my self obliged to give an Account to the Town of my Time hereafter, since I retire when their Partiality to me is so great, that an Edition of the former Volumes of Spectators of above Nine thousand each Book, is already sold off, and the Tax on each half Sheet has brought into the Stamp-Office one Week with another above 207. a Week arising from this single Paper, notwithstanding it at first reduced it to less than half the Number that was usually Printed before this Tax was laid.

"I humbly beseech the Continuance of this Inclination to favour what I may hereafter produce, and hope I have in many Occurrences of Life tasted so deeply of Pain and Sorrow, that I am Proof against much more prosperous Circumstances than any Advantages to which my own Industry can possibly exalt me.

The best accounts of the Spectator are in the Dictionary of National Biography (under Addison) and in Aitken's Life of Sir Richard Steele, bk. v, chap. i.

56 Motto: Horace, Ars Poet., 143-144:

One with a flash begins, and ends in smoke;
Another out of smoke brings glorious light,
And (without raising expectation high)

Surprises us with dazzling miracles. - ROSCOMMON.

56 2-3 Black or fair of dark or light complexion.

56 3 Cholerick: see note to p. 64, 1. 20.

57 31 Grand Cairo: This is supposed to be a sarcasm on the Orientalist John Greaves (1602-1652), Professor of Astronomy at Oxford, who published Pyramidographia, or a Discourse of the Pyramids of Egypt (1646). His works were collected and edited by Birch in 1737, London, 2 vols. The Spectator mentions Grand Cairo again in Nos. 8, 17, 46, 69, 101, 159, 604. Compare the learned German whom Addison met on his travels (Bohn, I, 432).

58 5-20 On the coffee-houses in general, see Cunningham and Wheatley, London Past and Present; E. F. Robinson, The Early History of Coffee Houses in England, London, 1893; Timbs, Clubs and Club Life in London; Larwood and Hotten, History of Signboards; Ashton, Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne, chaps. 18 and 19; Sydney, England and the English in the Eighteenth Century, I, chap. 6.

587 Will's at No. 1, Bow Street, corner of Russell Street; named from William Urwin, who kept it. Cf. Tatler 1 ("poetry under that of Will's Coffee-House ") and Wheatley and Cunningham, III, 517 ff. In Congreve's Love for Love, i, 1, Jeremy says: "Confound that Will's coffee-house: it has ruined more young men than the Royal Oak lottery." 589 Child's in St. Paul's Churchyard. Cf. Spect. 556, 609. 58 10 Post-Man: see Notes, p. 34, l. 10.

58 12 St. James's Coffee-house: on the south-west corner of St. James's Street, a Whig coffee-house. See Spect. 24, 403. “Foreign and domestic news," says the first Tatler, "you shall have from St. James's Coffee House." John Macky notes in his Journey through England (ed. 1722, p. 168): “I must not forget to tell you, that the Parties have their different places, where however a stranger is always well received; but a Whig will no more go to the Cocoa-Tree or Ozinda's than a Tory will be seen at St. James."

58 13 Politicks: politicians.

58 14-15 The Grecian: in Devereaux Court, Strand. It was named from one Constantine, a Greek, who kept it. Cf. Spect. 49, 403; Tat. 6; Thoresby's Diary, 22 May, 1712, and 17 June, 1712.

58 15 Cocoa-Tree: 64 St. James's Street, a Tory coffee-house. See Wheatley and Cunningham's London.

58 15-16 Drury-Lane; Hay-Market: The Drury Lane Theatre (Theatre Royal) of Addison's time was the second, designed by Wren and opened (with a prologue by Dryden "On the Opening of the New House") in 1674. For its inside appearance in 1701, see Colley Cibber's Apology, ed. 1740, p. 338. The Haymarket Opera House, built and established by Sir John Vanbrugh, was opened April 9, 1705, with a performance of Dryden's Indian Emperor." (Wheatley and Cunningham, London, II, 199.) It is to be distinguished from "The Little Theatre in the Haymarket," which was not opened until 1721.

58 17 The Exchange: the (second) Royal Exchange.

