves and partly in others, a moral
and intellectual tone purer and more humane than the spirit
which they had breathed into their own paper. Greatly as
that periodical had developed, it could not altogether escape from
the desultory and superficial character which it had assumed at
its origin. Yet a new journal offered boundless possibilities, and
the artist's instinct, as well as the moralist's zeal, played a part
in founding The Spectator.
Thus, the new enterprise was not a mere sequel to The Tatler-
a pennyworth of diversion containing something to suit all tastes.
The old paper, in its primary conception, had been too much like
a medley in which social scandal, city gossip and foreign news
emulously claimed the reader's attention. Its successor was to
be a series of literary pamphlets, concerned only with morals and
manners, each number being confined to a single theme and bearing
a distinct message from the world of religion, thought or humour.
Though its appeals were narrowed in scope, they were to be more
often repeated. The paper appeared every day and, by sheer
frequency, grew into the life of its readers like an intimate
counsellor or a constant friend. Above all, the periodical was to
have the persuasiveness of personality. As the editors could not
write in their own names, they profited by the example of Isaac
Bickerstaff and published their reflections under a fictitious cha-
racter. While, however, the astrologer of The Tatler had been
merely an ingenious embellishment, a suggestive curiosity intro-
ducing its readers to truths which they could have appreciated
without him, Mr Spectator both gave his name to the paper and
## p. 49 (#73) ##############################################
The Spirit of The Spectator 49
typified the spirit in which it was written. The first number, on
1 March 1711, was given up to a sketch of his mind and this por-
trayal marks an epoch in the history of English culture. Addison,
who drew the picture and is, indeed, the inspiring genius of the
whole periodical, here really describes his own mental attitude since
he left . academic bowers,' taking with him all his classical learn-
ing, to join the observers of modern life. His ideas were largely
due to the new atmosphere in which he now found himself; but,
as his intellectual emancipation had cost him much, he realized his
purpose more intensely than did his fellows. For Mr Spectator is
the type of a new culture which grew out of puritanism. Men of
profound learning, had, under the old civilization, been specialists
-theologians, demonographers, jurists, philosophers or university
scholars. Mr Spectator is also profoundly learned; he is acquainted
with all celebrated books in ancient and modern tongues. Nay,
more, he is a traveller, and, like the great renascence scholars, has
visited every accessible country in search of knowledge. Yet he
has no profession; he does not belong to a school of thought. He
has simply stored his mind with the wisdom, wit and humour of
other countries and ages, and he spends his life in observing his
contemporaries and, consciously or unconsciously, comparing their
manners, customs and ideas with those of which he has read.
He visits 'The Exchange,' theatres, coffeehouses ; wherever men
gather he is to be found, until, as Addison says, 'he has made
himself a speculative statesman, soldier, merchant or artisan
without ever meddling with any practical part in life. Such
Addison had learnt to be, and such, also, without the concluding
qualification, was the ideal of the protestant middle class of
this century. Now that the great disputes as to religion and
government had been settled, the descendants of the puritans
were free, fifty years before Voltaire, 'to cultivate their garden. '
They brought to the task of self-education an ever growing know-
ledge of books and the same seriousness and humanity which
began to guide the more enlightened so far back as the civil war.
Such a generation might reform and, on occasion, take an interest
in the theatre or even cultivate belles lettres; but their true sphere
was found in the routine of daily life. Conversation and study
made them thoughtful; yet it was a practical thoughtfulness
centring round their institutions, manners and intellectual de-
velopment. Steele, and especially Addison, while writing for The
Tatler, had hinted that the wisdom and integrity of other ages
1 Ante, vol. vii, chap. XVI, pp. 384–8, 392—7.
4
E. L. IX.
св. ІІ.
## p. 50 (#74) ##############################################
50
Steele and Addison
were the best guides towards the improvement of their own; but
it was one of the distinguishing marks of the new journal that
both essayists avowedly adopted this principle.
After Addison had portrayed Mr Spectator, it was inevitable in
the day of cliques and coffeehouses that he should be made a
member of a club. Steele undertook this task, as he had per-
formed it for Mr Bickerstaff. But ‘the Trumpet Club", like nearly
all the creations of The Tatler, had been hardly more than an after-
thought : an incidental piece of monitory satire, conceived with
insight and humour, warning us against the consequence of an
ill-spent youth by the portraits of five tedious and futile old men.
