SOURCE: “The Spectator Abroad: The Fascination of the Mask,” in History of European Ideas, Vol. 22, No. 1, 1996, pp. 1-18.

[In the following essay, Pallares-Burke describes how admiration for the Spectator quickly spread beyond England, spawning imitations throughout Europe. She also discusses how the journal's influence lasted long after it ceased publication.]

This article offers some reflexions on the reception of the Spectator of Addison and Steele in Europe by focusing on the reforming power and authority it was believed to have at the time. My aim is to make a small contribution to the international history of the Spectator genre, a vast and rather unexplored territory, the importance of which was pointed out as long ago as 1929.¹

This second earliest English daily paper, considered even today to have been a major event in journalism, was published intermittently between 1711 and 1714, but it enjoyed a success which lasted much longer than itself, and crossed an amazing range of national, linguistic and cultural frontiers. As a witty modern critic has put it, such success was phenomenal for a journal which had nothing do with sex or violence.²

As a major exponent, if not a pioneer, of an important 18th-century cultural trend, the Spectator of Addison and Steele established itself as a model for the communication of ideas in the Enlightenment. Sharing the optimism of the age with regard to the potential of education, this periodical explicitly assumed the function of mobilising opinion and propagating ideas. Dealing with a great variety of topics—everyday life, literature, sciences, religion, ethics, etc.—in either witty, serious or amusing tones, this miscellaneous work seems to have catered for many tastes and responded to many expectations.

The enterprise enjoyed great success from the very beginning, and its transformation into book form took place while the daily issues were still coming out. With a circulation of around 4000 copies per day, its popularity has been compared to that of the Daily Express in the 1950s.³ It was translated into French, German, Dutch, Swedish and Italian; and it went through no less than 14 editions in France, 4 in Germany, and 18 in the Netherlands.

The list of followers began in 1711 with Justus Van Effen's Le Misanthrope (a Dutch journal published in French), and from then on a whole series of periodicals, capitalizing on the success of the English Spectator, not only claimed to be heirs to its tradition but often used the same title, which became a fashion in itself.⁴ Acknowledging the English periodical as their model, they reaffirmed its claim of educating their readers and of following its example of adherence to the principles of impartiality, rationality and devotion to the public good. As an eighteenth century French reviewer testified in 1757, the excellence of this work stimulated imitation: ‘The fate of the good originals is … to produce an infinity of copyists & the English Spectator is the Father of a numerous posterity’.⁵

Observing the literary world in the 1740s, Comte Caylus commented that the Spectator, like a ‘torrent’, had left quite a perceptible mark on France. ‘Spectators have inundated the scene for 20 years’ and affected the taste, expectations and behaviour of French writers, he claimed.⁶ Impressed by the improvements it had brought about among his contemporaries, another French reviewer testifed that, ‘the Germans, great imitators of the English’, were also quick to follow in its tracks, and similar works ‘have inundated their country: it would be possible to make a very heavy volume with nothing but their titles’.⁷

Similar testimonies referring to the ‘flood’ of Spectators and to their growing like ‘mushrooms’ attest to the fact that the English work was perceived in the 18th century as a powerful role-model for the educational periodical. In France, for instance, between 1720 and 1789 there were at least 100 descendants of the periodical of Addison and Steele.⁸ In the German speaking world, the number of descendants was so great that a 20th-century specialist has described them as countless.⁹ In 1739 Louise Gottsched, the translator, had already declared that there was such a ‘multitude of imitations’ that it was difficult to list them.¹⁰ In the Netherlands, there were over 70 followers, both in Dutch and French.¹¹ The proliferation of British descendants led Leslie Stephen to say that in Britain ‘the number of imitations is countless’.¹²

The positive reception of the Spectator was quite remarkable, and from Russia to Portugal and Spain—countries which were far behind the France or England of the time by Enlightenment standards—the references to this periodical and its role were consistently laudatory.¹³ Enthusiastic commentators even attributed to its authors, as the Italian Rolli did, ‘the same degree of perfection’ as Castiglione and Plato.¹⁴ It is, perhaps, paradoxical that in this age of critics this work received very little criticism!

One of the qualities most often attributed to the Spectator was the power to correct vicious, faulty and inappropriate styles of thought and behaviour and to redirect them along reasonable and humanitarian paths. Its authority was acknowledged very early, and its enduring fame predicted. Daniel Defoe, for instance, referred in 1715 to its power to de-legitimize whatever was established by custom, and to its role of liberator from contemporary ‘absurdities’, qualities which would ‘be valuable to Posterity’.¹⁵

Even now such a power is still acknowledged, and this verdict on the Spectator as one of the producers of the modern man and woman can still be found. Praised as a civilizing agent or blamed as ‘a bland ideologist of the Establishment’,¹⁶ the English periodical seems to confirm the prediction of unending interest made by its most enthusiastic admirers.¹⁷ ‘Of course, Addison and Steele have been victims of their own success’, says a recent review. ‘We cannot see their influence, because it is everywhere’.¹⁸ One of the most picturesque of modern positive assessments is by Paul Hazard, who in 1935 attributed to Addison and Steele the role of ‘godfathers’ of the modern bourgeois. These two editors and their many followers, according to Hazard, provided an attractive sketch, an appealing blueprint for this cultural orphan who was still in need of advice on how to think and behave.¹⁹

My aim in this article is not to argue for or against this verdict on the role of the Spectator, nor to discuss the awkward problem of the power of the media in shaping reality, but rather to concentrate on two related issues. First, the actual testimonies of a few individuals who perceived this journal as a corrector, benefactor, or ‘godfather’, to use Hazard's metaphor; second, the strategies which were employed by some of these ‘godchildren’ or supporters of its teachings to disseminate among the public the benefits they believed would be gained from perusing such a journal or its faithful descendants.

A comment on the Spectator's fame in the 19th century may be illuminating. It was in the Victorian period that its prestige reached its peak, on the grounds of its great contribution to the improvement of manners and morals and also English style. A great many critics seem to have agreed with the enthusiastic verdict that ‘we owe all the blessings of the present century’ to the Spectator's essays.²⁰ Extremely rare, if not unique, was the complaint by Leslie Stephen, who criticized the Spectator for its ‘didacticism’, and for its being ‘in fact a lay sermon’.²¹ Macaulay compared Addison to Shakespeare and Cervantes and spoke highly about the ‘great social reform’ he had peacefully effected through the periodical essays.²² The French critic Mézières had already described the Spectator in 1826 as ‘the most perfect code of morals and of practical wisdom’ and equated it to the works of Fénélon, Cervantes, Molière and Shakespeare.²³ Courthope, in 1884, expressed enormous gratitude to the ‘authors of the Spectator' for their great share in the achievement of the social ‘harmony’ which the Victorians enjoyed.²⁴ Thackeray, in 1853, talked about Addison as ‘the kindest benefactor that society has ever had’.²⁵

However, 19th-century praise of the Spectator did not come from representative Victorians alone. Although many critics paid compliment to a work which they saw as Victorian ‘avant la lettre’, we must add to this picture its recognition by another 19th-century figure who can certainly not be equated with Macaulay or other contented and optimistic Victorian writers—Karl Marx. In contrast with the later Spectator of 1828, which he abhorred as philistine and deceitful, the Spectator of Addison and Steele is described by Marx as a reliable source of information and ideas.²⁶ Had Marx read in the English periodical the same ‘bourgeois ideology’ which Macaulay loved and others abominated, he would not have credited it with such reliability. Considering the unanimous acceptance of this work by men of such different interests and ideologies, it is clear that the Spectator's success is not an easy one to explain.

