phlets uttered the sentiments of the English government by abusing him with foul language. 22. Pam The place of the modern editorial writer phleteers. on a daily paper was taken in old times by these bitter, scurrilous pamphleteers. No degree of personal slander was too coarse for them. Afraid, however, of the law, or else of a sound cudgeling at the hands of their victim, they tried to cover up their full meaning under an absurd system of stars and dashes. Most of these pamphlets would seem dull to the average reader of today. Any one with a quick wit, however, can detect what they must have been like from the following good-humored caricature of them which appears in the pages of the Spectator: "If there are four Persons in the Nation who endeavour to bring all things into Confusion and ruin their native Country, I think every honest Engl-shm-n ought to be on his guard. That there are such, every one will agree with me, who hears me name with his first not to mention Friend and Favourite * * * nor * * * * * * * * These People may cry Ch-rch, Ch-rch, as long as they please, but to make use of a homely Proverb, the proof of the P-dd-ng is in the eating. I love to speak out and declare my mind clearly when I am talking for the Good of my Country. I will not make my Court to an ill Man, tho' he were a B-y or a T-t. Nay, I would not stick to call so wretched a Politician, a Traitor, an Enemy to his Country, and a Bl-nd-rb-ss, 23. Jour- When the Spectator published its first issue, daily papers were a comparatively new thing. The first one ever established in England had begun only nine years before, and then only in very primitive fashion. It was fourteen inches long, eight inches wide, and was printed only on one side of the sheet. The reading matter of the first issue consisted of six short paragraphs translated from the foreign papers. For news people still depended on the coffee-house, on pamphlets, on queer little weeklies, and on what was called the newsletter, a little manuscript journal written out by the editor with his own pen on a sheet of fine paper and then painfully copied on similar sheets by his clerks. Half even of this sheet was left blank that the purchaser might add to it his own private business before he mailed it to his friends in the country. "It was our custom at Sir Roger's, says the Spectator, in one of its issues, "upon the coming in of the Post to sit about a pot of coffee, and hear the old Knight read Dyer's Letter; which he does with his spectacles upon his nose, and in an audible voicesmiling very often at those little strokes of satire which are so frequent in the writings of that author." On account of the heavy restrictions still hampering the freedom of the press, the news of the weeklies was meager, misleading, and always expressed with a great show of mystification. Roughly speaking, until the editors of the Tatler and the Spectator set a better fashion, the ordinary journalist in England was a contemptible and ill-natured gossip. 24. The Spectator Again. It takes the nicest sort of skill to civilize barbarians who already think themselves the most civilized of men; and this is really what the Spectator set out to do. For people whose whole thought had been bent on following the latest affectation in dress, oaths, coquetry, and dueling, it set up simple and wholesome ideals of life and made them popular. It commented on the little things of daily life, jested with suavity at extravagances, reasoned with fools on their vices and follies, and in general made vanity amusing, ostentation ridiculous, and meanness contemptible. It contained some pleasant raillery for those who thought it religious to wear long faces, and it contained tokens of respect for the clergyman who did his duty in quiet, unostentatious fidelity. It brought different classes of people together, and showed the Whig and the Tory "what a large extent of ground they might occupy in common. Wisdom it brought "out of closets and libraries, schools and colleges to dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables and coffee-houses."'2 25. Joseph 1 The chief contributor to the Spectator Addison. was Joseph Addison, a scholar, poet, and diplomatist, then just in his prime. His early home life might seem too grave and formal to suit the children of today, but when Addison was young, all courtesy had something grave and formal in it, and the circle that gathered under the Addison roof was at 1 Courthorpe, Addison in the English Men of Letters Series. 2 Spectator, No. 10. heart very simple and natural. His father was Dean of Lichfield, a gentleman who had traveled in France. and Tangiers, and had written works highly esteemed in their time; his two brothers were of "excellent talent," and his sister Dorothy was "a kind of wit, very like her brother. At fifteen years of age young Addison entered the University of Oxford. By the time he was twenty-one, his reputation as a man of taste and scholarship had reached the men of letters in London. Six years later, on the strength of some conventional verse he had written, he received a pension of £300 a year, that he might fit himself for diplomatic service abroad. He spent a year in France, traveled into Italy, where "at every turn his memory suggested fresh quotations from the whole range of Latin poetry," visited Vienna and returned to England in 1703. On his return he was invited to join the famous Kit-Cat Club, composed of the leaders of the great Whig party. A little later, he wrote to order a poem to commemorate the victory which the great Whig general, Marlborough, had won at Blenheim. Of this poem, The Campaign, one brief description of Marlborough is still remembered: Calm and serene he drives the furious blast; And pleased th' Almighty's order to perform But as a whole the poem, though finished and scholarly, might well be forgotten. It is in fact rather a tedious performance. Nevertheless for this verse he was made Under Secretary of State. In 1709, he was appointed Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, where he first began the sort of essays for which the Spectator has made him famous. In 1711, while the Spectator was coming out, he purchased an estate in Warwickshire for £10,000; in 1713 he saw his play of Cato acted before enthusiastic throngs at the theatre; in 1716 he married Lady Warwick; in 1717 he was made a Secretary of State. He retired in 1718, with a pension of £1,500, and died one year later when still only forty-seven years of age. 26. Addison Coffee-House. During all these ups and downs of politat the ical fortune, he was mingling with men of affairs as well as men of letters, was writing political pamphlets as well as literary essays. With all his pleasure in learning, he lived as much among people as among books, and, though in his light and easy style, he touched often, perhaps too often, on the little oddities in feminine fashions, he lived more among men than among women. A man's man, he was seldom to be seen at fashionable assemblies. He was most at home in the coffee-house which Button, an old servant of his or Lady Warwick's, had established in Covent Garden. Here, with his tobacco and his wine, he sat late into the night, his friends and admirers gathered around him. He, if any one, was counted the leader among the great wits and writers of the time. Other men were abler than he, but none of them had the modesty and sweetness of temper, the lightness and delicacy of wit, the graceful simplicity of language which made the quiet Addison, when he was stimu |