Steele had learnt much by the time he came to sketch the Spectator's
club? He appears to have derived the idea from the numerous
ssical dialogues then fashionable, in which each interlocutor
is intended to have a character of his own and represent a
point of view. He pictured five men who moved in different
spheres of life and could uphold different opinions on social
and moral questions. Yet, from their first appearance, Mr
Spectator's friends did more than lend dramatic or dialectical
interest to their discussions. The new journal was conceived
in a spirit of restrained idealism, and its types were intended,
each in his own character, to be an object lesson to his class.
They are not introduced to us merely as men who hold theories.
Just as Mr Spectator is the perfected student of humanity, so
his companions retain a certain mellowness and suavity of dis-
position, though, like other ordinary people, they are cramped
and misdirected by their petty destinies. It is significant that
three, at least, of these creations are represented as triumphing
just where their prototypes in The Tatler failed. The first is Sir
Roger de Coverly, a man of naturally strong intelligence and
physical vigour, whose enthusiasm for life has been temporarily
blasted by a rather mysterious love affair. But he did not become
listless, like Cynthios after Clarissa had broken his heart, nor futile,
like the old man brought up before the court of honour who talked
only of Madame Frances. He has, indeed, resigned himself to an
inglorious existence among his bucolic and admiring tenants; but
he has not fallen a victim to a sense of self-importance like the
pompous and empty-headed Sir Harry Quickset5. He overflows
with lovingkindness, and his long career of feudal autocracy has
only added a touch of independence and eccentricity to his
1 The Tatler, no. 132.
a The Spectator, no. 2.
3 The Tatler, no. 58.
5 Ibid. no. 86.
4 Ibid. no. 110.
## p. 51 (#75) ##############################################
Character-types in The Spectator 51
benevolence. There is captain Sentry, a man of unquestioned
energy, ability and personal courage, who has retired from the
army, because he lacks the gift of self-advertisement. Yet he does
not spend his time in detracting from the success of other soldiers,
like the major of whom Bickerstaff had heard', but has withdrawn
to the social pleasures of London and resigned himself good-
humouredly to a life of leisurely obscurity. There is a lawyer,
who has no taste for his profession and resides at the Inner Temple
'to obey the direction of an old humoursome father. Yet, in-
stead of wasting his life, he devotes his ample leisure to Aristotle,
Longinus and the theatre, until he has cultivated much of The
Spectator's own character, since ‘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. '
Another member, Will Honeycomb the fop, had been for centuries
a butt in comedy and satire. Tudor moralists? had denounced the
man of fashion as guilty of deadly sins. Jacobean free-lances,
again and again, had depicted him as ignorant, indolent and inso-
lent. During the civil war, this antipathy against the type had
grown into hatred through association with cavaliers, and, even
after the revolution, many regarded the man of fashion as vicious
and ridiculous. Steele, who had followed the puritan tradition in
several numbers of The Tatler, still retained the old standpoint.
But the satire has gone. Will is portrayed as vain and worldly-
so a fop must always seem to the serious middle class but not as
depraved. He is the best of his type, a brilliant talker, with a
kind heart and an irresistible charm of manner. The spirit of The
Spectator is most clearly seen in the figure of Sir Andrew Freeport
the merchant. For more than a century, traders had been charac-
terised as dishonest and avaricious, because playwrights and
pamphleteers generally wrote for the leisured classes and were
themselves too poor to have any but unpleasant relations with
men of business Commerce was, however, now a great power in
society and politics. Merchants were ambassadors of civilization,
and had developed intellect so as to control distant, and, as it
seemed, mysterious, sources of wealth by a stroke of the pen“.
Thanks to coffeehouses, merchants now had the opportunity of
1 The Tatler, no. 202.
2 E. g. Tottel's Dice Play, 1532; W. de Worde's A Treatise of a Gallant, n. d. ;
Robin Conscience, 1550, and Crowley's Tracts. See ante, vol. in, chap. v.
• E. g. Greene, Nashe, Dekker, Rowlands, etc. Cf. ante, vol. iv, chap. XVI.
* See The Spectator, no. 174.
442
## p. 52 (#76) ##############################################
52
Steele and Addison
coming to understand their own importance through mutual dis-
cussion, and Steele had already, in The Tatler, given glimpses of
their prudence or dignity and claimed that they had as much right
to the title of gentlemen as courtiers and scholars had! . Still, it
was something new in literature to show how a man trained in a
counting-house could be the intellectual equal of the Spectator
and his friends. Sir Andrew is not a wit; his conversation
abounds in homely phrases ; his mind is not stored with the
wisdom of books; yet he has made himself an original thinker,
with ideas not fettered by tradition, but derived from experience
in trade and expressed with the lucidity of conviction.