Similarly, in the 18th century, people as distant from each other as Catherine the Great and Benjamin Franklin had paid tribute to the same work. Great admirers and followers of the Spectator, they both modelled their periodical works on the English journal, while Franklin also selected it as an important text-book in his proposed curriculum for the Philadelphia Academy.²⁷ Nicholas Ridgely's authorization for his son, Charles, a student in the same Academy, to buy the Spectator is a further confirmation of the periodical's success.²⁸ It is quite a difficult task to select the most revealing of the 18th-century testimonies to the periodical's educational power, since they are so numerous. I shall leave aside the British witnesses, who are relatively better known, and turn to some continental statements, which are more intriguing in themselves and more important for the international response I am trying to assess and understand.²⁹

The French, or French speakers, were particularly generous in their comments on the Spectator, usually considering it better than its French counterparts, and the enthusiastic acclamation of Saint-Lambert, rating it among the ‘preceptors of the human race’, is in fact a fairly common one. It was definitely, he said, ‘a work of education’ which, compared to the teachings of La Bruyère, had ‘less to teach us … about what we are, but instructs us better about what we should be’. Since it ‘reconciles one to human nature, it is difficult to read the Spectator a great deal without becoming a better man’.³⁰

A brief list of the more distinguished admirers of and ‘debtors’ to the English text among the French and French Swiss might include the Marquis d'Argenson (a minister under Louis XV); Fréron (journalist and supporter of the Jesuits, hated by the Encyclopedists); the Comte de Caylus (a member of the old nobility and an innovative art patron); Jean-Pierre Crousaz (a Swiss man of letters and sciences); Marivaux, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Helvetius and Rousseau, all names which do not require introduction.

What is striking in such a list is the fact that it is difficult to find common ground between certain of these thinkers on which to base their general approval and recommendation of the Spectator, both as a model for writers to imitate and as a guide to life. What is there in common, for instance, between the conservative Fréron and the radical deist Jean-Jacques Rousseau? In the influential journals Fréron edited and wrote, Lettres sur quelques écrits de ce temps (1749-54) and L'Année Littéraire (1754-76), the Spectator was a constant presence, either contrasted with its many descendants, or presented as a model to be followed by prospective journalists. Rather paradoxically, perhaps, for one devoted to literary journals, he insisted that to correct morals and manners and to attack vices in the periodical press was much more important than to discuss literature, and that the ‘moral magistrature’ the Spectator undertook was unfortunately not pursued by the French followers, who fell far behind their model.³¹

The testimony of Rousseau, undoubtedly the most valuable one on account of his undisputed position as a leading figure of the Enlightenment, is especially revealing of the educational appeal of the English periodical. This brilliant and controversial author, who clearly stressed the links between politics and morals, and politics and education, and who either through his works or directly through correspondence exerted a guiding role among his public, was himself a grateful disciple of the English Spectator.³² Yet, curiously enough, these facts receive little attention in the voluminous secondary literature on Rousseau.

In his autobiography, Confessions, there is a vivid description of his encounter with the Spectator. Having discovered this book at a time when he was learning to read ‘with more reflexion’ and with less voracity, he recalls that ‘the Spectator pleased me very much and did me good’.³³ Although this experience took place years before his main conversion of 1749, there is strong evidence that this work remained for him a central educational text even after he decided to break with the maxims of his century and to devote his pen to the tasks of combatting the false enlightenments of arrogant civilization and redirecting culture to nature. As is well known, the education of his imaginary disciple, Émile, designed to make of him a truly autonomous man, free from the frivolity and hollowness of polite culture, reveals a strong suspicion of books in general. To the annoyance of the multitude of proud 18th-century writers, Rousseau declares: ‘I hate books; they teach us only to talk about what we do not know’. Among the very few selected readings which are considered educative, like Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and Plutarch's Lives, the Spectator is, surprisingly enough, a book which is presented as extremely profitable for both sexes; an intriguing fact indeed, considering Rousseau's ideas about the essentially different natures of men and women, and the contrasting educations which should follow from this. Émile was not the only one to enjoy and benefit from the reading of the Spectator. Sophie should also learn from the book her fiancée ‘loves reading’.³⁴

Adding to the puzzle of understanding the appeal of the Spectator to people of different ideologies, there is the German calvinist pastor Formey, the ‘vile’ critic of Émile whom Rousseau bitterly attacked. This active secretary of the Berlin Academy, who published a great deal as a philosopher and journalist, was strongly devoted to the educational ambitions of the Enlightenment and certainly had a different view of education from that of Rousseau. Far from seeing it as a road to autonomy, he clearly stated in the essay which won the prize of the Societé des Sciences de Harlem in 1765, that ‘the best possible education should not distance itself from received ideas and from established usages’, even when these ideas and usages lacked ‘accuracy’ and ‘perfection’.³⁵ The Spectator appeared in his list of moral books of ‘an almost universal usage’, especially selected to comprise a ‘small but select library’ particularly designed ‘to purify the heart’ and ‘enlighten the spirit’.³⁶ The fact that the agnostic Wieland, the religious Sophie von la Roche, and Goethe, to mention just a few of the German admirers of the Spectator, selected it, like Formey and Rousseau, for their lists of excellent reading, does not seem to increase our understanding of the Spectator's wide appeal.

