Preface

'the gentleman of whose assistance I formerly boasted in the Preface and concluding Leaf of my Tatlers. I am indeed much more proud of his long-continued Friendship, than I should be of the fame of being thought the author of any writings which he himself is capable of producing. I remember when I finished the Tender Husband, I told him there was nothing I so ardently wished, as that we might some time or other publish a work, written by us both, which should bear the name of The Monument, in Memory of our Friendship.'

'I heartily wish what I have done here were as honorary to that sacred name as learning, wit, and humanity render those pieces which I have taught the reader how to distinguish for his.'

Thy bounteous hand with worldly bliss Has made my cup run o'er, And in a kind and faithful Friend Has doubled all my store?

'I claim to myself the merit of having extorted excellent productions from a person of the greatest abilities, who would not have let them appear by any other means.'

'leaving his country, when he was summoned out of it, with the secret satisfaction of thinking that he had not lived in vain.'

'were things of this nature to be exposed to public view, I could show under the Dean's own hand, in the warmest terms, his blessing on the friendship between his son and me; nor had he a child who did not prefer me in the first place of kindness and esteem, as their father loved me like one of them.'

A short account of all the Muse-possest, That, down from Chaucer's days to Dryden's times Have spent their noble rage in British rhymes,

... age has rusted what the Poet writ, Worn out his language, and obscured his wit: In vain he jests in his unpolish'd strain, And tries to make his readers laugh in vain. Old Spenser next, warm'd with poetic rage, In ancient tales amused a barb'rous age; But now the mystic tale, that pleased of yore, Can charm an understanding age no more.

'in the neighing of an horse, or in the growling of a mastiff, there is a meaning, there is as lively expression, and, may I say, more humanity than many times in the tragical flights of Shakespeare.'

'one of the most useful and noble productions of our English verse. The reader,' he added, of a piece which shared certainly with Salisbury Plain the charms of flatness and extent of space, 'the reader cannot but be pleased to find the depths of philosophy enlivened with all the charms of poetry, and to see so great a strength of reason amidst so beautiful a redundancy of the imagination.'

Whate'er his pen describes I more than see, Whilst every verse, arrayed in majesty, Bold and sublime, my whole attention draws, And seems above the critic's nicer laws.

Oh, had the Poet ne'er profaned his pen, To varnish o'er the guilt of faithless men; His other works might have deserved applause But now the language can't support the cause, While the clean current, tho' serene and bright, Betrays a bottom odious to the sight.

The days of man are doom'd to pain and strife, Quiet and ease are foreign to our life; No satisfaction is, below, sincere, Pleasure itself has something that's severe.

But in the thought they stopp'd, their locks they tore, Threw down the steel, and cruelly forbore. The innocents their parents' love forgive, Smile at their fate, nor know they are to live.

With dread concern, the awful Senate came, Their grief, as all their passions, is the same. The next Assembly dissipates our fears, The stately, mourning throng of British Peers.

Their clouded beauties speak man's gaudy strife, The glittering miseries of human life.

She unconcerned and careless all the while Rewards their loud applauses with a smile, With easy Majesty and humble State Smiles at the trifle Power, and knows its date.

What hands commit the beauteous, good, and just, The dearer part of William, to the dust? In her his vital heat, his glory lies, In her the Monarch lived, in her he dies. ... No form of state makes the Great Man forego The task due to her love and to his woe; Since his kind frame can't the large suffering bear In pity to his People, he's not here: For to the mighty loss we now receive The next affliction were to see him grieve.

'His arguments were founded upon the general pravity and corruption of men of business, who wanted liberal education. And I remember, as if I had read the letter yesterday, that my Lord ended with a compliment, that, however he might be represented as no friend to the Church, he never would do it any other injury than keeping Mr. Addison out of it.'

... on classic ground. For here the Muse so oft her harp hath strung, That not a mountain rears its head unsung; Renown'd in verse each shady thicket grows, And ev'ry stream in heav'nly numbers flows.

I bridle in my struggling Muse with pain, That longs to launch into a bolder strain.

'when he mounted a war-horse, with a great sword in his hand, and planted himself behind King William III against Louis XIV, he lost the succession to a very good estate in the county of Wexford, in Ireland, from the same humour which he has preserved, ever since, of preferring the state of his mind to that of his fortune.'

'He first became an author when an Ensign of the Guards, a way of life exposed to much irregularity; and being thoroughly convinced of many things, of which he often repented, and which he more often repeated, he writ, for his own private use, a little book called the Christian Hero, with a design principally to fix upon his own mind a strong impression of virtue and religion, in opposition to a stronger propensity towards unwarrantable pleasures. This secret admiration was too weak; he therefore printed the book with his name, in hopes that a standing testimony against himself, and the eyes of the world (that is to say, of his acquaintance) upon him in a new light, would make him ashamed of understanding and seeming to feel what was virtuous, and living so contrary a life.'

... Fuit Ilium, et ingens Gloria.

