rinths of the most finished parterre. But as our great modellers of gardens have their magazines of plants to dispose of, it is very natural for them to tear up all the beautiful plantations of fruit trees, and contrive a plan that may most turn to their own profit, in taking off their evergreens and the like moveable plants with which their shops are plentifully stocked.

(The Spectator, No. 414.) For similar treatment of this topic, see Pope's Moral Essays, Epist. iv. The earlier or formal (or 'Dutch') style, made fashionable by the gardeners London & Wise (Spectator No. 5), was succeeded by a freer style, which was popularised by the gardeners Bridgeman & Kent, and was praised by Walpole and by Pope, who 'twisted and twirled his garden at Twickenham. This later type became known on the Continent, through the Duc de Nivernois' translation of Walpole's Essay on Modern Gardening, as the jardin à l'anglaise.

On Naked Bosoms.

There are many little enormities in the world, which our preachers would be very glad to see removed, but at the same time dare not meddle with them, for fear of betraying the dignity of the pulpit. Should they recommend the tucker in a pathetic discourse, their audiences would be apt to laugh out. I knew a parish where the top woman of it used always to appear with a patch upon some part of her forehead: the good man of the place preached at it with great zeal for almost a twelvemonth; but instead of fetching out the spot which he perpetually aimed at, he only got the name of Parson Patch for his pains. Another is to this day called by the name of Doctor Topknot for reasons of the same nature. I remember the clergy, during the time of Cromwell's usurpation, were very much taken up in reforming the female world, and showing the vanity of those outward ornaments in which the sex so much delights. I have heard a whole sermon against a whitewash, and have known a coloured ribbon made the mark of the unconverted. The clergy of the present age are not transported with these indiscreet fervours, as knowing that it is hard for a reformer to avoid ridicule, when he is severe upon subjects which are rather apt to produce mirth than seriousness. For this reason, I look upon myself to be of great use to these good men ; while they are employed in extirpating mortal sins and crimes of a higher nature, I should be glad to rally the world out of indecencies and venial transgressions. While the Doctor is curing distempers that have the appearance of danger or death in them, the Merry Andrew has his separate packet for the meagrims and the tooth-ache.

Thus much I thought fit to premise before I resume the subject which I have already handled, I mean the naked bosoms of our British ladies. I hope they will not take it ill of me, if I still beg that they will be covered. I shall here present them with a letter on that particular, as it was yesterday conveyed to me through the lion's mouth. It comes from a Quaker, and is as follows:

'NESTOR IRONSIDE,

'Our friends like thee. We rejoice to find thou beginnest to have a glimmering of the light in thee: we shall pray for thee, that thou mayest be more and more enlightened. Thou givest good advice to the women of this world to clothe themselves like unto our friends, and not to expose their fleshly temptations, for it is against the Record. Thy lion is a good lion; he roareth loud, and is heard a great way, even unto

the sink of Babylon; for the scarlet whore is governed by the voice of thy lion. Look on his order. 'Rome, July 8, 1713. "A placard is published here, forbidding women, of whatsoever quality, to go with naked breasts; and the priests are ordered not to admit the transgressors of this law to confession, nor to communion; neither are they to enter the cathedrals under severe penalties.”

'These lines are faithfully copied from the nightly paper, with this title written over it, The Evening Post, from Saturday, July the 18th, to Tuesday, July the 21st.

'Seeing thy lion is obeyed at this distance, we hope the foolish women in thy own country will listen to thy admonitions. Otherwise thou art desired to make him still roar, till all the beasts of the forests shall tremble. I must again repeat unto thee, friend Nestor, the whole brotherhood have great hopes of thee, and expect to see thee so inspired with the light, as thou mayest speedily become a great preacher of the word. I wish it heartily. Thine, in everything that is praiseworthy,

Tom's Coffee-house in Birchin Lane, the

23rd day of the month called July.

TOM TREMBLE.'

