in which the Spectator's mouth would be opened. But of this opportunity Addison made little use. The chief aim of his papers, he said, would be to inspire mutual good-will and benevolence; 'it is not my ambition to increase the number either of Whigs or Tories, but of wise and good men.’ The absence of Steele's hand is very marked; the number of moral and philosophical discourses is much greater than in the original series; and there are comparatively few of the lighter papers on social questions of the day.

The death of Queen Anne and the accession of George I. brought the Whigs again into office. Addison was at once appointed Secretary to the Lords Justices, and soon afterwards Chief Secretary to Lord Sunderland, the new Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. Steele was made Supervisor of the Theatre, with other honours. Of his writings in the autumn of 1714, his 'Apology for Himself and his Writings is his best political pamphlet; while the compilation called 'The Ladies' Library' was the indirect result of papers on the subject in the Spectator. Early in 1715, Steele received a patent appointing him manager of Drury Lane Theatre, and became M.P. for Boroughbridge; in April he was knighted. It is unnecessary here to follow his changing fortunes ; his monetary difficulties; his visits to Scotland as Commissioner of Forfeited Estates, and his hopes from various inventions. Addison in the meantime became one of the Lords Commissioners of Trade, and brought out the Freeholder, a peri

1 No. 556.

odical of a political complexion, but now known only by the character of a Tory fox-hunter which it contains. In August 1716 he married the Countess of Warwick, and in the following year became fellow Secretary of State with Sunderland.

Sadly enough, a coolness sprang up between Addison and his old friend Steele, and in the controversy over the Peerage Bill of 1719 they took opposite sides. Addison's health had for some time been

failing, and no opportunity for reconciliation occurred before his death in June 1719. Steele had acted in opposition to his party because he believed and rightly-that they were in the wrong; and he was punished for his independence by the loss of his patent. His grievances formed a principal topic of a new periodical, the Theatre, and about the same time he published pamphlets on the South-Sea Scheme. One real success remained for him the production of his best play, 'The Conscious Lovers,' in November 1722. After that there is little but a story of failing health, troubled by litigation and schemes for the settlement of debts, and brightened only by his charming letters to his children. His closing years were spent in retirement in Carmarthenshire. After a stroke of paralysis he never entirely recovered his mental powers, and he died in September 1729. The last glimpse we have of him comes from the actor Benjamin Victor, who had sought from him an introduction to Walpole: 'I was told he retained his cheerful sweetness of temper to the last, and would often be carried out on a summer's evening,

when the country lads and lasses were assembled at their rural sports, and, with his pencil, give an order on his agent, the mercer, for a new gown to the best dancer.' Before the end came, Steele's debts-never so heavy as might at first appear-had all been paid.

The influence of the Spectator and the other periodicals published by Addison and Steele upon journalism, both at home and abroad, was immediate and widespread. Many now forgotten papers were brought out in London, including Sir Richard Blackmore's Lay Monk, 1713-14, and a continuation of the Spectator by William Bond in 1715. But more important than any of these were the periodicals published on the Continent. The first in order of date was Le Misanthrope, by Justus van Effen, a member of the Royal Society of London, which was commenced in May 1711 and continued until December 1712. In the Notice to the Reader prefixed to the collected edition published at the Hague in 1712-13, Effen referred to one of the finest geniuses of the time who started two years before in England the Tatler, with which all the world was charmed. There was hardly a family in London, he said, where the Tatler was not taken in regularly, to read in the morning while drinking tea, for the instruction both of young and old and he was assured that from twelve to fifteen thousand copies were sold every time. The Spectator, published daily, was meeting with equal success. Effen was one of the translators of Robinson

Crusoe' in 1720, and he afterwards wrote Le Nouveau Spectateur Français, the Hollansche Spectator, and other periodicals. The Spectator was translated into French in 1715-18, and was a favourite book with Rousseau in his youth. A French imitation, Le Spectateur français, ou le Socrate moderne, appeared in 1719-21, and it was followed by Le Spectateur inconnu, 1724; Le Babillard, ou le Nouvelliste Philosophe, 1724-5, &c.

In Germany the effect was still more marked. Der Vernünftler was published at Hamburg in 1713, and Der Spectateur oder Betrachtung über die verdorbenen Sitten at Nuremburg in 1719. In 1721 Bodmer and Breitinger began, at Zurich, the Discurse der Maler, afterwards republished as Die Maler der Sitten. In October 1721 the authors sent a long letter to Steele, and they dedicated to him the second volume of their work. In 1725 Gottsched, the leader of the opposite school of German writers, brought out another paper, Die vernünftigen Tadlerinnen. Other periodicals were Der Leipziger Spectateur, 1723; Der freimütlige Tadler, 1725; and Der getreue Hofmeister, 1725. It is unnecessary to follow the movement further, or to mention similar papers published in other countries. By 1750 the number of such papers in England had reached 94, and in Germany about 150.2

1 Der Spectator als Quelle der Discurse der Maler,' by Dr. Theodor Vetter, 1887.

2 Selections from the Works of Sir Richard Steele,' by Prof. G. R. Carpenter, Boston, U.S.A., 1897, pp. lv.-lx., and the authorities there quoted; Aitken's 'Life of Richard Steele,' ii. 424-8.

In America the influence of the Spectator seems to have appeared first in the New England Courant, after the publication of that periodical was undertaken by Benjamin Franklin in 1723.

A word must be said, in conclusion, of the minor contributors to the Spectator. In No. 555, after thanking Addison and Budgell, Steele said that he had received some assistance from unknown hands; but those to whom he could trace such favours were 'Mr. Henry Martyn, Mr. Pope, Mr. Hughes, Mr. Carey of New College in Oxford, Mr. Tickell of Queen's in the same University, Mr. Parnell, and Mr. Eusden of Trinity in Cambridge.' Dr. Drake, in his Essays Illustrative of the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian,' drew up a table of contributors, given below, which appears to be substantially 1 Contributors to the Spectator :