Полная версия
The Tatler, Volume 1
Steele's teaching on morals and right living enters intimately into his literary criticism. His love for Shakespeare was real and intelligent; there is no formal discussion of the rules of the drama, but throughout the Tatler there are references which show the keenest appreciation of Shakespeare's powers as poet and philosopher. "The vitiated tastes of the audience at the theatre could only be amended," says Steele, "by encouraging the representation of the noble characters drawn by Shakespeare and others, from whence it is impossible to return without strong impressions of honour and humanity. On these occasions, distress is laid before us with all its causes and consequences, and our resentment placed according to the merit of the persons afflicted. Were dramas of this nature more acceptable to the taste of the town, men who have genius would bend their studies to excel in them."40 Still more remarkable are the allusions to "Paradise Lost," for Milton was then even less appreciated than Shakespeare. As in so many other things, Addison's more elaborate criticism in the Spectator was foreshadowed in the Tatler by Steele; and the comparison of passages by Milton and Dryden41 must have been very striking to the reader of that time, who usually knew Shakespeare or Chaucer only through the adaptations of Dryden or Tate.
Though it is not true, as some have represented, that the Tatler is for the most part a mere society journal, concerned chiefly with the gossip of the day, yet its contributors made use of the scenes and events familiar to their readers in order to bring home the kindly lessons they wished to teach; and in so doing they have given us a picture of the daily life of the town which would alone have given lasting interest to the paper. The distinctly "moral" papers have had countless imitators, and sometimes therefore they are apt to pall upon us, but the social articles are at least as interesting now as when they were written, and one of the reasons why some excellent judges have prefered the Tatler to the Spectator, is that there is a greater proportion of these gossiping papers, combining wisdom with satire, and bringing before us as in a mirror the London of Queen Anne's day. Bickerstaff takes us from club to coffee-house, from St. James's to the Exchange; we see the poets and wits at Will's, the politicians at White's, the merchants at Garraway's, the Templars at the Smyrna; we see Betterton and the rest on the stage, and the ladies and gentlemen in the front or side boxes; we see Pinkethman's players at Greenwich, Powell's puppet-show, Don Saltero's Museum at Chelsea, and the bear-baiting and prize-fights at Hockley-in-the-Hole. We are taken to the Mall at St. James's, or the Ring in Hyde Park, and we study the fine ladies and the beaux, with their red heels and their amber-headed canes suspended from their waistcoats; or we follow them to Charles Lillie's, the perfumer, or to Mather's toy-shop, or to Motteux's china warehouse; or to the shops in the New Exchange, where the men bought trifles and ogled the attendants. Or yet again we watch the exposure of the sharpers and bullies, and the denunciation of others who brought even greater ruin on those who fell into their clutches. We see the worshipping and the flirtations in the church, with Smalridge and Atterbury, Hoadly and Blackall among the preachers, and hear something of the controversies between High and Low Church, Whig and Tory. We hear, too, of the war with France, and of the hopes of peace. Steele tells us not only of Marlborough and Prince Eugene, but of privates and non-commissioned officers, of their lives and tragedies, of their comrades and friends. All Sergeant Hall knew of the battle was that he wished there had not been so many killed; he had himself a very bad shot in the head, but would recover, if it pleased God. "To me," says Steele, recalling his own service as a trooper, "I take the gallantry of private soldiers to proceed from the same, if not from a nobler impulse than that of gentlemen and officers.... Sergeant Hall would die ten thousand deaths rather than a word should be spoken at the Red Lattice, or any part of the Butcher Row, in prejudice to his courage or honesty." His letter to his friend was "the picture of the bravest sort of man, that is to say, a man of great courage and small hopes."42
