SOURCE: “The Making of Mr. Spectator,” in Modern Language Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 1, March 1977, pp. 21-39.

[In following essay, Furtwangler contends that Mr. Spectator, the fictional editorial voice of the Spectator,was a “didactic figure” designed to promote the journal's “identification of moral improvement with reading improvement.”]

Addison and Steele had a very practical reason for creating the fictitious editors of their periodical works: canny self-protection. Neither Addison the rising politician nor Steele the ambitious soldier-turned-Gazetteer could well afford to entertain a broad public or moralize in his own name. Yet from the broad leaves of this prudent disguise there grew a new blossom of art. Other early editors had hidden behind the titles of their journals, hoping to dodge the abundant risks of plain-spoken publishing or to achieve an authoritative tone with little effort. But in Isaac Bickerstaff of the Tatler Steele developed a full-blown alter ego, complete with name, history, crotchets, and superhuman advantages, and in Mr. Spectator, Addison and Steele projected a new and subtly influential spokesman for the London of 1711. Throughout the century that followed, scores of other writers tried to imitate this achievement, and the fictitious editors—or eidola—of their essay periodicals became a new way of articulating, indeed personifying, the interests, hopes, restraints, and ideals of an age.¹

With the benefit of hindsight we can now see how different such figures could be from other literary forms of personification and how apt was their appeal for early periodical readers. The term eidolon, which the OED defines generally as “an unsubstantial image, spectre, phantom,” nicely conveys the indistinct, suggestive, haunting nature of this appeal. Both readers and editors understand that an eidolon is completely fictitious. Hence it need not be developed as a realistic character in an ongoing narrative. It often works best by obtruding only hazily on the subjects the essayist treats, or it may unfold new and rather improbable dimensions of character to embrace new subjects or occasions. It may serve as a mask, if it protects an author or group of authors from discovery or conveniently fits the contours of their tastes and interests; but this is not its main purpose, either, for it may be put to good use even if the authorship of a journal is an open secret or if occasional papers are written by new contributors. Neither is it limited to the dimensions of a persona, a first-person identity of the sort that gives dramatic unity to a poem or short story (though Bickerstaff himself started out this way in Swift's satiric tracts against Partridge).² Rather, the eidolon is a figure to be seen, and then seen through. It teases the reader, as a larger-than-life embodiment of a supposed editor. It offers more than any real author could, yet dissolves away when closely pursued, only to return and be laughed away again in subsequent issues. It should consistently display a few distinctive traits, which reflect distinctive policies of the periodical. But within those limits it has to play freely, evasively, surprisingly, in order to hold the interest of an audience for an indefinite period of time—as long as the journal keeps running.³

For Addison and Steele, however, no such hindsight about the decorum of an eidolon was available. Rather, a very little hindsight sparked a good deal of invention. The movement from Swift's first projection of Bickerstaff in 1708 to Addison's presentation of Mr. Spectator in 1711 is a movement of discovery and highly self-conscious refinement of what an eidolon could be. Steele in the Tatler had been favored by special circumstances; he could afford to let a character develop from issue to issue to suit his own needs. But beginning again in a new journal was another matter. To regain the audience Bickerstaff had held, yet realize fresh possibilities in an equal partnership and daily issues, Addison had to work up a cunning design and have it ready for presentation in the very first numbers. In this process we can see Steele and especially Addison working out not only a viable public image but also an ingratiating new design for public education.

In the final number of the Tatler Steele devoted a full first paragraph to the advantages he had enjoyed, and worn out, in the character of Bickerstaff:

This Work has indeed for some Time been disagreeable to me, and the Purpose of it wholly lost by my being so long understood as the Author. I never designed in it to give any Man any secret Wound by my Concealment, but spoke in the Character of an old Man, a Philosopher, an Humorist, an Astrologer, and a Censor, to allure my Reader with the Variety of my Subjects, and insinuate, if I could, the Weight of Reason with the Agreeableness of Wit. The general Purpose of the Whole has been to recommend Truth, Innocence, Honour, and Virtue, as the chief Ornaments of Life; but I considered, that Severity of Manners was absolutely necessary to him who would censure others; and for that Reason, and that only, chose to talk in a Mask. I shall not carry my Humility so far as to call my self a vicious Man, but at the same Time must confess, my Life is at best but pardonable: And with no greater Character than this, a Man would make but an indifferent Progress in attacking prevailing and fashionable Vices, which Mr. Bickerstaff has done with a Freedom of Spirit that would have lost both its Beauty and Efficacy, had it been pretended to by Mr. Steele.

(No. 271; in folio)

Steele speaks about himself earnestly here, but the ceremonious occasion of closing this successful work carries him rather far. He claims that the whole of the Tatler had a single purpose and that he had one reason and one only for talking in a mask. His confessions of unworthiness and complaints about the loss of effective secrecy are disarming, though very likely they are true to the feelings Steele had at this moment. Yet he betrays another motive, one that runs against the single-mindedness he vaunts: he also spoke as Bickerstaff, he says, “to allure my Reader with the Variety of my Subjects.”

