SOME DRAFTS BY RICHARD STEELE FOR THE TATLER, THE SPECTATOR, AND THE GUARDIAN
ALEXANDER LINDSAY
WITH the transfer of the Blenheim Papers to the British Library in 1978, a large body of Sir Richard Steele's letters and literary manuscripts became more easily available for examination by scholars. They are now bound as Add. MSS. 61686-61688, most of the literary material being gathered in the last of these three volumes. The staff of the Department of Manuscripts took evident pains to relate Steele's drafts and memoranda to published works when preparing the Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts: The Blenheim Papers, 3 vols. (London, 1985), and several useful identifications were made. Nevertheless a large proportion of the drafts have remained unidentified. The present paper will discuss seven fragments in Steele's autograph, all from Add. MS. 61688, which can be shown to relate to the three most important periodicals with which he was involved. The Tatler, The Spectator, and The Guardian. Two can be claimed with reasonable certainty to be drafts of particular papers, two possibly so; it is suggested that another is an unpublished essay intended for The Tatler; and two fragments shed light on that old but still interesting question, the nature and extent of Steele's collaboration with Addison. The first manuscript which can be easily related to a published periodical is a draft of an essay on drunkenness (fig. i). The text is written on the right-hand side of the page, the left-hand being used for revisions and additions. This is Steele's frequent practice, as it is of several other authors of the period. His deletions are shown in angled brackets.
Narrativo et prisce Catonis Drunkenesse Saepe Mero caluisse Virtus a suspension of all the faculties Corpus onustum a man cannot under it be Hesternis vitiis animum quoq- a Freind &c which is great Coming to a Young Gen: losse in so short a Being tleman's Chamber who wan- A Drunkard to a Chast ted a Drachm Woman what the Apostle
163 Fig. I. Autograph draft by Steele for The Tatler, No. 241, 24 October 1710. Add. MS. 61688, f- 63 ^ 164 Remember to [}] the blame calls makes a Good Man Joi- ned to a Whore. Enough to raise Good hum- The Morning Draftsmen: mour allowable used as honnesty Bragging of this Vice and Power in it Detes- table Aspasia Married to a Drun- kard. Faultering lips &c. stagge- ring &c. This is recognizably a rough draft of Tatler, No. 241, 24 October 1710. The motto from Horace, Odes, III. xxi. 11-12, was not used in the published paper but saved for No. 252, a later essay on the same subject. It is the phrases 'A Drunkard to a Chast Woman...' and 'Aspasia Married to a Drunkard' which conclusively point the resemblance: He that is the Husband of a Woman of Honour, and comes Home overloaded with Wine, is still more contemptible in Proportion to the Regard we have to the unhappy Consort of his Bestiality. The Imagination cannot shape it self any Thing more monstrous and unnatural than the Familiarities between Drunkenness and Chastity. The wretched Astraa^ who is the Perfection of Beauty and Innocence, has long been thus condemned for Life.^ Tact has no doubt obliged Steele to substitute 'Astrcea' for the manuscript's 'Aspasia', the name which he had already used in the admiring character of Lady Elizabeth Hastings in Tatler, No. 42. Another draft in the volume (fig. 2) can safely be identified as a rough sketch for the second hdf of Guardian, No. 68, 29 May 1713. The manuscript reads: '/;g^. 2. Autograph draft by Steele for TAf Guardian, No. 68, 29 May 1713. Add. MS. 61688, f 80 166 His Answer setting forth that the severall parts of His letter (regard) show Him touched in His Fancy. He sees the fears, whether his thoughts are con- ducted with respect to the Minister's Daughter: That a Criminall Commerce with a Woman of f8o Nestor Ironside, conductor of The Guardian, is replying to a letter from his young ward Sir Harry Lizard affecting a light-hearted indifference to matrimony. The passages from the published text which relate to the draft are as follows: YOUR Letter I have read over two or three times, and must be so free with you as to tell you, it has in it something which betrays you have lost that Simplicity of Heart with relation to Love, which I promised my self would crown your Days with Happiness and Honour... Without naming Names, I have long suspected your Designs upon a young Gentlewoman in your Neighbourhood, but give me leave to tell you with all the Earnestness of a faithful Friend, that to enter into a criminal Commerce with a Woman of Merit, whom you find innocent, is, of all the Follies in this Life, the most fruitful of Sorrow; you must make your Approaches to her with the Benevolence and Language of a good Angel, in order to bring upon her Pollution and Shame, which is the Work of a Demon: The Fashion of the World, the Warmth of Youth, and the Affluence of Fortune, may, perhaps, make you look upon me in this Talk like a poor well- meaning old Man, who is past those Ardencies in which you at present triumph; but believe me. Sir, if you succeed in what I fear you design, you'll find the Sacrifice of Beauty and Innocence so strong an Obligation upon you, that your whole Life will pass away in the worst Condition imaginable, that of Doubt and Irresolution; you will ever be designing to leave her, and never do it; or leave her for another, with a constant Longing after her. He is a very unhappy Man who does not reserve the most pure and kind Affections of his Heart for his Marriage-Bed, he will otherwise be reduced to this melancholy Circumstance, that he gave his Mistress that kind of 167 Affection which was proper for his Wife, and has not for his Wife either that, or the usual Inclmation which Men bestow upon their Mistresses.