THE SPECTATOR
40. Numb. I | The Spectator | Non fumum ex fulgore, ſed ex fumo dare lucem | Cogitat ut ſpecioſa dehinc miracula promat. Hor. | To be continued every Day. | Thurſday, March 1. 1711. [At the end] London: Printed for Sam. Buckley, at the Dolphin in Little Britain; and sold by A. Baldwin in Warwick-Lane.
The last Tatler had appeared in the previous January: the new paper like its predecessor came out in single folio sheets, but, as may be seen above, its editors considered the demand sufficient to warrant its daily publication.
The first fifteen numbers bore the imprint here given, with the additional information, after the second number, "where Advertisements are taken in." Buckley paid Addison and Steele £575, on November 10, 1712, for a half-share in the copyright of the paper and in the numbers not yet published. On October 13, 1714, he transferred this assignment to Jacob Tonson, Jr., whose name appears October 2, 1712, in place of that of Baldwin's and of "Charles Lillie, Perfumer, at the Corner of Beaufort-Buildings in the Strand," who had sold the sheet from the sixteenth number, dated March 19, 1711, until that time.
On December 6, 1712, the following notice by Steele appeared, and as it sums up briefly the main points in the Spectator's successful career, it may be regarded as a text for the succeeding notes.
"I have nothing more to add, but having ſwelled this Work to Five hundred and fifty-five Papers, they will be diſpoſed into ſeven Volumes, four of which are already publiſh'd, and the three others in the Preſs. It will not be demanded of me why I now leave off, tho' I muſt own my ſelf obliged to give an Account to the Town of my Time hereafter, ſince I retire when their Partiality to me is ſo great, that an Edition of the former Volumes of Spectators of above Nine thouſand each Book is already ſold off, and the Tax on each half Sheet has brought into the Stamp-Office one Week with another above 20 l. a Week ariſing from this ſingle Paper, notwithſtanding it at first reduced it to leſs than half the number that was uſually Printed before this Tax was laid."
Volumes 1 and 2, printed in octavo, were bound up, and, dedicated to Lord Somers and Lord Halifax, were issued in 1712; volumes 3 and 4, with dedications to Henry Boyle and the Duke of Marlborough, came out the next year; and the remaining three, with dedications to the Marquis of Wharton, Earl of Sunderland, and Sir Paul Methuen, were also published in 1713. With the help of Eustace Budgell, Addison issued a continuation of the paper in 1714, which, when it made enough numbers for a volume, was issued with a dedication to Will Honeycomb, in 1715. An edition in duodecimo was also published. A few copies on large paper sold at one guinea a volume.
There is some difference of opinion as to the exact number of copies circulated, all founded on the facts given in the Spectator itself. In No. 10, Addison says that there were already 3000 copies distributed every day. "So that if I allow Twenty Readers to every Paper, which I look upon as a modeſt Computation, I may reckon about Threeſcore thouſand Diſciples in London and Weſtminster". On July 23, 1711, he wrote: "... my Bookſeller tells me, the Demand for theſe my Papers increaſes daily," and on December 31 he repeated, "I find that the Demand for my Papers has encreaſed every Month ſince their firſt appearance in the World." On the 1st of August, 1712, St. John's Stamp Act came into force, by which a halfpenny stamp was imposed upon all newspapers and periodical sheets. This attempt to suppress free expression of opinion succeeded to some extent; many of the papers of the day ceased to exist. The Spectator continued as before, but the price was raised from one penny to twopence. "... A payment of over £20. a week for stamp duty represents a daily circulation of more than 1,600 copies, or 10,000 a week, from the 1st August to the 6th December 1712, and the daily circulation before the 1st August would therefore be, according to Steele's statement, nearly 4000."
Two hundred and seventy-four of the 635 papers are attributed to Addison, and from 236 to 240 to Steele. Addison usually signed his essays with one of the letters of the name Clio, and Steele wrote over the initials T. and R. Besides the two principal writers, Budgell, Hughes, Parnell, Pope and Tickell are thought to have contributed papers, but considerable uncertainty exists with regard to their work.
Folio.