Steele had stressed this latter point while the Tatler was still running. The first volume of the collected edition appeared in July 1710, and in the dedication he explained that the early issues had owed much to the fame of Swift's Partridge-Bickerstaff hoax. Swift's project, he said, had made the name Bickerstaff “famous through all Parts of Europe; and by an inimitable Spirit and Humour, raised it to as high a Pitch of Reputation as it could possibly arrive at.”

By this good Fortune, the Name of Isaac Bickerstaff gained an Audience of all who had any Taste of Wit; and the Addition of the ordinary Occurrences of common Journals of News brought in a Multitude of other Readers. I could not, I confess, long keep up the Opinion of the Town, that these Lucubrations were written by the same Hand with the first Works which were published under my Name [i.e., Bickerstaff]; but before I lost the Participation of that Author's Fame, I had already found the Advantage of his Authority, to which I owe the sudden Acceptance which my Labours met with in the World.⁴

This passage confirms both that Bickerstaff served as an attraction for gaining an audience and that the Tatler had to develop before Steele fully mastered the advantages of his eidolon's moral authority.

But again, Steele in a dedication is hardly upon oath. The way the first few Tatler issues were put together shows that he did borrow much from Swift, but that he handled that borrowing very deftly. He neatly translated Bickerstaff across the distance between a set of pamphlets and a regularly appearing newssheet and then kept the resulting periodical alive for more than a year and a half.

In itself Swift's attack on Partridge was a significant skirmish over the new powers of cheap, unlicensed publications.⁵ Partridge had offended Swift by the kinds of works he published, and Swift punished Partridge by beating him at his own game and making this noteworthy almanac-maker look silly in print. He did this not only by force of argument or turns of ironic wit; he also closely parodied the boasting and evasiveness of contemporary astrologers and paced the appearance of several tracts so as to stir up anticipation of Partridge's “death” and then make the most of its timely “occurrence.”

Steele took over these same skills of parody and neat timing when he set Bickerstaff before the public again in 1709. A year had elapsed since Partridge's ostensible death on March 19, 1708, but these names had come back into circulation with the appearance of Partridge's almanac for 1709 and Swift's formal rejoinder, A Vindication of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., which was being advertised just before the Tatler started up.⁶ The appearance of the Tatler in early April handily marked the anniversary of Partridge's death and also fitted the silly season of April foolery. Readers who had enjoyed seeing Partridge baited and beaten could be drawn to follow Bickerstaff again with a fresh sense of anticipation. Their keenness may have been further whetted by the imprint of the Tatler from the fifth number onward; it was distributed by the same John Morphew who had issued Swift's opening salvo, Predictions for the Year 1708.

Steele, of course, was not building up a new hoax, but he was turning the satiric force of Bickerstaff's name on a new target. As he mentioned in the passage quoted above, he attracted his first audience by impersonating Bickerstaff and also by publishing news, which he could easily cull from the Gazetteer's office. In this way the Tatler folio half-sheets effectively mocked “the common Journals of News” in their own form and wording. They were the same in size and shape, with two columns to a page, broken into dispatches from different places. But the Tatler replaced European capitals with well-known local landmarks in its date lines: not Whitehall and the Court of St. James's, but White's and St. James's Coffeehouses.⁷ Steele also put the line “By Isaac Bickerstaff Esq.” on his sheets in precisely the spot where “Published by Authority” appeared in the official London Gazette. As a name, “Tatler” nicely deflated the earnestness of such titles as Postman and Intelligencer. To press home the point, the earliest issues carried this introduction:

Tho' the other Papers which are publish'd for the Use of the good People of England have certainly very wholesom Effects, and are laudable in their particular Kinds, they do not seem to come up to the main Design of such Narrations, which, I humbly presume, should be principally intended for the Use of Politick Persons, who are so publick-spirited as to neglect their own Affairs to look into Transactions of State. Now these Gentlemen, for the most Part, being Persons of strong Zeal and weak Intellects, it is both a Charitable and Necessary Work to offer something, whereby such worthy and well-affected Members of the Commonwealth may be instructed, after their Reading, what to think: Which shall be the End and Purpose of this my Paper. …

Of course Steele did not create such a humbly presumptuous design all by himself. More than one commentator has suspected the hand of Swift behind the opening of this project.⁸ “I must acknowledge also,” Steele himself wrote in 1711,

that at my first entering upon this Work, a certain uncommon Way of Thinking, and a Turn in Conversation peculiar to that agreeable Gentleman, rendered his Company very advantageous to one whose Imagination was to be continually employed upon obvious and common Subjects, though at the same Time obliged to treat of them in a new and unbeaten Method.⁹

And whether or not Swift guided Steele closely, he provided him with an enviable opening for the Tatler—including an enviable way out if it had failed. If it had circulated for just a week or two, the new periodical could have made its point about ephemeral newssheets, celebrated the year-old demise of Partridge in good style, given a new turn to the wit of Bickerstaff, and reflected credit on its authors.¹⁰