One last telling testimony to the educational power of the Spectator comes from Spain, where as early as the 1720s the Benedictine monk Benito Jerónimo Feyjóo profited from and acknowledged his debt to the English work. This important figure of the Iberian Enlightenment, whose major works, El Theatro Critico (1725-39) and Cartas Eruditas y curiosas (1742-60), were admired by the European Republic of Letters, and even compared with the Spectator by Montesquieu,³⁷ mentions the role of the English journal in his programme for self-improvement. Feyjóo even refers to an occasion on which the ‘reading of an admonition’ which was ‘both political and moral … served to correct’ him of an ‘impertinence’.³⁸

The apparent paradox of a Catholic clergyman being inspired and corrected by an ‘heretical’ work is not an isolated case, and one may find a similar example among the Scots. The Roman Catholic bishop George Hay and his coadjutor bishop John Geddes, while in Rome as seminarists in the 1750s, developed their moral philosophy and gained ammunition against atheism, deism and materialism by reading this text.³⁹ A further example is found in distant Brazil in the 1830s, when another Catholic priest, Lopes Gama, made wide use of the Spectator's ideas and words in his programme of moral education through the periodical press.⁴⁰

Evidence that the periodical's teachings were not perceived as bland or anodyne comes from the Netherlands, where the defenders of Calvinism ‘openly declared war on the Spectator-like magazines’, which were mainly the work of Dutch dissenters, such as Arminians and Mennonites.⁴¹ Similarly, the Spectator was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books in both Portugal (after 1744) and Spain (after 1750), and it appeared in a list of suspicious books apprehended in 1753 by the Italian censor in Lucca.⁴² There is also evidence of opposition to the Spectator by the ‘more rigid’ Scottish clergy.⁴³

As to the strategies employed by the supporters of the Spectator's teachings to disseminate its benefits among a wider public, they form a striking example of what Bourdieu has considered the essential conditions for the production, circulation and consumption of cultural products; that is, the role of publishers, critics, journals, and similar agents in legitimizing, propagating and conferring authority on a literary work. While the authors produce the work in its ‘materiality’, as he explains, these agents produce the ‘meaning and value of the work’, or, in other words, include it in the literary canon and produce the consumers for it.⁴⁴ Besides the actual reprinting of the original English text, the following apparatus of diffusion of the Spectator was at work: Translations, imitations, recommendations for essential reading and selections designed either for personal use or for schools and tutors.

The first translation, dated 1714, was made in Amsterdam in the French language and the anonymous translator proudly placed himself in the position of mediator between Great Britain and ‘the foreign countries’, a position which the French version maintained even after other translations had appeared. He was moved, he confessed, by the ambition that the translation would be followed elsewhere with the same ‘good effects’ as in Britain, and was supported by ‘the hope of bringing men back from their deviations and inspiring them with the principles of Honour and Virtue’. The translator also announced that in order to make clear the universal scope and the educational aims of the periodical—avoiding the danger of the French mistaking it for a work on the theatre—he would enlarge the title, calling it by the more revealing name of ‘The Spectator or the Modern Socrates, where one sees a simple portrait of the manners of this century’⁴⁵

The long review which soon launched the French version of the Spectator in the European Republic of Letters reaffirmed the verdict that one might find in its pages ‘an infinity of general things which are equally good to all the nations’ and that by being in French ‘it could benefit other places as well as England.’⁴⁶ Other volumes soon followed the first, and editions published in France were soon added to the Dutch ones, something that, according to a contemporary reviewer, ‘very rarely happened’.⁴⁷

The widespread knowledge of the French language among the educated public did not prevent the appearance soon after, in 1719 and 1720, of the first volumes of German and Dutch translations.⁴⁸ The Dutch version, which retained the same reference to Socrates in the title, averaged more than one volume of reprints every two years for the next forty years, a rather intriguing fact, considering that Dutch Spectator-like magazines were also booming in the same period.⁴⁹ When the second German translation appeared in 1739, the translator, Louise Gottsched, did not pretend to be doing any special service to widening the fame of the Spectator, which was already ‘spread all over the whole of Europe’, as she remarked.⁵⁰ As in the Dutch case, it seems that the translated original was competing with numerous local imitations. The later Italian version of 1753 enjoyed such immediate success that the famous Goldoni, seeing it ‘in the hands of everybody in Venice’, was inspired to write a play, Il Filosofo Inglese, with the ‘Spettatore Inglese’ in a major role.⁵¹

Imitations were certainly one of the most effective ways through which the Spectator's educational attributes were diffused, since the model the imitators were following was often clearly acknowledged and its excellence frequently pointed out as inimitable. Few are the imitators who, like Kleist, when proposing to found a periodical with Lessing and Mendelsson, among others, explicitly stated that they ‘shall equal the Spectator or not start at all’.⁵² Instead of discussing the extent of the imitations, it suffices for our purposes to stress a few points which are generally overlooked.

As if they were not putting themselves in the position of competitors, the followers commonly stated that had it not been for their same ‘love of the human race’ (a phrase they often used), their attempt to follow the Spectator would not be justified. Far from experiencing any ‘anxiety of influence’, the followers, on the contrary, seemed extremely proud to be following in the footsteps of the English model, even competing with each other over the faithfulness of their imitation. There is even evidence that for some, like Der Freymaurer (1738) from Leipzig, the enterprise of denouncing human vices and of liberating humankind from them was justified so long as the original English text was not within reach. The appearance of the 1739 German translation was the occasion for the periodical to end its educational activities, since now, as it put it to the readers, ‘you may turn into freemasons from the pages of the Spectator’⁵³

One also finds references to resistance on the part of the admirers of the original text, who placed obstacles in the way of its followers, on the grounds of their necessary inferiority. As Johannes Meister, one of the writers of the Discourse der Mahlern put it: ‘Those who have read the English Spectator, and who pretend to understand it better and to have a more delicate taste than others, admire it so much and look at it from such a lowly position, that they lose sight of it and absolutely do not want us to take it as a model. They demand for it that kind of cult which Statius seems to have had for the Aeneid.’⁵⁴

There was even a debate on what one might call a ‘Spectator Question’ in the 18th-century Republic of Letters. This international polemic revolved around issues concerning the true meaning of being a Spectator, of writing as a Spectator, of persuading as a Spectator. As if there had occurred a process of ‘sacralization’ of the English text, the value of its followers was measured in direct relation to their faithfulness to the original title, to what was believed to be its original form of teaching. Three centres can be said to have been the scenes of the main debates about good and bad imitations, legitimate or illegitimate uses of the Spectator model: Paris, Copenhagen and Zurich.

