It was necessary that his share in the Tatlers should be adjusted in a complete Collection of his Works:  for which reason, Sir RICHARD STEELE, in compliance with the request of his deceased friend, delivered to him by the Editor, was pleased to mark with his own hand, those Tatlers, which are inserted in this edition; and even to point out several, in the writing of which, they were both concerned.

The Plan of the Spectator, as far as regards the feigned Person of the Author, and of the several Characters that compose his Club, was projected in concert with Sir RICHARD STEELE.  And because many passages in the course of the Work would otherwise be obscure, I have taken leave to insert one single Paper written by Sir RICHARD STEELE, wherein those Characters are drawn; which may serve as a Dramatis Personae, or as so many pictures for an ornament and explication of the whole.

As for the distinct Papers, they were never or seldom shewn to each other, by their respective Authors; who fully answered the Promise they had made, and far outwent the Expectation they had raised, of pursuing their Labour in the same Spirit and Strength with which it was begun.

It would have been impossible for Mr. ADDISON (who made little or no use of letters sent in, by the numerous correspondents of the Spectator) to have executed his large share of his task in so exquisite a manner; if he had not engrafted into it many Pieces that had lain by him, in little hints and minutes, which he from time to time collected and ranged in order, and moulded into the form in which they now appear.  Such are the Essays upon Wit, the Pleasures of the Imagination, the Critique upon MILTON, and some others:  which I thought to have connected in a continued Series in this Edition, though they were at first published with the interruption of writings on different subjects.  But as such a scheme would have obliged me to cut off several graceful introductions and circumstances peculiarly adapted to the time and occasion of printing then; I durst not pursue that attempt.

The Tragedy of CATO appeared in public in the year 1713; when the greatest part of the last Act was added by the Author, to the foregoing which he had kept by him for many years.  He took up a design of writing a play upon this subject, when he was very young at the University; and even attempted something in it there, though not a line as it now stands.  The work was performed by him in his travels, and retouched in England, without any formed resolution of bringing it upon the Stage, until his friends of the first Quality and Distinction prevailed on him, to put the last finishing to it, at a time when they thought the Doctrine of Liberty very seasonable.

It is in everybody’s memory, with what applause it was received by the Public; that the first run of it lasted for a month, and then stopped only because one of the performers became incapable of acting a principal part.