The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 | Page 2

familiar intercourse between Swift and Addison and Steele. After Sir William Temple's death, Swift had become chaplain to the Earl of Berkeley, who gave him the living of Laracor; and during a visit to England in 1704 he had gained a position in the front rank of authors by the "Tale of a Tub" and the "Battle of the Books." At the close of 1707 he was again in England, charged with a mission to obtain for the Irish clergy the remission of First Fruits and Tenths already conceded to the English, and throughout 1708 what he calls "the triumvirate of Addison, Steele and me" were in constant communication. In that year Swift published a pamphlet called "A Project for the Advancement of Religion and the Reformation of Manners," which anticipated many of the arguments used in the Tatler and _Spectator_; and he also commenced his attack on John Partridge, quack doctor and maker of astrological almanacs. On the appearance of Partridge's "Merlinus Liberatus" for 1708, Swift--borrowing a name from the signboard of a shoemaker--published "Predictions for the year 1708, wherein the month and day of the month are set down, the persons named, and the great actions and events of next year particularly related, as they will come to pass. Written to prevent the people of England from being further imposed on by vulgar almanack-makers. By Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq." Isaac Bickerstaff professed to be a true astrologer, disgusted at the lies told by impostors, and he said that he was willing to be hooted at as a cheat if his prophecies were not exactly fulfilled. His first prediction was that Partridge would die on the 29th of March; and on the 30th a second pamphlet was published, "The accomplishment of the first of Mr. Bickerstaff's Predictions ... in a letter to a person of quality, in which a detailed account is given of Partridge's death, at five minutes after seven, by which it is clear that Mr. Bickerstaff was mistaken almost four hours in his calculation.... Whether he had been the cause of this poor man's death, as well as the predictor, may be very reasonably disputed." The joke was maintained by Swift and others in various pieces, and when Partridge, in his almanac for 1709, protested that he was still living, Swift replied, in "A Vindication of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.," which was advertised in the fifth number of the Tatler, that he could prove that Partridge was not alive; for no one living could have written such rubbish as the new almanac. In starting his new paper Steele assumed the name of the astrologer Isaac Bickerstaff, rendered famous by Swift, and made frequent use of Swift's leading idea. He himself summed up the controversy in the words, "if a man's art is gone, the man is gone, though his body still appear."
Much has been written on the interesting question of the early history of the periodical press; but with one exception none of its predecessors had much effect on the Tatler. John Dunton's Athenian Mercury was the forerunner of our _Notes and Queries_; and it was followed by the British Apollo (1708-11), the second title of which was "Curious Amusements for the Ingenious. To which are added the most Material Occurrences, Foreign and Domestic. Performed by a Society of Gentlemen." _The Gentleman's Journal_ of 1692-4, a monthly paper of poems and other miscellaneous matter, was succeeded, in 1707, by Oldmixon's _Muses' Mercury; or, The Monthly Miscellany_, a periodical which contained also notices of new plays and books, and numbered Steele among its contributors. Defoe's Review, begun in 1704, aimed at setting the affairs of Europe in a clearer light, regardless of party; but, added Defoe, "After our serious matters are over, we shall at the end of every paper present you with a little diversion, as anything occurs to make the world merry; and whether friend or foe, one party or another, if anything happens so scandalous as to require an open reproof, the world will meet with it there." Accordingly, of the eight pages in the first number, one and a half pages consist of "Mercure Scandale; or, Advice from the Scandalous Club, Translated out of French." The censure was to be of the actions of men, not of parties; and the design was to expose not persons but things. A monthly supplement, dealing with "the immediate subject then on the tongues of the town," was begun in September 1704; and pressure on the space before long pushed the Advices from the Scandal Club out of the ordinary issue of the Review. Subsequently Defoe wrote more than once in praise of the way in which his work had been taken up by Isaac Bickerstaff.
Probably the Tatler was started by Steele without any very definite designs for the