In Denmark, the writers Holberg and Schlegel referred to an actual internal war among the Spectators which, in the middle of the century, competed with one another for the legitimate role of teachers of morals. Their testimonies reveal quite clearly some of the main issues at stake in the debate. In Copenhagen, the occasion for the polemic was the publication of some rather incisive and bold periodicals which, naming themselves Spectators, declared war on public and private vices. Their authors were criticized for their harshness, their teaching as ‘men of truth’, and for assuming that the ‘conversion’ of people to morals could be ‘the work of a week’. Instead, a journalist should be more like a ‘gentle teacher’, who with ‘softness’ and ‘gracefulness’, and not with ‘threats’ and harshness worked for the eradication of vices and faults. In contrast to the harsh, unfaithful followers, the tender and gay manner of the French writers was not truly ‘spectatorial’ either, since it failed to go deep into the vices and remained at the level of trivial faults of etiquette, a criticism which the French debaters themselves seemed to accept.⁵⁵

In Zürich, Bodmer and Breitinger, authors of the first German imitation of the Spectator, led something of a campaign against the unfaithfulness of Der Patriot from Hamburg, and Die Vernüftigen Tadlerinnen from Halle, again on the grounds that they were not loyal to the ‘nature of a spectatorial writing’ and did not obey the rules of verisimilitude, impartiality and the personification of the characters under which they wrote. It was for instance quite implausible that the Halle periodical was the work of three female friends. Gottsched's personae, remarked Bodmer, should have first been legitimized before they were given ‘male arguments’, as he, Bodmer himself, had done in his Discourse der Mahlern, in which he had given a leading role to women only after showing them losing their shyness and proving their capacity under male leadership.⁵⁶

The French critics seem to corroborate such points, and there is plenty of evidence about the terms of the debate in the reviews and comments which, throughout the century, made comparisons between the new spectators and the model they were expected to follow. To entitle itself Spectator (or Censeur, Observateur, Menteur, etc., all titles which alluded to the Spectator tradition) implied a commitment to a certain way of writing, which, if not complied with was a fault to be denounced in the Republic of Letters. To be a Spectator and to pretend originality or excellence was generally considered to be a contradiction, since, as a critic put it, the English text ‘may be compared to the originals of Michael Angelo, of Raffael, of Rubens, which continue to maintain their superiority over the different copies which an industrious emulation produces in all countries’.⁵⁷

A few interesting points stand out in the comparisons made between the new members of the Spectator ‘family’ and their model. A Spectator must not be sad, solitary, or contemplative, but a joyful and active spy who, in the market square, churches, workshops, gathers material for the ‘moral magistrature’. Its spirit should be similar to that which prevails in a comic theatre, where the scene is marked by ‘delight’ and ‘cheerfulness’, while social criticism is being made. A reviewer even describes this type of periodical as the ‘supplement to comedy’, which does all the time what the theatre does on the day of the performance, that is, to ‘apply prompt remedy’ to the foolish acts which ‘succeed one another on the stage of the world’.⁵⁸ Above all the first aim of a Spectator is to instruct, something he should never do as ‘a new Prometheus’ delivering ‘light’⁵⁹ to humankind, but gently and unobtrusively as Socrates, ‘this ancient Spectator’, had done.⁶⁰ In this international debate, the verdict about the imitations seemed to be that, even in the rare cases when they could be said to equal the original Spectator in merit, they definitely did not match it in reputation.

As late in the century as 1777 and 1784, there are intriguing testimonies saying that the French public had ‘read and reread’ the Spectator ‘several times’ and that its volumes were still ‘in the hands of everybody’, despite the numerous imitations which had been trying to rise to its level.⁶¹ Allowing for some exaggeration in statements like these, the constant presence of the English periodical in the various selected reading-lists which were formally and informally drawn up during the 18th century defnitely confirms the credibility of this long-lasting influence. ‘Since the English Spectator became so successful in London, Europe placed it in its libraries,’ remarked regretfully one of the few French imitators who made explicit his ambition to surpass his model.⁶²

The increasing outpouring of books of doubtful value is a frequent complaint made by members of the Republic of Letters, and the lists of well-chosen books which appear at the time are usually justified by the need for a dutiful differentiation between bad and good reading materials. Of the formal lists of valuable books worth noting, the first in importance seems to be the one organized by Jean-Pierre Crousaz, who in 1722 wrote a treatise on education which enjoyed great success and gave the author an established reputation as a modern educator throughout Europe. Addressed to parents and preceptors, the treatise provided a list of readings which would enable students not only to think well, but to behave wisely. The Spectator and two of its first Dutch imitations of the 1710s are presented as indispensable tools for the ‘re-establishment of morals’. Its value was expressed in these enthusiastic terms: ‘If there is anyone who esteems the Spectator only poorly … and who is not a partisan of these works, the preservation of his reputation will impose on him the need to be silent’.⁶³

The second reading-list worth mentioning for the wide success it achieved is the one organized by the Countess De Genlis, a prolific writer who was also the tutor of the future king Louis-Philippe, Adèle et Théodore, ou Lettres sur l'Éducation. In this famous book she recounted her experiences as governess to the royal family, at the same time developing her ideas about educational methods and objectives aimed at guiding parents on how to educate their children. The Spectator is part of the proposed readings designed for the ‘Adèles’ when they reach 18, a selection which should include Rousseau's Émile after they marry. The ‘Théodores’ were to be offered the same readings, with an extensive addition of works in Latin, on law and politics. It is interesting to note that here the English periodical was recommended both directly and within another recommended reading, Émile, which had also strongly advocated it. Translated into English and German immediately after its publication in France in 1782, the various editions of Genlis's book showed it to be a commercial success, and an effective agent for the propagation of the Spectator's authority and fame, 71 years after the journal's original appearance in London.⁶⁴ Its recommendation, as late as 1804, among the select ‘foreign literature’ (comprising only 22 titles) which should compose the library of a French lycée offers a further telling testimony of the Spectator's enduring educational appeal.⁶⁵

The formal reading-lists organized by German writers are particularly revealing of the prominence of the Spectator, especially considering the number of its local descendants. The list by Formey, briefly mentioned above, was addressed to the ‘great number of people’ of both sexes who grope to choose the most useful readings out of ‘this immense crowd of books with which the Universe is flooded’. With a selected library of 500 or 600 books in many genres, the public was assured of having the reading of a ‘lifetime’ with which to improve their intellect and to ‘purify’ their heart. A few revealing points should be noted in this ‘well-chosen library’. First, the Spectator was not listed under the genre ‘Journaux’, but instead—as in the case of a Dutch classification which listed it under the heading ‘the study of human nature’⁶⁶—under ‘Morale & Gout’; its companions in the list were not Bayle's or Le Clerc's journals, but the Socratic Dialogues, More's Utopia, and other similar works. Secondly, considering the flood of German imitators of the Spectator, it is surprising that not a single one was selected as a worthy companion in the educational enterprise. And thirdly, the inclusion of Crousaz's treatise on education in the list, and the consequent indirect repetition of the recommendation of the Spectator, shows, as in the De Genlis case, one of the effective ways the work's authority and fame were spread.⁶⁷ In a similar fashion, in Wieland's 1758 proposal for an academy for the culture of young people, it is the English Spectator (and not any German Zuschauer)—together with the Characters of Theophrastus and La Bruyère, the fables of La Fontaine, etc.—that is listed as the appropriate book for inspiring youngsters with a ‘love of wisdom and virtue’ and a hatred of vices.⁶⁸

Particularly significant in this group are the reading-lists for women organized by some well-known followers of the Spectator, like Die Discourse der Mahlern (Zürich, 1721-23), Der Patriot (Hamburg, 1724-26), Die Vernünftigen Tadlerinnen (Halle, 1725-26) and Der Mahler der Sitten (Zurich, 1746). In these rather extensive ‘Frauenzimmerbibliotheken’, the Spectator appears, first in the French, then in the German version, without having to compete with its German descendants.⁶⁹ As in the previous cases, recommendations of the Spectator are duplicated by other books in the list which had themselves recommended the reading of the English periodical for its great educational value. That was the case again of Crousaz's treatise on education which was listed in Der Patriot, and Holberg's Pensées morales (Moralische Gedanken, 1744) listed in Der Mahler der Sitten.

