9, 10, 11. Henry Grove, a dissenting minister at Taunton, John Byrom, the son of a Lancashire linendraper, and Zachary Pearce, afterwards Bishop of Rochester, were brought in to assist in bearing the daily burden, while the eighth volume was in progress, and when Addison was beginning to grow weary. Their compositions, though most moral and irreproachable, seem to have been more 'solid' than even the English palate could endure, and they quickly wrote the Spectator out of the world. Nos. 588, 601, 626, and 635 were by Grove, Nos. 586 and 593 by Byrom, and Nos. 572 and 633 by Pearce. 12. Henry Martyn. This clever writer published in 1713 a very successful pamphlet, called The British Merchant or Commerce Preserved, in answer to Defoe, who had extolled the commercial benefits which the ministry had obtained for the country by the Peace of Utrecht. Nos. 180 and 200 are confidently attributed to him, and he is said to have written several of the unappropriated papers. 13. Dr. Isaac Watts, the well known author of 'Sacred Songs,' contributed a letter and a version of Ps. cxiv. to No. 461. 14-23. Dr. Brome, Mr. Francham, Mr. Dunlop, Lord Hardwicke, John Weaver, Rev. R. Parker, Mr. Golding, Dr. Harper, P. A. Motteux, Gilbert Budgell. Each of these persons is known to have contributed one paper, or part of one, to the Spectator. 24. Ambrose Philips. This was 'namby-pamby Philips,' as Pope called him; author of some Pastorals, and translator, or converter, of Racine's Andromaque, into the bombastic drama of The Distressed Mother. The good Addison, faithful to the ties of party as to all other ties, loved Philips because he was a zealous Whig, and praised his literary work much above its merits, just as he did Tickell's. There must have been something provoking and obtrusive about Philips' mediocrity, to judge from the frequent castigation that he received at the hands of the wits. Thus Swift, writing of the flightiness of the one and the dismalness of the other, likens Philips and Young to a pair of sawyers : 'Or, more to show the thing I mean, Have you not o'er a saw-pit seen But which excelled was never found, The translations from the Greek in Nos. 223 and 229 were contributed by Philips. 25. Lawrence Eusden, who was poet laureate between 1718 and 1730, wrote two letters in Nos. 54 and 87, besides much that cannot be identified. Pope introduces him in the Dunciad; the goddess of Dulness, calling Cibber to his throne over the dunces, says: 'Know, Eusden thirsts no more for sack or praise; He sleeps among the dull of ancient days.' 26. Henry Bland, afterwards Provost of Eton, contributed a Latin metrical version of Cato's soliloquy in Addison's tragedy to No. 628. 27. James Heywood, a linendraper, is the author of a letter in No. 268, complaining of having his nose pulled. 28, 29, 30. John Henley, Miss Shepheard, Mrs. Perry. Each was the contributor of one or more letters. Terminal Letters. With regard to the signatory letters, R is believed to indicate invariably the authorship of Steele. But, as the work proceeded, Steele exchanged R for T, which was also used by Tickell, Parnell, and probably others. The papers of Addison are always distinguished by one of the letters of the word CLIO. Eustace Budgell took X for his initial, and, occasionally, Z. Pope also uses Z. The papers of Hughes are usually not signed at all. With regard to the plan of arrangement pursued in the present selection, if it does not commend itself to the reader on the whole by its own merits, it will be vain to think of overcoming his repugnance to it by an elaborate argument. No one can feel a more unfeigned reluctance than the present editor to disturb the method and form in which an author of genius may have chosen to communicate his thoughts to the world; and if the original order of publication had anything of design about it, or possessed any sort of intrinsic fitness, he would have held it sacred. But, in fact, all the accidents which beset rapid periodical writing, were instrumental in educing the actual order in which the papers originally appeared; and there is no reason for respecting the accidental. Already, when Tickell published the collected works of his departed friend, he found it advisable to disregard the original order in respect of the papers of criticism on the Paradise Lost, and to collect them into a consecutive series. The same principle, applied throughout the papers chosen for publication, has produced the present work. It must have been a trouble to many lovers of Addison to have to hunt through the volumes of the Spectator, or painfully to search an index, in order to discern the full and perfect lineaments, as he designed to trace them, of the character of Sir Roger de Coverley. In the case of other members of the club, the same annoyance at the wide dispersion of the notices concerning them must often have been experienced in a less degree. This defect is remedied in the present edition, by collecting under one head (Part I) very nearly all that Addison wrote respecting the Spectator Club and its members. The second part, 'Editorial Papers,' brings together a number of papers which possess an interest of a special kind as throwing light on the progress and circulation of the work, and discussing a variety of matters, more or less trivial, but often handled with infinite humour, connected with the form and cost of its production. Of this latter description is the 488th number, in which, with a bantering sobriety of tone, the effect of which is exquisitely comic, he begs the alarmed subscriber who looks forward with dismay to the prospect of paying a penny more for every future number of the Spectator, to remember that