'But be them honest, firm, impartial; Let neither love, nor hate, nor faction move thee; Distinguish words from things, and men from crimes.'

'At my first arrival I received the news of my father's death, and ever since have been engaged in so much noise and company, that it was impossible for me to think of rhyming in it.'

'I look upon my intimacy with you as one of the most valuable enjoyments of my life. At the same time I make the town no ill compliment for their kind acceptance of this comedy, in acknowledging that it has so far raised my opinion of it, as to make me think it no improper memorial of an inviolable Friendship. I should not offer it to you as such, had I not been very careful to avoid everything that might look ill-natured, immoral, or prejudicial to what the better part of mankind hold sacred and honourable.'

'for the want of those studied similies and repartees which we, who have writ before him, have thrown into our plays, to indulge and gain upon a false taste that has prevailed for many years in the British theatre. I believe the author would have condescended to fall into this way a little more than he has, had he before the writing of it been often present at theatrical representations. I was confirmed in my thoughts of the play by the opinion of better judges to whom it was communicated, who observed that the scenes were drawn after Molière's manner, and that an easy and natural vein of humour ran through the whole. I do not question but the reader will discover this, and see many beauties that escaped the audience; the touches being too delicate for every taste in a popular assembly. My brother-sharers' (in the Drury Lane patent) 'were of opinion, at the first reading of it, that it was like a picture in which the strokes were not strong enough to appear at a distance. As it is not in the common way of writing, the approbation was at first doubtful, but

has risen every time it has been acted, and has given an opportunity in several of its parts for as just and good actions as ever I saw on the stage.'

'He was above all men in that talent we call humour, and enjoyed it in such perfection, that I have often reflected, after a night spent with him apart from all the world, that I had had the pleasure of conversing with an intimate acquaintance of Terence and Catullus, who had all their wit and nature, heightened with humour more exquisite and delightful than any other man ever possessed.' And again in the same Preface, Steele dwelt upon 'that smiling mirth, that delicate satire and genteel raillery, which appeared in Mr. Addison when he was free from that remarkable bashfulness which is a cloak that hides and muffles merit; and his abilities were covered only by modesty, which doubles the beauties which are seen, and gives credit and esteem to all that are concealed.'

'Let us make our regards to each other,' Steele wrote just before marriage, 'mutual and unchangeable, that whilst the world around us is enchanted with the false satisfactions of vagrant desires, our persons may be shrines to each other, and sacred to conjugal faith, unreserved confidence, and heavenly society.'

'I beg of you to shew 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.'

'if there are such beings as guardian angels, thus are they employed. I will no more believe one of them more good in its inclinations than I can conceive it more charming in its form than my wife.'

'This was ill hinted both in relation to him and me. I know no party; but the truth of the question is what I will support as well as I can, when any man I honour is attacked.'

'whether his humours be sarcastic or polite, the friendship of Steele and Addison is for ever suggesting some annoyance to himself, some mortification, some regret, but never once the doubt that it was not intimate and sincere, or that into it entered anything inconsistent with a perfect equality.'

'that there never was a more strict friendship than between himself and Addison, nor had they ever any difference but what proceeded from their different way of pursuing the same thing; the one waited and stemmed the torrent, while the other too often plunged into it; but though they thus had lived for some years past, shunning each other, they still preserved the most passionate concern for their mutual welfare; and when they met they were as unreserved as boys, and talked of the greatest affairs, upon which they saw where they differed, without pressing (what they knew impossible) to convert each other.'

'After our Serious Matters are over, we shall at the end of every Paper, Present you with a little Diversion, as anything occurs to make the World Merry; and whether Friend or Foe, one Party or another, if anything happens so scandalous as to require an open Reproof, the World may meet with it there.'

Mercure Scandale: or, Advice from the Scandalous Club. Translated out of French. This Society is a Corporation long since established in Paris, and we cannot compleat our Advices from France, without entertaining the World with everything we meet with from that Country. And, tho Corresponding with the Queens Enemies is prohibited; yet since the Matter will be so honest, as only to tell the World of what everybody will own to be scandalous, we reckon we shall be welcome. This Corporation has been set up some months, and opend their first Sessions about last Bartholomew Fair; but having not yet obtaind a Patent, they have never, till now, made their Resolves publick. The Business of this Society is to censure the Actions of Men, not of Parties, and in particular, those Actions which are made publick so by their Authors, as to be, in their own Nature, an Appeal to the general Approbation. They do not design to expose Persons but things; and of them, none but such as more than ordinarily deserve it; they who would not be censurd by this Assembly, are desired to act with caution

enough, not to fall under their Hands; for they resolve to treat Vice, and Villanous Actions, with the utmost Severity. The First considerable Matter that came before this Society, was about Bartholomew Fair; but the Debates being long, they were at last adjourned to the next Fair, when we suppose it will be decided; so being not willing to trouble the World with anything twice over, we refer that to next August. On the 10th of September last, there was a long Hearing, before the Club, of a Fellow that said he had killd the Duke of Bavaria. Now as David punishd the Man that said he had killd King Saul, whether it was so or no, twas thought this Fellow ought to be delivered up to Justice, tho the Duke of Bavaria was alive. Upon the whole, twas voted a scandalous Thing, That News. Writers shoud kill Kings and Princes, and bring them to life again at pleasure; and to make an Example of this Fellow, he was dismissd, upon Condition he should go to the Queens-bench once a Day, and bear Fuller, his Brother of the Faculty, company two

hours for fourteen Days together; which cruel Punishment was executed with the utmost Severity. The Club has had a great deal of trouble about the News-Writers, who have been continually brought before them for their ridiculous Stories, and imposing upon Mankind; and tho the Proceedings have been pretty tedious, we must give you the trouble of a few of them in our next.

