Page 131.
4.Temple-Bar. The old gateway between the Strand and Fleet Street, where traitors' heads used to be exhibited.On this sidewould be the western side, outside the city.
6.the fifty new churches. By the Act of 1710 a duty was imposed on coal for this and other purposes.
15.knight of the shire, v. note on p. 26, 1. 18.
22.put. v. note on p. 127, 1. 14.
23.Thames ribaldry. The waterway was famous for its verbal interchange, some of which has been recorded by Taylor the Water-Poet, Tom Brown, Swift and Dr. Johnson, and of which the amenities of our omnibus-drivers are but a Bowdlerized version.
34.Mahometan paradise. A paradise of the senses.
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4.your nightingale, v. note on p. 98, 1. 25.
8.a mask. A woman in a mask.
16.hung beef. Beef preserved in salt or spices
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5.sensibly. Keenly. Cf. Shakespeare,HamletIV. v. 150:
And am most sensibly in grief for it.
13-14.promoting an address … in which he succeeded. Urging the adoption of an address which actually was adopted.
27.you was. A very frequent use.
29.country. Country-side, neighbourhood. Cf. Shakespeare,Merry Wives of Windsor:
He's a justice of peace in his country.
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14.a lightning before death. These words occur in Shakespeare,Romeo and Juliet, V. iii. 90.
33.peremptorily. Authoritatively, positively. Cf. Shakespeare, IHenry IV, II. iv. 472:
Peremptorily I speak it, there is virtue in that Falstaff.
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7.Quorum, v. note on p. 7, 1. 9.
16.quit-rents. Charges on the estate.
23.joyed himself. Enjoyed himself, been cheerful.
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3.Act of Uniformity. Acts of Uniformity were passed in 1549, 1558, 1662, and 1706.
The first English coffee-house was opened in Oxford in 1650, and by the beginning of the eighteenth century the coffee-house had become the regular resort of every Londoner who could afford to pay the twopence for the dish of the beverage which admitted him to its society. Men of similar tastes assembled at the same house, so that gradually each of the principal coffee-houses became a centre for a particular kind of society. ThusWill's(p. 3, 1. 17), at the corner of Russell Street and Bow Street, Covent Garden, which had been Dryden's favourite coffee-house, became the haunt of the wits and men of letters; it was from here that Steele dated his articles on poetry for theTatler.St. James's(p. 3, 1. 22) in St. James's Street, was frequented by politicians and men of fashion; it was a Whig house, and the head quarters of theTatler'sforeign and domestic news (cf.Spectator403).The Grecian(p. 3, 1. 25), Devereux Court, Temple, was the oldest of all the London coffee-houses; here gathered the barristers of the Temple, and here theTatlerfinds the material of his papers on learning, while men from the Exchange assembled atJonathan's(p. 3, 1. 29) in Exchange Alley, and doctors, clerics, and men of science from the Royal Society atChild's(p. 3, 1. 19), in St. Paul's Churchyard. Coffee-houses were very numerous; we find mention within the limits of these papers of two others,Jenny Mann's(p. 24, 1. 24), in the Tilt-Yard, Charing-Cross, andSquire's(p. 117, 1. 23), in Fulwood's Rents, Holborn, and Ashton gives the names of between four and five hundred, while three thousand are known to have existed in 1708.
There were also a few chocolate-houses, notablyWhite'sand theCocoa-Tree(p. 3, 1. 25), the Tory centre, both in St. James's Street.White'swas a great gambling-house; Steele dated from it his articles on Gallantry, Pleasure, and Entertainment, and its destruction by fire, which took place in 1723, is depicted as the scene of Plate VI of Hogarth'sThe Rake's Progress, in which the Rake ruins himself by gaming.
Various suggestions have been made concerning the identity of the characters drawn in these papers. Tradition reported that Sir Roger was drawn from Sir John Pakington or Packington, Knight of Worcester. This theory was maintained by Tyers in 1783, but has been conclusively disproved by Wills. Mr. R. E. H. Duke has made an exhaustive study to show that his original was Richard Duke, of Bulford, near Milston, where Addison's early years were spent.