It happens very oddly that the Pope and I should have the same thought much about the same time. My enemies will be apt to say that we hold a correspondence together, and act by concert in this matter. Let that be as it will, I shall not be ashamed to join with his Holiness in those particulars which are indifferent between us, especially when it is for the reformation of the finer half of mankind. We are both of us about the same age, and consider this fashion in the same view. I hope that it will not be able to resist his bull and my lion. I am only afraid that our ladies will take occasion from hence to show their zeal for the Protestant religion, and pretend to expose their naked bosoms only in opposition to Popery.

(The Guardian, No. 116.)

Thy lion is obeyed. The Venetian Lion's Head Letter-Box at Button's Coffee-House for receiving contributions to the Guard an There is a sketch of it in the English Illustrated Magazine, September 1884. It is now preserved at Woburn Abbey.

English Fickleness.

If we may believe the observation which is made of us by foreigners, there is no nation in Europe so much given to change as the English. There are some who ascribe this to the fickleness of our climate, and others to the freedom of our government. From one or both of these causes their writers derive that variety of humours which appears among the people in general, and that inconsistency of character which is to be found in almost every particular person. But as a man should always be upon his guard against the vices to which he is most exposed, so we should take more than ordinary care not to lie at the mercy of the weather in our moral conduct, nor to make a capricious use of that liberty which we enjoy by the happiness of our civil constitution.

This instability of temper ought in a particular manner to be checked, when it shows itself in political affairs, and disposes men to wander from one scheme of government to another; since such a fickleness of behaviour in public measures cannot but be attended with very fatal effects to our country.

In the first place, it hinders any great undertaking, which requires length of time for its accomplishment, from being brought to its due perfection. There is not

any instance in history which better confirms this observation, than that which is still fresh in every one's memory. We engaged in the late war with a design to reduce an exorbitant growth of power in the most dangerous enemy to Great Britain. We gained a long and wonderful series of victories, and had scarce anything left to do but to reap the fruits of them when on a sudden our patience failed us; we grew tired of our undertaking, and received terms from those who were upon the point of giving us whatever we could have demanded of them.

This mutability of mind in the English makes the ancient friends of our nation very backward to engage with us in such alliances as are necessary for our mutual defence and security. It is a common notion among foreigners that the English are good confederates in an enterprise which may be despatched within a short compass of time, but that they are not to be depended upon in a work which cannot be finished without constancy and perseverance. Our late measures have so blemished our national credit in this particular, that those potentates who are entered into treaties with his present Majesty have been solely encouraged to it by their confidence in his personal firmness and integrity.

I need not, after this, suggest to my reader the ignominy and reproach that falls upon a nation which distinguishes itself among its neighbours by such a wavering and unsettled conduct.

This our inconsistency in the pursuit of schemes which have been thoroughly digested, has as bad an influence on our domestic as on our foreign affairs. We are told that the famous Prince of Condé used to ask the English ambassador, upon the arrival of a mail, 'Who was Secretary of State in England by that post?' as a piece of raillery upon the fickleness of our politics. But what has rendered this a misfortune to our country is that public ministers have no sooner made themselves masters of their business than they have been dismissed from their employments; and that this disgrace has befallen very many of them, not because they have deserved it, but because the people love to see new faces in high posts of honour.

It is a double misfortune to a nation which is thus given to change, when they have a sovereign at the head of them that is prone to fall in with all the turns and veerings of the people. Sallust, the gravest of all the Roman historians, who had formed his notions of regal authority from the manner in which he saw it exerted among the barbarous nations, makes the following remark: Plerumque regiae voluntates, uti vehementes, sic mobiles, saepe ipsae sibi advorsae. The wills of kings, as they are generally vehement, are likewise very fickle, and at different times opposite to themselves.' Were there any colour for this general observation, how much does it redound to the honour of such princes who are exceptions to it!

The natural consequence of an unsteady government is the perpetuating of strife and faction among a divided people. Whereas a king who persists in those schemes which he has laid, and has no other view in them but the good of his subjects, extinguishes all hopes of advancement in those who would grow great by an pposition to his measures, and insensibly unites the contending parties in their common interest.

