ing, complimenting, pasquinading? Why, as we turn over the papers preceding that number 81 which must be said to have begun the regular contributions of Addison, there` is hardly a trait that does not flash upon us of the bright wit, the cordial humour, the sly satire, the subtle yet kindly criticism, the good-nature and humanity, which have endeared this delightful book to successive generations of readers. There is, indeed, not less prominent at the outset than it continued to the close, the love of theatrical representations, and no doubt actors are criticised and preachers too; but we require no better proof than the very way in which this is done, of the new and original spirit that entered with it into periodical literature. In both the critic finds means of detecting countless affectations; and no one acquainted with the Pulpit of that day, need feel surprise at the hints he gives of the service the Stage might render it, or that Mr. Betterton should have borrowed from Mr. Bickerstaff the answer to Sancroft's question-why it was that actors, speaking of things imaginary, affected audiences as if they were real; while preachers, speaking of things real, could only affect their congregations as with things imaginary? "Why "indeed I don't know; unless it is that we actors speak "of things imaginary as if they were real, while you in "the pulpit speak of things real as if they were imagi

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nary." An admirable paper to the same effect among the early Tatlers is that wherein he tells us, that in tragical representations of the highest kind it is not the pomp of language, or the magnificence of dress, in which the passion is wrought that touches sensible spirits, "but "something of a plain and simple nature which breaks in

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upon our souls by that sympathy which is given us for "our mutual good will and service." And he illustrates his position by the example of Macduff when he hears of the murder of his children, and of Brutus when he speaks of the death of Portia.

1 Tatler, No. 68.

There is no criticism of Shakespeare in that day at all comparable to this of Steele's, at the outset and to the close of the Tatler. With no set analysis or fine-spun theory, but dropped only here and there, and from time to time, with a careless grace, it is yet of the subtlest discrimination. He places the great dramatist as high in philosophy as in poetry, and in the ethics of human life and passion quotes ever his authority as supreme. None but Steele then thought of criticising him in that strain. The examples just quoted, for instance, are used as lessons in art, but also as experiences for patience under actual sorrow; and he finely adds, that it is in life itself exactly as at one of his plays, where we see the man overwhelmed by grief yet struggling to bear it with decency and patience, we "sigh for him and give him every groan he suppresses." In another Tatler (No. 47) he separates the author of Othello from the ordinary tragic poets, from the gentlemen, as he calls them, "who write in the buskin style" (and they were legion then, beginning with his friend Mr. Rowe, and ending, though he refused to see that, with his friend Mr. Addison), by the excellent distinction that it always seems as if Shakespeare were suffering the events represented, while the rest were merely looking on. In short, he says, there is no medium in these attempts, and you must go to the very bottom of the heart, or it is all mere language. His advice to his tragic friends therefore is, that they should read Shakespeare with care, and they will soon be deterred from putting forth what they persuade themselves to call tragedy. They are to read him, and to understand the distinction between pretending to be a thing, and being the thing they pretend. They are to read particularly, and mark the differences between the two-the speech which old Northumberland addresses to the Messenger before, and that which he utters after, he knows of the death of Hotspur, his son; the last, one of the noblest passages in the whole of Shakespeare.' And

1 Colley Cibber soon afterwards did what he could to vulgarise that

speech of Northumberland's, by wrenching it out of its place, to fit it

he warns them that "he who pretends to be sorrowful and "is not, is a wretch yet more contemptible than he who "pretends to be merry and is not."