For the prototype of Sir Andrew Freeport Mr. Henry Martin has been suggested. He was one of the authors ofThe British Merchant; he contributed No. 180, and probably other papers, to theSpectator.
Rumour has also identified Will Honeycomb with Pope's friend, Colonel Cleland; Captain Sentry with Colonel Kempenfeldt, father of Admiral Kempenfeldt of the Royal George; and Will Wimble with Thomas Morecraft, a Yorkshire gentleman introduced to Addison by Steele. Will Wimble seems, however, to be more nearly akin to the Hon. Thomas Gules of theTatler(256), who 'produced several witnesses that he had never employed himself beyond the twisting of a whip, or the making of a pair of nut-crackers, in which he only worked for his diversion, in order to make a present now and then to his friends'; [Footnote: Cf. p. 20, I, 13 and p. 21, II, 2-11.] and the imaginary nature of Will Honeycomb's existence is sufficiently indicated by the style in which Addison's eighth and supplementary volume of theSpectatoris dedicated to him.
The same questionable authority has given to the perverse widow the name of Mrs. Catharine Bovey, or Boevey, of Flaxley Abbey, Gloucestershire, to whom Steele dedicated the second volume of the Ladies' Library.
It is, however, very doubtful that the characters of theSpectatorwere drawn from individual persons. Budgell certainly says of Theophrastus that he 'was the Spectator of the age he lived in; he drew the pictures of particular men', but Tickell, who was Addison's friend and literary executor, speaks expressly of 'the feigned person of the Author, and of the several characters that compose his club', and the Spectator himself in two papers exhorts every reader 'never to think of himself or any one of his friends or enemies aimed at in what is said', [Footnote:Spectator34] for 'when I draw a faulty character I … take care to dash it with such particular circumstances as may prevent all such ill-natured applications.' [Footnote:Spectator262] The characters are almost certainly created by the Spectator's genius out of the material gathered from his observation of many men.
After Sir Roger's visit to town we hear no more of him until the club is startled by the receipt of his butler's letter announcing his death. Some of his admirers have devised a sentimental reason for his decease. In Budgell'sBeewe read that "Mr. Addison was so fond of this character that a little before he laid down theSpectator(foreseeing that some nimble gentleman would catch up his pen the moment he quitted it) he said to our intimate friend with a certain warmth in his expression, which he was not often guilty of, 'I'll kill Sir Roger that nobody else may murder him'" Dr. Johnson follows Budgell, and assigns to Addison Cervantes' reason, who finds himself obliged to kill Don Quixote, 'being of opinion that they were born for one another, and that any other hand would do him wrong.'
But there was a more inevitable reason for the death of the knight. Six more weeks saw the end of the originalSpectator, the joint production of Addison and Steele, and their creators were now engaged in disposing of their characters in various ways. Chalmers remarks that 'The killing of Sir Roger was sufficiently accounted for without supposing that Addison despatched him in a fit of anger; for the work was about to close, and it appeared necessary to close the club.'
The great vogue of theSpectatorgives some measure of its extraordinary influence. Already in the tenth number we read that the daily circulation is three thousand, and later, inSpectator124, Addison writes: 'My bookseller tells me the demand for these my papers increases daily.' Of particular papers we know that twenty or thirty thousand were sold, and Mr. Forster estimates that these numbers must be multiplied by six to represent a corresponding popularity in our day.
On July 31, 1712, Addison wrote: 'This is the day on which many eminent authors will probably publish their last words.' On August 1 the Stamp Tax came into operation, and every half-sheet periodical paid a duty of a half-penny. The price of theSpectatorrose to twopence, and only half the former number of copies were sold, yet towards the close of the seventh volume about ten thousand copies were being issued daily.
After publication the papers were collected and issued in eight volumes, and nine or ten thousand copies of this first edition were sold at the price of a guinea a volume.