Informal recommendations which were not actually presented as lists, could very well have served the same need for guided reading. The quotations, the praise and the testimonies to the Spectator's importance made publicly by men of fame such as Voltaire, Rousseau, Helvetius, Feyjóo and Franklin, must have influenced their readers to turn to the English periodical. Among private suggestions for reading, the letters of Goethe to his beloved sister Cornelia offer a rather telling testimony to the appeal of the Spectator. Dissatisfied with the German imitations which copied the outward appearance, but not the actual essence of the original,'⁷⁰ Goethe urged the 15-year-old Cornelia to start the ‘improvement’ of her ‘understanding and will’ by carefully reading the English ‘Zuschauer’, a work she should tell her close friend, Elizabeth, to study as well. His advice was categorical: ‘Take one number after the other, in order, read them attentively, and when it does not please you, read it again. … They are better and more useful than if you would read 20 novels.’⁷¹

As to the awkward problem of the extent to which these counsels and suggestions were followed very little is known for certain. The problem of knowing if and how people read the works they owned cannot be solved even by the impressive findings of Mornet, whose study of the dissemination of ideas through an analysis of 500 catalogues of French private libraries revealed that the Spectator occupied a leading position, appearing more often than works by Voltaire, Locke or Rousseau.⁷² All the same, it is not too far-fetched to imagine, for instance, the bewitched readers of Rousseau, like the merchant Jean Ranson studied by Darnton, giving their unqualifed approval to a periodical praised by their hero.⁷³ The special attachment of Sophie von La Roche to the Spectator, which she confessed to have read every night for many years before sleeping, might also have been the result of her acquaintance with Wieland, Goethe and the reading-lists of the German periodicals.⁷⁴

The last important means of diffusion of the Spectator and one which is particularly rich in insights about its long-lasting and far-reaching appeal, is the publication of selections from it. When publishing his own selection in 1826, Mézières referred to the ‘tedious task’ of listing the numerous ‘English miscellanies published under the name of Beauties of the Spectator, the majority of which copied each other. …’⁷⁵ Although these selections definitely had their hey-day in the Victorian period, when they by far outnumbered the new editions of the original collection, those organized during the 18th century reveal certain features of the Spectator's appeal which can be illuminating.

The first selection, published in 1719 and entitled Maxims, Observations and Reflections, Moral, Political and Divine by Mr. Addison, was in fact a compilation extracted from the periodicals the Spectator, the Guardian and the Freeholder, inspired and clearly suggested by archdeacon Echard in his selection of archbishop Tillotson's moral works.⁷⁶ This first connection between the selections and religious concerns was not an isolated case, and it seems that as the century drew to a close, the pattern which would prevail in the 19th century became clearer, tending increasingly to accentuate the religious bases of the miscellaneous compilation. As one editor put it, addressed to the ‘layman’ rather than to the ‘ecclesiastic’, and being ‘spiritual’ instead of ‘doctrinal’ in their appeal, many of the Spectator's essays were ideal for the task of bringing ‘Gospel truth to the hearts of men.’⁷⁷ The publication of a Christian Spectator in New Haven in the second decade of the 19th century well illustrates this religious attraction.⁷⁸

Quite revealing of the religious appeal is also the selection organized by the Genevan theologian Marie Huber in 1753. This successful author, whose anonymous works were translated into German and English, organized the first French compilation of the Spectator. Published at the end of her life, it seems to have been the culmination of the doctrinal works she had been publishing since the 1720s. The Spectator is a work, she remarks, that unites what ‘our century’ tends to separate: a philosophical and impartial spirit with a ‘respect for Religion which transpires everywhere’.⁷⁹ ‘Expressions used in the Books of Morality, such as Repentance, Conversion, Meditation, Prayer, etc …, she said, were not the way to gather men to the truth. Instead, truth must be offered ‘in an agreeable Dress, and under the pretence of amusing them.. ‘.⁸⁰ Interestingly enough, the French Tabaraud attributed the survival of religion in England to the periodical works of Addison and Steele, which joined forces with the sermons of the serious ‘sacred orators’. Using the ‘weapons of jokes and argument’ the Spectator achieved a ‘prodigious’ success in the ‘war’ against atheism.⁸¹

An overall view of the selections of the 18th and 19th centuries suggests that the religious side of the periodical which captivated Marie Huber also captivated others who were probably not at ease with the irreligious trend of the time. ‘Next to the Bible’, the Spectator—this advice given by an English gentleman in Sumatra to his daughter in London probably expresses one common view of the Spectator as a supplement and complement to religion, a position which made it rather appealing.⁸² Ironically, then, while expurgating the ‘objectionable’ parts from the periodical⁸³—and probably detaching it from many of its ludic elements—so as to make its moral preaching more effective, the compilers expressed admiration for the Spectator's cheerful performance. In spite of their graver tone, what seems to have seduced them most was the unobtrusive and playful way the periodical dealt with serious matter, its theatrical way of ‘instilling’, ‘inculcating’, or ‘impressing’ (revealing expressions frequently used) rightful notions of social duties, morality, wisdom, virtue, religion and devotion upon the minds of its readers. As a compiler put it, this periodical had the art of influencing the reader before he even ‘knew he was swallowing moral medicine’.⁸⁴

By now I hope to have shown how the reviewers, editors, translators, imitators, literary and social critics, organizers of ‘chosen libraries’, playwrights, and even painters (like Hogarth and Greuze),⁸⁵ conferred authority on the English Spectator and legitimized its educational role by repeating, generation after generation, the verdict that the true spectator genre of journalism was capable, to use Comte Caylus' terms, of ‘correcting a whole city’.⁸⁶

The Spectator has been rightfully described as a ‘polyphonic text’ which performed ‘a kind of dialogue’ between different voices and subjects.⁸⁷ This may account, I believe, for the different readings of the Rousseaus, the Frérons, the Franklins and the Marxes who were certainly attracted by distinct features of the journal. In fact, like the stage, the periodical acted as a meeting-point where the voices of a Locke or a Pope, for instance, could be heard together with those of common men and women, genuine and fictitious, who spoke about their lives and problems. The various voices which were brought together in dialogue and confrontation catered for many tastes and world-views. The contradictions and ambiguities which the text embodied guaranteed its popularity rather than hindering it. But if the different admirers and followers of the Spectator might have disagreed about the message or the doctrine being taught, they all seem to have approved of the play-element, the theatrical aspect of the educational strategy.

