The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 | Page 5

must, indeed, be confessed that never man threw up his
pen under stronger temptations to have employed it longer; his
reputation was at a greater height than, I believe, ever any living
author's was before him.... There is this noble difference between him
and all the rest of our polite and gallant authors: the latter have
endeavoured to please the age by falling in with them, and encouraging
them in their fashionable vices and false notions of things. It would
have been a jest some time since, for a man to have asserted that
anything witty could be said in praise of a married state; or that
devotion and virtue were any way necessary to the character of a fine
gentleman. Bickerstaff ventured to tell the town that they were a parcel
of fops, fools, and vain coquettes; but in such a manner as even pleased
them, and made them more than half inclined to believe that he spoke
truth. Instead of complying with the false sentiments or vicious tastes
of the age, either in morality, criticism, or good breeding, he has boldly
assured them that they were altogether in the wrong, and commanded
them, with an authority which perfectly well became him, to surrender
themselves to his arguments for virtue and good sense.
"It is incredible to conceive the effect his writings have had on the town;
how many thousand follies they have either quite banished, or given a
very great check to; how much countenance they have added to virtue
and religion; how many people they have rendered happy, by showing
them it was their own fault if they were not so; and, lastly, how entirely
they have convinced our fops and young fellows of the value and
advantages of learning. He has indeed rescued it out of the hands of

pedants and fools, and discovered the true method of making it amiable
and lovely to all mankind. In the dress he gives it, it is a most welcome
guest at tea-tables and assemblies, and is relished and caressed by the
merchants on the 'Change; accordingly, there is not a lady at Court, nor
a banker in Lombard Street, who is not verily persuaded that Captain
Steele is the greatest scholar and best casuist of any man in England.
"Lastly, his writings have set all our wits and men of letters upon a new
way of thinking, of which they had little or no notion before; and
though we cannot yet say that any of them have come up to the beauties
of the original, I think we may venture to affirm that every one of them
writes and thinks much more justly than they did some time since."
Gay's opinion has been confirmed by the best judges of nearly two
centuries, and there is no need to labour the question of the wit and
wisdom of the Tatler. But some examples may be cited in illustration
of the topics on which Steele and his friends wrote, and the manner in
which they dealt with them. The very first numbers contained
illustrations of most of what were to be the characteristics of the paper.
There is the account of the very pretty gentleman at White's
Chocolate-house thrown into a sad condition by a passing vision of a
young lady; the notice of Betterton's benefit performance; the
comments on the war; the campaign against Partridge, with the
declaration that all who were good for nothing would be included
among the deceased; the discussion on the morality of the stage, with
praise of Mrs. Bicknell and reproaches upon a young nobleman who
came drunk to the play; the comparison of the rival beauties, Chloe and
Clarissa; the satire on the Italian opera, and on Pinkethman's company
of strollers; and the allegorical paper on Fælicia, or Britain. All these
and other matters are dealt with in the four numbers which were
distributed gratuitously; as the work progressed the principal change,
besides the disappearance of the paragraphs of news, was the
development of the sustained essay on morals or manners, and the less
frequent indulgence in satire upon individual offenders, and in personal
allusions in general. This change seems to have been the result partly of
design, and partly of circumstances, including Addison's influence on
the work. Steele himself said, as we have seen, that the Tatler was
raised to a greater height than he had designed; but no doubt he realised
that he must feel his way, and be at first a tatler rather than a preacher.

After some grave remarks about duelling in an early paper (No. 26), he
makes Pacolet, Bickerstaff's familiar, say, "It was too soon to give my
discourse on this subject so serious a turn; you have chiefly to do with
that part of mankind which must be