Something must be said of the events of 1710, which led to the discontinuance of the Tatler. The trial of Dr. Sacheverell in March was followed by the fall of the Whigs in the autumn; and in October Steele lost his post of Gazetteer. Swift says it was "for writing a Tatler some months ago, against Mr. Harley, who gave him the post at first." There was a growing coldness between Swift and his old friends, and on the 3rd of November Swift wrote, "We have scurvy Tatlers of late, so pray do not suspect me." On the preceding day Swift's first paper in the Tory Examiner had been published. He still met Steele from time to time, and he says that he interceded for him with Harley, but was frustrated by Addison. However this may be, it is certain that Harley saw Steele, and that as the result of their interview Steele retained his post as Commissioner of the Stamp Office, and brought the Tatler to a close on January 2, 1711, without consulting Addison. "To say the truth, it was time," says Swift; "for he grew cruel dull and dry." It is true that there is a falling off towards the close of the Tatler, but that it was not want of matter that brought about the abandonment of the paper is proved by the commencement only two months later of the Spectator. Steele himself said that on many accounts it had become an irksome task to personate Mr. Bickerstaff any longer; he had in some places touched upon matters concerning Church and State, and he could not be cold enough to conceal his opinions. Gay tells us, in "The Present State of Wit," that the town being generally of opinion that Steele was quite spent as regards matter, was the more surprised when the Spectator appeared; people were therefore driven to accept the alternative view that the Tatler was laid down "as a sort of submission to, or composition with, the Government for some past offences."
Excellent testimony to the immediate popularity of the Tatler is furnished by the fact that its successive numbers were reprinted in Dublin and in Edinburgh. At least sixty-nine numbers of the Dublin issue, in quarto, were printed. The Scottish re-issue was a folio sheet, commenced about February 1710, and continued until the close of the paper. The date of each number of the Edinburgh paper—"printed by James Watson, and sold at his shop next door to the Red Lion, opposite to the Lucken Booths"—is five or six days later than that of the original issue; it was evidently worked off as soon as the London post came in. Other evidence of the popularity of the Tatler in the provinces is afforded by the foundation of the "Gentleman's Society" at Spalding. Maurice Johnson, a native of Spalding and a member of the Inner Temple, gives this account of the matter: "In April 1709, that great genius Captain Richard Steele … published the Tatlers, which, as they came out in half-sheets, were taken in by a gentleman, who communicated them to his acquaintances at the coffee-house then in the Abbey Yard; and these papers being universally approved as both instructive and entertaining, they ordered them to be sent down thither, with the Gazettes and Votes, for which they paid out of charity to the person who kept the coffee-house, and they were accordingly had and read there every post-day, generally aloud to the company, who would sit and talk over the subject afterwards. This insensibly drew the men of sense and letters into a sociable way of conversing, and continued the next year, 1710, until the publication of these papers desisted, which was in December, to their great regret." Afterwards the Spectator was taken in, and a regular society was started in 1712, by the encouragement of Addison, Steele, and other members of Button's Club.
One indication of the popularity of the Tatler in its own day is the long subscription list prefixed to the reprint in four octavo volumes. Some copies were printed on "royal," others on "medium" paper; and the price of the former was a guinea a volume, while that of the latter was half a guinea. There was also an authorised cheap edition, in duodecimo, at half a crown a volume, besides a pirated edition at the same price. A still more conclusive proof of the success of the Tatler was the number of papers started in imitation of its methods. Addison mentioned some of those periodicals in No. 229, where details will be found of the "Female Tatler," "Tit for Tat," and the like. But besides these, several spurious continuations of the Tatler appeared directly after the discontinuance of the genuine paper, including one by William Harrison, written with Swift's encouragement and assistance. But Harrison, as Swift said, had "not the true vein for it," and his paper reached only to fifty-two numbers, which were afterwards reprinted as a fifth volume to the collected edition of the original Tatler. Gay said that Steele's imitators seemed to think "that what was only the garnish of the former Tatlers was that which recommended them, and not those substantial entertainments which they everywhere abound in." The town, in the absence of anything better, welcomed their occasional and faint endeavours at humour; "but even those are at present become wholly invisible, and quite swallowed up in the blaze of the Spectator." Steele himself said that his imitators held the censorship in commission.
