[Footnote 171: This particular number of the Spectator, it is said, was not published till twelve o'clock, that it might come out precisely at the hour of her majesty's breakfast, and that no time might be left for deliberating about serving it up with that meal, as usual. See the edition of the Tatler with notes, vol. vi. No. 271, note; p. 462, Sec. N.]
[Footnote 172: Newspapers appear to have had an earlier date than here assigned. Cleiveland, in his Character of a London Diurnal, says, "the original sinner of this kind was Dutch; Gallo-belgicus the Protoplast, and the Modern Mercuries but Hans en kelders." Some intelligence given by Mercurius Gallo-belgicus is mentioned in Carew's Survey of Cornwall, p. 126, originally published in 1602. These vehicles of information are often mentioned in the plays of James and Charles the first. R.
See Idler, Nº. 7, and note; and Idler, Nº. 40, and note. Ed.]
[Footnote 173: The errors in this account are explained at considerable length in the preface to the Spectator, prefixed to the edition in the British Essayists. The original delineation of sir Roger undoubtedly belongs to Steele.
See, however, Addisoniana, vol. i.]
[Footnote 174: That this calculation is not exaggerated, that it is even much below the real number, see the notes on the Taller, edit. 1786, vol. vi. 452. N—See likewise prefatory notice to the Rambler, vol. ii. p. viii. of the present edition. ED.]
[Footnote 175: Tickell says, "he took up a design of writing a play upon this subject when he was at the university, and even attempted something in it then, though not a line as it now stands. The work was performed by him in his travels, and retouched in England, without any formed design of bringing it on the stage." Cibber (Apol. 377.) says, that in 1704 he had the pleasure of reading the first four acts of Cato (which were all that were then written) privately with sir Richard Steele; and Steele told him they were written in Italy. M.]
[Footnote 176: The story about Hughes was first told by Oldmixon, in his
Art of Criticism, 1728. M.]
[Footnote 177: Spence.]
[Footnote 178: Alluding to the duke of Marlborough, at that time suspected of an ambitious aim to obtain the post of general in chief for life. ED.]