As is well known, the English periodical was presented as organized and written by a fictitious club under the leadership of the impartial chief editor, Mr. Spectator. It seems that there was never any doubt that these figures or personae were put on a ‘stage’ by real men of letters with reforming aims, a ‘stage’ which was also available for the ‘performance’ of the readers, who gladly joined the spectator game by means of real and fictitious letters sent to the personified editors. To the few critics who denounced this game, this ‘masquerade’ behind which there was nothing but ‘tyranny’ and the ‘pedantic air of a school-master’, Steele, one of the two men behind Mr. Spectator, once replied that ‘it was laudable to wear a mask’ only if the aim was, like his, ‘to do great and worthy actions’.⁸⁸ In other words, good moralists, by dissimulating and acting, were like ‘artful doctors who transform poisons into medicines’.⁸⁹

The mask was thus presented as an instrument of morality, an effective strategy of persuasion, capable of convincing the public of the detachment and impartiality befitting those devoted to a guiding role. Similarly, disguising a didactic intention, or the ‘socratical way of reasoning’, was presented as a strategy necessary to achieving its end.⁹⁰

The numerous periodicals which followed in the footsteps of the Spectator also tended to create an editorial persona on the model of Mr. Spectator. Le Misanthrope, Le Spectateur François, Die Discourse der Mahlern, Der Mann ohne Vorurtheil, among so many others, joined the spectator game and through a ‘mis-en-scène’ acted out the role of privileged observers who, like a chameleon, merged with various groups in society. Like Mr. Spectator, the followers attempted to perform the role of unobtrusive and anonymous figures who said unusual and disconcerting things about well-established ideas and practices. In a sense, then, they (like the original Spectator) played a game and wore a mask in order to denounce the games and masks of society.

However, if the ‘mise-en-scène’, the theatrical element was present in many followers of the Spectator, the game they played seemed not to be very convincing. In many cases, as the critics saw it, they were not playful enough but rather too authoritarian and harsh. On the other hand, some, by pushing the game too far, may have caused the loss of the verisimilitude of the ‘theatre’. That seems to have been the case, for instance, of the French Spectatrice (1728-29) who openly renounced the roles of wife and mother and even dared to challenge the distinction between the sexes by claiming to be a hermaphrodite.⁹¹ The Spanish Pensadora Gaditana (1763-64) was also rather bold in challenging the domestic role of women and in renouncing both marriage and the life of a nun.⁹² Another, the Viennese Mann ohne Voruteil (1765-67), seems to have been carried away by the persona of the American savage Capa-Kaum who was at once the super-ego of the Austrians and the object of education for citizenship. Sonnenfels, the author, having failed in ‘giving life to his fiction’, renounced the ‘mise-en-scène’ altogether, abandoned his persona, and replaced the periodical's original playfulness by a blunt didacticism.⁹³

An extreme case of an implausible ‘mise-en-scène’ can be found in Der Teutsche Locmann (1739) from Halle, who described himself as an impartial educator and guide as a result of the wide experience he had acquired. Not only was he a soul who had lived extraterrestrial lives on Venus, Mars, Saturn and Mercury, but the animal world was not alien to him. Having experienced such a variety of lives, from that of a bear and a slave to that of ancient philosophers, he was more than anybody prepared to distinguish right from wrong, vice from virtue, and so capable of performing the role of educator.⁹⁴

Despite the witticism and the burlesque of such ‘performances’, they may have overstepped the thresholds of the ‘mise-en-scène’. So, although the game element was indispensable for the spectator genre of journalism, it seems that not all masks were acceptable. The fate of the bold Spectatrice, for instance, a faithful descendant of the Spectator, could be seen as a case in point.⁹⁵ The game had its own rules and it is possible that some of the imitators of the Spectator failed because they offered too much of a challenge to social and literary conventions alike.

The taste for masks and for the theatrical, which seems to have been a strong feature of 18th-century culture, accounts for the seduction exercised by the Spectator of Addison and Steele. Even Rousseau, the great critic of the theatre and of artifciality, was strongly impressed by this periodical, not only, I believe, for its didactic content, but also for its ‘spectacular’ features. In spite of his criticism, he too plays a game and wears a mask in order to denounce the games and masks of society.⁹⁶ He even planned to write a periodical, Le Persifleur, with similar theatrical traits.⁹⁷

The 19th century's preference for selections of the more serious moralising essays of the Spectator gives evidence of a new mentality, less prone to games, which read it from another perspective. Following Richard Sennett's insights into The Fall of Public Man, it might be said that as the Victorian age lost the taste for masks and theatricality which marked the ancien régime, the appeal of the Spectator journalism also disappeared.⁹⁸ Identifying himself with the actor and considering the world as a theatre, the public man of the 18th century had been greatly seduced by a style of journalism which, in a certain way, used the printed page as a stage where the ‘game’ of the ‘theatrum mundi’, with all its variety, could be represented. If it is true that this new public was eager for advice and willing to adopt ‘godfathers’, they seem to have showed preference for the playmate type. In short, above and beyond religious differences and national, cultural and linguistic barriers, the Spectator seems to have been acclaimed in the 18th century especially for what Hayden White calls the ‘content of the form’,⁹⁹ in other words its theatricality, its ability to educate and to indoctrinate without seeming to do so.

Notes

1. P. Van Tieghen, ‘Histoire littéraire générale et comparée’, Révue de Synthèse historique 48 (1929), 111-137, 127. The only general study, comprehensive but rather descriptive, is by F. Rau, Zur Verbreitung und Nachahmung des Tatler und Spectator (Heidelberg, 1980).

2. G. A. Cranfield, The Press and Society (London, 1978), 37.

3. F. Williams, Dangerous Estate. The Anatomy of Newspapers (London, 1957), 30.

4. On the German followers, see W. Martens, Die Botschaft der Tugend (Stuttgart, 1968); on the French followers, M. Gilot, Les Journaux de Marivaux. Itinéraire moral et accomplissement esthéique (Université Lille III, 1975), part v, chap. II and M. Gilot & J. Sgard, ‘Le journalisme masque’, in Le Journalisme d'Ancien Régime, ed. by P. Retat (Lyon, 1981), 285-313.

5. Journal étranger (June, 1757), 119.

6. Oeuvres Badines complètes du Comte de Caylus (Amsterdam, 1787), t. 6, 93-100.

7. Journal Etranger (February, 1762), 108.

8. J. Sgard, ‘La multiplication des périodiques’, in Histoire de l'edition française, 2 vols., ed. by H.-J. Martln & R. Chartier (Paris, 1984), II, 204.