The Preface. 43
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. I must acknowledge also, that at my first entering upon this work, a certain uncommon way of thinking, and a turn in conversation peculiar to that agreeable gentleman, rendered his company very advantageous to one whose imagination was to be continually employed upon obvious and common subjects, though at the same time obliged to treat of them in a new and unbeaten method. His verses on the Shower in Town,44 and the Description of the Morning,45 are instances of the happiness of that genius, which could raise such pleasing ideas upon occasions so barren to an ordinary invention.
When I am upon the house of Bickerstaff, I must not forget that genealogy of the family sent to me by the post, and written, as I since understand, by Mr. Twysden,46 who died at the battle of Mons, and has a monument in Westminster Abbey, suitable to the respect which is due to his wit and his valour. There are through the course of the work very many incidents which were written by unknown correspondents. Of this kind is the tale in the second Tatler, and the epistle from Mr. Downes the prompter,47 with others which were very well received by the public. But I have only one gentleman,48 who will be nameless, to thank for any frequent assistance to me, which indeed it would have been barbarous in him to have denied to one with whom he has lived in an intimacy from childhood, considering the great ease with which he is able to dispatch the most entertaining pieces of this nature. This good office he performed with such force of genius, humour, wit and learning, that I fared like a distressed prince who calls in a powerful neighbour to his aid; I was undone by my auxiliary; when I had once called him in, I could not subsist without dependence on him.
The same hand writ the distinguishing characters of men and women under the names of Musical Instruments, the Distress of the News-writers, the Inventory of the Playhouse, and the Description of the Thermometer,49 which I cannot but look upon as the greatest embellishments of this work.
Thus far I thought necessary to say relating to the great hands which have been concerned in these volumes, with relation to the spirit and genius of the work; and am far from pretending to modesty in making this acknowledgment. What a man obtains from the good opinion and friendship of worthy men, is a much greater honour than he can possibly reap from any accomplishments of his own. But all the credit of wit which was given me by the gentlemen above mentioned (with whom I have now accounted) has not been able to atone for the exceptions made against me for some raillery in behalf of that learned advocate for the episcopacy of the Church, and the liberty of the people, Mr. Hoadly. I mention this only to defend myself against the imputation of being moved rather by party than opinion;50 and I think it is apparent, I have with the utmost frankness allowed merit wherever I found it, though joined in interests different from those for which I have declared myself. When my Favonius51 is acknowledged to be Dr. Smalridge, and the amiable character of the dean in the sixty-sixth Tatler drawn for Dr. Atterbury, I hope I need say no more as to my impartiality.
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 had some honourable intention in it.
As for this point, never hero in romance was carried away with a more furious ambition to conquer giants and tyrants, than I have been in extirpating gamesters and duellists. And indeed, like one of those knights too, though I was calm before, I am apt to fly out again, when the thing that first disturbed me is presented to my imagination. I shall therefore leave off when I am well, and fight with windmills no more: only shall be so arrogant as to say of myself, that in spite of all the force of fashion and prejudice, in the face of all the world, I alone bewailed the condition of an English gentleman, whose fortune and life are at this day precarious; while his estate is liable to the demands of gamesters, through a false sense of justice; and to the demands of duellists, through a false sense of honour. As to the first of these orders of men, I have not one word more to say of them: as to the latter, I shall conclude all I have more to offer against them (with respect to their being prompted by the fear of shame) by applying to the duellist what I think Dr. South says somewhere of the liar, "He is a coward to man, and a brave to God."
