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readers of a certain description, it is a delight ful employment to reduce fictitious to real names, conjecture wisely on place and person, and find resemblances where none were meant. Our authors cannot therefore be very severely blamed if they occasionally played with this species of self-deception, and, knowing the perverted taste of some of their customers, sold them lawful goods as contraband.

The chief design of all these papers is briefly expressed by Hughes in No. 64, to be a wholesome project of making wit useful,' a project the more to be commended as of all talents wit is the most liable to be abused; and as for many years preceding the date of the TATLER, the most celebrated wits had prostituted their pens in the service of the grosser vices. Few men could be better qualified than STEELE to employ this endowment in useful designs. Notwithstanding his personal failings, he appears to have uniformly entertained the purest principles of religion and morals: a strong sense of propriety in words as well as in action: and an abhorrence of gross vices, as offensive to the Deity, and dangerous to the eternal welfare of man. When betrayed by liveliness of temper into an expression inconsistent with piety or decency, he was ever ready to apologize and to revoke: if he committed errors, he certainly defended none. In manners he had a quick sense of what was ridiculous, and exposed it with easy playfulness, or humorous gravity. Availing himself of the

many shapes an ESSAYIST may assume, he exposed levity of conduct, absurd fashions, improprieties of dress and discourse, in every various light; and laid the foundation for a change in the public mind, which has contributed beyond all calculation to the refinement of society.

It has already been noticed that he is not to be accounted the writer of every paper to which his name has been prefixed or append ed. Those which appear in the regular form of ESSAY are certainly his; those consisting of letters, &c. were sometimes the contributions of correspondents. With respect to his able coadjutor, we are less liable to mistake. ADDISON's papers have been correctly ascertained, yet the frequent resemblance between these two writers in style and manner is a circumstance which deserves particular notice. We have seen that STEELE was the original author of the TATLER, that he was the first who prescribed a mode of periodical writing, new to the world from the nature of its subjects, and that he had made some progress before he received or appears to have expected assistance from ADDISON, who was then in a distant country, and in an official situation not likely to afford him the requisite leisure. Yet from the time they began to write in conjunction, if the reader will attentively compare those papers which are certainly the respective production * Addison left London April 10, two days before the first appearance of the Tatler.

of STEELE and ADDISON, he will meet with a surprising similarity of humour. In many instances STEELE imitates what has been since called the ADDISONIAN manner with a closeness which would have rendered it very difficult to assign the papers to their proper authors, if we had been left without any authority but a supposed knowledge of the style. Of this happy coincidence of talent, there are many striking instances in the SPECTATOR, to which we shall have occasion to advert hereafter. In the mean time, we may remark that it contributed to preserve the uniformity and consistency of character, or the personal identity of ISAAC BICKERSTAFF. Throughout the whole work,' says an author who well knew how to appreciate its merits, the conjuror, the politician, the man of humour, the critic; the seriousness of the moralist, and the mock dignity of the astrologer; the vivacities and the infirmities peculiar to old age, are all so blended and contrasted in the Censor of Great Britain, as to form a character equally complex and natural, equally laughable and respectable*.

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Thirty-four of the Tatlers are attributed to STEELE and ADDISON in conjunction, and their respective shares are pointed out in the contents to the present edition. Forty-one are given to ADDISON alone, of which Nos. 132, 216, 220, 224, 250, 253, 256, 259, and 265, are admirable examples of that exquisite humour which afterwards became habitual

* Beattie.

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in this author's writings, and flowed from a disposition of mind, easy, equable, and fertile in ridicule, yet delicate in sentiment and expression beyond any kind of wit that had hitherto appeared. In No. 216, The Virtuoso's will' is replete with beauties; in almost every article is a stroke of satire which can hardly escape the notice of the dullest reader. The solemn introduction-the testator's leaving the female skeleton and dried cockatrice' to the widow- the WinterMay-dew and embryo pickle' to the eldest daughter-the nest of a humming-bird' to the youngest on the birth of her first child, and heightened by the condition annexed, if she marries with her mother's consent," are uncommon felicities of humour. The character of a Virtuoso was the frequent butt of the wits of the BICKERSTAFF School, and almost every modern ESSAYIST has attempted the same subject. Dr. JOHNSON is, I think, among the last who followed them with success, yet perhaps with more extravagance of fiction than true humour admits..

Among the occasional contributors to the TATLER, SWIFT has been often mentioned. It is not improbable that he frequently gave hints, but there is not much that can be as

They employed their wit less laudably on the Royal Society of which the enemies were for some time very numerous and very acrimonious, for what reason it is hard to conceive, since the philosophers professed not to advance doctrines, but to produce facts.' JOHNSON's Life of BUTLER,

signed to his pen. He wrote, in No. 9, the Description of the Morning' in No. 32, the history of Madonella: in No. 35, from internal evidence, the family of Ix in No. 59, the letter signed Obadiah Greenhat: in No. 63, Madonella's Platonic College: in No. 66, the first article, on pulpit oratory: in No. 67, the proposal for a Chamber of Fame in No. 68, a continuation of the same in No. 70, a letter on oratory signed Jonathan Rosehat: in No. 71, a letter on the irregular conduct of a clergyman: No. 230, entire; in No. 238, the poetical description of a shower; and No. 258, a short letter on the words Great Britain.' These are all the communications that can with any confidence be ascribed to SWIFT, a writer who with a rich fund of humour, an easy and flowing style, perhaps more correct than that of any of his contemporaries, with habits of observation+, and a keen discernment of folly and weakness, was never

Dr. HAWKESWORTH claims also No. 74, and 81, for Swift; but from the notes on these papers, they are more justly given to ADDISON and STEELE. In his Journal to Stella, he disclaims Nos. 237, 249, 257, and 260, which had been imputed to him by his correspondents. See his Works, vol. xviii. p. 211, 8vo. edition, 1801.

Of this qualification his 'Polite Conversation' and Advice to Servants' are decisive proofs. These two

performances,' says JOHNSON, 'shew a mind incessantly attentive, and, when it was not employed upon great things, busy with minute occurrences. It is apparent that he must have had the habit of noting whatever he observed for such a number of particulars could never have been assembled by the power of recollection.

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