CHAPTER IV

RECONSTRUCTION OF THE SOCIAL STANDARD OF TASTE

THE TATLER AND THE SPECTATOR

HOWEVER marked were the indications of new thoughts and feelings in the public mind, reflected as they were in poems like The Dispensary, Cider, and Creation, they could never have produced of themselves a national order of art and literature. By the flight of James II. English society was left without the guidance it had hitherto received in matters of taste. The ancient system of semi-Gothic imagination that had formed itself round the Court was, by the Revolution, thrown into ruins, and the violent and extravagant traditions, fostered by the Royalist Reaction, were the only artistic models that enjoyed any prestige with the people. If a sound Public Opinion in morals and manners was to be built up, it could only be under the conscious guidance of sagacious minds giving a fresh development to the established institutions of the country. Fortunately the men available for the task were equal to its accomplishment.

One of the circumstances most favourable to the formation of Public Opinion was the rapid growth of the London Coffee-houses. Coffee, introduced into England under the Commonwealth, was at first regarded as a mere medicine, but, from its stimulating qualities, soon became popular as a drink, and (it may be presumed), from its non-intoxicating character, was found to promote at once society and discussion. It was in a Coffee-house that the Rota Club met for their philosophical debates before

the Restoration; and afterwards these places afforded a natural rendezvous, not only for the "quidnuncs," who were chiefly concerned with killing time, but also for the adherents of the old Republican régime, who discussed in them the Absolutist designs of the Government. I have already given specimens of the poetical "libels" written by Andrew Marvell, which circulated in MS. from hand to hand in the Coffee-houses; and it was doubtless these lampoons which, in 1666, made the Chancellor Clarendon so keen either to put down the Coffee-houses or to place them under the supervision of spies. Escaping from either fate at that time, through the opposition of Sir William Coventry, the Coffee-houses were for a brief period threatened with suppression in 1675:

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Whereas (so ran the Proclamation of that year) it is most apparent that the multitude of Coffee-houses of late years set up and kept within this kingdom, the dominion of Wales, and the town of Berwick-on-Tweed, and the great resort of idle and disaffected persons to them, have produced very evil and dangerous effects; as well for that many tradesmen and others do herein misspend much of their time, which might, and probably would, be employed in and about their lawful calling and affairs; but also for that in such houses divers false, malicious, and scandalous reports are devised and spread abroad to the defamation of His Majesty's Government, and to the disturbance of the peace and quiet of the Realm; his Majesty hath thought fit and necessary that such Coffee-houses be [for the future] put down and suppressed, and doth strictly charge and command all manner of persons that they or any of them do not presume, from and after the Tenth day of January next ensuing, to keep any Public Coffee-House, or to utter or sell by retail, in his, her, or their house or houses (to be spent or consumed within the same) any Coffee, Chocolate, Sherbert, or Tea, as they will answer the contrary on their eminent peril.2

The policy of this Proclamation was soon found to be mistaken, and it was withdrawn. Coffee - houses continued to serve as centres for the champions of the Country Party until the Revolution, after which date they

1 Life of Edward, Earl of Clarendon, under the year 1666. 2 Compare Andrew Marvell's verses on the subject cited in vol. iii. p. 497.

gradually declined into mere rallying-points for particular sections of society, the most famous of them being White's Chocolate House, the shrine, as Steele shows us, of "Gallantry, Pleasure, and Entertainment"; Will's CoffeeHouse, the favourite haunt of the votaries of Wit and Poetry; The Grecian, famous for the learning of its customers; and St. James's, the most authoritative centre for all "Foreign and Domestic News." No one who studies the history of our manners can fail to be struck with the number of letters in The Spectator reflecting on points of behaviour and opinion in the Coffee-houses, and showing that these institutions afforded to the observation of Addison the same materials that, on a smaller scale, the middle aisle of Old St. Paul's furnished to Ben Jonson.