in a few months he will be able to buy the entire series, collected into volumes, at the original rate, and to ask himself, 'whether it is not better for him to be half a year behind hand with the fashionable and polite part of the world, than to strain himself beyond his circumstances?' The playful arrogance of the assumption in the first clause, coupled with the bantering gravity of the solemn question in the second, furnish us here with an admirable and typical specimen of the Addisonjan humour. The few political papers which follow, and which compose Part III, strike as it were the key-note which the Spectator observes in all his speculations. Political moderation,―aiming at what was practically just and really attainable, while strongly discarding both persons and parties which had shown an inaptitude for respecting the honest feelings of classes, and the customary rights of individuals,--such was the ground tone to which the soul of Addison responded, and which resounds through the first number of this part. From his political moderation flowed his moderation in religion and ecclesiastical affairs, placing him at an equal distance from the 'compelle intrare' of Laud, and the revolutionary speculations of Tindal. This spirit of religious moderation will be found largely illustrated in the Fourth Part, in which I have also placed a number of papers on moral questions and superstitious beliefs. The moral side of Addison's nature, which finds expression in these papers, and others of which our limits compelled the exclusion, has received such delicate appreciation at the hands of M. Taine, that I cannot deny myself the gratification of here quoting some of his words. He says: 'He [Addison] was noble by nature, and he was so also on principle. He deemed that honesty was also good sense. His first care, as he tells us, was to range his passions "on the side of truth 1" He had sketched beforehand in his own mind the likeness of a reasonable being, and by this he shaped his conduct, as much from reflection as from instinct. He rested every virtue on a series of principles and proofs. His logic fed his morality, and his intellectual rectitude crowned the uprightness of his heart. His religion, altogether English, was of a similar kind. He rested his faith on a regular series of historical discussions; he proved the existence of God by a chain of moral inductions; minute and solid demonstration was everywhere the guide and the source of his beliefs and his emotions. With this disposition of mind, he loved to conceive of God as the reasonable ruler of the world; chance and necessity were transformed for him into calculation and direction; in the clash and conflict of things he beheld order and Providence, and felt himself externally begirt by that wisdom which he desired to harbour within his breast. He trusted himself in God's hands, as one good and just being may freely place himself in the hands of another; in the thought and presence of Him it was his delight to live,—and to meditate on that unknown future which will consummate human nature, and integrate the moral order of the world?.' Most of the numbers printed in this part were originally among 1 There is a slight error here; it was Pope who said of Addison that he set the passions on the side of truth.' 2 Taine, Litterature Anglaise, Liv. iii. ch. 4, § 2. the famous 'Saturday papers' of the Spectator, that day having been usually devoted by Addison and Steele to the discussion of some serious topic, so as to wind up the speculation or satire of the week well, and dispose the reader's mind to the reverential observance of the following day. To the Fifth Part I have assigned a selection from those very numerous papers on manners, which, in the Spectator, as previously in the Tatler, were the fruit of Addison's close, but mostly silent and shy, observation of human life. In many of these papers the purpose of the moral reformer is indeed apparent, but the artist or the humourist predominates;—the things observed, and the mode of describing them, assume an importance higher than that of the moral remarks connected with them; just as we sometimes see in reverend explorers the tastes of the geographer and the naturalist overpowering those of the preacher and the missionary. The Sixth Part imperfectly represents the critical vein of Addison, as exercised (1) on questions of taste and wit, (2) on the stage and the drama, (3) on books and authors. The series of papers on the Paradise Lost, and that on the pleasures of imagination, have been unavoidably excluded, but may perhaps appear in a future volume of selections. In the Seventh Part most of the tales, fables, and allegories which Addison wrote for the Spectator have been brought together. The Eighth Part contains a few papers of more than average merit on miscellaneous topics, which it was not easy to classify under any of the preceding heads; finally, the Ninth Part consists of the five hymns, or sacred poems, which Addison contributed to the Spectator at various times. The original mottos have been retained; but with regard to the translation of them no uniform procedure has been adopted. They are never translated in the original publication; but considering that the present volume might come into the hands of many to whom Latin and Greek were not familiar, we have freely added translations, when English poets had supplied us with a good one, but have excluded a large number of the versions of Creech, Francis, Tate, &c., that are printed in the ordinary editions of the Spectator. With regard to the orthography, we have as a rule conformed it to that of the present day, being unable to see that anything is |