The Tatler

“ Follies and weaknesses are ridiculed in the Tatler in a genial spirit, by one who was fully alive to his own imperfections, and point is usually given to the papers by a sketch of some veiled or imaginary individual. ”

“ Tatler, for all that we care, may have been as virulent as he liked about the students of a former day; but for the iron to touch our sacred selves, for a brother of the Guild to betray its most privy infirmities, let such a Judas look to himself as he passes on his way to the Scots Law or the Diagnostic, below the solitary lamp at the corner of the dark quadrangle. We confess that this idea alarms us. We enter a protest. We bind ourselves over verbally to keep the peace. ”

“ The censure he passes upon this great man runs thus: "The itch of being very abusive, is almost inseparable from vainglory. Tully has these two faults in so high a degree, that nothing but his being the best writer in the world can make amends for them." The scurrilous wretch goes on to say I am as bad as Tully. His words are these: "And yet the Tatler, in his paper of September 26, has outdone him in both. He speaks of himself with more arrogance, and with more insolence of others." I am afraid by his discourse, this gentleman has no more read Plutarch than he has Tully. ”

“ A generous disdain, and reflection how little he deserved from so excellent a father, reformed the young man, and made Edward, from an arrant rake, become a fine gentleman.'
No. 23. The 'Tatler.'—June 2, 1709.
The 'Tatler' relates the instance of a lady who had governed one husband by falling into fits when he opposed her will. Death released this gentleman, and the lady consoled herself quickly with a very agreeable successor, whom she determined to manage by the same method. ”

“ He was a politician; he was the best writer of his party; he lived in times of fierce excitement, in times when persons of high character and station stooped to scurrility such as is now practised only by the basest of mankind. Yet no provocation and no example could induce him to return railing for railing.
Of the service which his Essays rendered to morality it is difficult to speak too highly. It is true, that, when the Tatler appeared, that age of outrageous profaneness and licentiousness which followed the Restoration had passed away. ”

“ A most amusing paper in the Tatler, No. 34, gives a full-length portrait of Salter, who appears to have been an “original.” Music was his besetting sin, and with very little excuse for it. In that paper the museum, too, is taken to task. Richard Cromwell used to be a visitor to this house, where Pennant’s father, when a child, saw him, “a very neat old man, with a placid countenance.” Franklin also, when a printer’s apprentice, “one day made a party to go by water to Chelsea in order to see the college, and Don Saltero’s curiosities.” ”

“ I can't be in jest with the rogues any longer, since they pretend to threaten. I don't know whether I shall allow them the favour of transportation.
"Mr. Bickerstaff,
Sept. 13.
"Observing you are not content with lashing the many vices of the age, without illustrating each with particular characters, it is thought nothing would more contribute to the impression you design by such, than always having regard to truth. In your Tatler of this day, [169] I observe you allow, that nothing is so tender as a lady's reputation; that a stain once got in their fame, is hardly ever to be washed out. ”

“ The original numbers of the Tatler were reissued in two forms in 1710-11; one edition, in octavo, being published by subscription, while the other, in duodecimo, was for the general public. The present edition has been printed from a copy of the latter issue, which, as recorded on the title-page, was "revised and corrected by the Author"; but I have had by my side, for constant reference, a complete set of the folio sheets, containing the "Lucubrations of Isaac Bickerstaff" in the form in which they were first presented to the world. ”

“ Two years later he was appointed Gentleman Waiter to Prince George of Denmark, and in 1707 he was made Gazetteer; and in the same year he m. as his second wife Mary Scurlock, his "dear Prue," who seems, however, to have been something of a termagant. She had considerable means, but the incorrigible extravagance of S. soon brought on embarrassment. In 1709 he laid the foundations of his fame by starting the Tatler, the first of those periodicals which are so characteristic a literary feature of that age. ”

