Isaac Bickerstaff, Physician and Astrologer
by Richard Steele.
Papers from Steele's "Tatler."




Introduction by Henry Morley.



Of the relations between Steele and Addison, and the origin of
Steele's "Tatler," which was developed afterwards into the
"Spectator," account has already been given in the introduction to a
volume of this Library, * containing essays from the "Spectator"--
"Sir Roger de Coverley and the Spectator Club." There had been a
centre of life in the "Tatler," designed, as Sir Roger and his
friends were designed, to carry the human interest of a distinct
personality through the whole series of papers. The "Tatler's"
personality was Isaac Bickerstaff, Physician and Astrologer; as to
years, just over the grand climacteric, sixty-three, mystical
multiple of nine and seven; dispensing counsel from his lodgings at
Shire Lane, and seeking occasional rest in the vacuity of thought
proper to his club at the "Trumpet."

The name of Isaac Bickerstaff Steele borrowed from his friend Swift,
who, just before the establishment of the "Tatler," had borrowed it
from a shoemaker's shop-board, and used it as the name of an
imagined astrologer, who should be an astrologer indeed, and should
attack John Partridge, the chief of the astrological almanack