always confessed, and probably as a rule exaggerated, his debts to Addison, acknowledges them here; and there is a certain Addisonian tone about some of the humours, though Steele, was quite able to have supplied them.-SAINTSBURY, GEORGE, 1898, A Short History of English Literature, p. 535. THE TATLER 1709-11 But hitherto your Miscellanies have safely run the gauntlet, through all the coffee-houses; which are now entertained with a whimsical new newspaper, called the "Tatler," which I suppose you have seen. This is the newest thing I can tell you of. WYCHERLEY, WILLIAM, 1709, Letter to Pope, May 19. I really have acted in these cases with honesty, and am concerned it should be thought otherwise: For wit, if a man had it, unless it be directed to some useful end, is but a wanton, frivolous quality; all that one should value himself upon in this kind is, that he has some honourable intention in it.-STEELE, RICHARD, 1710, The Tatler, Preface. It must, indeed, be confessed that never man threw up his pen under stronger temptations to have employed it longer; his reputation was at a greater height than, I believe, ever any living author's was before him. There is this noble difference between him and all the rest of our polite and gallant authors: the latter have endeavoured to please the age by falling in with them, and encouraging them in their fashionable vices and false notions of things. It would have been a jest some time since, for a man to have asserted that anything witty could be said in praise of a married state; or that devotion and virtue were anyway necessary to the character of a fine gentleman. It is incredible to conceive the effect his writings have had on the town; how many thousand follies they have either quite banished, or given a very great check to; how much countenance they have added to virtue and religion; how many people they have rendered happy, by showing them it was their own fault if they were not so; and, lastly, how entirely they have convinced our fops and young fellows of the value and advantages of learning. -GAY, JOHN, 1711, Present State of Wit. Steele appears to have begun the paper without any concert, or hope of other assistance than what come spontaneously. His chief dependence was on his intelligence, which gave him a superiority over his contemporaries, who were merely news-writers, and had never discovered that a periodical paper might furnish instruction of a better and more lasting kind. In the other parts of the "Tatler," he was at first less careful; his style had a familiar vulgarity not unlike that of the journalists of the age, which he adopted either in compliance with the prevailing manner, or by way of disguise. In one paper he acknowledges "incorrectness of style," and writing "in an air of common speech." All this however became a Tatler, and for some time he aimed at no higher character. But when associated with Addison, he assumed a tone more natural to a polished and elegant mind, and dispersed his coarser familiarity among his characteristic correspondents. If he did not introduce, he was the first who successfully employed the harmless fiction of writing letters to himself, and by that gave a variety of amusement and information to his paper, which would have been impracticable had he always appeared in his own character. All succeeding Essayists have endeavoured to avail themselves of a privilege so essential to this species of composition, but it requires a mimicry of style and sentiment which few have been able to combine.CHALMERS, ALEXANDER, 1803, ed., The Tatler, Biographical Preface, p. 44. I have always preferred the "Tatler" to the "Spectator." Whether it is owing to my having been earlier or better acquainted with the one than the other, my pleasure in reading these two admirable works is not at all in proportion to their comparative reputation. The "Tatler" contains only half the number of volumes, and, I will venture to say, at least an equal quantity of sterling wit and sense. "The first sprightly runnings' are there--it has more of the original spirit, more of the freshness and stamp of nature. The indications of character and strokes of humour are more true and frequent; the reflections that suggest themselves arise more from the occasion, and are less spun out into regular dissertations. They are more like the remarks which occur in sensible conversation, and less like a lecture. Something is left to the understanding of the reader. Steele seems to have gone into his closet chiefly to set down what he observed out of doors. Addison seems to have spent most of his time in his study, and to have spun out and wire-drawn the hints, which he borrowed from Steele, or took from nature, to the utmost. I am far from wishing to depreciate Addison's talents, but I am anxious to do justice to Steele, who was, I think, upon the whole, a less artificial and more original writer. The humorous descriptions of Steele resemble loose sketches, or fragments of a comedy; those of Addison are rather comments, or ingenious paraphrases, on the genuine text.-HAZLITT, WILLIAM, 1818, Lectures on the English Comic Writers, Lecture v. This paper was written for ladies, no flash of genius, no kindling fire, no kernel, no strength.