“ What a pity that we cannot find the reality, and yet if we did, the dream would be over. I once thought I knew a Will. Wimble, and a Will. Honeycomb, but they turned out but indifferently; the originals in the Spectator still read, word for word, the same that they always did. We have only to turn to the page, and find them where we left them!—Many of the most exquisite pieces in the Tatler, it is to be observed, are Addison’s, as the Court of Honour, and the Personification of Musical Instruments, with almost all those papers that form regular sets or series. ”

“ Of the relations between Steele and Addison, and the origin of Steele's "Tatler," which was developed afterwards into the "Spectator," account has already been given in the introduction to a volume of this Library, * containing essays from the "Spectator"—"Sir Roger de Coverley and the Spectator Club." There had been a centre of life in the "Tatler," designed, as Sir Roger and his friends were designed, to carry the human interest of a distinct personality through the whole series of papers. The "Tatler's" personality was Isaac Bickerstaff, Physician and Astrologer ”

“ To day little Harrison's new Tatler came out; there is not much in it, but I hope he will mend. You must understand that, upon Steele's leaving off, there were two or three scrub Tatlers came out, and one of them holds on still, and to day it advertised against Harrison's; and so there must be disputes which are genuine, like the straps for razors." ↑ "I have given Harrison hints for another Tatler, to morrow." ”

“ I can conceive of no kings or laws causing or curing Goldsmith's improvidence, or Fielding's fatal love of pleasure, or Dick Steele's mania for running races with the constable. You never can outrun that sure-footed officer—not by any swiftness or by dodges devised by any genius, however great; and he carries off the Tatler to the spunging-house, or taps the Citizen of the World on the shoulder as he would any other mortal.
Does society look down on a man because he is an author? I suppose if people want a buffoon they tolerate him only in so far as he is amusing ”

“ I am the more serious, large, and particular on this subject, because my Lucubrations designed for the encouragement of virtue cannot have the desired success as long as this encumbrance of settlements continues upon matrimony.
FOOTNOTES:
[85] Steele (or Addison) edited this paper, but the real author was their friend Edward Wortley Montagu, to whom the second volume of the Tatler was dedicated. Mr. Moy Thomas says that Addison and Steele "were in the habit of asking him for hints and heads for papers ”

“ In Nos. 254 and 255 of the Tatler there was advertised, as shortly to be published, "An Essay towards a Practical English Grammar, by James Greenwood.... Particular care has been taken to render this book useful and agreeable to the Fair Sex." This book is dated 1711, and is noticed in the Works of the Learned for July. The Preface gives "part of a letter which I wrote about a twelvemonth ago to the ingenious author of the Tatler upon this head" (i.e. knowledge of grammar among the fair sex) . Greenwood's remarks on female education were not printed in the Tatler ”

“ The first thing that comes up at the beginning of each year is the collection of the annual League dues, which are two dollars and fifty cents. A total amount of about three hundred dollars was handed in this year. This is put under the “operating fund,” and takes care of all the League expenditures, except those of the Welfare Committee.
There are four departments of student activities drawing from these League dues, athletic, entertainment, and printing and stationery. Also, this year the League voted to back the Tatler board up with one hundred dollars. ”

“ In the last Tatler I promised some explanation of passages and persons mentioned in this work, as well as some account of the assistances I have had in the performance. I shall do this in very few words; for when a man has no design but to speak plain truth, he may say a great deal in a very narrow compass. I have in the dedication of the first volume made my acknowledgments to Dr. Swift, whose pleasant writings, in the name of Bickerstaff, created an inclination in the town towards anything that could appear in the same disguise. ”

“ Lady Strafford, writing in 1712, says: "Sis Betty ... hopes you'll provide her a husband against she comes, for she begins to be in fears of leading apes in hell" ("Wentworth Papers," 285) .
[40] See reply in No. 212.
[41] The fifth paper of the first volume of the Examiner is a critique on this article, with a comparison of the account of the same events given in the Gazette.
"We too are sorry," says the writer, "for the loss of the Earl of Rochford; but I am afraid Isaac Bickerstaff, who now compliments him with the title of 'heroic youth,' has forgot the Tatler of Tun, Gun, and Pistol." ”

