after eighty numbers had been published; and of the whole 271 numbers
Steele wrote about 188 and Addison only 42, while they were jointly
responsible for 36. Swift contributed only to about a dozen numbers; and
the assistance received from other writers was so slight that it does
not call for notice here. Steele, unlike Addison, was probably at his
best in the _Tatler_, where he had a freer hand, and described, in a
perfectly fresh and unaffected style, the impressions of the moment.
Hastily composed in coffee-house or printing-office, as they often were,
and at very short notice, his papers frequently appeal to the reader of
the present day more than the carefully elaborated and highly finished
work of his friend, who wrote only when he found a suitable topic. And
if Addison's art is of a higher standard than Steele's, it is to Steele
that we owe Addison. A minor poet and the author of a book of travels
and of an unsuccessful opera, Addison found no opportunity for his
peculiar genius until his friend provided the means in the _Tatler_. It
is tolerably certain that he would himself never have taken the
necessary step of founding a periodical appealing to the general public;
and Steele himself said with perfect truth, "I claim to myself the merit
of having extorted excellent productions from a person of the greatest
abilities, who would not have let them appear by any other means."[4]

If more is said here of Steele than of Addison, it is because it is
Steele whose name is most intimately connected with the _Tatler_. The
field in which Addison shone brightest was the _Spectator_, where the
whole plan was arranged in the manner best suited to his genius. But his
influence is, nevertheless, visible in the development of the earlier
paper, and some of his individual articles are equal to anything he
afterwards wrote. It is only necessary to mention his papers on the
Distress of the News-Writers[5]; on the poetaster, Ned Softly[6]; on the
pedant and "broker in learning," Tom Folio[7]; on the Political
Upholsterer, who was more inquisitive to know what passed in Poland than
in his own family[8]; and on the Adventures of a Shilling.[9] His, too,
are the Vision of Justice[10]; the story of a dream;[11] and the amusing
account of the visit to London of Sir Harry Quickset, who, with his
old-world breeding, was the forerunner of Sir Roger de Coverley.[12]

Unlike the members of the Spectator's Club, the _dramatis personae_
introd