Queen Elizabeth, who makes the greatest figure among

our English sovereigns, was most eminently remarkable for that steadiness and uniformity which ran through all her actions, during that long and glorious reign. She kept up to her chosen motto in every part of her life, and never lost sight of those great ends, which she proposed to herself on her accession to the throne, the happiness of her people and the strengthening of the Protestant interest. She often interposed her royal authority to break the cabals which were forming against her first ministers, who grew old and died in those stations which they filled with so great abilities. By this means she baffled the many attempts of her foreign and domestic enemies, and entirely broke the whole force and spirit of that party among her subjects which was popishly affected, and which was not a little formidable in the beginning of her reign.

The frequent changes and alterations in public proceedings, the multiplicity of schemes introduced one upon another, with the variety of short-lived favourites that prevailed in their several turns under the government of her successors, have by degrees broken us into those unhappy distinctions and parties, which have given so much uneasiness to our kings, and so often endangered the safety of their people.

I question not but every impartial reader hath been beforehand with me in considering on this occasion the happiness of our country under the government of his present Majesty, who is so deservedly famous for an inflexible adherence to those counsels which have a visible tendency to the public good, and to those persons who heartily concur with him in promoting these his generous designs.

A prince of this character will be dreaded by his enemies, and served with courage and zeal by his friends; and will either instruct us by his example to fix the unsteadiness of our politics, or by his conduct hinder it from doing us any prejudice.

Upon the whole, as there is no temper of mind more unmanly in a private person, nor more pernicious to the public in a member of a community, than that changeableness with which we are too justly branded by all our neighbours, it is to be hoped that the sound part of the nation will give no further occasion for this reproach, but continue steady to that happy establishment which has now taken place among us. And as obstinacy in prejudices which are detrimental to our country, ought not to be mistaken for that virtuous resolution and firmness of mind which is necessary to our preservation, it is to be wished that the enemies to our constitution would so far indulge themselves in this national humour, as to come into one change more, by falling in with that plan of government which at present they think fit to oppose. At least we may expect they will be so wise as to show a legal obedience to the best of kings, who profess the duty of passive obedience to the worst. (The Freeholder, No. 25.)

The dates of the first appearance of the individual works are given in the biographical notice. Collected editions: Works, ed. Tickell, 4 vols. 4to (1721); Miscellaneous Works, ed. Tickell (1726); Works, Baskerville edition, 4 vols. (1761); Works, ed. Hurd, 6 vols. (1800-11); Works, based on Hurd's edition (Bohn's Library), 1st ed. (1853-56). The Spectator: many eighteenth century editions; the chief during the nineteenth century are Chalmers's (1806); Tegg's (1850); Morley's, n.d.; Aitken's (1897); Gregory Smith's (the original text with critical notes, and an introduction by Austin Dobson), 8 vols. (1897-98).

G. GREGORY SMITH.

somewhat crude rehearsal of the moralisings of the Tatler and Spectator, illustrated by 'a view of some eminent heathen, by a distant admiration of the life of our Saviour, and a near examination of that of His Apostle St Paul,' and concluding with a kind of topical parallel, or rather contrast, between Louis XIV. and William III. Naturally there was much satirical criticism of the discrepancy between this preaching and the preacher's own conduct— a conduct of which the imperfection was habitually only too frankly owned by Steele himself. 'Everybody,' he says, speaking of himself in the third person, 'measured the least levity in his words and actions with the character of a Christian Hero, while one or two of his acquaintances thought fit to misuse him and try their valour upon him.' Perhaps it was this misuse' that brought about his only recorded duel-an occurrence of rather uncertain date, but apparently belonging, by a most awkward coincidence, to this very time. In justice to the fallible Christian Hero,' however, it must be remembered that the only version of this rather vague story represents him as drawn into the quarrel with great reluctance, as accepting his adversary's challenge most unwillingly, and running him through in a well-meant effort to disarm him. It has to be added that in after-years, in the Tatler and the Spectator, Steele was incessant in his ridicule and denunciation of the duel.