Still, it was Steele who carried on the identity of Bickerstaff for 271 numbers, enlarged it with new touches, stretched it to new ends of moral and political zealotry, and so exhausted it. In the end this fortuitous opening was set well in the past, and the original fame of Bickerstaff was quite altered. When the Tatler ceased in January 1711, Swift and Steele's friendship had cooled. The original jokes at Partridge's expense had grown old and become complicated by some actions of the Company of Stationers and the squibs of other wits. And the identification of Bickerstaff with Steele had become well established, to Steele's disgust. The moral authority and teasing mystery of the eidolon were thus paralyzed by Steele's past reputation and current intemperate politics. There was speculation at the time, in fact, that the Tatler came to an end in a compromise between Steele and the government. His broad swipes at the Tories had given so much offense that when they came to power in 1710 he was forced to choose between laying down this work and losing all his offices.¹¹ Meanwhile, the name Tatler had paid its price for fame, as inferior competitors such as the Female Tatler, the Tory Tatler, Titt for Tatt, and the Tatling Harlot had taken it up and worn it thin. More than one attempt was made to revive or extend the original Tatler, once Steele gave it up.¹²

Altogether, Steele had good reasons for lamenting his loss when Bickerstaff's cloak fell away—and even better ones for creating a new eidolon to suit richer materials and an ampler pattern.

That is just what he did in designing the new Spectator with Addison. This daily essay paper would appear more frequently than the triweekly Tatler, and it would be distributed in a different way. From the first it was designed to survive a long run and be collected into permanent volumes. And it was to accommodate the editorial penchants of two editors, working in almost equal partnership. These differences of substance distinguished the Spectator from not only the Tatler but all other periodicals of early 1711.

If the Tatler had parodied the form of competing newspapers, the Spectator was not a newspaper at all. It bore the same design as the Daily Courant; it was printed by the same publisher; and its first daily issues surely went out to the same coffeehouses. But after the success of the Tatler, this new sheet stood out as an essay paper, a thing quite distinct from news. Conversely, as a daily essay, and the second daily periodical to appear in London, it was unique and novel as an entertainment. With this constant schedule, the new journal did not have to stagger its way into public acceptance. Within a week readers could have been drawn toward a regular subscription by any of a half-dozen different issues.

In the long run, the schedule also helped sustain the editors' serious aims. Frequent issues provided plenty of variety every week, and each one could consist of a long, unified essay. Six issues a week also made a convenient working schedule for Addison and Steele. After a few months, each of them contributed just three papers a week in regular alternation with his partner. Although the resources of both authors were thus displayed more fully, neither was likely to run on by himself and become tedious.

Along with this new publishing schedule and full-essay format there was a new design for the preservation of these papers. The idea of turning essay papers into books had already been realized in the Tatler, and its editors were alert to what this precedent implied. Provoked by the threat of piracy, the Tatler had announced a handsome pocket edition of its collected papers (in No. 102) after it had been running just nine months.¹³ Morphew also began to arrange for an octavo subscription edition: The Lucubrations of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq. More than six hundred readers entered their names (at a pound per volume for sets on fine paper), making this periodical the first ever to be reprinted by subscription.¹⁴ The dedications of the four volumes also carried handsome Whiggish compliments; the final two were addressed to Lords Cowper and Halifax. Copies of these last volumes were ready for delivery on April 17, 1711—that is, after the Spectator had begun—and advertisements for a subscription edition of the Spectator appeared seven months later, or just as soon as enough material had been published to justify gathering it into volumes at a guinea apiece.¹⁵ The collected Spectator also appeared simultaneously in octavo (for subscribers) and duodecimo formats. And this time the opening dedications were addressed to Whig lords: Somers and Halifax. In a word, the Spectator set out at once to capture an extensive daily audience yet to reward its readers' attention with the steady distinction of bookish elegance.

Addison's participation in the Tatler had changed the quality of that journal, and his full share in the planning of the Spectator probably determined these more congenial arrangements. Once Addison could devote more time to essays, after the fall of the Whigs in 1710, he seems to have pressed against the limitations of the original Tatler. As Steele put it years later, in glossing a remark Tickell had made about their editing:

He [Tickell] very justly says, the occasional Assistance Mr. Addison gave me in the course of that Paper did not a little contribute to advance its Reputation, especially when, upon the Change of the Ministry, he found leisure to engage more constantly in it. It was advanced indeed, for it was rais'd to a greater thing than I intended it: for the Elegance, Purity, and Correctness which appear'd in his Writings, were not so much my Purpose, as in any intelligible manner as I could, to rally all those Singularities of human Life, thro' the different Professions and Characters in it, which obstruct any thing that was truly good and great.

(Correspondence, pp. 510-11)

Of course, either editor could rally “Singularities” as well as enforce elegance, purity, and correctness. But this passage insists that in the Tatler Steele considered himself primarily a moralist, while Addison pushed harder for literary excellence. A new periodical, managed by both of them, would call for a new balance of emphasis between these poles.