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But while this multitude of social Parliaments outside the House of Commons enabled each small circle of Englishmen to form its own public opinion, some central focus was required, if the general sense of society was to make head against the organised lead given to the nation by the manners of the Court. And here again circumstances had gradually prepared the necessary intellectual organism in the growth of the periodical press. As the use of what was originally a medical drug had eventually brought individuals together to discuss high points of liberty and morality, so the supply of the NewsLetter, to satisfy the craving of men for the latest tidings of what other men were saying or doing, had led to the passing of public judgments on these reported actions or opinions. The Government, which was the chief mark of this unrecognised tribunal, was naturally even more eager to suppress the Newspaper than the Coffee-house; and it sought to effect its purpose by the patent granted to Roger L'Estrange in 1663, giving him “the sole privilege of writing, printing, and publishing all Narratives, Advertisements, Mercuries, Intelligencers, Diurnals, and other books of public intelligence." Out of this privilege, which was intended to supplement the deficiencies in the Licensing Act of 1662, grew the office of Gazetteer; but neither 1 Tatler, No. 1.

that nor the Act itself-which, after having lapsed in 1679, was renewed for seven years in 1685-sufficed to prevent the appearance of many unlicensed periodicals; so that, when the Licensing Act expired in 1692, it was resolved not to renew it. Newspapers appeared again in great numbers, with all the characteristics of the old "Mercuries" satirised by Ben Jonson in his Staple of News; but, as the liberties of the country had now been secured by the Bill of Rights, the reflections on Government itself were naturally less exasperating; and a tendency became manifest to turn the organs of public opinion in the press into instruments of self-reformation on behalf of a practically self-governing people.

Such were the chaotic conditions of Public Opinion when Steele, in The Tatler, took the first step towards setting up a new tribunal of taste and manners :—

The state of conversation and business in this town (says he in the first number) having long been perplexed with pretenders in both kinds, in order to open men's minds against such abuses, it appeared no unprofitable undertaking to publish a Paper, which should observe upon the manners of the pleasurable as well as the busy part of mankind. To make this generally read, it seemed the most proper method to form it by way of a Letter of Intelligence, consisting of such parts as might gratify the curiosity of persons of all conditions and of each sex. 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 behaviour.

The biography of Richard Steele, who in these words announces himself as the first literary pioneer in the Reformation of taste and manners, lies beyond the province of our History. Steele was in no sense a poet. But of his friend and school-fellow, his chief coadjutor in The Tatler and The Spectator, to whose fine fancy, elevated feeling, and sound judgment, we owe it that the reforming movement was popularised in English society, this seems to be the fitting place to give some account.

Joseph Addison was the eldest son of Lancelot

Addison, Dean of Lichfield. He was born on the Ist of May 1672, at Milston, near Amesbury, in Wiltshire, of which parish his father was then Rector. He was educated first at Amesbury in the school of one Nash, afterwards at the Grammar School, Lichfield, and next at the Charterhouse, then under the charge of Dr. Ellis. From the Charterhouse in 1687 he passed to Queen's College, Oxford, but after he had been for two years a member of that College, one of the Fellows, Dr. Lancaster, struck by the excellence of his Latin verse procured him a demyship at Magdalen, whence he proceeded to his M.A. degree in 1693. He was elected probationary Fellow of his college in 1697, and became an actual Fellow in 1698. To retain his Fellowship it was necessary for him to take orders, and he would have done so, had it not been for the intervention of Charles Montague, who, being anxious to enlist his talents in the service of the Whigs, persuaded the President of Magdalen not to insist too rigidly on the condition. Addison had in 1697 dedicated to Montague his admirable Latin poem on the Peace of Ryswick; in recompense for which compliment the latter, in 1699, procured for him a temporary pension of £300 a year, that he might travel to learn foreign languages, and so prepare himself for political employment.

To Montague, now become Baron Halifax, Addison addressed, as we have seen, his fine Letter from Italy; but, on his return to England after an absence of four years, he found that his patron had been removed from office. For some little time he seems to have lived in obscurity, though he was elected a member of the Kit-Kat Club, the earliest of those politico-literary societies which so strongly influenced the course of affairs in the reign of Queen Anne. Circumstances favoured him the victory of Blenheim of Blenheim called for adequate celebration in verse; and once more Halifax's reputation for knowledge in "arts that caused himself to rise," enabled him, though out of place, to promote the fortunes of his friend. Addison received as an immediate reward for The Campaign, the post of Commissioner of Appeals