'We have been so often on the Defence of our Title,' says Defoe, in No. 38, 'that the world begins to think Our Society wants Employment ... If Scandalous must signify nothing but Personal Scandal, respecting the Subject of which it is predicated; we desire those gentlemen to answer for us how Post-Man or Post-Boy can signify a News-Paper, the Post Man or Post Boy being in all my reading properly and strictly applicable, not to the Paper, but to the Person bringing or carrying the News? Mercury also is, if I understand it, by a Transmutation of Meaning, from a God turned into a Book — From hence our Club thinks they have not fair Play, in being deny'd the Privilege of making an Allegory as well as other People.'

'care but for a little reading at a time,' and said, 'thus we wheedle them in, if it may be allow'd that Expression, to the Knowledge of the World, who rather than take more Pains, would be content with their Ignorance, and search into nothing.'

'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 had some honourable intention in it.'

'on the 29th of March next, about eleven at night, of a raging fever.'

'The Accomplishment of the first of Mr. Bickerstaff's Predictions: being an account of the death of Mr. Partridge, the almanack-maker, upon the 29th instant.'

'whereas it has been industriously given out by Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., and others, to prevent the sale of this year's almanack, that John Partridge is dead, this may inform all his loving countrymen that he is still living, in health, and they are knaves that reported it otherwise.'

'I have in another place, and in a paper by itself, sufficiently convinced this man that he is dead; and if he has any shame, I do not doubt but that by this time he owns it to all his acquaintance. For though the legs and arms and whole body of that man may still appear and perform their animal functions, yet since, as I have elsewhere observed, his art is gone, the man is gone.'

'we have a contempt,' he says, 'for such paltry barterers, and have therefore all along informed the public that we intend to give them our advices for our own sakes, and are labouring to make our lucubrations come to some price in money, for our more convenient support in the service of the public. It is certain that many other schemes have been proposed to me, as a friend offered to show me in a treatise he had writ, which he called, The whole Art of Life; or, The Introduction to Great Men, illustrated in a Pack of Cards. But being a novice at all manner of play, I declined the offer.'

"Before I proceed further in the account of our weekly papers, it will be necessary to inform you that at the beginning of the winter, to the infinite surprise of all the Town, Mr. Steele flung up his Tatler, and instead of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, subscribed himself Richard Steele to the last of those papers, after a handsome compliment to the Town for their kind acceptance of his endeavours to divert them. The chief reason he thought fit to give for his leaving off writing was, that having been so long looked on in all public places and companies as the Author of those papers, he found that his most intimate friends and acquaintance were in pain to speak or act before him. The Town was very far from being satisfied with this reason, and most people judged the true cause to be, either

However that were, his disappearance seemed to be bewailed as some general calamity. Every one wanted so agreeable an amusement, and the Coffee-houses began to be sensible that the Esquire's Lucubrations alone had brought them more customers than all their other newspapers put together. It must indeed be confessed that never man threw up his pen, under stronger temptations to have employed it longer. His reputation was at a greater height, than I believe ever any living author's was before him. It is reasonable to suppose that his gains were proportionably considerable. Every one read him with pleasure and good-will; and the Tories, in respect to his other good qualities, had almost forgiven his unaccountable imprudence in declaring against them. Lastly, it was highly improbable that, if he threw off a Character, the ideas of which were so strongly impressed in every one's mind, however finely he might write in any new form, that he should meet with the same reception. To give you my own thoughts of this gentleman's writings I shall, in

the first place, observe, that there is a noble difference between him and all the rest of our gallant and polite authors. The latter have endeavoured to please the Age by falling in with them, and encouraging them in their fashionable vices and false notions of things. It would have been a jest, some time since, for a man to have asserted that anything witty could be said in praise of a married state, or that Devotion and Virtue were any way necessary to the character of a Fine Gentleman. Bickerstaff ventured to tell the Town that they were a parcel of fops, fools, and coquettes; but in such a manner as even pleased them, and made them more than half inclined to believe that he spoke truth. Instead of complying with the false sentiments or vicious tastes of the Age — either in morality, criticism, or good breeding — he has boldly assured them that they were altogether in the wrong; and commanded them, with an authority which perfectly well became him, to surrender themselves to his arguments for Virtue and Good Sense.