To Mr. Maynwaring. 52
SIR,
The state of conversation and business in this town having been long perplexed with pretenders in both kinds, in order to open men's eyes against such abuses, it appeared no unprofitable undertaking to publish a paper which should observe upon the manners of the pleasureable, as well as the busy part of mankind. To make this generally read, it seemed the most proper method to form it by way of a letter of intelligence, consisting of such parts as might gratify the curiosity of persons of all conditions, and of each sex. But a work of this nature requiring time to grow into the notice of the world, it happened very luckily, that a little before I had resolved upon this design, a gentleman53 had written Predictions, and two or three other pieces in my name, which had rendered it famous through all parts of Europe; and by an inimitable spirit and humour, raised it to as high a pitch of reputation as it could possibly arrive at.
By this good fortune, the name of Isaac Bickerstaff gained an audience of all who had any taste of wit, and the addition of the ordinary occurrences of common journals of news brought in a multitude of other readers. I could not, I confess, long keep up the opinion of the town, that these lucubrations were written by the same hand with the first works which were published under my name; but before I lost the participation of that author's fame, I had already found the advantage of his authority, to which I owe the sudden acceptance which my labours met with in the world.
The general purpose of this paper, is to expose the false arts of life, to pull off the disguises of cunning, vanity, and affectation, and recommend a general simplicity in our dress, our discourse, and our behaviour. No man has a better judgment for the discovery, or a nobler spirit for the contempt of such impostures, than your self; which qualities render you the most proper patron for the author of these essays. In the general, the design, however executed, has met with so great success, that there is hardly a name now eminent among us for power, wit, beauty, valour, or wisdom, which is not subscribed, for the encouragement of the two volumes in octavo, on a royal or medium paper.54 This is indeed an honour, for which it is impossible to express a suitable gratitude; and there is nothing could be an addition to the pleasure I take in it, but the reflection that it gives me the most conspicuous occasion I can ever have, of subscribing myself,
Sir,
Your most obliged, most obedient, and most humble Servant,
ISAAC BICKERSTAFF.No. 1.
[STEELE.
Tuesday, April 12, 1709
Though the other papers which are published for the use of the good people of England have certainly very wholesome effects, and are laudable in their particular kinds, yet they do not seem to come up to the main design of such narrations, which, I humbly presume, should be principally intended for the use of politic persons, who are so public spirited as to neglect their own affairs to look into transactions of State. Now these gentlemen, for the most part, being men of strong zeal and weak intellects, it is both a charitable and necessary work to offer something, whereby such worthy and well-affected members of the commonwealth may be instructed, after their reading, what to think; which shall be the end and purpose of this my paper: wherein I shall from time to time report and consider all matters of what kind soever that shall occur to me, and publish such my advices and reflections every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday in the week for the convenience of the post.56 I have also resolved to have something which may be of entertainment to the fair sex, in honour of whom I have taken the title of this paper. I therefore earnestly desire all persons, without distinction, to take it in for the present gratis, and hereafter at the price of one penny, forbidding all hawkers to take more for it at their peril. And I desire my readers to consider, that I am at a very great charge for proper materials for this work, as well as that before I resolved upon it, I had settled a correspondence in all parts of the known and knowing world. And forasmuch as this globe is not trodden upon by mere drudges of business only, but that men of spirit and genius are justly to be esteemed as considerable agents in it, we shall not, upon a dearth of news, present you with musty foreign edicts, or dull proclamations, but shall divide our relation of the passages which occur in action or discourse throughout this town, as well as elsewhere, under such dates of places as may prepare you for the matter you are to expect, in the following manner:
All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment, shall be under the article of White's Chocolate-house;57 poetry, under that of Will's Coffee-house;58 learning, under the title of Grecian;59 foreign and domestic news, you will have from St. James's Coffee-house;60 and what else I shall on any other subject offer, shall be dated from my own apartment.
I once more desire my readers to consider that as I cannot keep an ingenious man to go daily to Will's under twopence each day merely for his charges,61 to White's under sixpence, nor to the Grecian without allowing him some plain Spanish,62 to be as able as others at the learned table; and that a good observer cannot speak with even Kidney63 at St. James's without clean linen; I say, these considerations will, I hope, make all persons willing to comply with my humble request (when my gratis stock is exhausted) of a penny a piece; especially since they are sure of some proper amusement, and that it is impossible for me to want means to entertain them, having, besides the helps of my own parts, the power of divination, and that I can, by casting a figure, tell you all that will happen before it comes to pass.