When Steele sat down to sketch this group, he probably intended
each to be little more than a figurehead, enlivened with a few
touches of individuality. Yet, so introspective was the age in
.
which he wrote, that, as if unconsciously, he has made them, in
this his first description, hardly less than studies of social environ-
ment and character. After this brilliant beginning, it is dis-
appointing to find that, though the characters frequently reappear,
they are afterwards employed only to maintain an argument or
give information about the world which each represents or,
again, in imitation of dramatic technique, merely as confidants
of Mr Spectator and foils to throw into relief his views and
peculiarities. They are interwoven with lines of thought which
run through the periodical only by way of embroidery; at the
most, they are used as living examples of some habit or quality
which defies ordinary description. We are not vouchsafed any
glimpse of their progress through the world or of the development
of their minds. Even the Coverly papers are not really an excep-
tion to this. Steele first showed what was the knight's true function
when he depicted Sir Roger as protesting against the over-civiliza-
tion of city life and declaring himself to be 'so whimsical in a
corrupt age as to act according to nature and reason? ' Henceforth,
the country baronet became the type of Arcadian simplicity. From
the days of Tudor jestbooks, the city man had laughed at the
backwardness of the provincial, and the sense of urban superiority
is not missing in the Coverly papers. It is most significant that
Addison, with an idealist's instinct, endowed Sir Roger with all the
guilelessness and piety which London society lacked, and lovingly
1. That tradesman who deals with me in a commodity which I do not understand
with uprightness, has much more right to that character (i. e. of a gentleman), than
the courtier who gives me false hopes, or the scholar who laughs at my ignorance. '
The Tatler, no. 207.
? The Spectator, no. 6.
3 Cf, ante, vol. III, chap. v.
>
## p. 53 (#77) ##############################################
The Coverly Group
53
a
returned again and again to the theme, as if he found in it a
refuge from the artificiality of his own life. In his enthusiasm for
the golden age, which he pictured among the villages and manors
of old England, Addison created a whole society round Sir Roger-
including Will Wimble, the cadet of an ancient family, too brainless
for a liberal profession, too proud to enter business, really of the
same class as the odious Mr Thomas Gules", but portrayed as gentle
and lovable, like all the other inhabitants of the smiling land.
And yet the Coverly papers are only a series of sketches. The
Spectator spends a month in the country, and Sir Roger makes
a few visits to town. Nothing else is recorded until the knight's
unexpected death, except smalltalk. It is true that his most
trifling utterance has an irresistible charm, because it contributes
towards the picture of ideal simplicity, godliness and nobleness
of heart Even his little weaknesses and touches of vanity,
recorded with exquisite bumour, are the defects of his qualities.
In truth, these essays are the first masterpiece of humanised
puritanism ; though, as regards the history of the novel, they do
not mark an advance on the story of Jenny Distaff,
In any case, Steele and Addison could hardly have created the
novel, after creating Mr Spectator as their ideal of editorship.
That taciturn and contemplative investigator has intellectual
curiosity, but little sympathy. He ranges over a field so incredibly
wide that he is forced to see life from a distance. Steele and
Addison do not always stand aloof. They had shown, in occasional
papers, that they understood the human heart and the pathos of
unrecorded destiny; but they never, for long, escape from their
own conception of sporadic and dispassionate observation. It was
no small effort of creativeness to unify in one clear-cut character
vague tendencies towards critical contemplation, though the
spectacle of a half-formed and half-humanised democracy was too
engrossing in its outlines to leave room for the intensive study of
a novelist. So, the personalities of the Spectator's club tend to
fade out of importance, and the journal confined its development
to the lines which Addison had already marked out. It covered
practically the same ground as The Tatler, ridiculing or inveighing
against old-fashioned ideals of gallantry and self-indulgences, urgi
that kindness is better than cleverness", that self-suppression is
the essence of good breeding5; penetrating the secrets of home life
i The Tatler, no. 256.
2 Cf. The Spectator, nos. 4, 270, 454.
: See, especially, ibid. nos. 158, 182, 261, 244, 318.
* Ibid. nog. 23, 151, 169, 172, 177, 348.
5 Ibid. nos. 24, 286, 422, 438.
4
## p. 54 (#78) ##############################################
54
Steele and Addison
and exposing the humiliations of citizens who affect aristocratic
immorality', the stupidity of husbands who tyrannise over their
wives? or fathers over their children, the folly of women who
marry for money' or think that the pleasures of society are
preferable to the duties of the household. As Steele took the
responsibility of seeing that 'copy' was forthcoming day by day,
a few of his papers are still written with that hurried diffuseneng
which has lost The Tatler many readers. In his best work, he
conforms to the studied simplicity and artistic concentration which
Addison had developed in The Tatler and was continuing to
cultivate with great success.
