Richard Steele and Joseph Addison

Their contribution to The Tattler and The Spectator, the two periodicals which they themselves created and edited, have survived down the ages as the most formidable examples of what could be achieved within the confines of the periodical essay.

The Tattler and the Spectator

The Tattler was a periodical launched in London by the essayist Sir Richard Steele in April 1709, appearing three times weekly until January 1711. At first its avowed intention was to present accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment, of poetry, and of foreign and domestic news. These all were reported and “issued” from various London coffee and chocolate houses. In time The Tattler began to investigate manners and society, establishing its principles of ideal behaviour, its concepts of a perfect gentleman and gentlewoman, and its standards of good taste. Dueling, gambling, rakish behaviour, and coquettishness were criticized, and virtuous action was admired. Numerous anecdotes and stories gave point to the moral codes advanced. The periodical had an explicit Whig allegiance (əˈliːdʒəns) and was several times drawn into political controversy. The English periodical essay began its first flowering in TheTattler, reaching its full bloom in the hands of Joseph Addison, who seems to have made his first contribution to the periodical in the 18th issue. Two months after The Tattler ceased publication, he and Steele launched a brilliant new periodical. The Spectator was published in London from March 1, 1711, to Dec. 6, 1712 (appearing daily), and subsequently revived by Addison in 1714 (for 80 numbers). In its aim to “enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality,” The Spectator adopted a fictional method of presentation through a “Spectator Club,” whose imaginary members extolled (magasztal) the authors’ own ideas about society. These “members” included representatives of commerce, the army, the town (respectively, Sir Andrew Freeport, Captain Sentry, and Will Honeycomb), and of the country gentry (Sir Roger de Coverley). The papers were ostensibly (látszólag) written by Mr. Spectator, an “observer” of the London scene. The conversations that The Spectator reported were often imagined to take place in coffeehouses, which was also where many copies of the publication were distributed and read.

The Spectator

Though Whiggish in tone, The Spectator generally avoided party-political controversy. An important aspect of its success was its notion that urbanity and taste were values that transcended political differences.Almost immediately it was hugely admired. Mr. Spectator had, observed the poet and dramatist John Gay, “come on like a Torrent and swept all before him.”Because of its fictional framework, The Spectator is sometimes said to have heralded (hírnököl) the rise of the English novel in the 18th century. This is perhaps an overstatement, since the fictional framework, once adopted, ceased to be of primary importance and served instead as a social microcosm within which a tone at once grave, good-humoured, and flexible could be sounded. The real authors of the essays were free to consider whatever topics they pleased, with reference to the fictional framework (as in Steele’s account of Sir Roger’s views on marriage, which appeared in issue no. 113) or without it (as in Addison’s critical papers on Paradise Lost, John Milton’s epic poem, which appeared in issues no. 267, 273, and others).