The Tatler (Vol 4)

130

Horace, 3 Od. iv. 19.

131

Virgil, "Eclog." i. 67.

132

Bartolus (a covetous lawyer). Where shall I find these sums? Diego (sexton to Lopez). Even where you please, sir."

    – Beaumont and Fletcher's "Spanish Curate," Act. iv. sc. i.

133

Nichols thinks that Addison was probably the author of this paper, because of the allusion to Addison's family at the close. But Steele had visited Dr. Lancelot Addison's home when he was a boy at the Charterhouse. The paper is not printed in Addison's works.

134

Addison's father, Dr. Lancelot Addison, Dean of Lichfield, had three sons: (1) Joseph; (2) Gulston, who died Governor of Fort-George in the East Indies; (3) Lancelot, who was entered in Queen's College, and afterwards became Master of Arts, and Fellow of Magdalen College in Oxford; and a daughter, Dorothy, first married to Dr. Sartre, formerly minister of Montpellier, and afterwards Prebendary of Westminster; and, secondly, to Daniel Combes, Esq. Swift wrote on October 25, 1710: "I dined to-day with Addison and Steele, and a sister of Mr. Addison, who is married to one Mons. Sartre, a Frenchman, prebendary of Westminster, who has a delicious house and garden; yet I thought it was a sort of monastic life in those cloisters, and I liked Laracor better. Addison's sister is a sort of a wit, very like him. I am not fond of her."

Addison had two other sisters, who died young. Of his brother Gulston we read thus in the "Wentworth Papers" (pp. 75-76): "Since I wrote this, I am told a great piece of news, that Mr. Addison is really a very great man with the juncto, and that he has got his elder brother, who has been a factor abroad in those parts, to be Governor of Fort St. George… It seems Mr. Addison's friends can do what they please with the chief of the East India Company, who, I think, have the liberty of naming their Governor, and by management with them this place is got, which they say some years is worth £20,000" (Peter Wentworth to Lord Raby, January 28, 1709).

135

In the Dedication to Congreve of Addison's "Drummer" (1722), Steele said, "Mr. Dean Addison, father of this memorable man, left behind him four children, each of whom, for excellent talents and singular perfections, was as much above the ordinary world as their brother Joseph was above them. Were things of this nature to be exposed to public view, I could show, under the Dean's own hand, in the warmest terms, his blessing on the friendship between his son and me; nor had he a child who did not prefer me in the first place of kindness and esteem, as their father loved me like one of them."

136

The authorship of the letter which forms the principal part of this number is unknown. Goldsmith was told that a Dean of Killaloe was the author of a paper in the Tatler or Spectator, but there is nothing to connect the Dean (Jerome Ryves) with this particular number.

137

This may apply either to Swift, from whom Steele borrowed the name of Bickerstaff, or to Steele himself.

138

"Our one horse vehicles have always been peculiar to ourselves, and were in use long before anything of a similar kind was introduced into England. The earliest and rudest of these were the Ring's End cars, so called from their plying principally to that place and Irishtown, then the resort of the beau monde for the benefit of sea-bathing. This car consisted of a seat suspended in a strap of leather between shafts, and without springs. The noise made by the creaking of the strap, which supported the whole weight of the company, particularly distinguished this mode of conveyance" ("Sketches of Ireland Sixty Years Ago," p. 77, quoted in Notes and Queries, 7th Series, iv. 178-179). Ring's End is a fishing village near Dublin.

139

Sir Hans Sloane. The hazardous voyage to Liverpool is, perhaps, an allusion to the doctor's voyage to Jamaica, ridiculed by Dr. William King, in "A Voyage to the Island of Cajamai."

140

For previous attacks on the Royal Society by Addison, see Nos. 119, 216, and 221.

141

Nichols thought this paper was written by Addison, or with his assistance. "The Tatler upon Milton's 'spear' is not mine, madam. What a puzzle there was between you and your judgment! In general you may sometimes be sure of things, as that about Style [Tatler, No. 230], because it is what I have frequently spoken of; but guessing is mine; – and I defy mankind if I please" (Swift's "Journal to Stella," Nov. 8, 1710).

142

"Paradise Lost," iv. 797-819.

143

"I am going to work at another Tatler" (Swift's "Journal," Oct. 4, 1710). "And now I am going in charity to send Steele another Tatler, who is very low of late" (Ib., Oct. 7, 1710). "I am now writing my poetical description of a 'Shower in London,' and will send it to the Tatler" (Ib., Oct. 10, 1710). "I have finished my poem on the 'Shower,' all but the beginning; and am going on with my Tatler" (Ib., Oct. 12, 1710). "This day came out the Tatler, made up wholly of my 'Shower,' and a preface to it. They say it is the best thing I ever wrote, and I think so too. I suppose the Bishop of Clogher will show it you. Pray tell me how you like it" (Ib., Oct. 17, 1710). "They both [Rowe and Prior] fell commending my 'Shower' beyond anything that has been written of the kind; there never was such a 'Shower' since Danae's," &c. "You must tell me how it is liked among you" (Ib., Oct. 27, 1710). "The Bishop of Clogher says, I bid him read the London 'Shaver,' and that you both swore it was 'Shaver,' and not 'Shower.' You all lie, and you are puppies, and can't read Presto's hand" (Ib., Nov. 28, 1710). "My 'Shower' admired with you; why the Bishop of Clogher says, he has seen something of mine of the same sort, better than the 'Shower.' I suppose he means 'The Morning'; but it is not half so good" (Ib., Nov. 30, 1710).

144

Altered in Johnson's "Poets," and other editions, to "old aches will throb"; otherwise "aches" must be pronounced as a dissyllable.

145

The Examiner, the eleventh number of which consisted of jibes against No. 229 of the Tatler, by Addison.

146

Sir Samuel Garth, who has attacked in the sixth number of the Examiner.

147

Bishop Atterbury. The verses were written "on a white fan borrowed from Miss Osborne, afterwards his wife."

148

The attack was, of course, on Steele, and consisted of allusions to sponging-houses and fears of arrest for debt. It will be remarked that No. 229 was really by Addison, who here nobly defends his friend.

149

Ovid, "Met." iii, 357.

150

Ars Poet. 309

151

Kirleus (see No. 14).

152

Saffold (see No. 20, note) is said to have been originally a weaver. Afterwards he told fortunes, and practised as a quack doctor. A satirical "Elegy on the Death of Thomas Saffold, who departed this life, May 12, 1691," was published after his death.

153

William Lilly, astrologer, died in 1681, aged seventy-nine. He published thirty-six almanacs, and a large number of pamphlets about his predictions. In 1715 appeared the "History of Lilly's Life and Times," written by himself.