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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
It is well known that when Isaac Bickerstaff began his lucubrations in 1709, he projected a periodical which, in accordance with the Quicquid agunt homines… nostri farrago libelli that so frequently served as the motto of its earlier numbers, should include various departments, of which one was to be the department of foreign and domestic news. It is also well known that this department was virtually abandoned before the Tatler had half run its course, and absolutely given over long before January 2, 1711, on which day Steele bade goodbye to his readers. But the precise rate at which the department of news diminished in importance, and the causes which probably governed the change, have been the subject of some very inaccurate statements and conjectures, although not all references to the matter have been wide of the mark.
1 Juvenal, Sat. i, 85-86. This was the motto of the first forty papers and also of Nos. 47, 49-54, 56-62, 65, 70-78, 80.
2 “We … shall divide our relation of the passages which occur in action or discourse throughout this town, as well as elsewhere, under such dates of places as may prepare you for the matter you are to expect, in the following manner:
“All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment shall be under the article of White's Chocolate-house; poetry, under that of Will's Coffeehouse; learning, under the title of Grecian; foreign and domestic news, you will have from St. James's Coffeehouse; and what else I shall on any other subject offer, shall be dated from my own apartment” (Tatler, No. 1). In the original sheets this notice is repeated in the second and the third number.
3 Macaulay, in his famous review (Edinburgh Review, July, 1843) of Miss Lucy Aikin's Life of Joseph Addison (2 vols., London, 1843) writes: “The gazette was taken from him [Steele]. Isaac Bickerstaff accordingly became silent upon politics, and the articles of news which had once formed about one-third of his paper, altogether disappeared. The Tatler had completely changed its character. It was now nothing but a series of essays on books, morals, and manners. Steele, therefore, resolved to bring it to a close, and to commence a new work on an improved plan” (Edinburgh Review, Vol. lxxviii, p. 235).
John Forster (Quarterly Review, March, 1855; Historical and Biographical Essays, 2 vols., London, Murray, 1858) holds precisely Macaulay's view: “His [i. e., Steele's] loss of the Gazette had entailed a change in the conduct of his paper, which had convinced him of the expediency of recasting it on a new plan. The town was startled by the announcement, therefore, that the Tatler of the 2nd January, 1710-11, was to be the last” (Historical and Biographical Essays, ii, p. 187). The text of this passage is the same as in the Quarterly Review, with the exception of entirely unimportant differences in phrasing.
M. Alexandre Beljame (Le public et les hommes de lettres en Angleterre au dix-huitième siècle, Paris, Hachette, 1881) introduces another error,—the statement that news in the Tatler ceased with No. 83. Says Beljame (page 277): “Steele … dans son premier numéro, annonça … qu'il donnerait des nouvelles étrangères et domestiques. Car Steele ne supprime pas encore la politique, non plus que Defoe; mais tandis que dans la Revue elle est encore la partie principale et a le poste d'honneur, elle est dans le Babillard un simple accessoire et reléguée au second plan. Peu à peu même les nouvelles furent moins importantes et plus rares, et à partir du 83e numéro elles disparurent tout à fait.”
To the same effect Fox Bourne (English Newspapers; Chapters in the History of Journalism, 2 vols., London, Chatto & Windus, 1883, i, p. 73) writes: “In the earlier numbers of ‘The Tatler’ … due attention was paid to politics in the section dated from St. James's Coffeehouse… . Gradually, however, politics dropped out of the paper, … With the eighty-third number it became entirely non-political.”
Fox Bourne's generalizations are precisely contrary to Swift's statement in The Importance of the Guardian considered (1713): “This gentleman [i.e., Steele], whom I have now described to you, began between four and five years ago to publish a paper thrice a week, called ‘The Tatler;‘ it came out under the borrowed name of Isaac Bickerstaff, and by contribution of his ingenious friends, grew to have a great reputation, and was equally esteemed by both parties, because it meddled with neither. But, some time after Sacheverell's trial, when things began to change their aspect, Mr. Steele, whether by the command of his superiors, his own inconstancy, or the absence of his assistants, would needs corrupt his paper with politics; published one or two most virulent libels, and chose for his subject even that individual Mr. Harley, who had made him gazeteer” (Swift's Works, ed. T. Scott, v, pp. 287-288).