Addison's large share in this new work can be shown from the ascriptions of the individual papers. The signature letters in the folio half-sheets and earliest editions show that Addison and Steele shared the full burden about equally. Each prepared 251 of the 555 numbers. But in reviewing these calculations in his edition of the Spectator, Donald F. Bond has pointed out that Steele's papers were frequently made up of matter contributed by others or assembled in disparate fragments. Addison's were more often original, polished essays. Addison produced 202 independent, full essays; Steele, only 89 (Spectator, I, lix). The 29 essays formally credited to Eustace Budgell were perhaps prepared under Addison's direction, too (Spectator, I, li-lii).

Furthermore, papers by Addison constitute major elements in the character of this journal. His signature letter appears at the end of the first paper, introducing the eidolon, and at the end of the other papers discussing such matters as circulation (No. 10), contributors' letters (No. 542), mottoes and signature letters (No. 221), and the aims and advantages of periodical essays (No. 124). He and Steele had produced some sets of papers in the Tatler in which a single subject or idea was enlarged from issue to issue.¹⁶ In the Spectator Addison alone would produce several elaborate series of essays on critical subjects. His pen was to sketch most of the details in the recurring figure of Sir Roger de Coverley. And he was to produce most of the serious moral essays that appeared regularly on Saturdays for more than a year. These famous features are all Addisonian and they are also remarkably coherent. They are features, that is, designed to serve a long run and to lend shape to essays collected eventually in bound volumes—features that rely on the assiduous interest of more than casual readers.

Addison's Spectator No. 1 comprehends all these advantages. The eidolon, a taciturn scholar-editor who in time became known as Mr. Spectator, presents himself and immediately invites the reader's approval. He outlines his past career, describes his current habits, and explains his reasons for undertaking this journal. He refers specifically to many differences between this work and any predecessors. And he handles all this essential information with an intriguing, playful sophistication.

He begins very self-consciously. “I have observed,” he writes,

that a Reader seldom peruses a Book with Pleasure 'till he knows whether the Writer of it be a black or a fair Man, of a mild or cholerick Disposition, Married or a Batchelor, with other Particulars of the like nature, that conduce very much to the right Understanding of an Author. To gratify this Curiosity, which is so natural to a Reader, I design this Paper, and my next, as Prefatory Discourses to my following Writings. …

The complex tone of the Spectator can be caught even in such a little sample. At first this new figure seems to be forthright, yet on second reading he almost seems to regard his reader as a curious third party to this discourse. An alert reader is thus invited to hear one tone playing against another here. One is that of a helpful, open, limited, humble author; the other is that of an assured, not to say condescending fellow, someone who knows that readers are often curious about irrelevant things (complexions and marital status) and chooses to dispose of such distractions quickly. We may notice a similar play of contraries in the way the eidolon describes his work. He has observed how a reader “peruses a Book,” and he has “design[ed]” his opening papers as “Prefatory Discourses.” This author is not merely trying to attract subscribers to ephemeral sketches in single penny sheets; he has his eye and hopes set on collected volumes, too. His words and gestures of respect toward the reader are shrewdly balanced to suit both forms of publication.

Such teasing, high play continues throughout the first paper. The author describes himself as a formidably learned and judicious observer. Yet at every turn he also reveals his ridiculously pretentious preparation. Born of a country family of excellent lineage, educated at the university, sent off on a grand tour through all of Europe, he is now a mature person familiar with all the most frequented spots in London. But his family was not only old; its estate “was bounded by the same Hedges and Ditches in William the Conqueror's Time that it is at present, and has been delivered down from Father to Son whole and entire, without the Loss or Acquisition of a single Field or Meadow, during the Space of six hundred Years.” His education was not only good; it was hardly serious enough for his own judicious temperament. As a baby he thought a rattle too frivolous, and at the university he read diligently but never spoke—a practice he has followed ever since. As for the grand tour, it began with an “insatiable Thirst after Knowledge” and concluded when, with the narrow curiosity of a virtuoso, “I made a Voyage to Grand Cairo, on purpose to take the Measure of a Pyramid; and as soon as I had set my self right in that Particular, returned to my Native Country with great Satisfaction.” Now in London he passes daily through exchanges, coffeehouses, and theaters—only to remain unrecognized by all but half a dozen friends. One may be tempted to respect his list of perfect credentials; they assure a subscriber that this paper will explore all kinds of knowledge. But the credentials are so perfect that they are also good for a laugh. The reader is forced to see how fictitious this personage is, too.

