The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-04-26

esA, Hul only 10 make way III OIS
The Spectator.
The Spectator is Addisons work as
the Tatler is Ste,ele's. OF the 555 pa
pers Addison contributed PA, as
against 236 by Steele. But there is
more than this. The Spectator himself,
the nctluous personality from whom
the paper was supposed to proceed, is
Addison. or. better, Addison's life mask.
around him are grouped the figures Of
Slr Roger, Will Honeycomb, Captain
Senlry and others, originally designed
py steele but instantly appropriated by
Addison. When we open the old vol
uInes or the Spectator we turn at once
10 Sir Roger at church, visiting the
theatfe, or rowing to Spring Garden
Win the one-legged waterman who had
Fought at La. Hogue, and this is all
pure Addison. 1t was Addison, too,
VINO struck out the news items which
mad once filled 50 much of the Taller
and replaced Steele's lively theatrical
notices by the famous critical papers
on False and True Wit" and the then
unknown epic of Paradise Lost
We must not be unjust to Steele. He
mas suffered much from his detraetOr.
Macaulay; more. perhaps, from his
friend, Thackeray. Only of late years
1000 NAAOdbE OS-l4o ACAAOCA~I " lis
delightful genius. He was by far the
more original Of the two; franker, gay
er and more sympathetic taan Addison.
Nothing that the more perfect artist
has written approaches, in poignant hui
man DathOs the lines in which Steele
tells of his first childish apprehension
or sorrow, or narrates the death Of his
ofd friends wife. 1t is a characteristic
story, too. characteristic not TO be true,
- too, III
last paper and left it to Addison to
supply the moralizing close with its
apt quotation from Paradise Lost
and its serene rebuke to Mr.. Dryden.
Between them Steele and Addison
carried the Spectator to the highest
pitch of popularity. It penetrated to
the remotest corners of the kingdom,
lay on the morning tea tray Of the
young lady of fashion and made the
round Of the coffee houses. Even roy
atty began the day with the Spectator
1t was issued daily and before IT'D close
had attained a circulation Of 10000
copies. As fast as numbers enough ap-
peaped they were bound up in octave
volumes. and over 5000 of Theses were
sold at a guinea apiece. Considering
the limited number of the reading pub
lie at that time, We may we'll believe
Macaulay's statement that the poDu-
larity of the Spectator riValed that of
the Waverly novels or the most SIC
cessful works Of Dickens.
The Close of the Period.
Politics proved the ruin of the peri
odical literature of that age. The Spec
tator was non partisan, but the restless
spirit Of Steele had long been chafing
under the onslaught of the Tory Ex-
aminer, and he brought the Spectator
n pln on, dor 10
start the Guardian. in which the polit-
ical element speedily assumed the pre-
dominance. In October of the follow
ing year he founded the Englishman,
Ito rouse in this divided nation that
lost thing called Publick Spirit" IN
fortunately public spirit when invoked
by the press is only too apt to aDpear
in the form of party strife, and in TIE
spring of 1114 Steele was expelled from
his newly won seat in the commons for
certain utterances in the Enslishman
and for his pambhlet, '"The Crisis"
In the following year Addison was en-
gagged By the government, now thor
Oughly Wing, to support the house of
Hanover in paper entitled the Free
holder. In 1719 we even find the old
friends and allies at daggers-drawn
over the peerage bill. Steele attacked
the measure in the Plebeian, to which
addison Immediately responded in the
Old Wing. There was an unseemly eX-
change of personalities, and a rupture
which was never heeled in this world.
For a little while Steele cherished his
anger, but his generous nature over
came his resentment and he paid in
the Theatre and the preface to The
Drummer full and noble homage to
that excellent man who heaven made
his friend and his superior
whom he had almost worshiped while
living"
Steele survived Addison about ten
years But the golden age of the per-
iodical essay was passed long before his
death. The type which he had created
and Addison perfected had but a brief
existence. Yet it is impossible to over
estimate its value Not only did ii set
a model for English prose style, witty
lively. transparently clear, and ex-
quiSitely tactful, but it played the part
Of moral censor to an age whose eX-
cesses cried aloud for such an officer.
1t taught q frivolous and sceDtical
world that vice, not virtue, was the
proper target of satire, that a man
might actually love his wife without
exciting public ridicule. and that there
was no necessary contradiction between
the characters of a. gentleman and
Christian. And to us in these later days
what a picture it presents Of the tea
cup times of hood and hooD."
AS we read in these delightful vol
uneS of the Taller and the Spectator"
says Thackeray. the past age returns,
the England of our ancestors is re-
vivified. The Maypole rises in the Strand
again in London; the churches are
throlged with daily worshipers: the
beauX are gathering in the coffee
houses; the gentry are going to the
drawing room; the ladies are thronging
TO the toy shops; the chairmen are jOst-
ling in the streets; the footmen are
running with links before the chaTiCts
or fighting round the theatre doors