pair of
flowered garters, and that of the married lady who complained to the
Tatler of the neglect of her husband, with her answers to some _home_
questions that were put to her, are unquestionably Steele's.--If the
Tatler is not inferior to the Spectator as a record of manners and
character, it is superior to it in the interest of many of the stories.
Several of the incidents related there by Steele have never been surpassed
in the heart-rending pathos of private distress. I might refer to those of
the lover and his mistress, when the theatre, in which they were, caught
fire; of the bridegroom, who by accident kills his bride on the day of
their marriage; the story of Mr. Eustace and his wife; and the fine dream
about his own mistress when a youth. What has given its superior
reputation to the Spectator, is the greater gravity of its pretensions,
its moral dissertations and critical reasonings, by which I confess myself
less edified than by other things, which are thought more lightly of.
Systems and opinions change, but nature is always true. It is the moral
and didactic tone of the Spectator which makes us apt to think of Addison
(according to Mandeville's sarcasm) as "a parson in a tie-wig." Many of
his moral Essays are, however, exquisitely beautiful and quite happy. Such
are the reflections on cheerfulness, those in Westminster Abbey, on the
Royal Exchange, and particularly some very affecting ones on the death of
a young lady in the fourth volume. These, it must be allowed, are the
perfection of elegant sermonising. His critical Essays are not so good. I
prefer Steele's occasional selection of beautiful poetical passages,
without any affectation of analysing their beauties, to Addison's
finer-spun theories. The best criticism in the Spectator, that on the
Cartoons of Raphael, of which Mr. Fuseli has availed himself with great
spirit in his Lectures, is by Steele.[131] I owed this acknowledgment to a
writer who has so often put me in good humour with myself, and every thing
about me, when few things else could, and when the tomes of casuistry and
ecclesiastical history, with which the little duodecimo volumes of the
Tatler were overwhelmed and surrounded, in the only library to which I had
access when a boy, had tried their tranquillising effects upon me in vain.
I had not long ago in my hands, by favour of a friend, an original copy of
the quarto edition of the Tatler, with a list of the subscribers. It is
curious