The same year which saw the publication of the Christian Hero witnessed the appearance on the stage at all events-of Steele's first play, The Funeral; or, Grief à la Mode. This was followed in 1703 by The Lying Lover, in 1705 by The Tender Husband, and in 1722 by The Conscious Lovers. These four comedies, though they do not give Steele a high place among our dramatic authors, render him an important figure in the history of the English stage. In 1697 Jeremy Collier's famous diatribe had given utterance to the general disgust at the indecencies of Wycherley and Congreve; and in the first year of the new century a very salutary reactionsalutary at least so far as concerned the morals of the drama-began to set in. In this reaction Steele was a principal agent, and he became, indeed, the founder of that 'Sentimental Comedy' which, in the early Georgian times, supplanted the Restoration comedy of wit and intrigue. It is true that from the modern standpoint of manners and morals his plays seem anything but faultless, containing, as they do, not only frequent examples of coarseness in language, but also some dubious situations and scenes. These, however, are but superficial defects, which no way impair the essential soundness of the morality inculcated by the author or diminish the force of the contrast which his comedies present to their immediate predecessors. With Steele the patient or deluded husband is no longer the butt of ridicule, nor do breaches of the marriage tie furnish the material of his plots. On the contrary, his theme is the

honourable and faithful love of youths and maidens his heroines, whether sentimental or worldly, are never immodest; his heroes at the worst are only foolish and reckless young sparks, while at the best they tend to be priggish.

It is noteworthy that in every one of the four plays the dénouement involves the foiling of some mercenary matrimonial design and the substitution of a true-love match in its stead, and that in two of them the evils of the duel are exposed. The moral purpose is, indeed, only too apparent, and it is not surprising that the Lying Lover was 'damned,' as Steele himself confesses, 'for its piety.' The comic vein is seen mainly in such minor characters as Humphrey Gubbin, a kind of earlier Tony Lumpkin, and Biddy Tipkin, in whom there is a clear suggestion of Sheridan's Lydia Languish.

There are but scanty notices of Steele's life during the time when the first three of his plays were written. He himself asserted that his name in 1702 was down in King William's last 'tablebook' for promotion; but the king's death deferred any such advancement for some years. Chemical experiments in search of the philosopher's stone seemed to have consumed some of his time and money, and he is believed to have been one of the earliest members of the Kit-Cat Club. In 1705 he married a Mrs Margaret Stretch, a widow with some West Indian property, who, however, died not long after the marriage. In 1706 the office of Gentleman Waiter to Prince George of Denmark, the consort of Queen Anne, was bestowed upon him; and in May of the next year he obtained the then important post of Gazetteer, or editor of the London Gazette. In September 1707 he was married again, this time to a Welsh lady of some fortune, named Mary Scurlock, who plays rather an important part in his biography thenceforth. She was evidently a somewhat peevish and capricious beauty, who delighted in finding fault with her not impeccable husband; and Steele seems to have led very much the same kind of life with his dear Prue,' as he called her, as his hero, the great Duke of Marlborough, had with the termagant Duchess. A collection of his letters, written to her both before and after marriage, which was published by Nichols the antiquary in 1787, gives a very intimate revelation of his character. It shows him the most affectionate and generous of men, guilty of too frequent convivial excesses, after the manner of the time, 'hopelessly sanguine, restless, and impulsive,' and well-nigh as great a spendthrift as Sheridan or Goldsmith. In spite of what must have been a fairly good income, he was always in debt, and sometimes in the hands of the bailiffs; but it would seem that Macaulay's picture of him 'dicing himself into a spunging-house and drinking himself into a fever' is somewhat of an exaggeration. It was doubtless partly the journalistic opportunities possessed by Steele in his character of

