The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 | Page 2

£45 a year. He was
disappointed in his hopes of obtaining the Under-Secretaryship vacated
by Addison.
From 1705 onwards there is evidence of frequent and familiar
intercourse between Swift and Addison and Steele. After Sir William
Temple's death, Swift had become chaplain to the Earl of Berkeley,
who gave him the living of Laracor; and during a visit to England in
1704 he had gained a position in the front rank of authors by the "Tale
of a Tub" and the "Battle of the Books." At the close of 1707 he was
again in England, charged with a mission to obtain for the Irish clergy
the remission of First Fruits and Tenths already conceded to the
English, and throughout 1708 what he calls "the triumvirate of Addison,
Steele and me" were in constant communication. In that year Swift

published a pamphlet called "A Project for the Advancement of
Religion and the Reformation of Manners," which anticipated many of
the arguments used in the Tatler and _Spectator_; and he also
commenced his attack on John Partridge, quack doctor and maker of
astrological almanacs. On the appearance of Partridge's "Merlinus
Liberatus" for 1708, Swift--borrowing a name from the signboard of a
shoemaker--published "Predictions for the year 1708, wherein the
month and day of the month are set down, the persons named, and the
great actions and events of next year particularly related, as they will
come to pass. Written to prevent the people of England from being
further imposed on by vulgar almanack-makers. By Isaac Bickerstaff,
Esq." Isaac Bickerstaff professed to be a true astrologer, disgusted at
the lies told by impostors, and he said that he was willing to be hooted
at as a cheat if his prophecies were not exactly fulfilled. His first
prediction was that Partridge would die on the 29th of March; and on
the 30th a second pamphlet was published, "The accomplishment of the
first of Mr. Bickerstaff's Predictions ... in a letter to a person of quality,
in which a detailed account is given of Partridge's death, at five minutes
after seven, by which it is clear that Mr. Bickerstaff was mistaken
almost four hours in his calculation.... Whether he had been the cause
of this poor man's death, as well as the predictor, may be very
reasonably disputed." The joke was maintained by Swift and others in
various pieces, and when Partridge, in his almanac for 1709, protested
that he was still living, Swift replied, in "A Vindication of Isaac
Bickerstaff, Esq.," which was advertised in the fifth number of the
Tatler, that he could prove that Partridge was not alive; for no one
living could have written such rubbish as the new almanac. In starting
his new paper Steele assumed the name of the astrologer Isaac
Bickerstaff, rendered famous by Swift, and made frequent use of
Swift's leading idea. He himself summed up the controversy in the
words, "if a man's art is gone, the man is gone, though his body still
appear."
Much has been written on the interesting question of the early history
of the periodical press; but with one exception none of its predecessors
had much effect on the Tatler. John Dunton's Athenian Mercury was
the forerunner of our _Notes and Queries_; and it was followed by the
British Apollo (1708-11), the second title of which was "Curious

Amusements for the Ingenious. To which are added the most Material
Occurrences, Foreign and Domestic. Performed by a Society of
Gentlemen." _The Gentleman's Journal_ of 1692-4, a monthly paper of
poems and other miscellaneous matter, was succeeded, in 1707, by
Oldmixon's _Muses' Mercury; or, The Monthly Miscellany_, a
periodical which contained also notices of new plays and books, and
numbered Steele among its contributors. Defoe's Review, begun in
1704, aimed at setting the affairs of Europe in a clearer light, regardless
of party; but, added Defoe, "After our serious matters are over, we shall
at the end of every paper present you with a little diversion, as anything
occurs to make the world merry; and whether friend or foe, one party or
another, if anything happens so scandalous as to require an open
reproof, the world will meet with it there." Accordingly, of the eight
pages in the first number, one and a half pages consist of "Mercure
Scandale; or, Advice from the Scandalous Club, Translated out of
French." The censure was to be of the actions of men, not of parties;
and the design was to expose not persons but things. A monthly
supplement, dealing with "the immediate subject then on the tongues of
the town," was begun in September 1704; and pressure on the space
before long pushed the Advices from the Scandal Club out of the
ordinary issue of the Review. Subsequently Defoe wrote more than
once in praise of the way