it was sprightly without being frivolous, witty without being indecent, keen without being libelous or malicious.  In the general license and coarseness of the time, so close to the Restoration and the powerful reaction against Puritanism, the cleanness, courtesy, and good taste which characterized the journal had all the charm of a new diversion.  In paper No. 18, Addison made his appearance as a contributor, and gave the world the first of those inimitable essays which influenced their own time so widely, and which have become the solace and delight of all times.  To Addison’s influence may perhaps be traced the change which came over the Tatler, and which is seen in the gradual disappearance of the news element, and the steady drift of the paper away from journalism and toward literature.  Society soon felt the full force of the extraordinary talent at the command of the new censor of contemporary manners and morals.  There was a well-directed and incessant fire of wit against the prevailing taste of dramatic art; against the vices of gambling and dueling; against extravagance and affectation of dress and manner:  and there was also criticism of a new order.

The Tatler was discontinued in January, 1711, and the first number of the Spectator appeared in March.  The new journal was issued daily, but it made no pretensions to newspaper timeliness or interest; it aimed to set a new standard in manners, morals, and taste, without assuming the airs of a teacher.  “It was said of Socrates,” wrote Addison, in a memorable chapter in the new journal, “that he brought Philosophy down from heaven to inhabit among men; and I shall be happy to have it said of me that I have brought Philosophy out of closets and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables and in coffee-houses.”  For more than two years the Spectator discharged with inimitable skill and success the difficult function of chiding, reproving, and correcting, without irritating, wounding, or causing strife.  Swift found the paper too gentle, but its influence was due in no small measure to its persuasiveness.  Addison studied his method of attack as carefully as Matthew Arnold, who undertook a similar educational work in our own time, studied his means of approach to a public indifferent or hostile to his ideas.  The two hundred and seventy-four papers furnished by Addison to the columns of the Spectator may be said to mark the full development of English prose as a free, flexible, clear, and elegant medium of expressing the most varied and delicate shades of thought.  They mark also the perfection of the essay form in our literature; revealing clear perception of its limitations and of its resources; easy mastery of its possibilities of serious exposition and of pervading charm; ability to employ its full capacity of conveying serious thought in a manner at once easy and authoritative.  They mark also the beginning of a deeper and more intelligent criticism;