39. The | Lucubrations | Of | Iſaac Bickerſtaff Eſq; | Vol. I. | [Quotation] London, | Printed: And ſold by John Morphew, near Stationers-Hall. MDCCX. [-MDCCXI.] Note. The Bookbinder is deſired to place the Index after [Tatler, No. 114] which ends the Firſt Volume in Folio.
The first number of the Lucubrations, a folio sheet headed with the title The Tatler, and ending with the imprint London: Printed for the Author, 1709, appeared on Tuesday, April 12. It was issued thereafter three times a week, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, "for the convenience of the post."
Public interest having displayed itself in a sufficiently emphatic manner, the "Author" evidently felt justified in engaging a permanent printer, and the imprint of the fifth number reads: "Sold by John Morphew near Stationers-Hall; where Advertiſements are taken in."
The first four numbers were distributed free as a kind of advertisement. Then, "Upon the humble Petition of the Running Stationers, &c.," they were sold at one penny. But a charge of halfpence was added after the twenty-sixth number, "Whereas Several Gentlemen have deſir'd this Paper, with a blank Leaf to write Buſineſs on, and for the convenience of the poſt."
"Quidquid agunt homines nostri farrago libelli" is the motto printed at the head of the first forty numbers, and "Celebrare domestica facta" on Nos. 41 and 42, but after that special mottoes were used. The single numbers usually bear the name of "Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq,, aged sixty-four, an old man, a philosopher, an humorist, an astrologer and a censor," but sometimes other members of his family appear in his stead, especially his half-sister Jenny Distaff, and her husband.
Number 271, dated January 2, 1711, omits Bickerstaff's name, and the whole paper, except for some advertisements at the end, is given to a letter signed by Steele, in which he says: "The Printer having informed me that there are as many of theſe Papers printed as will make Four Volumes, I am now come to the End of my Ambition in this Matter, and have nothing further to ſay to the World, under the Character of Iſaac Bickerſtaff. This Work has indeed for ſome time been diſagreeable to me, and the Purpoſe of it wholly loſt by my being ſo long underſtood as the Author.... All I can now do for the further Gratification of the Town, is to give them a faithful Index and Explication of Paſſages and Alluſions...." The index, called "A Faithful Index of the Dull as well as Ingenious Paſſages in the Tatlers," bears at the end the important note, "[The Price of theſe Two Sheets, Three Pence.]" The "Explication of paſſages" was made in "The Preface," which, in our copy, is bound after the dedications of the second volume. For, as it will thus be seen, Steele bethought himself to add further to the gratification of the public by printing two title-pages and four dedications, on folio sheets, for the benefit of those subscribers who might wish to bind their copies.
The title-page of the second volume is like the first, only it is dated 1711; and the foot-note reads:
"Note, The Bookbinder is deſired to place the Index after [Tatler No. 271.] which ends the ſecond Volume in Folio." The index to the Tatlers of this volume has the note: "[The Price of theſe Three Sheets and a Half, Six Pence.]" The notes on the dedications, and the fact that while the folio sheets made only two volumes, four dedications were issued, shows us that the binding of the current sheets was an afterthought, and that the quarto edition in four volumes was relied upon to keep alive the lucubrations. Thus the quarto edition dedications were made to do double service.
In its present form the first volume is dedicated anonymously to Mr. Arthur Maynwaring, while the second has the other three dedications. One, to Edward Wortley Montague, signed Isaac Bickerstaff, has the note: "The Dedication foregoing belongs to the Second Volume of Tatlers in Octavo; which begins with No 51, and ends with No 114". One, to William, Lord Cowper, signed Richard Steele, has the note: "The foregoing Dedication belongs to the Third Volume of Tatlers in Octavo, which begins with No. 115, and ends with No. 189." The last one, dedicated to Charles, Lord Halifax, also signed by Steele, has a note which reads: "This Dedication belongs to the Fourth Volume of Tatlers in Octavo, which begins with No 190, and ends with No 271."