Addison and Steele play nice in sharing information.

Coming to a blog, er, right here and now, actually, we’ve got some thoughts after reading further selections from The Tatler and The Spectator, informed as well by the collection’s introductory material. At present, I’d like to consider Addison and Steele’s awareness of their readership, of a growing wealthy merchant group that sought guidance in finding a common identity and set of societal rules. In The Tatler and The Spectator, Addison and Steele offer a helping hand and a prescription for culture while ever companionably acknowledging their readers.

Writing under the guises of Mr. Bickerstaff in The Tatler and Mr. Spectator in The Spectator, Addison and Steele (along with their cohorts) do not assume the full interest of readers, but seek to cultivate it. From the start, they seem up front with their readers, laying out their purposes and aims—the general idea being, as Steele puts in The Tatler’s initial dedication, “to expose the false Arts of Life … and to recommend a general Simplicity in our Dress, our Discourse, and our Behaviour” (47). And in The Tatler, Steele promptly outlines exactly what will be found in the publication and how readers might navigate and use the content. From the start, then, he provides a strong but amiable sort of guiding hand, his attention geared ever-toward his presumed readers.

Addison and Steele also express a desire to tailor their publications to suit their readers, and claim to be indebted to their readership. A publication requires an eager public, and Addison and Steele are careful to make theirs feel a necessary part of the paper and its process, to emphasize their importance. Addison remarks in The Spectator, Number 10, “Since I have raised to my self so great an Audience, I shall spare no Pains to make their Instruction agreeable, and their Diversion useful” (88), and in Number 262 notes that the success of The Spectator, “does not perhaps reflect so much Honour upon my self, as on my Readers, who give a much greater Attention to Discourses of Virtue and Morality, than ever I expected, or indeed could hope” (98). In both—though the second might also be a bit of a backhanded compliment—Addison is careful to indicate a sense of obligation to the readership.

As with most other matters, Steele in The Tatler speaks frankly of the paper’s cost. Although the first issues of the paper were available gratis, Steele notes that he will soon be obliged to charge, explaining, “I cannot keep an Ingenious Man to go daily to Will’s, under Twopence each Day merely for his Charges; to White’s, under Sixpence; nor to the Graecian, without allowing some Plain Spanish, to be as able as others at the Learned Table; and that a good Observer cannot speak […] without clean Linnen” (50). In order to glean the talk of the town, in order to ferret out useful information for readers, observers found themselves darting among coffee-houses, and required some amount of money to participate properly in the discussions (for drinking in the congenial company of others, for instance, and so as not to appear slovenly). It seems, then, that information comes at a cost of both time and money. And so Steele and then Addison must charge a small fee for their printed word (or for words that may have been at least partially appropriated from others, snatched from the general discourse).

To dwell a little further (just a little further, honest) on the thought that information has its cost. It seems an interesting and omnipresent question, the thought of why anyone ought to pay for information, why in the already tricky quest for knowledge we are obliged to cough up money for a few obscure facts or suppositions. We are all human, presumably given that gift (or call it a curse) of curiosity. Why should information be withheld? Why should we not be allowed to readily know? Why should discoveries be hidden from anyone? Why should there be a cost to, say, access dictionaries, publications, particular museums? Certainly, such questions may have occurred to potential readers during the 18th Century. Why should they have paid for information that they might pick up themselves at a coffee-house? What was information, that it should be worth purchasing, or that it could be categorized as a commodity?

The fact stands (as is doubtless all too obvious, and here I am yammering on about it) that there is always a process to finding information and presenting it in a particular fashion. In providing information, publications such as The Tatler and The Spectator culled choice points and thoughts from the larger discourse. Addison and Steele—after dedicating hours to conversation and observation—thus likely helped to sift through a somewhat overwhelming wash of discourse and pinpoint supposedly important aspects of conversation and thought, to direct readers toward the most intriguing or relevant concerns.

Certainly there was much to sift through… And is, today. Consider the world at hand, in which many individuals are or claim to be conscious of global occurrences, living in a world long-historied and heavily archived. Our body of available information is ever-expanding, and to grasp any comprehensive sense of it is perhaps impossible. Yet through such publications as newspapers, bibliographies—any references that help navigate the mounds of information, we may at least convince ourselves that we’ve a handle on the world. And however tricky this information may be, we desire it, oh yes, because it is from blocks of information that we may shape our own knowledge… or, at any rate, what we might presume to be knowledge.

Perhaps this excess of information was already pushing at London during the 18th Century; the note from Steele quoted above does seem to indicate that following the discursive scene was no simple task. London had grown to a bustling city, and plenty of individuals found themselves with the leisure to enjoy debate, to talk and to read and to formulate theories. There was much to say and do, talk and companionship prospered in numerous hotspots, and anyone wishing to catch the latest debates would need to devote great time and energy to moving from one coffee-house to another. How many people could or would spare the necessary effort? Such publications as The Tatler and The Spectator in a sense recorded the thoughts bandied about coffee-houses and so helped to fill in the gaps of missed conversations. With Mr. Bickerstaff and Mr. Spectator standing watch, interested parties need never be concerned about missing something important.

Picking up strands of discourse from one coffee-house and another, Addison, Steele, and their cohorts could incorporate any words spoken into their own articles and arguments. What an individual said might be not only recorded in the minds of those lounging about the coffee-house, but could also become part of the printed discourse. It thus seems that anything from extensive intellectual debate to bits of gossip might be transcribed, incorporated into an essay, then published and spread about. And words might have been snatched anywhere, for as Addison writes in the first issue of The Spectator, “There is no Place of general Resort, wherein I do not often make my Appearances” (80); that is, any location and its conversations were game for the ever-lurking observer. Observers captured strands of conversation and recorded their general content, if not their exact form, and the spoken word became steadily less transitory (if, indeed, it had ever been truly transitory, for tales told orally may certainly linger long… but that is a strand for another time).

In any case. If nothing else, reading bits of The Tatler and The Spectator (of any such publication, really) may help toward grasping a sense of 18th-century life, or at least viewing a more brilliant picture of it. Granted that it filters through a particular lens, but the lens can be quite broad in scope, and offers insights regarding an ever-growing London and fast-forming (and not so very alien) culture.

And maybe, maybe I’ll actually get to considering the individual known as “Swift” in a further post, hrm.

As for the lone collection referenced, cited, and generally used…

Mackie, Erin, ed. The Commerce of Everyday Life: Selections from The Tatler and The Spectator. Bedford/St. Martin’s: Boston and New York, 1998. Print.