-SCHLOSSER, FREIDRICH CHRISTOPH, 1823-43, History of the Eighteenth Century, vol. 1, pp. 102, 103. Why, as we turn over the papers preceding that number 81 which must be said to have begun the regular contributions of Addison, there is hardly a trait that does not flash upon us of the bright wit, the cordial humour, the sly satire, the subtle yet kindly criticism, the good-nature and humanity, which have endeared this delightful book to successive generations of readers. There is, indeed, not less prominent at the outset than it continued to the close, the love of theatrical representations, and no doubt actors are criticised and preachers too; but we require no better proof than the very way in which this is done, of the new and original spirit that entered with it into periodical literature. At a time in no way remarkable for refinement, Steele's gallantry to women, thus incessantly expressed in "The Tatler" to the last, was that of a Sir Tristan or Sir Calidore; and in not a small degree, to every household into which it carried such unaccustomed language, this was a ground of its extraordinary success. Inseparable always from his passion is the exalted admiration he feels; and his love is the very flower of his respect.-FORSTER, JOHN, 185558, Sir Richard Steele, Quarterly Review; Biographical Essays, vol. II, pp. 119, 122. It is fortunately not necessary nowadays to argue as to the comparative merits of the papers by Steele and Addison, and such a discussion would be the last thing that Steele would wish; but this may be said, that Steele was the originator of nearly every new departure in the periodicals which the two friends produced; and if Steele had not furnished Addison with the opportunity for displaying his special power, Addison would in all probability have been known to us only as an accomplished scholar and poet of no great power. The world owes Addison to Steele. It is just because the "Tatler" is more thoroughly imbued with Steele's spirit than the "Spectator," that many competent judges have confessed that they found greater pleasure in the earlier periodical than in its more finished and more famous successor.-AITKEN, GEORGE A., 1889, The Life of Richard Steele, vol. 1, pp. 248, 249. He paints as a social humourist the whole age of Queen Anne-the political and literary disputes, the fine gentlemen and ladies, the characters of men, the humours of society, the new book, the new play; we live in the very streets and drawing-rooms of old London.—BROOKE, STOPFORD A., 1896, English Literature, p. 191. Steele has the merit of having been the first to feel the new intellectual cravings of his day and to furnish what proved to be the means of meeting them. His "Tatler" was a periodical of pamphlet form, in which news was to be varied by short essays of criticism and gossip. But his grasp of the new literature was a feeble grasp. His sense of the fitting form for it, of its fitting tone, of the range and choice of its subjects, were alike inadequate. He seized indeed by a happy instinct on letter-writing and conversation as the two molds to which the essay must adapt itself; he seized with the same happy instinct on humour as the pervading temper of his work and on "manners" as its destined sphere. But his notion of "manners" was limited not only to the external aspects of life and society, but to those aspects as they present themselves in towns; while his humor remained pert and superficial. The "Tatler," however, had hardly been started when it was taken in hand by a greater than Steele.HALE, SUSAN, 1898, Men and Manners of the Eighteenth Century, p. 76. The "Tatler"-Swift's own suggestion to Steele-is full of happy illustration and communication of ideas. Dated from coffee-houses, it was the first paper to unite the record of news with the portrayal of manners, to disseminate at once fact and fiction, to publish Whig principles and puff friendly authors. How good is his description of the "Club!" Sir Geofrey Notch, who appropriates the "right-hand" chair, and "calls every thriving man a pitiful upstart;" Major Matchlock, who has all the battles by heart and brags every night of his having been knockt off his horse at the rising of the London apprentices." Dick Reptile, the "good-natured indolent man, who speaks little himself, but laughs at our jokes," the Bencher, who is "the greatest wit next to myself," and "shakes his head at the dullness of the present age." They meet at six and disperse at ten. The maid comes with a lantern "to 66 light me home." Literature for the first time descends to the people. Not without reason does Swift, under the nom de plume of Humphry Wagstaffe, boast that the Staffian style is "to describe things exactly as they happen." Realism made its bow to the world; and, then, too, for the first time women claimed the lion's share of attention, and button-holed mankind. Steele's letters from flirts and prudes, scolds and shrews, languishers and rebels, are the lineal precursors of the "Spectator." Children, too, win an audience. That really wonderful essay (which Thackeray has mentioned), where Steele records the impressions of his early fatherlessness, abounds in pathetic touches the same that soften us in his "Spectator" paper about the poor Anonyma in the Piazza of Covent Garden. Does not the sentence of his "delight in stealing from the crowd" reveal the whole nature of the sensitive lad? There is a sob in the style. To Steele and Prior belong the domain of childhood. SICHEL, WALTER, 1901, Bolingbroke and His Times, p. 116. THE SPECTATOR 1711-14 Memorandum, That there is a daily paper comes out, called "The Spectator,' written, as is supposed, by the same hand that writ the "Tatler," viz. Captain Steel. In one of the last of these papers is a letter from Oxon at four o'clock in the morning, and subscribed Abraham Froth. It ridicules our hebdomadal meetings. The Abraham Froth is designed for Dr. Arthur Charlett, an empty, frothy man, and indeed the letter personates him incomparably well, being written, as he uses to do, upon great variety of things, and yet about nothing of moment. It brings in his cronys, George Clarke, of All Souls, Dr. William Lancaster, provost of Queen's, and Dr. Gardiner, warden of All Souls. Dr. Lancaster is called in it Sly-Boots, and Dr. Gardiner is called in it Dominick. Queen's people are angry at it, and the common-room say there, 'tis silly, dull stuff, and they are seconded by some that have been of the same college. But men that are indifferent commend it highly, as it deserves.