The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series by Sir Richard Steele;Joseph Addison
page 47 of 3879 (01%)
page 47 of 3879 (01%)
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John Partridge is dead, this may inform all his loving countrymen that
he is still living, in health, and they are knaves that reported it otherwise.' Steele gave additional lightness to the touch of his 'Tatler', which first appeared on the 12th of April, 1709, by writing in the name of Isaac Bickerstaff, and carrying on the jest, that was to his serious mind a blow dealt against prevailing superstition. Referring in his first 'Tatler' to this advertisement of Partridge's, he said of it, 'I have in another place, and in a paper by itself, sufficiently convinced this man that he is dead; and if he has any shame, I do not doubt but that by this time he owns it to all his acquaintance. For though the legs and arms and whole body of that man may still appear and perform their animal functions, yet since, as I have elsewhere observed, his art is gone, the man is gone.' To Steele, indeed, the truth was absolute, that a man is but what he can do. In this spirit, then, Steele began the 'Tatler', simply considering that his paper was to be published 'for the use of the good people of England,' and professing at the outset that he was an author writing for the public, who expected from the public payment for his work, and that he preferred this course to gambling for the patronage of men in office. Having pleasantly shown the sordid spirit that underlies the mountebank's sublime professions of disinterestedness, 'we have a contempt,' he says, 'for such paltry barterers, and have therefore all along informed the public that we intend to give them |
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