^ The last few lines of Steele's manuscript, however, evidently refer to the Whig Guardian's party warfare against the Tory Examiner. In two cases the identification of a draft with a published paper can only be offered tentatively. One of these is a short 'memorandum', to use Steele's own term for a series of injunctions to himself: 'Adversaria' Expose the insensibility of Wealth yt takes care only to have a great deal of food and Necessaries of Life enter in great order the Pomp and Skill of Devouring and not caring tho half their Species are starving the mean while &c. f66 Although this is perhaps too brief to establish a definite connection, it does suggest passages from Spectator, No. 294, 6 February 1712, best known for its praise of the charity schools, but much of it taken up with a denunciation of those who lack benevolence, that virtue so much admired by eighteenth-century moralists. There are at least some common turns of phrase between the draft and this Spectator paper: But when Wealth is used only as it is the Support of Pomp and Luxury, to be rich is very far from being a Recommendation to Honour and Respect. It is indeed the greatest Insolence imaginable, in a Creature who would feel the Extremes of Thirst and Hunger if he did not prevent his Appetites before they call upon him, to be so forgetful of the common Necessity of humane Nature as never to cast an Eye upon the Poor and Needy. ...When a Man looks about him, and with regard to Riches and Poverty beholds some drawn in Pomp and Equipage, and they and their very Servants with an Air of Scorn and Triumph overlooking the Multitude that pass by them: and in the same Street a Creature of the same Make crying out in the Name of all that is good and sacred to behold his Misery, and give him some Supply against Hunger and Nakedness, who would believe these two Beings were of the same Species?^ A different reason prevents one from positing a firm connection between the draft essay on f. 57 and Tatler, No. 251, 16 November 1710. Both are headed by the same motto from Horace, Satires, IL vii. 85-6, and in both Steele is developing the argument that one's own conscience and self-approbation are surer guides for one's virtue than the esteem of others. 168 Responsare cupidinibus contemnere honores Fortis et in seipso Totus Teres atque rotundus The Phrase which We use when- A Gentleman's letter a man has done any thing unworthy about being disinterested his Character or profession to wit of Riches that such a one has lost Himself of Honour. is a very proper and significant ex- of His person. pression. For to act by any other To despise Pleasure rule but the conviction of a mans Wealth and Glory own conscience is to give Up his very being: But the common motto is, of course, not sufficient evidence by itself, and we have already seen that Steele could change his mind when deciding which printed essay a motto might best accompany. Nor are there any significant verbal resemblances between this and the finally published text. The most that one can venture is that the manuscript is certainly a draft on the same theme as Tatler, No. 251, and just possibly an early version of this paper which Steele later radically recast. There remain, of course, drafts of a number of periodical essays which cannot be identified with published numbers of any of Steele's journals. In one of these instances, however, it can be reasonably suggested that the draft was intended for The Tatler although never used. It is headed by an epigraph from Horace, Odes, L ix. 23-4, and its principal subject is the Lord Mayor's day, a celebration of the Whig mercantile values which Steele admired; but other topics are included, and this miscellaneous character is more in keeping with a Tatler paper than with The Spectator, where the numbers usually consist of an essay on a single theme. More importantly, the reference to ' Isaack' at the beginning of the manuscript points to Isaac Bickerstaff, the conductor of The Tatler. 169 Pignus & direptum lacerto Et digito male pertinaci of Isaack of- all the [distorters?] of How this gift was given the Reason from one and the other- the Description of and the quarrells about with Ld Mayor's day the storyes. find many- the Magnificence Ways of speaking of which even y^ ill such a Trifle. day could not deface It was at a Lord- of the severall Companyes Mayor's day the thing the Honour of En- of which there is so much gland. How to do noise was only this and- upon such occasions to tell you the Way & that they contribute to Progresse of Scandall. our Grandeur. We are seated to be visited and What can any body to be kept up. say to that— subdivide [?] millions in the- it into many little differences River of Thames— the thrifty wife was by the Barbadoes— the- she has a great deal of turkey— The Actapulta Wit & I am sorry for it— the Virginia &c 170 form are attributed to Addison. One of these is a rough list of topics for future numbers; Addison used just such a 'paper of hints' as the basis for Spectator, No. 46, where as a joke against himself Mr Spectator recounts the astonishing reactions of his coffee-house companions to the enigmatic jottings which have slipped from his pocket.