not want of matter that brought about the
abandonment of the paper is proved by the commencement only two months
later of the _Spectator_. Steele himself said that on many accounts it
had become an irksome task to personate Mr. Bickerstaff any longer; he
had in some places touched upon matters concerning Church and State, and
he could not be cold enough to conceal his opinions. Gay tells us, in
"The Present State of Wit," that the town being generally of opinion
that Steele was quite spent as regards matter, was the more surprised
when the _Spectator_ appeared; people were therefore driven to accept
the alternative view that the _Tatler_ was laid down "as a sort of
submission to, or composition with, the Government for some past
offences."

Excellent testimony to the immediate popularity of the _Tatler_ is
furnished by the fact that its successive numbers were reprinted in
Dublin and in Edinburgh. At least sixty-nine numbers of the Dublin
issue, in quarto, were printed. The Scottish re-issue was a folio sheet,
commenced about February 1710, and continued until the close of the
paper. The date of each number of the Edinburgh paper--"printed by
James Watson, and sold at his shop next door to the Red Lion, opposite
to the Lucken Booths"--is five or six days later than that of the
original issue; it was evidently worked off as soon as the London post
came in. Other evidence of the popularity of the _Tatler_ in the
provinces is afforded by the foundation of the "Gentleman's Society" at
Spalding. Maurice Johnson, a native of Spalding and a member of the
Inner Temple, gives this account of the matter: "In April 1709, that
great genius Captain Richard Steele ... published the _Tatlers_, which,
as they came out in half-sheets, were taken in by a gentleman, who
communicated them to his acquaintances at the coffee-house then in the
Abbey Yard; and these papers being universally approved as both
instructive and entertaining, they ordered them to be sent down thither,
with the Gazettes and Votes, for which they paid out of charity to the
person who kept the coffee-house, and they were accordingly had and read
there every post-day, generally aloud to the company, who would sit and
talk over the subject afterwards. This insensibly drew the men of sense
and letters into a sociable way of conversing, and continued the next
year, 1710, until the publication of these papers desisted, which was in
December, to their great regret." Afterwa