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No more than thou, great GEORGE! a birth-day song.

I ne'er with wits or witlings pass'd my days,

To spread about the itch of verse and praise;

Nor like a puppy, daggled1 thro' the town,

To fetch and carry and sing-song up and down;

Nor at Rehearsals sweat, and mouth'd and cry'd,

With handkerchief and orange at my side;

But sick of fops, and poetry, and prate, To Bufo left the whole Castalian state.2

Proud as Apollo on his forked hill, 231 Sat full-blown Bufo, puff'd by ev'ry quill; Fed with soft Dedication all day long, Horace and he went hand in hand in song.

His Library (where busts of Poets dead And a true Pindar stood without a head) Receiv'd of wits an undistinguish'd race, Who first his judgment ask'd, and then a place:

Much they extoll'd his pictures, much his seat,

And flatter'd ev'ry day, and some days eat: 3

240

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May some choice patron bless each gray goose quill!

May ev'ry Bavius have his Bufo still! 250 So, when a Statesman wants a day's defence,

Or Envy holds a whole week's war with Sense,

Or simple pride for flatt'ry makes demands,

May dunce by dunce be whistled off my hands!

Blest be the Great! for those they take away,

And those they left me; for they left me
GAY; 5

Left me to see neglected Genius bloom,
Neglected die, and tell it on his tomb:
Of all thy blameless life the sole return
My Verse and QUEENSB'RY' weeping
o'er thy urn.

260

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Poor guiltless I! and can I choose but smile,

When ev'ry Coxcomb knows me by my Style?

Curst be the verse, how well soe'er it flow,

That tends to make one worthy man my foe,

Give Virtue scandal, Innocence a fear, Or from the soft-eyed Virgin steal a tear.

But he who hurts a harmless neighbor's peace,

Insults fall'n worth, or Beauty in distress, Who loves a Lie, lame Slander helps about,

Who writes a Libel, or who copies out: 290 That Fop, whose pride affects a patron's name,

Yet absent, wounds an author's honest fame;

Who can your merit selfishly approve, And show the sense of it without the love; Who has the vanity to call you friend, Yet wants the honor, injur'd, to defend; Who tells whate'er you think, whate'er

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Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys, Yet wit ne'er tastes, and beauty ne'er enjoys:

So well-bred spaniels civilly delight In mumbling of the game they dare not bite.

Eternal smiles his emptiness betray, As shallow streams run dimpling all the way.

Whether in florid impotence he speaks, And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet squeaks;

Or at the ear of Eve, familiar Toad, Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad,

320

In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies, Or spite, or smut, or rhymes, or blasphemies.

His wit all see-saw, between that and this,

Now high, now low, now master up, now miss,

And he himself one vile Antithesis. Amphibious thing! that acting either part,

The trifling head or the corrupted heart, Fop at the toilet, flatt'rer at the board, Now trips a Lady, and now struts a Lord.

Eve's tempter thus the Rabbins have exprest,

330

A Cherub's face, a reptile all the rest; Beauty that shocks you, parts that none

will trust;

Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust.

John, Lord Hervey. Cf. line 149.

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He lash'd him not, but let her be his wife. Let Budgel charge low Grubstreet on his quill,

The morals blacken'd when the writings And write whate'er he pleas'd, except his

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The libel'd person, and the pictur'd Let the two Curlls of Town and Court,

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THE PERIODICAL ESSAY: ADDISON AND

STEELE

Ar the beginning of the eighteenth century many of the shorter forms of writing which to-day find their natural place in the newspapers and magazines had much more difficulty in attaining publication. True, the editorial and the news story. might be published as a broadside, and the article would make a pamphlet; but casual pieces like the essay, until the time of Addison and Steele, generally had to be kept. until enough of them were accumulated to make a book. The establishment of the Tatler in 1709 marks a new era in the history of the essay.

The literary periodical practically came into existence with the Tatler. Previous to Steele's venture periodical publications had been little more than news sheets containing information, real or alleged, about current events. In 1704, however, Defoe had begun a Review which in addition to news contained, as its title announced, "an entertaining part in every sheet, being advice from the Scandal Club, to the curious, in answer to letters sent for that purpose." The essays which appeared in this second part thus formed a regular feature of his paper, and many of them might easily have been printed in the Tatler. In numerous respects Defoe's Review was an important forerunner of Steele's paper.

Steele in 1709 was the editor of the official government newspaper, The London Gazette. As such he was in a favorable position to obtain news, some of which doubtless he could not use in the Gazette. He conceived the idea of publishing a periodical which should combine information about current events with essays on all subjects which polite readers could be expected to take an interest in. The Tatier first appeared April 12, 1709, and it continued to come out three times a week for twenty-one months. In form it was merely a single folio sheet printed on both sides. After the first month Addison joined his friend in the undertaking. Gradually the part devoted to news disappeared and the contents, except for a few advertisements at the end, were purely literary. Two months after the Tatler was discontinued the first number of the Spectator appeared (March 1, 1711). The new paper was wholly literary from the beginning, appeared daily, and each number generally consisted of a single essay. It ran until February 6, 1712, attaining an average circulation of from 1500 to 2000 copies a day.

The essay that was evolved under these conditions is quite different from what it was in the hands of Bacon. (It absorbed a number of elements from other forms, including the "character," the "familiar letter," the so-called "table talk," and others) As a result it was a much more varied thing. While in the hands of Addison and Steele it might still at times be the Baconian essay on honor, friendship, modesty.

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