knute_, in Gay, Shenstone, and Gray, in
Chatterton's Rowley. All these in a sense testified to the influence of
Addison's essays. Addison was often enough given honorable mention and
quoted.

On the other hand, neo-classic stalwart good sense and the canons of
decorum did not collapse easily, and the cultivation of the ballads had,
as we have suggested, a certain aspect of silliness. It is well known
that Addison's essays elicited the immediate objections of Dennis. The
Spectator's "Design is to see how far he can lead his Reader by the
Nose." He wants "to put Impotence and Imbecility upon us for
Simplicity." Later Johnson in his _Life of Addison_ quoted Dennis and
added his own opinion of _Chevy Chase_: "The story cannot possibly be
told in a manner that shall make less impression on the mind."

It was fairly easy to parody the ballads themselves, or at least the
ballad imitations, as Johnson would demonstrate _ex tempore_. "I put my
hat upon my head And walked into the Strand, And there I met another man
Whose hat was in his hand." And it was just as easy to parody ballad
criticism. The present volume is an anthology of two of the more
deserving mock-criticisms which Addison's effort either wholly or in
part inspired.

An anonymous satirical writer who was later identified, on somewhat
uncertain authority, as the Tory Dr. William Wagstaffe was very prompt
in responding. His _Comment Upon the History of Tom Thumb_ appeared in
1711 perhaps within a week or two of the third guilty _Spectator_ (June
7) and went into a second edition, "Corrected," by August 18. An
advertisement in the _Post Man_ of that day referred to yet a third
"sham" edition, "full of errors."[3] The writer alludes to the author of
the _Spectators_ covertly ("we have had an _enterprising Genius_ of
late") and quotes all three of the ballad essays repeatedly. The choice
of _Tom Thumb_ as the _corpus vile_ was perhaps suggested by Swift's
momentary "handling" of it in _A Tale of a Tub_.[4] The satirical method
is broad and easy and scarcely requires comment. This is the attack
which was supposed by Addison's editor Henry Morley (_Spectator_, 1883,
I, 318) to have caused Addison to "flinch" a little in his revision of
the ballad essays. It is scarcely apparent that he did so. The last
paragraph of the third essay, on the _Children in the Wood_, is a retort
to some other and even prompter unfriendly critics--"little conceited
Wits of the Age," with thei