Altogether a new figure steps forth here who is both neutral and fascinating. Mr. Spectator avows late in this first issue that he will take no sides in political disputes, and this pledge is reinforced by what we see of him. “I never espoused any Party with Violence,” he says, “and am resolved to observe an exact Neutrality between the Whigs and Tories, unless I shall be forc'd to declare my self by the Hostilities of either side.” Such scrupulousness fits well with this true-born Englishman whose estate has passed untouched by disputes since the Conquest, and even better with a fellow so silent he can hardly espouse anything with violence! Yet Mr. Spectator is so enigmatic that he may well arouse a reader's curiosity and sustained interest. For all his observations about what readers want to know about authors, he finally does not tell whether he is black or fair, married or a bachelor. He flatly refuses to disclose his name, age, or lodgings, for fear that he will lose a comfortable obscurity: “It is for this Reason likewise, that I keep my Complexion and Dress, as very great Secrets.” But a reader may find out more about him—if he will keep on reading these little papers. “As for other Particulars in my Life and Adventures, I shall insert them in following Papers, as I shall see occasion,” he says, and he hints that all secrets will be unfolded in the progress of this work.

Some traits in this new figure may have drawn readers along to see a real author—either Addison or Steele—as the face behind the mask, but the papers of the first few weeks rule out such guesses. Mr. Spectator claims that he hardly ever speaks except in the company of his close friends, a trait that seems to match what we know of Addison's personal reserve. Yet a long account of the advantages of this taciturnity appears in No. 4—over the initial signature of the outspoken Steele—and the short face of Mr. Spectator, described in No. 17, matches Steele's short face in contemporary portraits. It is possible that these features were meant in part as clues to the real identity of the editors.¹⁷ But breadth of face and brevity of speech are also linked in several jokes at Mr. Spectator's own expense. “I am a little unhappy in the Mold of my Face, which is not quite so long as it is broad,” he explains in No. 17. “Whether this might not partly arise from my opening my Mouth much seldomer than other People, and by Consequence not so much lengthning the Fibres of my Visage, I am not at leisure to determine.” Two days later, in an essay on envy, he concludes by citing his own example:

Upon hearing in a Coffee-House one of my Papers commended, I immediately apprehended the Envy that would spring from that Applause; and therefore gave a Description of my Face the next Day; being resolved as I grow in Reputation for Wit, to resign my Pretensions to Beauty. This, I hope, may give some Ease to those unhappy Gentlemen, who do me the Honour to torment themselves upon the Account of this my Paper. As their Case is very deplorable, and deserves Compassion, I shall sometimes be dull, in Pity to them, and will from time to time administer Consolations to them by further Discoveries of my Person. In the mean while, if any one says the Spectator has Wit, it may be some Relief to them, to think that he does not show it in Company. And if any one praises his Morality, they may comfort themselves by considering that his Face is none of the longest.

(No. 19)

As a short-faced and silent person, Mr. Spectator is not Addison or Steele or even Addison-Steele; he is in his own right a figure at once superior and handicapped in comparison with most readers, an ingratiating fellow whom anyone would have to stretch a little to be like.

Still, the opening paper remains Addison's work, and the leading features of Mr. Spectator—as a private man, a scholar with impeccable credentials, and yet a teasingly playful observer of cities and men—surely conform to his particular strengths and his hopes for the project. The delineation of this single eidolon figure was evidently as congenial to Addison as the sketching of several clubfellows was to Steele in the paper that followed. And if the rallying of singularities was possible in a club, the perfection of elegance, purity, and correctness was possible in Mr. Spectator. Finally, therefore, the eidolon became not only a useful feature for attracting subscribers or a convenient mask for both Addison and Steele, but a means of opening a new relationship between Addison and the audience the Tatler had raised.

The promise of the new eidolon is exactly summed up in his name: he is a spectator. He is too mum to be a tatler, and too modest, timorous, hard to picture, and isolated to be compared with the broad, opaque figure of Isaac Bickerstaff. He is knowledgeable but safe, not to say negligible. On the other hand, he is a cut above mere journalists and gossips. He asserts his learning and entices a reader a little snobbishly. The name “spectator” seems derived partly from other periodicals. The Observator had been running for several years, and so had Defoe's Review. The Examiner had first appeared in 1710. Around the turn of the century there had also been a monthly pamphlet of amusements written by Ned Ward, the London Spy. All these titles make a conceit on the uses of the eye—that to read these periodicals is to see the world better—and the title of the Spectator does the same. But the Spectator does more. These earlier periodicals do not make much use of their titles or of the personifications (Mr. Observator, Mr. Review, Mr. Examiner) that resulted from some of them. The editors behind these eidola were interested in presenting their ideas and arguments plainly and convincingly. If they had called much attention to their devices, they might have raised distracting questions about their own modes of perception. The Spectator now raises these questions deliberately. As a “spectator” its eidolon sees not only clearly but with amusement; he sees the theatrical spectacle of life in London; and he projects himself as a playful, detached critic of what he observes and even of how he himself observes it. Especially the latter. He sees the world of London, in effect, much as the news reader of his time saw the world of Paris, Vienna, Muscovy, and Grand Cairo: he sees it in print. He stands actually far apart from participation in life, but claims to see better into life because of this distance—and we are forced to see how ridiculous he is in taking this pose. The strong suggestion at work here is that he will be worthy of respect—and we will, too—only when the print before us proves itself more intricate, philosophical, and telling than the undigested materials of experience, such as news.