58 18 Jonathan's: in 'Change Alley, Cornhill. It was "the general mart for Stock-jobbers” (Tat. 38). At Jonathan's is laid the first scene in the fourth act of Mrs. Centlivre's A Bold Stroke for a Wife (1718). The stage setting reads: " 'Jonathan's Coffee-house, in 'Change-alley. A crowd of People with Rolls of Paper and Parchment in their Hands; a Bar, and Coffee Boys waiting. Enter Tradelove and Stock-Jobbers, with Rolls of Paper and Parchment."

58 28-29 Blots . . . the game: The game here seems to be backgammon, in which a "blot" (Oxford Dictionary, "blot," 2) is the action of exposing a piece so that it is liable to be taken.

60 8 Mr. Buckley's: At the end of the original sheets of the Spectator one reads: London: Printed for Sam. Buckley, at the Dolphin

in Little Britain."

60 Motto: Juv., Sat., vii, 166–167:

Haec alii sex

Vel plures, uno conclamant ore.

Six more at least join their consenting voice.

60 14 Sir Roger de Coverly: Sir Roger is mentioned in Spectator 2 (Steele); 6 (S.); 34 (Addison); 100 (S.); 106 (A.); 107 (S.); 108 (A.); 109 (S.); 110 (A.); 112 (A.); 113 (S.); 114 (S.); 115 (A.); 116 (Budgell); 117 (A.); 118 (S.); 119 (A.); 120 (A.); 122 (A.); 123 (A.); 125 (A.); 126 (A.); 127 (A.); 128 (A.); 130 (A.); 131 (A.); 132 (S.); 137 (S.); 141 (S.); 161 (B.); 174 (S.); 212 (S.); 221 (A.); 251 (A.); 264 (S.); 269 (A.); 271 (A.); 295 (A.); 329 (A.); 331 (B.); 335 (A.); 338 (?); 359 (B.); 383 (A.); 395 (B.); 401 (B.); 424 (S.); 435 (A.); 517 (A.); 518 (S.).

Tyers (in An Historical Essay on Mr. Addison, 1782) found the original of Sir Roger in Sir John Pakington (1671–1727) a Worcestershire knight indeed, but twice married and an eager and successful politician and Member of Parliament. For a fuller statement of the discrepancies between Sir Roger and Sir John, see Dict. Nat. Biog.

Sir Roger is really a refinement upon the comparatively abstract characters of earlier writers: upon Sir Jeoffrey Notch of the Tatler, of course, and perhaps upon much earlier and more abstract sketches, such as the following of "An upstart country knight" in Earle's Microcosmographie, 1628: "His house-keeping is seen much in the distinct families of dogs, and serving-men attendant on their kennels, and the deepness of their throats is the depth of his discourse. A hawk he esteems the true burden of nobility, and is exceeding ambitious to seem delighted in the sport, and have his fist gloved with his jesses. A justice of peace he is to domineer in his parish, and do his neighbour wrong with more right.... He is fearful of being sheriff of the shire by instinct, and dreads the assize-week as much as the prisoner."

Contemporary evidence on the intention of the Spectator is, on the one hand, the passage in the preface to Budgell's translation of Theophrastus, 1714, in which he says that "Theophrastus was the Spectator of the age he lived in. He drew the pictures of particular men," etc.; and, on the other hand, such statements as that by Tickell in his preface to Addison's Works (p. xiii) about “the feigned person of the Author, and of the several characters that compose his club"; by

Steele or Addison in Spect. 262 ("When I place an imaginary name at the head of a character, I examine every syllable, every letter of it, that it may not bear any resemblance to one that is real"); and by Addison himself in a dozen such passages as that in No. 34, where he says, “I must... entreat every particular person, who does me the honour to be a reader of this paper, never to think himself, or any of his friends or enemies, aimed at in what is said: for I promise him, never to draw a faulty character which does not fit at least a thousand people," or in Nos. 567 and 568, where Addison makes such excellent fun of the overwise coffee-house politicians who read into innocent Spectator papers all sorts of treasonable utterances. Cf. also Spect. 46.

