the greatest scholar and best casuist of any man in England Lastly, his writings have set all our wits and men of letters on a new way of thinking, of which they had little or no notion before and, although we cannot 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."

The success of the Tatler from the date of its publication to the day of its withdrawal was complete and assured. It was as welcome to the "lady of quality" in town as it was to the squire in his manor house or the parson in his vicarage. A new feature in the literature of the day, it received without stint the patronage of the powerful and the affluent. It was all that the novel and the newspaper were to a later generation, and appealed to a multitude of readers-readers who subsequently developed into so numerous a class as to cause the man of letters to rely upon a public instead of grovelling before a patron. It was Steele who laid the foundation of this happy exchange. For the success of the Tatler no small share, as we have elsewhere admitted,* was due to the pen of Addison. Without disparaging the labours of Steele and the excellence of the papers he contributed, it was the aid of his old school-fellow and brother undergraduate who raised the tone of the journal to the height it reached and made it the welcome guest at every breakfast table. "The truth is," writes Macaulay, "that the fifty or sixty numbers which we owe to Addison were not merely the best but so decidedly the best that any five of them are more valuable than all the two hundred numbers in which he had no share." This praise is doubtless somewhat exaggerated, but anyone who reads the paper on Tom Folio, on Ned Softly, on the Political Upholsterer, on Frozen Words, on the Adventures of a Shilling, and on the various other subjects which occupied the attention of Addison, cannot but perceive at a glance how much of truth there is in the assertion.

* See the Spectator, included in the series of the "Chandos Classics."

At that date Addison had crossed St. George's Channel, and was acting as Chief Secretary to the Earl of Wharton, then Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. After the issue of several numbers of his paper, Steele wrote to his friend across the water, begging him to take an active interest in the new enterprise, and attach himself to the staff as a contributor. The application was not tendered in vain, and henceforth the genius of Addison became as conspicuous in the pages of the Tatler, as it became a few months later in the pages of the Spectator. We all know in what high terms Steele acknowledged this assistance. "I have," he writes in his preface to the fourth volume, "only one gentleman, who will be nameless, to thank for any frequent assistance to me, which indeed it would have been barbarous in him to have denied to one with whom he has lived in an intimacy from childhood, considering the great ease with which he is able to despatch the most entertaining pieces of this nature. This good office he performed with such force of genius, humour, wit and learning, that I fared like a distressed prince, who calls in a powerful neighbour to his aid; I was undone by my auxiliary; when I had once called him in I could not subsist without dependence on him." At a later date he again handsomely admits his obligations to the refined genius and delicate humour of his friend. "The Tatler was advanced indeed! for it was raised to a greater thing than I intended it For the elegance, purity and correctness which appeared in the writings of Joseph Addison were not so much my purpose; as (in any intelligible manner, as I could) to rally all those singularities of human life, through the different professions and characters in it, which obstruct anything that was truly good and great."

The two prominent contributors to the paper servedas excellent foils to each other; and what one lacked the other supplied. If Steele sometimes hurried off his articles, writing them in taverns or whatever was the haunt he for the moment frequented, drawing upon his animal spirits and boisterous experiences for the matter required of him; nothing could be more finished, more recondite in its references, more polished

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Addison. Read any of his papers and never do we meet with a grammatical mistake, a clumsy expression, a long and involved period, a passage that has to be read and re-read before it becomes intelligible; lucidity, coherence and correctness are conspicuous in every line of his contributions. Not without reason did Dr. Johnson recommend those who wish to study the English language to give their days and nights to Addison. If Steele owing to his more vigorous nature and ruder surroundings is occasionally gross in his similes and mistakes sensuality for love and impertinence for wit; the pen of Addison (never offends-nothing can be purer than his chivalrous devotion to woman, nothing tenderer and yet more penetrating than his humour, never does he gloat over the criticism of unsavoury subjects, never does he raise a laugh or inflict one of his little stabs which strike so gently and yet go so home, but by the aid of an art which is absolutely without reproach: in the perusal of his pages we feel we are in the presence of a perfect man of letters and a perfect gentleman. To us Steele appears as a rollicking, easily led, impulsive, good hearted, literary man; Addison a quiet, retiring, keenly observant man of society and man of letters. The one looked out upon life and human nature from the windows of the barrack yard; the other from those of his library. In the criticisms of the former we see the man of action, in the criticisms of the latter the man of reflection. The combination of the two gives the light and shade necessary to their co-editorial labours.