In this mode of eliciting, not merely canons of taste, but moral truths and rules of conduct, from the plays he sees acted, or the books he has been reading, Steele enriched his earliest and his latest Tatlers with a style of criticism which he must be said to have created. Nor is he satisfied with less than the highest models; delighting not more to place the philosophy above the poetry of Shakespeare, than to discover the sweetness and grace which underlie the majesty of Milton. The sixth Tatler begins the expression of his reverence for the latter poet, and not until the last line of the last Tatler, on which Shakespeare's name is imprinted, does it cease in regard to either. It was he, and not his friend, who, in that age of little faith, first raised again the poet of Paradise; his allusions to him, from the very commencement, are incessant; and a Tatler of but a few days earlier than that just quoted contains not only the noble lines in which Adam contemplates the sleeping Eve, but, by way of comment on its picture of manly affection made up of respect and tenderness, throws out this delightful remark. "This is "that sort of passion which truly deserves the name of "love, and has something more generous than friendship "itself; for it has a constant care of the object beloved,

"abstracted from its own interests in the possession "of it."

At a time in no way remarkable for refinement, Steele's gallantry to women, thus incessantly expressed in The Tatler to the last, was that of a Sir Tristan or Sir Calidore; and in not a small degree, to every household into which it carried such unaccustomed language, this was a ground of its extraordinary success. Inseparable always from his passion is the exalted admiration he feels; and his love is the very flower of his respect. Delightfully does he say of a woman in the 206th Tatler, that the love of her is not to be put apart from some esteem of her; and as she is naturally the object of affection, she who has your esteem has also some degree of your love. But as, unhappily, a woman's education was then sunk to the lowest ebb, there is also no subject to which he has occasion so often and so eagerly to return, as a comparison of the large amount of care bestowed on her person with the little given to her mind. You deliver your daughter to a dancing-master, he says in one of these papers, you put a collar round her neck, you teach her every movement under pain of never having a husband if she steps, or looks, or moves awry; and all the time you forget the true art, which "is to make mind and body improve together, to "make gesture follow thought, and not let thought be employed upon gesture." As he says in another paper to the like effect, a woman must think well to look well.' He is never weary of surrounding her form with hosts of graces and delights; in her mind, how unused and uncultivated soever, he yet recognises always a finer and more. delicate humanity; and of all the subtle and eloquent things ever uttered in her praise by poet or romancer, none have surpassed that fascinating eulogy of Lady Elizabeth Hastings which is contained in the 49th Tatler. "That awful distance which we bear toward her in all our thoughts of her, and that cheerful familiarity with

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1 No. 212; and see No. 248.

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"which we approach her, are certain instances of her being the truest object of love of any of her sex. In "this accomplished lady, love is the constant effect, because it is never the design. Yet, though her mien "carries much more invitation than command, to behold "her is an immediate check to loose behaviour, and to "love her is a liberal education."

As we have turned to this charming passage, we meet another of his illustrations from Shakespeare, in which, rebuking the author of a new tragedy for relying too much on the retinue, guards, ushers, and courtiers of his hero to make him magnificent, "Shakespeare," he exclaims, "is our pattern. In the tragedy of Cæsar he introduces "his hero in his night-gown." The resemblance of Addison's 42nd Spectator to this 53rd Tatler need not be pointed out; and we shall be excused for saying, with all our love and respect for Addison, that he might with good effect have taken, now and then, even a hint of conduct, as well as one of criticism, from his friend. As to modes of dying, for example. The 11th Tatler, with a truth and spirit not to be surpassed, remarks that any doctrine on the subject of dying, other than that of living well, is the most insignificant and most empty of all the labours of men. A tragedian can die by rule, and wait till he discovers a plot, or says a fine thing upon his exit; but in real life, and by noble spirits, it will be done decently, without the ostentation of it. Commend me, exclaims Steele, to that natural greatness of soul expressed by an innocent and consequently resolute country fellow, who said, in the pains of the cholic, "If I once get this breath out of my "body, you shall hang me before you put it in again." Honest Ned! And so he died.

And what hints of other characters, taken from the same portion of the Tatler, need we, or shall we, add to honest Ned's, in proof that Steele did not wait for Addison's help before stamping his design with the most marked feature that remained with it? The difficulty is selection. Shall we take the wealthy wags who give one