We have seen that practical considerations demanded that the new eidolon be attractive, funny, and innocuous. But on second glance his features seem shaped just as much by this subtle policy toward readers. He is appealing, but he is also learned. When he goes out of his way to name his defects, he explicitly says he does so in order to take the edge off his readers' envy (No. 19). The source of his awkward embarrassments—his being taken for a Jew (No. 1) or a Jesuit (No. 4), or his being admitted to the Ugly Club (No. 32)—is the same as the resource that makes him a fit editor: he has withdrawn from the world of tattle and gossip into the refuge of study. As his face has become distorted from so little speech, his mind has become enlarged to formidable proportions. Now he holds forth this double nature with a double-edged appeal, permitting a reader to rely confidently on his powers yet preventing his admiration from hardening into diffidence. And as he flatters his readers and laughs at himself, he gently but firmly ridicules those who see but do not perceive. As a class, mere “spectators” deserve his pointed remarks. In No. 4 he refers to “Mortals who have a certain Curiosity without Power of Reflection, and perused my Papers like Spectators rather than Readers.” In No. 10 he is less harsh but still disapproving toward “my good Brothers and Allies, … the Fraternity of Spectators who live in the World without having any thing to do in it; and either by the Affluence of their Fortunes, or Laziness of their Dispositions, have no other Business with the rest of Mankind but to look upon them.”¹⁸ His own life is nothing but sight, but he insists that he and others should see actively and with penetration—in a word, with the discipline of good readers.

He does not claim occult powers for himself. Unlike Bickerstaff, he cannot foresee events and predict their outcome. But he does claim a special acuity for his eye. “I live in the World,” he says,

rather as a Spectator of Mankind, than as one of the Species; by which means I have made my self a Speculative Statesman, Soldier, Merchant and Artizan, without ever medling with any Practical Part in Life. I am very well versed in the Theory of an Husband, or a Father, and can discern the Errors in the Oeconomy, Business, and Diversion of others, better than those who are engaged in them; as Standers-by discover Blots, which are apt to escape those who are in the Game.

(No. 1)

In No. 4 he carries his boasts even further:

It is remarkable, that those who want any one Sense, possess the others with greater Force and Vivacity. Thus my Want of, or rather Resignation of Speech, gives me all the Advantages of a dumb Man. I have, methinks, a more than ordinary Penetration in Seeing; and flatter my self that I have looked into the Highest and Lowest of Mankind, and make shrewd Guesses, without being admitted to their Conversation, at the inmost Thoughts and Reflections of all whom I behold.

And not only do these eyes take in much; they also project much in return. “Those who converse with the Dumb,” he goes on to explain, “know from the Turn of their Eyes and the Changes of their Countenance their Sentiments of the Objects before them.” Then he narrates how a companion at the playhouse recently uttered his exact thoughts for him—which he could do merely by noticing the movements of his glance. He silently communicates by the sheer power of his eyes! Sometimes he can make another become clear-sighted and articulate, too. For example, No. 6 opens with Sir Roger de Coverley speaking vehemently and confusedly about modern vices and follies. But “I look'd intentively upon him, which made him I thought collect his Mind a little.” Thereafter Sir Roger speaks cogently to the end of the essay.

Mr. Spectator's heightened vision thus penetrates into human character. He sees hundreds of objects in the course of his daily walks, and, as he remarks here, when he approaches another person he sees into his life. This kind of seeing is invaluable to a would-be moralist. Moreover, his power to communicate by sight alone promises that he will intimately influence the way his readers see.

For reading and seeing with Mr. Spectator are finally the same activity. An individual subscriber, in the act of reading, might well find himself becoming like this eidolon—silent, visually alert, and momentarily oblivious of his own detailed identity—all for the sake of observing with new delight his own commonplace world. For a few moments each morning he too might become a “spectator” and let the name of the sheet he reads apply to him. In this way, the eidolon represents a subtle and extensive relationship between the editors and their readers; he serves as a common silhouette for both parties to an agreeable visionary contract. He is superior in many respects to what any individual Londoner could be. Yet his principal advantage is that he sees better than anyone else, and his very existence promises to exercise and improve the reader's vision—and to do it pleasurably.

Finally, he concentrates the reader's vision upon good reading matter. He directs the eye to titles, mottoes, and passages from great works and makes his own paragraphs models of good prose—surely better than other gray journalistic fare. He is at last a scholar and a critic who claims to have applied himself “with so much Diligence to my Studies, that there are very few celebrated Books, either in the Learned or the Modern Tongues, which I am not acquainted with” (No. 1). Behind this boast stands the Addison who had been a tutor at Oxford, collaborated with Dryden, and conversed with Boileau.

