it was given, having been Mr R. Pringle,) he was promised something else; and now, with greatly augmented reputation, he received, some time before the close of the Tatler, the tardy fulfilment of this pledge, by being appointed a Commissioner of Stamps. Unfortunately he lost, not long after, the previous appointment of Gazetteer, in consequence of some papers in the Tatler, in which he was supposed to have directed a masked battery at the heads of the new Tory Ministry in expectancy. Harley, on coming into power and taking his revenge in this manner, observed a sort of discriminating clemency in his punishment of Steele, taking from him only the office he had either given him formerly, or the value of which he had greatly enhanced.

With reference to the charge of ingratitude urged against him by Swift, though it might have been more judicious, (if people could always do what was wisest in moments of heat and excitement,) to have preserved the Tatler free from politics-it may be that Steele considered loyalty to his party paramount to considerations of personal obligation or interest. This view might be strengthened by remembering that the obligation was given as a favour to another and not to himself. His forbearance he might also think the less called for, towards one who had himself attempted to supplant and undermine those friends whose power was now tottering, by the most underhand means, and with the basest ingratitude.

The obnoxious numbers were probably 190, 191, and 193. In the former he stated that he thought it the * See note (†) p. 222.

shortest road to impartiality to declare himself at a time when the question was not one of names, but of things and causes. In the same number was a letter signed “Aminadab," written in the character of a Quaker, and attributed to Swift, in which he cautions the Tatler to reflect what a day might bring forth, to think of that as he took snuff. Unfortunately for himself, he was not guided by this friendly advice, but at least gave admission in immediately following numbers to two very satirical sketches. of character (one professedly treating of stage affairs), which were generally applied-the Examiner, of course, said, contrary to the rules of resemblance,―to Mr Harley and some of his friends.

CHAPTER VII.

THE PERIODICAL ESSAYIST-SPECTATOR-1711, 1712.

Steele starts the Spectator on a similar plan with the Tatler, but with a new set of characters, in conjunction with Addison-Its unprecedented success-The Spectator Club-The De Coverley series of papers Notice of the contributors, Philips, Budgell, Tickell, Hughes, Grove, &c.-The dedications, and the subjects of themClose of the original series-An additional volume subsequently added, chiefly by Addison.

WHILST the friends and admirers of the Tatler were yet indulging their regret,* and its envious rivals, (for it had would-be rivals, as when has merit or success been without them?) their triumph at the literary suicide, its authors suddenly burst upon them in a new, and if not more brilliant, at least a yet more successful character—a literary metempsachosis. Its authors, far from betraying any sense of exhaustion, as some probably surmised, only two short months from the cessation of the former paper, emboldened by success, ventured on the experiment of a daily successor, with a confidence in their resources almost without a parallel in literary history.

On the 1st March 1711, the Spectator made its appear

You will

He never

"Steele's last Tatler," writes Swift to Stella, "comes out to-day. see it before this comes to you, and how he takes leave of the world. told so much as Addison of it, who was surprised as much as I. . . . 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."-Journal, Jan. 2, 1711.

ance. The introductory paper, in which the imaginary author gives an account of himself and his proposed lucubrations, was written by Addison in that style of quiet, elegant humour peculiar to himself. "I have observed," he says, "that a reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure till he knows whether the author of it be a black or a fair man, of a mild or choleric disposition, married or a bachelor, with other particulars of the like nature, which conduce very much to the right understanding of an author." The character of the Spectator, in which there are some touches not inapplicable to Addison himself, is very happily drawn. He is represented as a student and observer who has travelled and seen much of the world, and yet, from an insuperable natural diffidence (a quality that made it disagreeable to him to be talked to in mixed company, but especially to be stared at,) living in the world as a mere looker-on; "by which means," he says, "I have made myself a speculative statesman, soldier, merchant, and artisan. I am very well versed in the theory of a husband or a father, and can discern the errors in the economy, business, and diversions of others better than those who are engaged in them, as by-standers discover blots which are apt to escape those who are in the game." He is also a great student, so that with so much observation of men, and skill in books, "I begin," he says, "to blame my own taciturnity; and, since I have neither time. nor inclination to communicate the fulness of my heart in speech, I am resolved to do it in writing, and to print myself out, if possible, before I die."

The sketch of the club, or dramatis persona, in the second number, is by Steele. The adoption of the ma

chinery of the club, which was referred to in the first number, added greatly to the dramatic interest of the paper; and, as the Spectator professed sympathy and interest in the concerns of all sorts and conditions of men, the members of the club carried out this view by personifying the various classes in society. First on the list, the immortal Sir Roger de Coverley, a Worcestershire baronet of ancient descent, whose great-grandfather is humorously represented as the inventor of the famous country dance of the name, stands as the ideal of the country gentleman, -not of the gross, swearing, illiterate, overbearing foxhunters of the time, and as they were to be found, at least partially, at a much later day,*-not such as the Squire Westerns, as found in the pages of Fielding, sitting and drinking beer with their own footmen; no stern, inexorable justice, but a refined, amiable gentleman, of most genial, and somewhat eccentric humour-a little way in the descent in the vale of years, but hearty, like one with whom time had dealt kindly. His eccentricities are represented as "arising from his good sense, and as contradictions to the manners of the world only as he thought the world in the wrong." But there was also a more sentimental cause, in a certain warp that his mind had received by his having, like a true knight, been crossed in love. A charming young widow, but, unhappily, as cruel as she was beautiful, had crossed his path. Previous to that event he had been what is called a fine gentleman, "had supped with Lord Rochester and Sir George Etherege, fought a duel, and kicked bully Dawson for calling him youngster."

See Sidney Smith's account of the squire of his parish in Yorkshire.