To the social historian of this period the pages of the Tatler are invaluable. In them we see life and manners in the reign of good Queen Anne vividly and elaborately portrayed-the dress and distractions of the "lady of quality," the gait, speech and dandyism of the beau, the character and position of the clergy, the favourite haunts of the day, the dissipations, recreations, employments, all held up before us as in a mirror of the past. Let us look upon the reflection and for a moment study the features of English life in that most picturesque of all periods, the beginning of the eighteenth century.

And first as to her who was the object of so much homage, criticism, and confusion, the dame of fashion. The fine lady was the especial creation of the indolence, ignorance and luxury of the hour; holding in disdain most things English and accepting without inquiry everything French. Her morning was generally spent in bed; then after having sipped her two dishes of chocolate and yawned over a French romance, her waiting-woman proceeded to dress her head, paint her cheeks and throw over her shoulders the elegant night-rail trimmed with the rarest lace. Thus attired madam was now ready to receive her friends of both sexes and pass the time till noon in criticising her neighbour, the newest fashions, or the last play. If she happened to be free from the "vapours," her monkey, lap-dog, and grey parrot were permitted on this occasion to bask in the 'sunshine of her brightly arranged chamber if in summer, or in front of the light and portable stove in winter. At noon she rose to dress, and now the one most serious business of the day presented itself. When her cheeks had been rouged, her lips salved, her eyes brightened, and she had availed herself of all the other appliances of art to conceal the ravages of nature, her tirewoman placed upon her hair the towering headdress of the hour, so as to completely hide her fair locks; and then were put on the fine linen, the varied petticoats, often edged with silver, the hooped petticoat so girded against by the satirists of the day, the furbelow, the open laced boddice, the green silk stockings (what does Grammont say about hose of that hue?) the high-heeled shoes, the rich fan of India paint, the hats or coloured hoods, feathers, coats, and the rest.

Her elaborate toilet completed, the fine lady was now scented and patched to drive out shopping-the New Exchange in the Strand was her favourite place of resort-till three, when she dined, though the hour for dinner like at the present day was getting later and later, as we see from certain remarks made by Steele upon the subject. In London she seldom rode, but was carried about in a sedan chair, or drove in her coach. Steele more than once inveighs against coaches monopolising so much of the road. After dinner visits as a rule were paid, and

arrangements made as to the occupation of the next day. The evening was spent in "seeing company," dancing, going to the theatre, which opened at six, or in playing cards; bedtime as a rule at twelve, though cards often ran the night into early morn. Next to flirting and dancing, the great recreation of the day for the lady of quality was card-playing. Never was the "itch for play" keener than at this date. From the Tatler we learn that ombre, whist, basset and crimp were the favourite games. Play was high, and frequently women of fashion were forced to break up their establishment in town on account of the heavy losses they had sustained. "Oh the damned vice!" cries Steele, "that women can imagine all household care, regard to posterity and fear of poverty must be sacrificed to a game at cards." When her ladyship, after a long course of luxury, idleness and dissipation, began to suffer physical inconvenience, she was, then as now, a great believer in change and the cure to be derived from the drinking of Spa waters. Bath or "the Bath," as it was called, was her favourite watering-place, for there the best company was to be met with its attendant attractions of music, gambling, balls and well laid-out grounds. Next to the city of King Bladud, the spas of Tunbridge, Epsom and Hampstead were the most popular. The season was from May to August, and at its height in July.

The woman of the upper middle class led a healthier and less vicious life than her more exalted sister. If her home was in the country, she was constantly in the saddle, and often rode well to hounds, she danced country dances, she interested herself in the poor of her district, she helped her mother in domestic concerns, and piqued herself upon her knowledge of preserves and the manipulation of medical prescriptions. She did not read much, for as we have said, there was little to read, but she was no mean proficient upon the harpsichord, and loved to organise little concerts in her village, she patched but did not paint and save for the building up of the lofty and ridiculous headdress, her attire was modest and attractive. If she lived in London, she was pretty constant in her attendance at