All this search for originals is a tribute to the vividness of the Spectator's characters: no one thinks of trying to find the prototype of Earle's abstract country squire. And yet this vast gain in distinctness argues no difference in method, but simply a difference in skill: instead of proving the absence of an original in Earle's case, or the presence of one in Addison's, it simply shows that the creator of Sir Roger surpassed previous efforts at character writing by having a greater measure of skill at this kind of portraiture.

60 15-16 Famous country-dance: Chappell's Old English Popular Music, II,46 n., says that "according to Ralph Thoresby's MS. account of the family of Calverley, of Calverley in Yorkshire, the dance of Roger de Coverley was named after a knight who lived in the reign of Richard I." It appears, according to Chappell, in Playford's Division Violin, 1685; The Dancing Master, 1696, etc. In Tatler 34 it is called Roger de Caubly.

60 25 Soho-Square: also known as King's Square; on the south side of Oxford Street. According to Strype (1720), it was " a very large and open Place, enclosed with a high Pallisado Pale, the Square within being neatly kept. . . . This Square hath very good Buildings on all Sides, especially the East and South, which are well inhabited by Nobility and Gentry." (Bk. vi, p. 87.) Mr. Wills notes that "Sir Roger changed his residence at each subsequent visit to London. The 'Spectator' in his 335th number, lodges him in Norfolk Street, Strand, and in No. 410, in Bow Street, Covent Garden."

60 27 A perverse beautiful Widow: She has been identified with a certain Mrs. Catherine Bovey (1669-1726), to whom Steele dedicated the second volume of his Ladies' Library. She is the Portia of Mrs. Manley's New Atalantis. See Dict. Nat. Biog., VI, 37-38; Wills's note; Coombe's Westminster Abbey, II, 36, and Fig. 12 in Plate 17.

61 2 My Lord Rochester: John Wilmot (1647-1680), second Earl of Rochester, poet and man of fashion, whom Evelyn (24 Nov., 1670) calls "a very prophane wit," and of whom Pepys (17 Feb., 1669) thought it "to the King's everlasting shame to have so idle a rogue his companion," is perhaps best remembered for his epigram on Charles II:

Here lies our sovereign lord the king,

Whose word no man relies on;
He never said a foolish thing,

Nor ever did a wise one.

The best edition of Rochester's works is that in 2 vols., London, 17311732; the best short sketch of his life is in the Dict. Nat. Biog.

61 2-3 Sir George Etherege: Sir George Etheredge (1635?-1691 ?), English dramatist, wrote The Comical Revenge, or Love in a Tub, 1664; She Would if She Could, 1668; The Man of Mode, or Sir Fopling Flutter, 1676. The best account of his life is in the Dict. Nat. Biog.; the best edition of his works is that by A. W. Verity, London, 1888. Rochester and Etheredge were friends, so that Sir Roger may be supposed often to have met them together: see the Hatton Correspondence, ed. E. M. Thompson for the Camden Society, I, 133, for an account of a drunken frolic in which Rochester and Etheredge attacked the watch at Epsom.

W

614 Bully Dawson: According to Oldys (MS. note in Brit. Mus. copy of Langbaine's Lives), Dawson was the original of Captain Hackaw in Shadwell's Squire of Alsatia. In Tom Brown's Letters from the Dead to the Living (p. 62) Bully Dawson writes to Bully 'If you intend to be my Rival in Glory, you must fight a Bailiff once a Day, stand Kick and Cuff once a week, Challenge some Coward or other once a Month, Bilk your Lodging once a Quarter, and Cheat a Taylor once a Year...; never till then will the fame of Bully W -n ring like Dawson's in every Coffee-house, or be the merry Subject of every Tavern Tittle-tattle."

61 27 The Game-act: see Notes, p. 146, l. 17.

61 29 The Inner-Temple: One of the Inns of Court, the others being the Middle Temple, Gray's Inn, and Lincoln's Inn. The property, which lies between Fleet Street and the Thames, was acquired by lease from the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, to whom it had passed at the death of the Earl of Pembroke. See Wheatley and Cunningham's London, under "Temple" and "Inns of Court."

621 Longinus: The treatise "On the Sublime " (Пepì "Tyovs), which in Addison's time was thought to be the work of the historical Longinus