Let's
have no laughing now on any provocation, (_makes faces_.) Look
yonder, that hale, well-looking puppy! You ungrateful scoundrel,
did not I pity you, take you out of a great man's service, and show
you the pleasure of receiving wages? Did not I give you ten, then
fifteen, now twenty shillings a week to be sorrowful? and the more
I give you, I think the gladder you are.
At the first commencement of the "Tatler," Steele seems to have
intended, as was usual at the time, to write almost the whole newspaper
himself, and he always continued nominally to do so under the name of
Isaac Bickerstaff. The only assistance he could have at all counted upon
was that of Addison--his old schoolfellow at Charterhouse--whose
contributions proved to be very scanty. We soon find him falling short
of material and calling upon the the public for contributions. Thus he
makes at the ends of some of the early numbers such suggestions as "Mr.
Bickerstaff thanks Mr. Quarterstaff for his kind and instructive
letter," and "Any ladies, who have any particular stories of their
acquaintance, which they are willing privately to make public, may send
them to Isaac Bickerstaff."
This application seems to have met with some response, for although we
have only before us the perpetual Isaac Bickerstaff, he soon tells us
that "he shall have little to do but to publish what is sent him," and
finally that some of the best pieces were not written by himself.
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