The Tory point of view toward supposed political allusions in the Tatler appears also in the Examiner, Vol. iii, No. 48 (May 4-8, 1713), where several apparently fictitious characters are named, and “at least fifty more” are said to exist, who were “Sufferers of Figure under the Author's Satyr, in the Days of his Mirth, and when he could shew his Teeth to Advantage.” Among the papers in the Tatler obviously referred to by the Examiner are Nos. 24, 187, 191, and 193. The case of No. 191 is probably typical: a character in it was thought to be intended for Harley; Steele (Guardian 53) protested that the character fitted anyone who “seeks employment for his own private interest, vanity, or pride, and not for the good of the country”; and the Examiner (Vol. iv, No. 2) rejected the idea that such characters as Polypragmon of Tatler 191 were “general characters, and stand for a whole species.” On the political interpretation of Tatler 24, see Examiner 5; on that of Tatler 187, see The Life and Posthumous Writings of Arthur Maynwaring (1715), pp. 145 ff. This is “The History of Hannibal and Hanno,” which is referred to in the index as“ a very fine Allegory.”
It appears, therefore, if we may trust Swift and the Examiner—both unfriendly witnesses—that it was the later numbers of the Tatler rather than the earlier, and by no means the articles from St. James's, that were suspected of veiling political allusions.
4 Courthope's view (Addison, in the “English Men of Letters” series, New York, 1884, p. 97), though not developed in detail, is thoroughly sound. After the hundredth Tatler, he observes, the news, when it does occasionally appear,“ is as often as not made the text of a literary disquisition.” … “The truth is that Steele recognized the superiority of Addison's style, and with his usual quickness accommodated the form of his journal to the genius of the new contributor.”
Dobson (Richard Steele, in the series of “English Worthies,” London, Longmans, 1886, p. 123, note) gives up his earlier view “that the loss of the Gazette sealed the source of Steele's foreign intelligence, and thus entailed a change of plan,” because “a reexamination of the paper shows that the news-element had practically disappeared from the Tatler long before Steele ceased to be Gazeteer.”
Similarly, Harold Routh (Camb. Hist. Eng. Lit., ix, p. 47): “The loss of his gazeteership, though it deprived Steele of access to first-hand news, can hardly have influenced him, since foreign intelligence in The Tatler had long dwindled into an occasional and perfunctory paragraph.”
5 Of the original numbers of the Tatler, 64 contained news. The octavo edition of 1710-11 omits the news in Numbers 27, 30, 31, 35, 36, 37, 40, 41, 43, 49, 51, 56, 57, 64, 66, 67, 74, and 88; in other words, it contains news in 48 numbers. The duodecimo edition of 1710-11 omits the news in Numbers 57, 88, and 225, but keeps it in the other 61 numbers. Tickell's edition (1721) of Addison's works includes 62 papers from the Tatler as wholly or partly by Addison. Of these the only one which originally contained news is No. 20. From this paper Tickell omits the news. The edition of John Nichols (London, 1786, six volumes) retains news in 57 numbers. Mr. G. A. Aitken's edition (London, 1898-99, four volumes) keeps the news in 62 numbers, but omits it in Nos. 57 and 88. Aitken's edition is therefore, in respect to news, more faithful to the original numbers than any other collected edition.