9. L. M. Price, The Reception of English Literature in Germany (Berkeley, 1932), 51.

10. Der Zuschauer, 8 vols. (Leipzig, 1739-44), Vorrede.

11. C.W. Schoneveld, ‘The Dutch translation of Addison and Steele's Spectator’ in The Role of Periodicals in the Eighteenth Century (Leiden, 1984), 34-40; C. Van Boheemen-Saaf, ‘The Reception of English Literature in Dutch Magazines 1735-1785’, ibid., 7-17.

12. English Literature and Society in the XVIII Century (London, 1910), 71.

13. On Russia, see K.J. McKenna, Catherine the Great's Vsiakaia Vsiachina and the Spectator tradition of the satirical journal of morals and manners, PhD (University of Colorado, 1977); on Portugal, M.-H. Piwnik, O Anónimo, Journal Portugais du XVIIIéme Siécle (1752-54) (Paris, 1979); on Spain, H. Peterson, ‘Notes on the influence of Addison's Spectator and Marivaux's Spectateur Français upon El Pensador’, Hispanic Review 4 (1936), 256-263 and P.-J. Guinard, La Presse Espagnole de 1737 a 1791—formation and signification d'un genre (Paris, 1973).

14. P. A. Rolli, Remarks upon M. Voltaire's Essay on the Epick Poetry of the European Nations (London, 1728), 12-13.

15. ‘The Fears of the Pretender’, in Addison and Steele—The Critical Heritage, ed. by E. A. Bloom & L. D. Bloom (London, 1980), 125-126.

16. P. Gay, ‘The Spectator as Actor’, Encounter 29 (1967), 28-32, 29.

17. In 1864, the organizer of a selection of the Spectator's papers (Wisdom, Wit and Allegory selected from ‘The Spectator’, Edinburgh) refers to its ‘permanent and sterling nature’ and to its usefulness ‘while the human nature endures’. For Mézières, in 1826, (Encyclopédie Morale ou Choix des Essais du Spectateur, du Babillard et du Tuteur, Paris) the Spectator has lost ‘nothing of its brilliance or of its freshness … it seems, in many ways, a book well suited to the French of the 19th century.

18. P. Rogers, ‘Defoe or the Devil’, London Review of Books (2 March 1989), 16-17.

19. La crise de la conscience européenne 1680-1715, 3 vols. (Paris, 1935), II, 125-132.

20. The Spectator, 4 vols. (London: Tomas Bosworth, 1853), Preface.

21. English Literature and Society in the XVIII century, 75.

22. Life and Writings of Addison' in Addison and Steele—The Critical Heritage, 409-442, 415, 439.

23. Encyclopédie Morale ou Choix des Essais du Spectateur du Babillard et du Tuteur, 2 vols. (Paris, 1826), I, Preface.

24. ‘Addison’, quoted in D. Bond ed., The Spectator (Oxford, 1965), civ.

25. ‘The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century’, in Addison and Steele—The Critical Heritage, 442.

26. Critique de l'Economie Politique', in Oeuvres, 2 vols. (Paris, 1963), I, 305-306, 422.

27. ‘Sketch of an English School: for the confederation of the trustees of the Philadelphia Academy’, in Works of the late Doctor B. Franklin, 2 vols. (London, 1793), II, 253-268.

28. Quoted in Richard L. Bushman, The Refinement of America (New York, 1992), 9-10.

29. On Britons as witnesses of the Spectator's appeal, see D. F. Bond edition of The Spectator, Introduction, lxxxiii-xcvi.

30. Principes des moeurs chez toutes les nations: ou catéchéisme universel, 3 vols. (Paris, 1798), Discours Préliminaire; id., ‘Essai sur la vie de Bolingbroke’, in Oeuvres Philosophiques, 5 vols. (Paris, 1753), V, 50.

31. Lettre sur quelque ecrits de ce temps, 10 (1753), 168, passim; L'Annee Litteraire (1755), lettre VII; (1768), Vi, 33; (1971), VII, 124; (1777), II, 159; VII, 73; (1778), III, 169; (1782), I, 107; VI, 58; (1784), I, 145.

32. On the warm reception of Rousseau's writings among his public, see R. Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre (New York, 1984), 215-256; on his role as private guide and confessor, see J. Starobinski, Le Remède dans le Mal (Paris, 1989), 187-190.

33. Confessions (Paris, 1963), livre III, 178.

34. Émile ou de l'éducation (Paris, 1962), 210, 573-574.

35. Traite sur l'Éducation Morale (Stralsound, 1767), IV, 100.

36. Conseils pour former une bibliothèque peu nombreuse mais choisie (3rd. ed. Berlin, 1755), Avant-propos.

37. ‘Le Spicilège’, in Oeuvres complètes, 3 vols. (Paris, 1951-55), II, 915-916.

38. Cartas Eruditas y curiosas (Madrid, 1781), iv, carta 6.

39. M. Goldie, ‘Common Sense philosophy and Catholic theology in the Scottish Enlightenment’, Studies on Voltaire & the Eighteenth Century 302 (1992), 281-320.

40. M. L. Pallares-Burke, ‘A spectator in the tropics: a case study in the production and reproduction of cultures’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 36 (1994), 676-701.

41. C. van Boheemen-Saaf ‘The Reception of English Literature in Dutch Magazines 1735-1785’, 10-11.

42. Editoria e riforme a Pisa, Livorno e Lucca nel' 700 (Lucca, 1979), 115.

43. J. Ramsay of Ochtertyre, Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth Century, 2 vols. (Edinburgh and London, 1888), I, 6-7.

44. The Field of Cultural Production (Cambridge, 1993), Part I, 13, 37.

45. Le Spectateur ou le Socrate Moderne, où l'on voit un Portrait naïf des moeurs de ce Siècle (Amsterdam, 1714), Préface du tradacteur.

46. Bibliotheque Ancienne et Moderne (1714), 383-51, 386.

47. L'Europe Savante (November 1718), 96-100, 97.

48. Der Spectateur Oder Vernunftige Betrachtungen uber die verderbten Sitten der heutigen Welt (Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1719-25); De Spectator of Verrezene Socrates (Amsterdam, 1720-27).

49. C.W. Schoeneveld, ‘The Dutch Translation of Addison and Steele's Spectator’, 35.

50. Der Zuschauer, Vorrede.

51. Scelta delle più belle et utili speculazione inglesi dello Spettatore, Ciarlatore, e Tutore; tradotte in Italiano (Livorno, 1753); Carlo Goldoni, Memoirs of Goldoni, 2 vols., translated from the French by John Black, 2 vols. (London, 1814), I, 39.