Addison explicitly presses the reader to amend his habits as early as No. 10. Steele had anticipated this famous issue in No. 4 by describing the audiences both editors hoped to address—pointing his remarks at the “Blanks” of society, who know nothing until they have read a morning paper; at mere “Spectators” upon the world's business; and at women, who, he insists, have grace and intelligence enough to be pleasantly instructed. But in repeating these categories, Addison is at pains to set out an impressive statement of purpose. Steele had lightly teased these various London types. Addison more earnestly entreats them to leave off reading other papers in favor of the Spectator. “Is it not much better,” Mr. Spectator asks, “to be let into the Knowledge of ones-self, than to hear what passes in Muscovy or Poland; and to amuse our selves with such Writings as tend to the wearing out of Ignorance, Passion, and Prejudice, than such as naturally conduce to inflame Hatreds and make Enmities irreconcileable?” And the long opening paragraph contains an elaborate plea for reading as an antidote to vice and folly:

It is with much Satisfaction that I hear this great City inquiring Day by Day after these my Papers, and receiving my Morning Lectures with a becoming Seriousness and Attention. My Publisher tells me, that there are already Three Thousand of them distributed every Day: So that if I allow Twenty Readers to every Paper, which I look upon as a modest Computation, I may reckon about Three-score thousand Disciples in London and Westminster, who I hope will take care to distinguish themselves from the thoughtless Herd of their ignorant and unattentive Brethren. Since I have raised to my self so great an Audience, I shall spare no Pains to make their Instruction agreeable, and their Diversion useful. For which Reasons I shall endeavour to enliven Morality with Wit, and to temper Wit with Morality, that my Readers may, if possible, both Ways find their Account in the Speculation of the Day. And to the End that their Virtue and Discretion may not be short transient intermitting Starts of Thought, I have resolved to refresh their Memories from Day to Day, till I have recovered them out of that desperate State of Vice and Folly into which the Age is fallen. The Mind that lies fallow but a single Day, sprouts up in Follies that are only to be killed by a constant and assiduous Culture. It was said of Socrates, that he brought Philosophy down from Heaven, to inhabit among Men; and I shall be ambitious to have it said of me, that I have brought Philosophy out of Closets and Libraries, Schools and Colleges, to dwell in Clubs and Assemblies, at Tea-Tables, and in Coffee-Houses.

The language here again may seem to betray Addison and Steele speaking nakedly to their readers. The line about enlivening morality with wit and tempering wit with morality clearly echoes Steele's claim that his purpose in the Tatler was to “insinuate, if I could, the Weight of Reason with the Agreeableness of Wit.” And Addison was soon designing papers and series for the Spectator as though assiduous reading from day to day would indeed lead to widespread moral improvement. But we should notice first of all how this passage rounds out the character of the eidolon. The identification of moral improvement with reading improvement is the ultimate step to be taken by a didactic figure whose whole life is his eyes and who reveals himself only in print. And this doctrine, in return, takes on a peculiar life and force by appearing in his words.

Because Mr. Spectator holds out these ideas, they seem active rather than abstract and intellectual. The process of reading does not seem like parsing or decoding or interpreting, but like direct perception. Through his eyes, one can practice philosophy, not learn it. The reader has constantly before him both refined language and an agreeable ethical model. In fact, they are the same. For this reason, the hard work of reading and learning may seem softened to engagement in a congenial conversation. Mr. Spectator is a fit companion for the tea table. Philosophy is sociable enough to fill the air of clubs, assemblies, and coffee-houses. Finally, Mr. Spectator is so obviously a made-up figure that he exists only because a reader plays along with the fiction. Whoever takes up these papers is almost forced to engage with them “politely”; he must feel a tickle of sophistication at the same time that he is being formally sophisticated. Wit, morality, and distinction may all seem within reach to him because they fall together so easily on this page in which he participates; they gently haunt it in the phantom, speculative image of this eidolon.

In discussing the character of Mr. Spectator it is perhaps easy to draw out too much—to find seriousness weighing heavily in passages that call for a laugh, and intricate suggestions in hastily published, short essays. But the creation of an eidolon is essentially an intricate, serious matter. Such a character is not the imaginative offspring of its author alone. It indicates what editors believe about the public they address, and it reflects the peculiar circumstances of format, schedule, and distribution through which they must work. It may therefore embody more complexity than an author consciously gives it. This is not to say that Addison and Steele created Mr. Spectator largely out of some vague journalistic instinct. Rather, their conscious, deliberate touches in this character were determined, limited, and enhanced by larger choices and circumstances affecting the entire periodical.

It should also be emphasized that such a figure could not be tightly controlled by even the subtlest of editors. Mr. Spectator was destined to develop further in the course of time and reflect an ongoing process rather than an absolutely rigid program. He would gain new touches as he passed from author to author, and new dimensions, too, as he came in touch with other club members, a variety of topics, and the responses of readers.

Still, we have before us in these early papers a clear-sighted attempt on the part of Addison and Steele to replace Bickerstaff with an agreeable image of authors, work, and audience all at once. The best that they could draw together from their different experiences seems to have been self-consciously reviewed, condensed, reconciled, and sketched into this character. To review these earliest essays closely is to find oneself dealing with an ephemeral essay sheet, a putative editor at once formidable and ridiculous, the high-minded claims of both sheet and editor, and the undeniable polish of an author or authors behind the whole enterprise. This is certainly a more complex surface than any other folio half-sheets had presented—and a more promising one.

