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Chapter 4: The Spectator Club: Addison & Steele

Critical Comments
The first of our society is a gentleman of Worcestershire, of an ancient descent, a baronet,
his name Sir Roger de Coverley
...
All who know that shire are very well acquainted
with the parts and merits of Sir Roger
...
However, this humour creates him no
enemies, for he does nothing with sourness or obstinacy; and his being unconfined to modes
and forms makes him but the readier and more capable to please and oblige all who know him
...
It is said he keeps himself a bachelor by reason he
was crossed in love by a perverse beautiful widow of the next county to him
...
(The Spectator Club, March
1st, 1711)
Basic Set Up:
Richard Steele introduces the character Sir Roger de Coverley, a member of the Spectator Club
...
Even though de Coverley's a fictional character, he represents a certain class of
English gentleman
...
It's one example of how Augustan writers used fiction to make political and
social statements about what was going on around them
...
That makes this straight up fiction, which means that even though The Spectator
was a journalistic publication, a lot of the writing published in it was fictional
...
Novelists like Defoe
and Swift routinely framed their novels as journalistic works, stories that were being told, and
here we see Steele upping the ante by publishing a fictional work in an actual journalistic
periodical
...

Now we come to a satirist of quite another spirit whose wit, it has been said, “makes us
laugh and leaves us good and happy
...
He was born in 1672 in the quaint little thatched
parsonage of Milston, a Wiltshire village, not far from that strange monument of ancient
days, Stonehenge
...
Of his schooldays we
know little, but we can guess, for one story that has come down to us, that he was a shy,
nervous boy
...
He hid in a wood, sleeping in a
hollow tree and feeding on wild berries until he was found and taken home to his parents
...
For Dick was merry, noisy,
and fun-loving, and although Joseph loved fun too it was in a quiet, shy way
...
He was born in
Ireland, but did not [466] remain there long
...

From Charterhouse Joseph and Dick both went to Oxford, but to different Colleges
...


Joseph Addison had gone to College with the idea of becoming a clergyman like his
father, but after a time he gave up that idea, and turned his thoughts to politics
...
Already at college Addison had
become known by his Latin poetry, and three Whig statesmen thought so highly of it that
they offered him a pension of 300 pounds a year to allow him to travel on the Continent

and learn French and so add to his learning as to be able to help their side by his writing
...
For four years he wandered
about the Continent, adding to his store of knowledge of men and books, meeting many
of the foremost men of letters of his day
...
So back in London we find him
cheerfully be taking himself to a poor lodging up three flights of stairs, hoping for
something to turn up
...
Blenheim had
been fought
...
But the verse was poor, and it seemed to those in power that this great victory
ought to be celebrated more worthily, so the Lord Treasurer looked about him for [467]
some one who could sing of it in fitting fashion
...
To help the Lord Treasurer out of
his difficulty one of the great men who had already befriended Addison suggested him as
a suitable writer
...


A shy boy at school, Addison had grown into a shy, retiring man, and no doubt he was
not a little taken aback at a visit from so great a personage
...
"In short, the Chancellor said so many obliging things, and in so graceful a
manner, as gave Mr
...
"
The poem was a great success, and besides being paid for the work, Addison received a
Government post, so once more life ran smoothly for him
...
His Government duties left him time to write, and in the next few years he
published a delightful book of his travels, and an opera
...
Everything went well with
him
...
He,
however, only became a member of Parliament
...
Swift and Addison already
knew each other, and Addison had sent a copy of his travels to Swift as & “to the most
agreeable companion, the truest friend, and the greatest genius of his age
...
And even later, in those
days of bitter party feeling, when Swift left his own side and became a Tory, though their
friendship cooled, they never became enemies
...
Addison with all his humor and his satire never attacked any man
personally, so their relations continued friendly and courteous to the end
...
Addison and I are as different as black and white, and I believe our friendship will
go off by this business of party
...
" “All our friendship and dearness are off
...
Is it not odd?” Then later the first bitterness
of difference seems to pass, and Swift tells how he went to Addison& for supper
...
”
It was while Addison was in Ireland that Richard Steele started a paper called the Tatler
...
And he helped to such good purpose that Steele says, “I fared like a
distressed prince who calls in a powerful neighbour to his aid
...
”
This was the beginning of a long literary partnership that has become famous
...
Yet, says Steele, long after,
speaking of himself and Addison, & “There never was a more strict friendship than between
those gentlemen, nor had they ever any difference but what proceeded [469] from their
different way of pursuing the same thing
...
When they met they
were as unreserved as boys, and talked of the greatest affairs, upon which they saw where
they differed, without pressing (what they knew impossible) to convert each other “;
The Tatler, like Defoe Review, was a leaflet of two or three pages, published three times
a week
...
But the latter was written with far greater genius, and while the Review is
almost forgotten theTatler is still remembered and still read
...
"
The coffee-houses and chocolate-houses were the clubs of the day
...
And in these still nearly newspaper less days it was in the coffee-houses that the
latest news, whether of politics or literature or sheer gossip, was heard and discussed
...
So Steele dated each [470] article from the coffee- house at which the
subject of it would most naturally be discussed
...

You have heard that, after the Restoration, many of the books that were written, and plays
that were acted, were coarse and wicked, and the people who read these books and
watched these plays led coarse and wicked lives
...
The Tatler, especially after Addison joined with Steele in producing it, was a great
success
...
For Addison is among the greatest of our essayists
...
At times the papers fairly bubble with fun
...
It is perhaps as delightful a lying tale as any that &
“learned and worthy knight” ever invented
...
But meanwhile the Whigs fell from power and
Addison lost his government post
...
Who the
lady-love was is not known, but doubtless she was some great lady ready enough to marry a
Secretary of State, but not a poor scribbler
...
The Spectator was still further from the ordinary newspaper than the Tatler
...
In order to give interest to the paper,
instead of dating the articles from various coffee-houses, as had been done in the Tatler,
Addison and Steele between them imagined a club
...
In the first numbers
of the Spectator these members are described to us
...
He is the editor of the paper
...
He is seen, and
he sees and listens, but seldom opens his lips
...
Spectator, the chief member of the
Club was Sir Roger de Coverley
...
All who know that shire (in which he lives), are very well
acquainted with the parts and merits of Sir Roger
...
” He was careless of fashion
in dress, and wore a coat and doublet which, he used laughingly to say, had been in and out
twelve times since he first wore it
...
His tenants grow rich,
his servants look satisfied
...
When he comes into a house he calls the servants by their names, and
talks all the way upstairs to a visit

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