52. Kleist to Gleim (10 Abril 1759), in Ewald von Kleist's Werke, 3 vols. (Berlin, 1969), II, 556-557.

53. Quoted in E. Umbach, Die deutschen moralischen Wochenschriften und der Spectator von Addison and Steele, ihre Beziehungen zu einander und zur deutschen Literatur des 18 Jahrhundert (Strassbourg, 1911).

54. Meister to Brunner, in T. Vetter, Chronik der Gesellschaft der Mahler 1721-22 (Frauenfeld, 1887), 5.

55. L. Holberg, Geschichte verschiedener Heldinnen und anderer berühmten Damen (Copenhagen and Leipzig, 1754), Vorrede; id, Pensées Morales (Copenhagen, 1748-49), Preface; J.E. Schlegel, Der Fremde (Copenhagen, 1745-46), no. 1.

56. Anklagung des verderbten Geschamackes, oder critische Anmerkungen uber den hamburgischen Patriolen, und die hallischen Tadlerinnen (Frankfurt und Lepzig, 1728), 40-41.

57. Journal Encylopédique (Janvier 1759), 110.

58. Variétés morales & amusantes, tirées des Journaux Anglois', in L'Année Littéraire (1784), I, 145.

59. ‘Peinture des moeurs du Siècle, ou Lettres & Discours sur différens Sujets’, in L'Annee Littéraire (1777), II, 159.

60. Holberg, Pensées Morales, Livre IV, Epigramme XX.

61. L'Annee Litteraire (1977), II, 159; (1784), I, 145.

62. Bastide, Le Nouveau Spectateur (Amsterdam, 1758), 420.

63. Traite de l'Éducation des Enfans, 2 vols. (Lausanne, 722), II, 75-87.

64. Adèle et Théodore, ou Lettres sur l'Éducation, 3 vols. (Londres, 1792), III, 470-48

65. Catalogue des livres qui doivent composer la bibliothèque d'un Lycée conformément à l'article VII de l'Arrêté du 19 Frimaire An XI (Paris, 1804), 42-44.

66. I. van Hamelsveld, Kort Begrip der Algemeene Geschiedenis van de Schepping der Wereld af. tot het Einde der agttiende Eeuw, quoted in C. van Boheemen-Saaf, 8-9.

67. Conseils pour former une bibliothèque peu nombreuse mais choisie, Preface, Article IX, 60-64.

68. Plan einer Academie zu Bildung des Verstandes und Herzens junger Leute (1758), translated into French in Journal étranger (December, 1758), 137-193.

69. Only once, in Die Vernünftige Tadlerinnen (no. 23), a German imitator, Der Patriot, was recommended.

70. ‘Dichtung und Wahrheit’ in Goethes Werke (Weimar, 1889), 27 Band, Siebentes Buch, Lesearten, 388. I should like to thank Dr. Ronald Gray for helping me to decode Goethe's telegraphic notes.

71. Briefe der Jahre 1764-1786 (Zurich, 1951), 26-28.

72. D. Mornet, ‘Les enseignements des bibliotheques privées (1750-1780)’, Révue d'histoire littéraire de la France, XVIi (1910), 449-496.

73. The Great Cat Massacre, 215-256.

74. Herbsttage (Leipzig, 1805), 1.

75. Encyclopédie Morale, ou Choix des Essais du Spectateur, du Babillard et du Tuteur, Prèface.

76. Maxims, Observations and Reflections, Moral, Political, and Divine. By M. Addison (London, 1719), preface.

77. M. C. E., Lay Sermons from the Spectator (London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, 1909), Preface.

78. The Christian Spectator (New Haven, 1819-26).

79. Reduction du Spectateur Anglois, a ce que'il renferme de meilleur de plus utile & de plus agréable (Amsterdam, 1753), Avertissement du Réducteur. A reviewer from L'Année Littéraire (1784) I, 145, also praised Addison for being a ‘philosopher’ who had the weakness to respect Religion'.

80. Le Monde Fou préfére au monde sage (Amsterdam, 1733), Lettres sur les Promenades, I, II.

81. M. M. Tabaraud, Histoire critique du Philosophisme Anglois, 2 vols (Paris, 1806), I. 65.

82. J. Collet, Private Letter books, ed. by H. H. Dodwell, 1993, 100, quoted in Bond ed., The Spectator, Introduction, xcv.

83. A Selection from the Papers of Addison in the Spectator and Guardian, for the use of young persons, ed. by Rev. E. Berens (London, 1827). Introduction.

84. Selections from the Spectator, ed. by Rev. H. Evans (Dublin, 1897), Introduction.

85. See Hogarth's The Edwards Family (private collection) and Greuze's portrait of Gougenot de Croissy (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Brussels) where the sitters hold copies of the Spectator.

86. Oeuvres Badines complètes du Comte de Caylus, VI, 99.

87. P. France, Politeness and its Discontents (Cambridge, 1992), 77; see also M. L. Pallares-Burke, The Spectator, o Teatro das Luzes—Diálogo e Imprensa no Século XVIII (São Paulo, 1995).

88. The Theatre, by Sir John Edgar (1719-20), no. 11, in answer to ‘The Characters and Conduct of Sir John Edgar, in two letters to Sir John Edgar, 1720’, in The Theatre (London, 1791).

89. Marquis d'Argenson, Essais dans le gout de ceux de Montaigne, 2 vols. (Amsterdam, 1785), II, 45.

90. The Spectator no. 197.

91. La Spectatrice (Paris, 1728-29), nos. 2, 4, 6, 12.

92. La Pensadora Gaditana (Cadiz, 1763-4), nos. 1, 16, passim. See M. L. Pallares-Burke, ‘Ousadia feminina e ordem burguesa’, Estudos Feministas, I, 2 (1993), 247-276.

93. R. Krebs, ‘Une Révue de l'Aufklarang Viennoise: ‘L'Homme sans Prejuges' de Joseph Von Sonnenfels 1765-67’, in L'Allemagne des Lumières, ed. by P. Grappin (Paris, 1982), 217; Der Mann ohne Vorurtheil, 3 vols. (Wien, 1765-67), II, 311.

94. Der Teusche Locmann, Vorrede, 1, 2.

95. M. L. Pallares-Burke, ‘An Androgynous Observer in the Eighteenth Century Press: La Spectatrice, 1728-29’, Women's History Review, 3, no. 3 (1994), 411-434.

96. On the ‘transformation of sickness into remedy’ as Rousseau's strategy for cultural reform, see Jean Starobinski, Le Remède dans le Mal, 165-208.

97. Oeuvres Complètes, 4 vols. (Paris, 1959-69), I, 1103-1112.

98. R. Sennett, The Fall of Public Man (Cambridge, 1974), chap. 6, passim.

99. The Content of the Form (Baltimore, 1987).