Gazetteer that suggested to him the project of The Tatler, with which the periodical literature of England takes its rise. English journalism, of course, is older than the Tatler by more than halfa-century, beginning, as it practically does (for one need hardly go back to Nathaniel Butters), with the Mercuries'-Mercurius Aulicus, Politicus Britannicus, Anti-Britannicus, Pragmaticus, and so on-that came forth in shoals at the outbreak of the great Civil War. In the reign of Queen Anne there were in London plenty of newspapers, or rather meagre news-sheets, in addition to the official Gazetteer, which endeavoured to report the politics-and especially the foreign politics-of the day. The crazed upholsterer, for example, whom Addison sketched in some of the later issues of the Tatler had his poor brain turned by much speculation on the movements of Marlborough and Prince Eugene and the King of Sweden, as reported in the Postman, the Post-Boy, the Daily Courant, the Supplement, and the English Post. Besides these there was Defoe's Review, started in 1704, which may be described as the first of our organs of opinion on politics, giving, as it did, political criticism in addition to bare news. And, lastly, the obliging sheets which undertook, after the example of John Dunton's Athenian Mercury (1690-97), to resolve 'all the most nice and curious questions proposed by the ingenious of either sex,' had started that line of journalistic development which is still continued in the 'answers to correspondents' in provincial weekly

newspapers.

The Tatler, however, was altogether different from these, and represented a departure which in the end was to issue, not in the modern newspaper, but in the magazine. Its descent from the news-sheets is shown by the scraps of political tidings which Steele borrowed from the Gazette for its earlier numbers; but its essential purpose from the first was the description and criticism of polite society in London. In the notice prefixed to the opening numbers, Steele describes himself as writing 'for the use of politic persons, who are so publick spirited as to neglect their own affairs to look into transactions of state.' Something is to be offered whereby such worthy and well-affected members of the commonwealth may be instructed, after their reading, what to think, and there is to be something also 'which may be of entertainment to the fair sex,' in honour of whom the title of the paper is declared to be invented. The contents of the numbers are dated, according to their subjects, from the various social resorts about town. 'All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment,' for example, are 'under the article of White's Chocolate-House; Poetry under that of Will's Coffee-House; Learning under the title of Grecian; Foreign and Domestick News from St James's Coffee-House.' This last kind of intelligence was inserted to

give sober ballast and actuality to the paper; but, being evidently found superfluous, it was gradually excluded, and the Tatler became entirely a description and criticism of the manners and morals of the day.

The first number- a double-columned folio sheet-appeared on the 12th of April 1709, and its successors came out regularly three times a week, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, at the price of a penny, until the 2nd of January 1711. They were written in the character of an imaginary Isaac Bickerstaff, a benevolent old bachelor, whose name, in the preceding year, had been made famous by Swift's employment of it in his mystification of the astrologer Partridge. Steele was now on terms of friendship with Swift, who for about eighteen months had been in London on ecclesiastical business, and a few of the papers in the Tatler are from the Vicar's caustic pen. A far more important contributor was Addison, whose assistance was acknowledged by Steele with characteristic and exaggerated generosity. The forty-two papers known or believed to have been written by him contain, doubtless, some of the finest thoughts and most finished writing in the Tatler; yet Steele spoke rather as a friend than a critic when he said, 'I fared like a distressed prince who calls in a powerful neighbour to his aid: I was undone by my auxiliary; when I had once called him in I could not subsist without dependence on him.' Other contributors-but only to a very trifling extent were Congreve, Hughes, Ambrose Philips, and Harrison. Of the two hundred and seventyone numbers, Steele wrote about one hundred and eighty-eight himself, and twenty-five in cooperation with Addison; and he was editorially responsible, as we should now say, for the whole.

The contents of the Tatler, which were immediately republished in successive volumes as The Lucubrations of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., are as various as the aspects of the life it professed to describe and criticise. In its numbers a dramatic criticism is followed by an imaginary character-sketch of a pair of beauties; a pathetic love-story or scene of domestic life is found alongside a gentle satire on fopperies in dress and conversation; a serious discourse on the evils of gaming and duelling is relieved by a picture of some odd frequenter of the coffee-houses or the Mall. In his self-imposed rôle of observer and censor of polite society, Mr Bickerstaff takes note of every social foible and vice and humour from the 'nice conduct of a clouded cane' or the exorbitant circumference of a hooped petticoat to the evils of loveless marriages for an establishment, and from the insipid affectations of the visitingday and the noisy utterance of responses in church to the arts of the well-bred cheat and the brutality of the bully. The treatment of these subjects is, as a rule, much less formal and elaborate than in the Spectator, where every paper