The Tatler, Volume 1

This offence gives me occasion to express myself with the resentment I ought, on people who take liberties of speech before that sex of whom the honoured names of mother, daught...

The vigilance, the anxiety, the tenderness, which I have for the good people of England, I am persuaded will in time be much commended; but I doubt whether they will ever be rew...

A Rake is a man always to be pitied; and if he lives, is one day certainly reclaimed; for his faults proceed not from choice or inclination, but from strong passions and appetit...

It is not to be imagined how far the violence of our desires will carry us towards our own deceit in the pursuit of what we wish for. A gentleman here this evening was giving me...

In the first ages of the world, before the invention of jointures and settlements, when the noble passion of love had possession of the hearts of men, and the fair sex were not...

I came hither this evening to see fashions, and who should I first encounter but my old friend Cynthio[258] (encompassed by a crowd of young fellows) dictating on the passion of...

Though the other papers which are published for the use of the good people of England have certainly very wholesome effects, and are laudable in their particular kinds, yet they...

I fear the word "bear" is hardly to be understood among the polite people; but I take the meaning to be, that one who ensures a real value upon an imaginary thing, is said to se...

They write from the Hague of the 7th, that Monsieur Rouillé had received orders from the Court of France, to signify to the States-General and the Ministers of the High Allies,...

The play of "The London Cuckolds"[143] was acted this evening before a suitable audience, who were extremely well diverted with that heap of vice and absurdity. The indignation...

And yet but lately have I seen e'en here, The winter in a lovely dress appear; Ere yet the clouds let fall the treasured snow, Or winds begun through hazy skies to blow. At even...

This day appeared here a figure of a person, whose services to the fair sex have reduced him to a kind of existence, for which there is no name. If there be a condition between...

We see every day volumes written against that tyrant of human life called Love, and yet there is no help found against his cruelties, or barrier against the inroads he is please...

This is a very lively image; but I must take the liberty to say, my kinsman drives the sun a little like Phaëton: he has all the warmth of Phœbus, but won't stay for his directi...

"The body march from the Artillery Ground through Moorgate, Coleman Street, Lothbury, Broad Street, Finch Lane, Cornhill, Cheapside, St. Martin's, St. Anne's Lane, halt the pike...

[Footnote 90: Vanderbank, or as his father sometimes wrote his name, Vandrebanc, was a son of Peter Vanderbank, a Parisian, who came into England with Gascar the painter, about...

I write from hence at present to complain, that wit and merit are so little encouraged by people of rank and quality, that the wits of the age are obliged to run within Temple B...

Of what Coleridge called Steele's "pure humanity" there is nowhere better evidence than in the _Tatler_. It is enough to cite once more the well-known examples of the account of...

There has lain all this evening, on the table, the following poem. The subject of it being matter very useful for families, I thought it deserved to be considered, and made more...

This week[116] being sacred to holy things, and no public diversions allowed, there has been taken notice of, even here, a little treatise, called, "A Project for the Advancemen...

Col. PLUME. It was a received custom till that time; but the swords of those days being pretty long, and the principals acting on both sides upon the defensive, and the morning...

_The original numbers of the _Tatler_ were reissued in two forms in 1710-11; one edition, in octavo, being published by subscription, while the other, in duodecimo, was for the...

Advices from Switzerland import, that the preachers of the county of Tockenburg continue to create new jealousies of the Protestants, and some disturbances lately happened there...

The habitation of Paulo has at once the air of a nobleman and a merchant. You see the servants act with affection to their master, and satisfaction in themselves: the master mee...

Sir Thomas,[209] of this house, has shown me some letters from the Bath, which give accounts of what passes among the good company of that place; and allowed me to transcribe on...

We hear from the Hague, that a person of the first quality is arrived in the Low Countries from France, in order to be a plenipotentiary in an ensuing treaty of peace.

Tragical passion was the subject of the discourse where I last visited this evening; and a gentleman who knows that I am at present writing a very deep tragedy, directed his dis...

[Footnote 351: There were two John Tradescants (father and son) who collected objects of natural history. Their collection formed the foundation of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxfor...

[Footnote 424: Dr. John Radcliffe, the physician (1650-1714), was disappointed in love when about sixty. The matter is referred to again in Nos. 46, 47, 50 and 67. Radcliffe bec...

His handbills were commonly adorned with a variety of emblematic devices and poetry. See note on Kirleus, in No. 14; and Nos. 216, 240. Case's most important book was his "Compe...

and so helped myself. Giddy turns about, 'What, have you found your tongue?' 'Yes,' says I, 'it is manners to speak when I am spoken to; but your greatest talkers are little doe...

[Footnote 217: Like Nichols, I have not been able to see a copy of this pamphlet, or the defence of it, mentioned in No. 21; but a letter from Peter Wentworth to Lord Raby, date...

[Footnote 295: The City train-bands were often the subject of ridicule by the wits. See "Harleian Misc." i. 206, Cowper's "John Gilpin," and Nos. 38, 41. Tothill Fields, Westmin...

Florio, the generous husband, and Limberham, the "kind keeper,"[468] are noted examples of the different effects which these desires produce in the mind. Amanda, who is the wife...