In view of the rarity of these original issues, the news in Tatler 57 and 88, elsewhere inaccessible, is reprinted below:
Letters which arriv'd this Evening from Ostend say, That it is expected the Treaty of Peace will forthwith be renew'd, and that Monsieur de Torcy is at present in the French Camp, with full Instructions from his Master to act in that Affair in such a Manner, as shall be satisfactory to the Confederates. Monsieur Heems, who is Minister to his Imperial Majesty, upon receiving an Account of the Proposals which will be made, went Post to the Court of Vienna. These Advices add, That the Attack of the Citadel proceeded with as much Expedition as the Method of the Sap would admit.
Letters from the Hague of the 28th of October say, that the Duke of Marlborough design'd to embark for England as on this Day.
6 Swift (Journal to Stella) notes the event under date of October 14, 1710, though in a letter to Stella dated September 10, 1710, he predicts that “Steele will certainly lose his Gazeteer's place, all the world detesting his engaging in parties” (Swift's Works, ed. T. Scott, ii, p. 7). Narcissus Luttrell (A Brief Historical Relation of State Affairs, etc., vi, p. 643), notes it under date of October 17, 1710. For Swift's conjecture in regard to the reason for Steele's loss of the gazeteership, see Swift's Importance of the Guardian Considered (1713), especially the fifth paragraph. There Swift asserts that Steele, “to avoid being discarded, thought fit to resign his place of Gazeteer” (Swift's Works, ed. T. Scott, v, p. 288).
7 On April 5, 1709, a week before the first Tatler appeared, Addison wrote from Whitehall to Ambrose Phillips that he was “just hurrying out of town” (Addison's Works, Bohn edition, v, p. 375).
On April 22, 1709, Addison wrote to Swift from Dublin: “We arrived yesterday at Dublin” (Addison's Works, ed. Bohn, v, p. 377; Correspondence of Jonathan Swift, ed. Ball, i, p. 151).
8 Tickell's Preface (Vol. i, p. xii) to Addison's Works, 1721.
9 Parts of Nos. 18, 20, 24, and 42.
10 Both Abel Boyer, a Whig news-writer, and the Postboy, a Tory newspaper, are ridiculed in No. 18. Clearly, therefore, Addison's motive was not merely political antagonism.
11 Which has the well chosen motto, Paulo maiora canamus.
12 Tatler 155, April 6, 1710. This, of course, appeared after the Tatler had virtually dropped its department of news.
13 Lawrence Lewis, The Advertisements of the Spectator, Boston and New York, 1909. See especially Chap. 2.
14 See Column F of Table I.
15 With regard to the receipts from advertising we have only the scantiest knowledge. In Tatler 224 Addison writes about advertisements and ridicules the extravagant language in which they are usually framed. He says, “Since I am thus usefully employed in writing criticisms on the works of these diminutive authors, I must not pass over in silence an advertisement, which has lately made its appearance, and is written altogether in a Ciceronian manner. It was sent to me, with five shillings, to be inserted among my advertisements; but as it is a pattern of good writing in this way, I shall give it a place in the body of my paper.” The advertisement is reproduced below in facsimile:
(This advertisement has been reproduced by means of the photostat of the Massachusetts Historical Society from the original issue of the Tatler in the Harvard College Library. The reproduction was made possible by the kindness of Messrs. Walter B. Briggs, Worthington C. Ford, and Julius H. Tuttle.)
Though this advertisement is presumably fictitious, it may fairly be supposed that the price is the actual one for such an advertisement. That, however, tells us very little. If the fee was based on the number of words, one column of advertisements in the Tatler would bring in about fifty shillings. But if the fee depended upon the nature of the advertisement, we can make no calculation of the total.
In at least one instance (J. B. Williams, A History of English Journalism to 'the Foundation of the Gazette, London, 1908, pp. 167-8) it appears that the fee for advertisements depended not upon the space or the number of words, but, apparently, upon the value of the return to be expected from the advertisement. This was in 1657. On the other hand, we find in 1649, in 1655, and in 1667, instances where the fee was apparently the same for all advertisements. (Williams, op. cit., pp. 164, 167, 184 note 4.) The fact that the Act of June 10, 1712 (10 Ann., c. 19, ci) taxed every advertisement one shilling may mean that at this time the fee was the same for all. It is noticeable that the advertisements in the Tatler vary only slightly in length. There may have been a maximum number of words which no advertiser was allowed to exceed.
