royal," others on "medium "medium" paper; and the price of the former was a guinea a volume, while that of the latter was half a guinea. There was also an authorised cheap edition, in duodecimo, at half a crown a volume, besides a pirated edition at the same price. A still more conclusive proof of the success of the Tatler was the number of papers started in imitation of its methods. Addison mentioned some of those periodicals in No. 229, where details will be found of the "Female Tatler," "Tit for Tat," and the like. But besides these, several spurious continuations of the Tatler appeared directly after the discontinuance of the genuine paper, including one by William Harrison, written with Swift's encouragement and assistance. But Harrison, as Swift said, had "not the true vein for it," and his paper reached only to fifty-two numbers, which were afterwards reprinted as a fifth volume to the collected edition of the original Tatler. Gay said that Steele's imitators seemed to think " that what was only the garnish of the former Tatlers was that which recommended them, and not those substantial entertainments which they everywhere abound in." The town, in the absence of anything better, welcomed their occasional and faint endeavours at humour ; "but even those are at present become wholly invisible, and quite swallowed up in the blaze of the Spectator." Steele himself said that his imitators held the censorship in commission. The Preface.' In In the last Tatler I promised some explanation of passages and persons mentioned in this work, as well as some account of the assistances I have had in the performance. I shall do this in very few words; for when a man has no design but to speak plain truth, he may say a great deal in a very narrow compass. I have in the dedication of the first volume made my acknowledgments to Dr. Swift, whose pleasant writings, in the name of Bickerstaff, created an inclination in the town towards anything that could appear in the same disguise. I must acknowledge also, that at my first entering upon this work, a certain uncommon way of thinking, and a turn in conversation peculiar to that agreeable gentleman, rendered his company very advantageous to one whose imagination was to be continually employed upon obvious and common subjects, though at the same time obliged to treat of them in a new and unbeaten method. His verses on the Shower in Town,2 and the Description of the Morning,' are instances of the happiness of that genius, which could raise such pleasing ideas upon occasions so barren to an ordinary invention. When I am upon the house of Bickerstaff, I must not forget that genealogy of the family sent to me by the post, 1 This Preface was originally prefixed to the fourth volume of the collected edition issued in 1710-11. 3 No. 9. 2 No. 238. |