Head into a Round of Politicians at Will’s, and listning with great Attention to the
Narratives that are made in those little Circular Audiences. Sometimes I smoak a Pipe at
Child’s; and whilst I seem attentive to nothing but the Post-Man, over-hear the
Conversation of every Table in the Room .... In short, wherever I see a Cluster of People
I always mix with them, though I never open my Lips but in my own Club.The Club exists to set forth ‘such Papers as may contribute to the Advancement of
the Public Weal’. Its members are Sir Roger de Coverley, Sir Andrew Freeport,
Captain Sentry and Will Honeycomb – country, city, army and society; the Church
is not represented. The Spectator is the Club’s critic: ‘His Taste of Books is a little too
just for the Age he lives in; he has read all, but approves of very few.’ Addison main-
tains this mock-pomp throughout.
Instruction comes breezily from Steele: ‘I do not doubt but England is at present
as polite a Nation as any in the World; but any Man who thinks can easily see, that the
Affectation of being Gay and in Fashion has very near eaten up our good Sense and
our Religion.’ Good Sense and Religion are interchangeable. Addison warned that
‘T he Mind that lies fallow but a single Day, sprouts up in Follies that are only to be
killed by a constant and assiduous Culture.’ This is a civil version of ‘Satan finds some
mischief still / For idle hands to do’ (Isaac Watts, ‘Against Idleness and Mischief ’).
Addison continues (in No. 10) to weed out folly and cultivate the mind:
It was said ofSocrates, 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. I would therefore in a very particular Manner recommend
these my Speculations to all well regulated Families, that set apart an Hour in every
Morning for Tea and Bread and Butter; and would earnestly advise them for their Good
to order this Paper to be punctually served up, and to be looked upon as Part of the Tea
Equipage.
The gentleman-Socrates offers empty-headed men sound material for conversation.
He then turns to the Tea Equipage.
But there are none to whom this Paper will be more useful, than to the Female World. I
have often thought there has not been sufficient Pains taken in finding out proper
Employments and Diversions for the Fair ones. Their Amusements seem contrived for
them rather as they are Women, than as they are reasonable Creatures; and are more
adapted to the Sex than to the Species.
This combination of raillery, analysis and seriousness is Augustan. The premise is
that the human is a rational animal or (in Christian terms) a reasonable creature.
What is proposed with a smile is serious: assiduous daily culture will root out folly
and vice from the well-regulated family, one that takes The Spectator. It was for the
family, not just the father, that Addison wrote papers on Milton and the ballad. Pope
was to remark that ‘our wives read Milton, and our daughters plays’. The family were
to insist that Father took them to Bath, the new upper-middle-class spa.
Addison’s classical Cato (1713) was popular,a tragedy expressing a ruling-class
interest in principle and nobility. Johnson, however, described Cato as ‘rather a poem
in dialogue than a drama’. His own youthful Irene (1736) was a flop. No 18th-century
tr agedy has lasted. John Home’s romantic Douglas (1756), a success in Edinburgh, is
now chiefly remembered as a curiosity, and for the shout of a member of the audi-
ence: ‘Whaur’s your Wullie Shakespeare noo?’ Neo-classical ideals did a lot for satire,
tr anslation, prose and criticism in England, but not for tragedy.
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 185An establishment career
Joseph Addison, b.1672, son
of the Dean of Lichfield. Went
from the Cathedral Close to
Charterhouse, to Oxford, to a
fellowship at Magdalen
College, to a European tour.
Dryden praised his Latin
poems. Wrote Dialogues on
the Usefulness of Ancient
Medals, and a verse tribute to
the victory at Blenheim.
Under-Secretary of State, MP,
fell with the Whigs in 1711,
turned to journalism and play-
writing, returned with the
Whigs in 1715, Chief
Secretary for Ireland, married
the Countess of Warwick,
retired with a pension of
£1500, buried Westminster
Abbey, 1719.