“ Rich, in an advertisement provoked by a quarrel with his players, says that ‘the salary was paid for little or nothing.’ Steele in the ‘Tatler,’ No. 201, taxes Mills with want of sentiment, and suggests that ‘making gesture too much his study, he neglected the higher attributes of his art.’ Pierre, in which ‘he is charged with wearing a white hat,’ was his best part, in the opinion of the actors and of the public. As Corvino in ‘Volpone’ he was held to surpass Colley Cibber. His wife played few important parts. William Mills, his son, known as ‘the younger Mills,’ died of dropsy 18 Aug. ”

“ I hope you'le faver an honest North Briton (as I am) with your advice in this amoure; for I am resolved just to folow your directions. Sir, you'le do me a sensable pleasure, and very great honour, if [Pg 258] you'le pleas to insirt this poor scrole, with your answer to it, in your Tatler. Pray fail not to give me your answer; for on it depends the happiness of
"Disconsolat Almeira."
"Madam,
"I have frequently read over your letter, and am of opinion, that as lamentable as it is, it is the most common of any evil that attends our sex. ”

“ The Examiner, vol. iv. No. 43, said that Steele's friends "acquainted him with many little incidents and corruptions in low life which he has not touched upon; but, instead of a favourable answer, he has rejected all their hints for mirth and waggery, and transcribed scraps of politics, &c." Another protest against Steele's incursion into politics is printed in Lillie's "Original Letters sent to the Tatler and Spectator" i. 56.
[5] See No. 194.
[6] See Nos. 34 and 221.
[7] See No. 103.
[8] "Faërie Queene," Book iv. c. 10. See No. 194.
[Pg 17]
No. ”

“ When to the plain garb of gown and band a spark adds an inconsistent long wig, we do not say now he boshes, but there goes a smart fellow. If a virgin blushes, we no longer cry the blues. He that drinks till he stares, is no more tow-row, but honest. A youngster in a scrape, is a word out of date; and what bright man says, I was Joabed by the dean: bamboozling is exploded; a shat is a tattler; and if the muscular motion of a man's face be violent, no mortal says, he raises a horse, but he is a merry fellow.
"I congratulate you, my dear kinsman, upon these conquests ”

“ Whate'er men do, or say, or think, or dream,
Our motley paper seizes for its theme.
The original sheet appeared on Tuesday, April 12, 1709, [13] and the days of its publication were fixed to be Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. 'In the selection of a name for the work, Steele affords an early instance of delicate raillery, by informing us that the name "Tatler" was invented in honour of the fair sex ”

“ Bickerstaff, en disant que vous aviez beaucoup d'inclination à étudier l'Anglois pour avoir seulement le plaisir de lire le Tatler. Il trouvre que votre compliment à l'auteur du Tatler est fort galant." Nicolini sang in Italian to the English of Mrs. Tofts (see No. 20, and Spectator, No. 22) , but Cibber observes that "whatever defect the fashionably skilful might find in her manner, she had, in the general sense of her spectators, charms that few of the most learned singers ever arrive at." A letter from Lady Wentworth, dated December 10, 1708, gives us a curious glimpse of Nicolini and Mrs. ”

“ In the meantime the following remonstrance of that corporation I take to be very just:
[Pg 338]
From our Office near the Haymarket, Nov. 23.
"Worthy Sir,
"Upon reading your Tatler of Saturday last, [310] by which we received the agreeable news of so many deaths, we immediately ordered in a considerable quantity of blacks; and our servants have wrought night and day ever since, to furnish out the necessaries for these deceased. But so it is, Sir, that of this vast number of dead bodies, that go putrefying up and down the streets, not one of them has come to us to be buried. ”

“ That Steele was an undetected hypocrite and a sentimental debauchee is now no longer maintained, although it cannot be denied that his will was often weaker than his purpose; that he was constitutionally improvident and impecunious; and that, like many of his contemporaries in that hard-drinking century, he was far too easily seduced by his compliant good-fellowship into excess in wine. ‘I shall not carry my humility so far as to call myself a vicious man,’ he wrote in ‘Tatler’ No. ”