16 See Chart on p. 663. In connection with this growth of the single number, note the disappearance of the Quicquid agunt homines as a motto. (See p. 633, note 1.)
17 “My Brethren of the Quill, the ingenious Society of News-Writers, having with great Spirit and Elegance already inform'd the World, that the Town of Tournay capitulated on the 28th Instant, there is nothing left for me to say, but to congratulate the good Company here, that we have Reason to hope for an Opportunity of thanking Mr. Withers next Winter in this Place, for the Service he has done his Country.” Eulogies of Withers, Argyle, and Marlborough follow. The entire item makes about one-eighth of the number.
18 John Ashton, Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne, i, p. 133.
19 Fox Bourne (English Newspapers, i, p. 69) has it that “there were six distinct publications to read or choose from on Monday, twelve on Tuesday, six on Wednesday, twelve on Thursday, six on Friday, and thirteen on Saturday.” These figures are largely based on a contemporary list, which may not be correct, in the first number of The General Postscript (1709). Fox Bourne is certainly wrong in his statement (i, p. 68) that the Gazette appeared on Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. See note 21 on p. 658 below.
20 It will naturally be asked why this cause should not have operated from the beginning of the Tatler. Of the six papers which appear to have been published on days when the Tatler did not appear, at least two were begun after the Tatler: the Female Tatler, first issued on July 8, 1709; and the General Postscript, which began on September 7, 1709. One is inclined to think that the latter, particularly, might throw light upon the point: its first appearance was just when the decline of news in the Tatler was most rapid; and its full title is, The General Postscript: being an Extract of all that's most material from the Foreign and English Newspapers: with Remarks upon the Observator, Review, Tatlers, and the Rest of the Scribblers: in a Dialogue between Novel and Scandal. It is in the Bodleian Library (Nichols Newspapers, Vol. 15).
21 When the Tatler began, the Gazette (established in 1665) had reached No. 4531. From then until No. 4551 (June 20-23, 1709) the odd numbers cover Monday to Thursday and presumably appeared on Thursday, and the even numbers cover Thursday to Monday and presumably came out on Monday. Thereafter, throughout the life of the Tatler, the Gazette appeared on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. The intention to make this change is announced in Nos. 4550 and 4551; the change itself, in No. 4552.
22 Cf. Gazette 4530 and 4531 with Tat. 1; Gazette 4533 with Tat. 4 and 5; Gazette 4535 with Tat. 6 and 7; Gazette 4536 with Tat. 9; Gazette 4537 with Tat. 10, and so forth.
23 The Examiner, begun because certain Tory men of letters thought the town “every day imposed upon by false wit, false learning, false politics, and false divinity,” ran from August 3, 1710, to July 26, 1714. It was carried on by Dr. William King, Prior, Atterbury, Swift, Mrs. Manley, and others. See Nathan Drake, Essays … Illustrative of the Rambler, Adventurer, and Idler, i, pp. 10-11; Swift's Works, ed. T. Scott, Vol. ix; Catalogue of the Hope Collection (at the Bodleian), Oxford, 1865, pp. 19-21.
24 Examiner No. 5 (from Thursday, August 24, to Thursday, August 31, 1710). It has the title The Gazette and Tatler of August the 12th, compar'd, and the appropriate motto, Facies non una dua-bus, Nec diversa tamen; qualem decet esse sororum.
The authorship of Examiner No. 5 is uncertain: Drake (op. cit., i, p. 11) attributes it to Dr. William King; but the editor of King's Posthumous Works (as quoted by the editor of The Original Works of William King, LL. D., London, 1776, i, p. xxi) tells us that King undertook the Examiner about October 10, 1710, which was some six weeks after the appearance of No. 5.