But this last faculty I shall use very sparingly, and not speak of anything until it is passed, for fear of divulging matters which may offend our superiors.64
White's Chocolate-house, April 11
The deplorable condition of a very pretty gentleman, who walks here at the hours when men of quality first appear, is what is very much lamented. His history is, that on the 9th of September, 1705, being in his one and twentieth year, he was washing his teeth at a tavern window in Pall Mall, when a fine equipage passed by, and in it a young lady, who looked up at him; away goes the coach, and the young gentleman pulled off his nightcap, and instead of rubbing his gums, as he ought to do out of the window till about four o'clock, he sits him down, and spoke not a word till twelve at night; after which, he began to inquire, if anybody knew the lady. The company asked, "What lady?" But he said no more until they broke up at six in the morning. All the ensuing winter he went from church to church every Sunday, and from play-house to play-house all the week, but could never find the original of the picture which dwelt in his bosom. In a word, his attention to anything but his passion, was utterly gone. He has lost all the money he ever played for, and been confuted in every argument he has entered upon since the moment he first saw her. He is of a noble family, has naturally a very good air, and is of a frank, honest temper: but this passion has so extremely mauled him, that his features are set and uninformed, and his whole visage is deadened by a long absence of thought. He never appears in any alacrity, but when raised by wine; at which time he is sure to come hither, and throw away a great deal of wit on fellows, who have no sense further than just to observe, that our poor lover has most understanding when he is drunk, and is least in his senses when he is sober.65
Will's Coffee-house, April 8
On Thursday last66 was presented, for the benefit of Mr. Betterton,67 the celebrated comedy, called "Love for Love."68 Those excellent players, Mrs. Barry,69 Mrs. Bracegirdle,70 and Mr. Doggett,71 though not at present concerned in the house, acted on that occasion. There has not been known so great a concourse of persons of distinction as at that time; the stage itself was covered with gentlemen and ladies, and when the curtain was drawn, it discovered even there a very splendid audience. This unusual encouragement, which was given to a play for the advantage of so great an actor, gives an undeniable instance, that the true relish for manly entertainments and rational pleasures is not wholly lost. All the parts were acted to perfection; the actors were careful of their carriage, and no one was guilty of the affectation to insert witticisms of his own, but a due respect was had to the audience, for encouraging this accomplished player. It is not now doubted but plays will revive, and take their usual place in the opinion of persons of wit and merit, notwithstanding their late apostacy in favour of dress and sound. This place is very much altered since Mr. Dryden frequented it; where you used to see songs, epigrams, and satires in the hands of every man you met, you have now only a pack of cards; and instead of the cavils about the turn of the expression, the elegance of the style, and the like, the learned now dispute only about the truth of the game. But, however the company is altered, all have shown a great respect for Mr. Betterton: and the very gaming part of this house have been so much touched with a sense of the uncertainty of human affairs (which alter with themselves every moment) that in this gentleman, they pitied Mark Antony of Rome, Hamlet of Denmark, Mithridates of Pontus, Theodosius of Greece, and Henry the Eighth of England. It is well known he has been in the condition of each of those illustrious personages for several hours together, and behaved himself in those high stations, in all the changes of the scene, with suitable dignity. For these reasons, we intend to repeat this favour to him on a proper occasion, lest he who can instruct us so well in personating feigned sorrows, should be lost to us by suffering under real ones. The town is at present in very great expectation of seeing a comedy now in rehearsal, which is the twenty-fifth production of my honoured friend Mr. Thomas D'Urfey;72 who, besides his great abilities in the dramatic, has a peculiar talent in the lyric way of writing, and that with a manner wholly new and unknown to the ancient Greeks and Romans, wherein he is but faintly imitated in the translations of the modern Italian operas.73