^ The present fragment reads, J— Himself to come in the Air & down ropes in a Machine A Spaniard resigns and [?] Frenchman ni penser Lamia Eating Children— the Children to be Cousins and so the whole [Family.^] to [be eaten.''] in time— no sense at all— in Covent Garden Monsters prevaile— the absence of all sense— precedes this Monstrous fi- gures The State of Credit represented in a peice of Machinery— The man at Belgrade an hundred and seventy years old— The Goodnaturd man [sees.''] untill his friendship Adverbiall song— Seign. Bosch on Horse back The Horse afterwards discharg'd because he Neigh'd (after) in the English Manner The Bear to be ursala in the Hea- vens— The monkey no more than an Eunuch not for the Kingdoms of Heaven's [sake?] Charles y^ fifth's resignation The monkey and a Bear The Taverns and Bawds petition against the Masquerades— as Punishings their- vacating their Houses. The important item in this list is 'The State of Credit represented in a peice of Machinery—', which surely refers to Addison's celebrated allegory of the Goddess Public Credit in Spectator, No. 3, 3 March 1711. Some of the other hints refer to the absurd spectacles with which the contemporary theatres attempted to attract audiences, and which are attacked in several of the early Spectator papers. It would appear therefore 171 Fig. J. Autograph memorandum by Steele, adapted by Addison in The Spectator, No. io, 12 March 1711. Add. MS. 61688, f 65 that the Goddess was first conceived as one of Steele's ideas for satirizing the contemporary stage, and finally became in Addison's hands the gently playful allegory which we know in its printed form. The other manuscript (fig. 3) is a memorandum which unmistakably anticipates Addison's well-known comparison of Mr Spectator to a Socrates of domestic life in Spectator, No. 10, 12 March 1711: si haec ita non sunt nihil aliud video quod agere pessimus. Socrates's Character of bringing Philosophy to- common life, begin the letter with what It was said of Socrates, that he brought Philosophy down from Heaven, to inhabit among Men; and I shall be ambitious to have it said of me, that I have brought Philosophy out of Closets and Libraries, Schools and Colleges, to dwell in Clubs and Assemblies, at Tea-Tables and in Coffee- Houses.' It may not be entirely a coincidence that this evidence of the partners' sharing ideas should be found in manuscripts relating to such early numbers of The Spectator. This would certainly be the stage of the journal when the planning of future numbers was bound to involve the closest consultation. Later, when Addison began to draw upon his manuscript volumes of essays for extended series of papers on particular topics, the two men may have indeed worked with a greater degree of independence.^ Nevertheless the point remains, a salutary one considering a long-standing tendency to undervalue Steele as an essayist in a comparison with his friend, that these two numbers, both among Addison's better known Spectator papers, can be shown to have been developed *from an original idea' by Steele. The initial work for this article was undertaken as Jowrna/(Cambridge, Mass., 1971), p. 12; and on part of the research for the Sir Richard Steele The Spectator, 'As the paper proceeded Addison section of the Index of English Literary Manuscripts, filled out so naturally the beginnings of characters vol. iii, pt. 3 (London, 1992). The format of the and projects begun by Steele', Peter Smithers, Index, however, prevented the identifications being The Life of Joseph Addison, 2nd edn. (Oxford, demonstrated by quotation or argued at length. 1968), p. 220. 1 The Tatler, ed. Donald F. Bond, 3 vols. (Oxford, 6 For an account of a comparable manuscript 1987), vol. iii, p. 238. 'Paper of Hints', probably in the hand of 2 The Guardian, ed. John Calhoun Stephens Edward Young but with autograph revisions by (Lexington, Ky, 1982), p. 257. Addison, see M. J. C. Hodgart, 'The Eighth 3 The Spectator, ed. Donald F. Bond, 5 vols. Volume of The Spectator', Review of English (Oxford, 1965), vol. iii, pp. 47-8. Studies, n.s., v (1954), pp. 367-87. 4 The Miscellaneous Works of Joseph Addison, ed. 7 Op. cit., vol. i, p. 44. A. C. Guthkelch, 2 vols. (London, 1914), vol. i, 8 For Addison's manuscript volumes of essays p. xix. used as sources of Spectator papers, see the 5 See, for example, on Addison's collaboration following: on Bodleian, MS. Don.d.112, M. C. with Steele upon The Tatler, 'At any rate, the Crum, 'A Manuscript of Essays by Addison', abundant mutual esteem between the two men Bodleian Library Record, v (1954), pp. 98-103, suggests that when they were together they and Robert D. Chambers, 'Addison at Work on probably talked rather often about the conduct the Spectator', Modern Philology, Ivi (1959), pp. of the Tatler in general and less often on specific 145-53; and on Harvard, MS. Eng.772, Some matters. Their occasional sharing in the com- Portions of Essays Contributed to the Spectator by position of individual essays was probably more Mr. Joseph Addison, ed. J. Dykes Campbell consultative than annotative', Richmond P. (Glasgow: Privately printed, 1864). Bond, The Tatler: The Making of a Literary 173