It must always remain to a great extent a matter of conjecture as to the exact authorship of “The Tatler” papers.  In the preface to the fourth volume the authorship of a very few of the articles was admitted.  Peter Wentworth wrote to his brother, Lord Raby, on May 9th, 1709, saying the Tatlers “are writ by a club of wits, who make it their business to pick up all the merry stories they can....  Three of the authors are guessed at, viz.:  Swift,...  Yalden, and Steele” ("Wentworth Papers,” 85).

Swift’s first recognized prose contribution to “The Tatler” was in No. 32 (June 23rd), and he continued from time to time, as the following reprint will show, to assist his friend; but, unfortunately, party politics separated the two, and Swift retired from the venture.

A particular meaning was attached to the place from which the articles in “The Tatler” were dated.  The following notice appeared in the first number:  “All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment, shall be under the article of White’s Chocolate-house; poetry, under that of Will’s Coffee-house; learning, under the title of Grecian; foreign and domestic news, you will have from St. James’s Coffee-house; and what else I have to offer on any other subject shall be dated from my own Apartment.”

“The Tatler” was reprinted in Edinburgh as soon as possible after its publication in London, commencing apparently with No. 130, as No. 31 (Edinburgh, James Watson) is dated April 24th, 1710, and corresponds to No. 160 of the original edition, April 18th, 1710. [T.S.]

THE TATLER, NUMB. 32.

From Tuesday June 21.  To Thursday June 23. 1709.

“To Isaac Bickerstaff Esq;[1]

June 18. 1709.

“Sir,

“I know not whether you ought to pity or laugh at me; for I am fallen desperately in love with a professed Platonne, the most unaccountable creature of her sex.  To hear her talk seraphics, and run over Norris[2] and More,[3] and Milton,[4] and the whole set of Intellectual Triflers, torments me heartily; for to a lover who understands metaphors, all this pretty prattle of ideas gives very fine views of pleasure, which only the dear declaimer prevents, by understanding them literally.  Why should she wish to be a cherubim, when it is flesh and blood that makes her adorable?  If I speak to her, that is a high breach of the idea of intuition:  If I offer at her hand or lip, she shrinks from the touch like a sensitive plant, and would contract herself into mere spirit.  She calls her chariot, vehicle; her furbelowed scarf, pinions; her blue manteau and petticoat is her azure dress; and her footman goes by the name of Oberon.  It is my misfortune to be six foot and a half high, two full spans between the shoulders, thirteen inches diameter in the calves; and before I was in love, I had a noble stomach, and