But, if The Spectator surpassed its predecessor in style, it
achieved an even greater advance in thought. The moralists of
the seventeenth century bad drawn their wisdom from books,
Bickerstaff had drawn his from experience; while Addison showed
how to draw from both sources. It is surprising how much quaint
and curious lore is introduced into the pages of The Spectator
merely to give point or freshness to an uninspiring theme', as
where the buyers of lottery tickets suggest the legend of Mahomet's
coffin suspended in mid-air by the force of two magnets', or the
curiosity of the town concerning the letter with which each essay
was signed is mocked by means of a dissertation on cabalism? It
is, however, when these writers continue Bickerstaff's more serious
duties of censorship that the full influence of literature becomes
most marked. The Tatler had criticised the follies and foibles of
society by the light of common sense ; The Spectator never fails
in its higher criterion—the mellow and dignified experience of
antiquity. Sometimes, the petulant efforts of modern writers are
compared with the noble simplicity of ancient literature. Some-
times, the pettiness or malice of the writers themselves is reproved
on the authority of Simonides? , Cicero 10, Epictetus", or by a de-
scription of the Augustan circle 12 In these respects, Addison
differed only in method and thoroughness from Jacobean essayists,
who quoted Roman or Italian authors whenever their reading
rendered them discontented with the worn-out traditions of their
own society. But Mr Spectator went far deeper than this. Not
only did he quote the judgments and counsels of the ancients on
1 The Spectator, nos. 33, 91, 41, 45, 89, 260, 288, 298, 299, 342.
2 No. 236.
8 No. 431.
* Nos. 149, 268, 311, 320,
6 No. 191,
7 No. 221.
6 Nos. 94, 191, 211, 221, 343, 439.
9 No. 209.
8 Nos. 223, 229, 249, 446.
10 No. 243.
il No. 355.
12 No. 253.
## p. 55 (#79) ##############################################
The Spectator and The Tatler compared 55
questions common to all moralists of all ages; but, when straying
from the beaten track, and counselling his contemporaries on their
peculiarities and eccentricities, he was still guided by a Roman
sense of self-respect and reasonableness. His exquisite portrait of
the valetudinarian who took his meals in a weighing chair is really
inspired by Martial's contempt for those who are more anxious to
live than to live rightly? . The sense of solemnity which comes
over Mr Spectator in Westminster abbey descends on him from
Lucretius, and Seneca would have approved of the diary of an
idle man and of that of a woman of fashion s.
Steele, as usual, followed his master's lead and introduced
copious quotations and allusions into his more serious papers.
But, at best, he was an indifferent scholar, and, except in the
Pbaramond papers", he never approached Addison's tact and
felicity. Much as he admired Mr Spectator's cultured and con-
templative mind, his own experience was leading him to work out
a philosophy of life on different lines. As, in The Tatler, he had
taken refuge in sentimentality, so now, in The Spectator, he still
fought against his own inborn unconventionality by advocating a
regularity of conduct which he could not practise. The puritans
had always disliked what was unusual or self-willed, and Steele
brought Cicero and the Stoics to their help, showing how the
recklessness of the spendthrift, the capriciousness of the man
who varies his greetings according to his mood, or even the
impertinence of fops who affect hurry or indolence, are really
offences against 'decency' and 'decorum ' Such observances,
which had formerly been the creed of the middle class, began to
have a universal binding force, now that they were backed by the
authority of culture. It is significant that some of his leading
ideas on education, on the evils of vanity in dress and on the
reading of romances? , had already been fully put forward by Ascham
in The Scholemaster. This strengthening of public opinion was
undoubtedly important in a half-formed society, but it was soon
to grow into the narrow British insistence on respectability, bitterly
satirised by Victorian writers. Even at this early stage, the ap-
pearance of a girl riding in man's clothes, after the French fashion,
suggests to Steele the reflection that eccentricity of dress is nothing
less than an offence against virtues. Sometimes, Steele breaks away
i No. 25.
2 No. 26.
3 Nos. 317, 323.
• Nos. 76, 84, 97, 480. Pharamond was borrowed from La Calprenedo's novel.
5 Nos. 222, 259, 284.
® Nos. 157, 168, 230.
7 See Steele's comedies.
8 No. 104.
## p. 56 (#80) ##############################################
56
Steele and Addison
from the social formulae which he helped to codify and gives free
play to his gift of seeing things in a natural, almost a primitive,
light. Returning to one of the favourite themes of The Tatler, he
has independence enough to show how there existed among traders
a whole world of romance and destiny undreamt of by the politer
classes?
