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The Spectator, Volume 2.

by Joseph Addison & Richard Steele (1672–1719)

  • Free to read
  • 21 hours to read
  • 92 chapters
  • Reading level: 10th to 12th grade

"The Spectator, Volume 2." by Joseph Addison and Sir Richard Steele is a periodical publication published from 1711 to 1712. This influential daily paper aimed to enliven morality with wit, bringing philosophy from libraries into London's coffeehouses and tea-tables. Through essays and letters on politics, arts, literature, and love, the publication reached thousands of readers across social classes, including America's Founding Fathers. Targeting an emerging middle class and explicitly welcoming women readers, The Spectator shaped public discourse and social conversation with its humorous observations and enlightened values.

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  • English essays · 18th century · Periodicals

Read the opening

Chapter C: * * * * *

No. 204. Wednesday, October 24, 1711. Steele.

Urit grata protervitas,
Et vultus nimium lubricùs aspici.

Hor.

I am not at all displeased that I am become the Courier of Love, and that the Distressed in that Passion convey their Complaints to each other by my Means. The following Letters have lately come to my hands, and shall have their Place with great Willingness. As to the Readers Entertainment, he will, I hope, forgive the inserting such Particulars as to him may perhaps seem frivolous, but are to the Persons who wrote them of the highest Consequence. I shall not trouble you with the Prefaces, Compliments, and Apologies made to me before each Epistle when it was desired to be inserted; but in general they tell me, that the Persons to whom they are addressed have Intimations, by Phrases and Allusions in them, from whence they came.

To the Sothades [1].

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Contents

Show all 92 chapters
  1. Front Matter
  2. Chapter C: * * * * *
  3. Chapter L: * * * * *
  4. Chapter L: [Footnote 1: [having received], and in first reprint.]
  5. Chapter L
  6. Chapter L: [Footnote 1: Odes, I. 16. ]
  7. Chapter L: [Footnote 1: Rom. vii. 16.]
  8. Chapter C: * * * * *
  9. Chapter X: [Footnote 1: See No. 209.]
  10. Chapter C: [Footnote 1: Epict. Enchirid. ch. 23.]
  11. Chapter C: [Footnote 1: Diogenes Laertius, Bk. V. ch. I.]
  12. Chapter C: [Footnote 1: Leucas]
  13. Chapter C: [Footnote 1: Wisdom vi. 12-16.]
  14. Chapter C: [Footnote 1: [divided from]]
  15. Chapter C: [Footnote 1: The Belvidere Torso.]
  16. Chapter C: [Footnote 1: This Letter is by John Hughes.]
  17. Chapter C: [Footnote 1: [she marched]]
  18. Chapter C
  19. Chapter C: [Footnote 1: Defile]
  20. Chapter C: [Footnote 1: Orphan, Act II.]
  21. Chapter C: [Footnote 1: [we find that Cato,]]
  22. Chapter C
  23. Chapter C: [Footnote 1: that belong to our]
  24. Chapter C: [Footnote 1: Hobbes.]
  25. Chapter C: [Footnote 1: [all great]]
  26. Chapter C: [Footnote 1: Parts]
  27. Chapter C
  28. Chapter C: [Footnote 1: [not to]]
  29. Chapter L
  30. Chapter L
  31. Chapter L: * * * * *
  32. Chapter L: [Footnote 1: [These are what Aristotle means by the Fable and &c.]]
  33. Chapter L: * * * * *
  34. Chapter X: * * * * *
  35. Chapter I
  36. Chapter L: * * * * *
  37. Chapter X: [Footnote 1: In his Auction of Philosophers.]
  38. Chapter L: [Footnote 1: Aristotle, Poetics, ii. §26
  39. Chapter L: [Footnote 1: [Historian]]
  40. Chapter L
  41. Chapter L: [Footnote 1: First published in 1690.]
  42. Chapter L
  43. Chapter L: [Footnote 1: [to keep her in]]
  44. Chapter L
  45. Chapter L
  46. Chapter X: [Footnote 1: [the same time]]
  47. Chapter L: [Footnote 1: [his]]
  48. Chapter L: * * * * *
  49. Chapter X
  50. Chapter L: * * * * *
  51. Chapter L: [Footnote 1: them]
  52. Chapter X
  53. Chapter L: [Footnote 1: De Arte Poetica. II. 38-40.]
  54. Chapter L: [Footnote 1: [As]]
  55. Chapter X: [Footnote 1: only an Ensign in the Train Bands.]
  56. Chapter L
  57. Chapter X: * * * * *
  58. Chapter L: [Footnote 1: [pleasant]
  59. Chapter L: * * * * *
  60. Chapter L: [Footnote 1:[an]]
  61. Chapter X: * * * * *
  62. Chapter L: [Footnote 1: [is]]
  63. Chapter L
  64. Chapter X: * * * * *
  65. Chapter L: [Footnote 1: [Ovid.]]
  66. Chapter X
  67. Chapter L
  68. Chapter L: * * * * *
  69. Chapter X
  70. Chapter L: [Footnote 1: Plutarch's Life of Epaminondas.]
  71. Chapter X
  72. Chapter L: [Footnote 1
  73. Chapter L: [Footnote 1
  74. Chapter X: [Footnote 1: Paradise Lost, Bk x., ll 898-908.]
  75. Chapter L: [Footnote 1: Nat. Quaest. Bk. III. §27.]
  76. Chapter X: [Footnote 1: [is] and in first Reprint.]
  77. Chapter L
  78. Chapter L: [Footnote 1: Prospect]
  79. Chapter I
  80. Chapter X: [Footnote 1
  81. Chapter I: [Footnote 1
  82. Chapter X: [Footnote 1: Nil proprium ducas quod mutarier potest.]
  83. Chapter I: * * * * *
  84. Chapter X: * * * * *
  85. Chapter L
  86. Chapter X
  87. Chapter I: [Footnote 1: Iliad, Bk ix.]
  88. Chapter I: [Footnote 1: Paradise Lost, Bk iv. ll. 148-156.]
  89. Chapter X: [Footnote 1: Otway's Orphan, Act IV.]
  90. Chapter L: [Footnote 1: Psalm xix. 12.]
  91. Chapter X: * * * * *
  92. Chapter L: [Footnote 1: [great]]

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About this edition

This free edition of The Spectator, Volume 2. by Joseph Addison & Richard Steele comes from Project Gutenberg eBook #11010, released 2004-02-01. It is in the public domain in the United States, so you can read it here in full at no cost, on any phone, tablet or computer. Genre: Essays, Letters & Speeches, British Literature.

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