-HEARNE, THOMAS, 1711, Reliquiæ Hearnianæ, ed. Bliss, April 22, vol. 1, p. 218. The "Guardian" had but scant success. Its characters were ill-drawn and feebly supported, and the decline of the publication was decided ere Addison's help arrived. Only by party aid and by a larger infusion of party spirit did it carry into the autumn months its lingering existence. It was seen that the "Spectator" could not be rivalled--not even by the writers of the "Spectator" themselves. Still less was it rivalled in the ensuing age, even although the great genius of Dr. Johnson produced "The Rambler," and a whole cluster of wits combined to illustrate "the World." -STANHOPE, EARL, 1870, History of England, Comprising the Reign of Queen Anne Until the Peace of Utrecht, p. 564. There is scarcely a department of essaywriting developed in the "Spectator" which does not trace its origin to Steele. It is Steele who first ventures to raise his voice against the prevailing dramatic taste of the age on behalf of the superior morality and art of Shakespeare's plays.. Steele, too, it was who attacked, with all the vigor of which he was capable, the fashionable vice of gambling. The practice of duelling, also, which had hitherto passed unreproved, was censured by Steele. The sketches of character studied from life, and the letters from fictitious correspondents, ... appear roughly, but yet distinctly, drafted in the "Tatler." Even the papers of literary criticism, afterward so fully elaborated by Addison, are anticipated by his friend, who may fairly claim the honor to have been the first to speak with adequate respect of the genius of Milton. In a word, whatever was perfected by Addison was begun by Steele.-COURTHOPE, W. J., 1884, Addison (English Men of Letters), pp. 98, 99, 100. I happen to be the owner of a very old edition of these latter essays, in whose "Table of Contents" some staid critic of the last generation has written his (or her) comments on the various topics discussed; and I find against the papers of Addison, such notes as-"instructive, sound, judicious;" and against those of Steele, I am sorry to say, such words as "flighty, light, witty, graceful, worthless;" and I am inclined to think the criticisms are pretty well borne out by the papers: but if flighty and light, he was not unwholesome; and he did not always carry the rollicking ways of the tavern into the little piquant journalism, where the grave and excellent Mr. Addison presided with him.-MITCHELL, DONALD G., 1890, English Lands Letters and Kings, From Elizabeth to Anne, p. 285. THE GUARDIAN 1713 The character of Guardian was too narrow and too serious: it might properly enough admit both the duties and the decencies of life, but seemed not to include literary speculations, and was in some degree violated by merriment and burlesque. What had the Guardian of the Lizards to do with clubs of tall or of little men, with nests of ants, or with Strada's prolusions? Of this paper nothing is necessary to be said, but that it found many contributors, and that it was a continuation of the Spectator, with the same elegance, and the same variety, till some unlucky sparkle from a Tory paper set Steele's politicks on fire, and wit at once blazed into faction. He was soon too hot for neutral topicks, and quitted the "Guardian" to write the "Englishman." JOHNSON, SAMUEL, 1779-81, Addison, Lives of the English Poets. CONSCIOUS LOVERS 1723 Parson Adams "I never heard of any plays fit for a Christian to read but 'Cato' and the 'Conscious Lovers,' and I must own in the latter there are some things almost solemn enough for a sermon. FIELDING, HENRY, 1742, Joseph Andrews. In the year 1722, he brought his "Conscious Lovers" on the stage, with prodigious success. This This is the last and most finished of all Sir Richard's Comedies, and 'tis doubtful if there is upon the stage, any more instructing; that tends to convey a finer moral, or is better conducted in its design. We have already observed, that it is impossible to witness the tender scenes of this Comedy without emotion; that is, no man of feeling and humanity, who has experienced the delicate solicitudes of love and affection, can do it.CIBBER, THEOPHILUS, 1753, Lives of the Poets, vol. IV, p. 119. it.