Lives of the Poets | Page 6

to speak, or to be silent; how to
refuse, or how to comply. We had many books to teach us our more
important duties, and to settle opinions in philosophy or politics; but an
arbiter elegantiarum, (a judge of propriety) was yet wanting who should
survey the track of daily conversation, and free it from thorns and
prickles, which tease the passer, though they do not wound him. For
this purpose nothing is so proper as the frequent publication of short
papers, which we read, not as study, but amusement. If the subject be
slight, the treatise is short. The busy may find time, and the idle may
find patience. This mode of conveying cheap and easy knowledge
began among us in the civil war, when it was much the interest of
either party to raise and fix the prejudices of the people. At that time
appeared Mercurius Aulicus, Mercurius Rusticus, and Mercurius
Civicus. It is said that when any title grew popular, it was stolen by the
antagonist, who by this stratagem conveyed his notions to those who
would not have received him had he not worn the appearance of a
friend. The tumult of those unhappy days left scarcely any man leisure
to treasure up occasional compositions; and so much were they
neglected that a complete collection is nowhere to be found.
These Mercuries were succeeded by L'Estrange's Observator; and that
by Lesley's Rehearsal, and perhaps by others; but hitherto nothing had
been conveyed to the people, in this commodious manner, but
controversy relating to the Church or State; of which they taught many
to talk, whom they could not teach to judge.
It has been suggested that the Royal Society was instituted soon after

the Restoration to divert the attention of the people from public
discontent. The Tatler and Spectator had the same tendency; they were
published at a time when two parties--loud, restless, and violent, each
with plausible declarations, and each perhaps without any distinct
termination of its views--were agitating the nation; to minds heated
with political contest they supplied cooler and more inoffensive
reflections; and it is said by Addison, in a subsequent work, that they
had a perceptible influence upon the conversation of that time, and
taught the frolic and the gay to unite merriment with decency--an effect
which they can never wholly lose while they continue to be among the
first books by which both sexes are initiated in the elegances of
knowledge.
The Tatler and Spectator adjusted, like Casa, the unsettled practice of
daily intercourse by propriety and politeness; and, like La Bruyere,
exhibited the "Characters and Manners of the Age." The personages
introduced in these papers were not merely ideal; they were then known,
and conspicuous in various stations. Of the Tatler this is told by Steele
in his last paper; and of the Spectator by Budgell in the preface to
"Theophrastus," a book which Addison has recommended, and which
he was suspected to have revised, if he did not write it. Of those
portraits which may be supposed to be sometimes embellished, and
sometimes aggravated, the originals are now partly known, and partly
forgotten. But to say that they united the plans of two or three eminent
writers, is to give them but a small part of their due praise; they
superadded literature and criticism, and sometimes towered far above
their predecessors; and taught, with great justness of argument and
dignity of language, the most important duties and sublime truths. All
these topics were happily varied with elegant fictions and refined
allegories, and illuminated with different changes of style and felicities
of invention.
It is recorded by Budgell, that of the characters feigned or exhibited in
the Spectator, the favourite of Addison was Sir Roger de Coverley, of
whom he had formed a very delicate and discriminate idea, which he
would not suffer to be violated; and therefore when Steele had shown
him innocently picking up a girl in the Temple, and taking her to a

tavern, he drew upon himself so much of his friend's indignation that he
was forced to appease him by a promise of forbearing Sir Roger for the
time to come.
The reason which induced Cervantes to bring his hero to the grave, para
mi sola nacio Don Quixote, y yo para el, made Addison declare, with
undue vehemence of expression, that he would kill Sir Roger; being of
opinion that they were born for one another, and that any other hand
would do him wrong.
It may be doubted whether Addison ever filled up his original
delineation. He describes his knight as having his imagination
somewhat warped; but of this perversion he has made very little use.
The irregularities in Sir Roger's conduct seem not so much the effects
of a mind deviating from the beaten