n idle--was the famous _Tatler_, the first number of
which appeared April 12, 1709. It was a small folio sheet, appearing on
post days, three times a week, and it sold for a penny a copy. That it had
a serious purpose is evident from this dedication to the first volume of
collected _Tatler_ essays:

The general purpose of this paper is to expose the false arts of life, to
pull off the disguises of cunning, vanity, and affectation, and to
recommend a general simplicity in our dress, our discourse, and our
behavior.

The success of this unheard-of combination of news, gossip, and essay was
instantaneous. Not a club or a coffeehouse in London could afford to be
without it, and over it's pages began the first general interest in
contemporary English life as expressed in literature. Steele at first wrote
the entire paper and signed his essays with the name of Isaac Bickerstaff,
which had been made famous by Swift a few years before. Addison is said to
have soon recognized one of his own remarks to Steele, and the secret of
the Authorship was out. From that time Addison was a regular contributor,
and occasionally other writers added essays on the new social life of
England.[192]

Steele lost his position as gazetteer, and the _Tatler_ was discontinued
after less than two years' life, but not till it won an astonishing
popularity and made ready the way for its successor. Two months later, on
March 1, 1711, appeared the first number of the _Spectator_. In the new
magazine politics and news, as such, were ignored; it was a literary
magazine, pure and simple, and its entire contents consisted of a single
light essay. It was considered a crazy venture at the time, but its instant
success proved that men were eager for some literary expression of the new
social ideals. The following whimsical letter to the editor may serve to
indicate the part played by the _Spectator_ in the daily life of London:

Mr. Spectator,--Your paper is a part of my tea equipage; and my servant
knows my humor so well, that in calling for my breakfast this morning (it
being past my usual hour) she answered, the _Spectator_ was not yet come
in, but the teakettle boiled, and she expected it every moment.

It is in the incomparable _Spectator_ papers that Addison shows himself
most "worthy to be remembered." He contributed the majority of its essays,
and in its first number appears this description of the Spectator, by which
name Addison is now generally kn