The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 | Page 8

"as a sort of submission to, or
composition with, the Government for some past offences."
Excellent testimony to the immediate popularity of the Tatler is
furnished by the fact that its successive numbers were reprinted in
Dublin and in Edinburgh. At least sixty-nine numbers of the Dublin
issue, in quarto, were printed. The Scottish re-issue was a folio sheet,
commenced about February 1710, and continued until the close of the
paper. The date of each number of the Edinburgh paper--"printed by
James Watson, and sold at his shop next door to the Red Lion, opposite
to the Lucken Booths"--is five or six days later than that of the original

issue; it was evidently worked off as soon as the London post came in.
Other evidence of the popularity of the Tatler in the provinces is
afforded by the foundation of the "Gentleman's Society" at Spalding.
Maurice Johnson, a native of Spalding and a member of the Inner
Temple, gives this account of the matter: "In April 1709, that great
genius Captain Richard Steele ... published the Tatlers, which, as they
came out in half-sheets, were taken in by a gentleman, who
communicated them to his acquaintances at the coffee-house then in the
Abbey Yard; and these papers being universally approved as both
instructive and entertaining, they ordered them to be sent down thither,
with the Gazettes and Votes, for which they paid out of charity to the
person who kept the coffee-house, and they were accordingly had and
read there every post-day, generally aloud to the company, who would
sit and talk over the subject afterwards. This insensibly drew the men
of sense and letters into a sociable way of conversing, and continued
the next year, 1710, until the publication of these papers desisted,
which was in December, to their great regret." Afterwards the Spectator
was taken in, and a regular society was started in 1712, by the
encouragement of Addison, Steele, and other members of Button's
Club.
One indication of the popularity of the Tatler in its own day is the long
subscription list prefixed to the reprint in four octavo volumes. Some
copies were printed on "royal," others on "medium" paper; and the
price of the former was a guinea a volume, while that of the latter was
half a guinea. There was also an authorised cheap edition, in
duodecimo, at half a crown a volume, besides a pirated edition at the
same price. A still more conclusive proof of the success of the Tatler
was the number of papers started in imitation of its methods. Addison
mentioned some of those periodicals in No. 229, where details will be
found of the "Female Tatler," "Tit for Tat," and the like. But besides
these, several spurious continuations of the Tatler appeared directly
after the discontinuance of the genuine paper, including one by William
Harrison, written with Swift's encouragement and assistance. But
Harrison, as Swift said, had "not the true vein for it," and his paper
reached only to fifty-two numbers, which were afterwards reprinted as
a fifth volume to the collected edition of the original Tatler. Gay said
that Steele's imitators seemed to think "that what was only the garnish

of the former Tatlers was that which recommended them, and not those
substantial entertainments which they everywhere abound in." The
town, in the absence of anything better, welcomed their occasional and
faint endeavours at humour; "but even those are at present become
wholly invisible, and quite swallowed up in the blaze of the Spectator."
Steele himself said that his imitators held the censorship in
commission.

[Footnote 1: No. 18.]
[Footnote 2: No. 89.]
[Footnote 3: No. 271.]
[Footnote 4: Spectator, No. 532.]
[Footnote 5: Tatler, No. 18.]
[Footnote 6: No. 163.]
[Footnote 7: No. 158.]
[Footnote 8: Nos. 155, 160.]
[Footnote 9: No. 249.]
[Footnote 10: Nos. 100, 102.]
[Footnote 11: No. 117.]
[Footnote 12: No. 86.]
[Footnote 13: No. 10.]
[Footnote 14: No. 30.]
[Footnote 15: No. 142.]
[Footnote 16: No. 184.]
[Footnote 17: No. 27.]
[Footnote 18: No. 210.]
[Footnote 19: No. 168.]
[Footnote 20: Nos. 127, 186.]
[Footnote 21: Nos. 25, 26, 29, 31, 38, 39.]
[Footnote 22: Nos. 56, &c.]
[Footnote 23: Nos. 40, 45.]
[Footnote 24: No. 134.]
[Footnote 25: See Nos. 115, 271.]
[Footnote 26: No. 181.]
[Footnote 27: No. 5.]
[Footnote 28: No. 82.]
[Footnote 29: No. 94.]

[Footnote 30: No. 172.]
[Footnote 31: Nos. 95, 114.]
[Footnote 32: No. 49.]
[Footnote 33: No. 33.]
[Footnote 34: No. 149.]
[Footnote 35: No. 85. See, too, No. 104.]
[Footnote 36: Nos. 141, 248.]
[Footnote 37: No. 212.]
[Footnote 38: Nos, 40, 42, 47.]
[Footnote 39: No. 68.]
[Footnote 40: No. 8.]
[Footnote 41: No. 6.]
[Footnote 42: No. 87.]

THE TATLER

THE PREFACE.[43]
In the last Tatler I promised some explanation of passages