— Steele's "Conscious Lovers" is the first comedy which can be called moral.HALLAM, HENRY, 1837-39, Introduction to the Literature of Europe, pt. iv, ch. vi, par. 53, note. Steele had all the brilliancy, and many of the failings, of his gifted countrymen. irregular pursuits and dissolute society to That his mind was never debased by the which he gave his time, is apparent from the beautiful sentiments which pervade that exquisite comedy, the "Conscious Lovers," one of the most elegant delineations of that species of love which borders on romance, in the range of our dramatic literature. THOMSON, KATHERINE, 1838, Memoirs of Sarah Jennings, Duchess of Marlborough, vol. II, p. 433. Nor can it be doubted that it was with Steele the unlucky notion began, of setting comedy to reform the morals, instead of imitating the manners, of the age. Fielding slily glances at this when he makes Parson Adams declare the "Conscious Lovers" to be the only play fit for a Christian to see, and as good as a sermon; and in so witty and fine a writer as Steele, so great a mistake is only to be explained by the intolerable grossness into which the theatre had fallen in his day.-FORSTER, JOHN, 1848-54, The Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith, vol. II, p. 93. LETTERS These Letters manifest throughout, with irresistible conviction, the very many excellent and amiable qualities, which greatly endeared this public Benefactor to society; and, in proof of their authenticity, we see in them with regret, indubitable marks of "that imprudence of generosity, or vanity of profusion, which kept Steele always incurably necessitous," and shaded his fine character. Considering the constant vexation and serious inconveniences of which it was the cause or the occasion, to himself and his family, nothing can be said to excuse Steele's inattention to œconomy; it was however more pardonable, and the less reproachable, as in the end he did ample justice to his creditors. Our regret on every instance which these Letters afford of this indiscretion, is very greatly augmented, by our admiration and love of that extensive and indefatigable philanthropy, to which we are principally indebted for a long series of well-written papers, fraught with valuable lessons of morality and goodbreeding, which have doubtless contributed very much to the intellectual improvement, and moral refinement, of both sexes, in this country. Excepting however what refers in these Letters to the lamentable failure of conduct above mentioned, too well ascertained before; no publication of Steele redounds more to his honour as a man, than the present. It shews him to have been a firm and conscientious patriot; a faithful affectionate husband; a fond, indulgent parent; and, even at this period, if it does not illustrate, it very much enhances the value of his writings, both moral and political, to know with certainty, that the salutary instructions and sublime preceps, so much admired, and so well received, from the fictitious Isaac Bickerstaff, esq., were no other than the genuine sentiments, and habitual practice, of the real Sir Richard Steele. NICHOLS, JOHN, 1787-1809, ed., The Epistolary Correspondence of Sir Richard Steele, Preface, p. vi. The earliest letters we have from Steele to Miss Scurlock are supposed to have been written in August 1707, and the marriage seems to have taken place on the 9th September following. Steele's wife treasured up the letters and notes she received from her husband, and for the next eleven years we have a record of events, passing troubles, successes, hopes and fears, such as cannot be paralleled in all literature. Swift's "Journal" is to some extent a similar unfolding of private thoughts and feelings, but Steele was entirely exempt from the limitations imposed upon Swift by his relations towards his correspondents. In judging of these letters it must be remembered that they were meant only for a wife's eye. In one of the earliest in the series Steele said expressly: "I beg of you to show my letters to no one living, but let us be contented with one another's thoughts upon our words and actions without the intervention of other people, who cannot judge of so delicate a circumstance as the commerce between man and wife." But, notwithstanding this, the whole series of 400 notes was published in 1787, without any suppressions, by John Nichols, who purchased the originals from Mr. Scurlock, next of kin to Steele's daughter, Lady Trevor, who had received them from her mother. Steele himself, it should be remembered, published some of these letters in the "Tatler" (No. 35) and "Spectator" (No. 142). Few men's character and innermost life have been exposed to anything approaching such a searching scrutiny, and very few could have passed through the ordeal with the honour that attaches to Steele. The marriage was one of affection, and it remained so on both sides until the end. There were, of course, defects of charcter in each; it would be absurd to contend that Steele was not faulty in many ways, and the faults were such as are seen most easily, especially by those who read to prove to their own satisfaction that the noblest of men fall short even as they; but the great fact remains that during all the years of married life Steele retained the affection of his wife unimpaired. At the end she was still his "dear Prue" and "dear Wife." -AITKEN, GEORGE A., 1889, The Life of Richard Steele, vol. 1, p. 172. The "fond fool of a husband," writing while his ragged boy tumbles on the floor, or the "brats his girls" stand on either side of the table, presents a picture which one would not exchange for all the immaculate primness of Joseph Addison. The letters to "Prue" should be read side by side with the "Journal to Stella." Both have the supreme merit of perfect sincerity, simplicity and devotion. The difference between them is the difference between the strongly contrasted natures of the two writers. No one can doubt which was the more lovable, any more than which was the greater, man.-POOLE, |