Because the Spectator and “Mr. Spectator” are titles that literally invite the eye to see through them, the character of this eidolon may seem unobtrusive and negligible. Yet his few features exert a definite and consistent influence on the essays he promises to produce. And his exaggerated claims play upon a reader's amused assent at the same time that they seem to urge it. He not only grasps the new possibilities of the form he inhabits; he gives life to them in his opening words: “I have observed …”

Notes

1. Richmond P. Bond, The Tatler: The Making of a Literary Journal (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), pp. 166-67; Alexandre Beljame, Men of Letters and the English Public in the Eighteenth Century, 1660-1744 (1881), ed. Bonamy Dobrée, trans. E. O. Lorimer (London, 1948), pp. 311-12; William Kinsley, “Meaning and Format: Mr. Spectator and His Folio Half-Sheets,” ELH, 34 (1967), 482-94; Roy M. Wiles, “The Periodical Essay: Lures to Readership,” English Symposium Papers, 2 (Fredonia, N.Y., 1972), 3-40, esp. 30-31.

2. Irvin Ehrenpreis has cautiously defined this term and argued against its loose application to eighteenth-century works (“Personae,” in Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Literature: Essays in Honor of Alan Dugald McKillop, ed. Carroll Camden [Chicago, 1963], pp. 25-37).

3. See also Richmond P. Bond, “Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.,” in Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Literature, pp. 113-14.

4. The Correspondence of Richard Steele, ed. Rae Blanchard (London, 1941), p. 449.

5. For the fullest accounts of this hoax, see Irvin Ehrenpreis, Swift: The Man, his Works, and the Age, II: Dr Swift (London, 1967), 197-209; Bond, “Bickerstaff,” pp. 103-13; Richmond P. Bond, “John Partridge and the Company of Stationers,” SB, 16 (1963), 61-80; and George P. Mayhew, “Swift's Bickerstaff Hoax as an April Fools' Joke,” MP, 61 (1964), 270-80.

6. Ehrenpreis, Dr Swift, p. 207.

7. For the aptness of these regular Tatler date lines for Steele's purposes, see Bryant Lillywhite, London Coffee Houses (London, 1963), pp. 243, 500-501, 639-40, and 655-57; and Bond, The Tatler, p. 4.

8. The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, ed. Herbert Davis, 14 vols. (Oxford, 1939-68), II, xxv-xxvii; Ehrenpreis, Dr Swift, p. 242.

9. Preface to Tatler, IV, octavo ed. (London, 1711).

10. Steele did not invite correspondence from his readers until the third week of publication; then he inserted an urgent invitation, at the opening of No. 7. This is another possible indication that he saw the Tatler as a Bickerstaff joke in the opening issues and that he was serious in protesting that he had to have collaborators to carry on such a work. See Bond, The Tatler, pp. 135-36.

11. Bond, The Tatler, pp. 184-86.

12. Bond, The Tatler, pp. 196-206. For illustrations of these rival periodicals, see Contemporaries of the “Tatler” and “Spectator,” intro. Richmond P. Bond, Augustan Reprint Society Publication No. 47 (Los Angeles, 1954).

13. Richmond P. Bond, “The Pirate and the Tatler,” The Library, 5th ser., 18 (1963), 257-74.

14. Memoranda of Steele's accounts are reprinted in George A. Aitken, The Life of Richard Steele, 2 vols. (London and Boston, 1889), I, 330-31. Bond reports that only one other major early periodical, Ward's London Spy, had been fully reprinted at all (“The Pirate and the Tatler,” p. 273); see also Bond, The Tatler, p. 203.

15. See Steele, Correspondence, pp. 461-62, n. 2; and Donald F. Bond, ed., The Spectator, 5 vols. (Oxford, 1965), I, lxxii-lxxiii. Both authorities date the earliest Spectator advertisements on November 20, 1711; the first two volumes of the Spectator, which appeared after a delay on January 8, 1712, contained Nos. 1-169, i.e., papers published through September 13, 1711.

    All quotations from the Spectator are from Bond's edition.

16. It is hard to make an arbitrary decision about what constitutes a set or series in the Tatler. Steele often introduced characters—such as Cynthio and Pacolet—who reappeared frequently, and he devised features—such as the Table of Fame—that required several issues to be fully set out. He also invited contributions and kept up discussions of ongoing topics such as gaming and dueling. But deliberately planned and coordinated essays on a single topic are hard to isolate in this periodical apart from Nos. 152, 154, and 156, by Addison, on various accounts of life after death. See Bond, The Tatler, pp. 154-57, 180-82, and notes.

17. Further identification of this sort is suggested by Charles Lillie's letter in No. 16, asking to distribute the new journal. Lillie had been a well-known distributor for the Tatler, and Steele had often referred to him by name in Tatler essays.

18. See also Steele's brief strictures against staring (No. 20) and Addison's frustrated “hint” on ogling (No. 46).