the libel laws.  At the date of this ‘Spectator’ paper Henry St. John, who had been made Secretary of State at the age of 32, was 34 years old, and the greatest commoner in England, as Swift said, turning the whole Parliament, who can do nothing without him.  This great position and the future it might bring him he was throwing away for a title, and becoming Viscount Bolingbroke.  His last political act as a commoner was to impose the halfpenny stamp upon newspapers and sheets like those of the ‘Spectator.’  Intolerant of criticism, he had in the preceding session brought to the bar of the House of Commons, under his warrant as Secretary of State, fourteen printers and publishers.  In the beginning of 1712, the Queen’s message had complained that by seditious papers and factious rumours designing men had been able to sink credit, and the innocent had suffered.  On the 12th of February a committee of the whole house was appointed to consider how to stop the abuse of the liberty of the press.  Some were for a renewal of the Licensing Act, some for requiring writers’ names after their articles.  The Government carried its own design of a half-penny stamp by an Act (10 Anne, cap. 19) passed on the 10th of June, which was to come in force on the 1st of August, 1712, and be in force for 32 years.

‘Do you know,’ wrote Swift to Stella five days after the date of this ‘Spectator’ paper, ’Do you know that all Grub street is dead and gone last week?  No more ghosts or murders now for love or money...  Every single half sheet pays a halfpenny to the Queen.  The ‘Observator’ is fallen; the ‘Medleys’ are jumbled together with the ‘Flying Post;’ the ‘Examiner’ is deadly sick; the ‘Spectator’ keeps up and doubles its price; I know not how long it will last.’

It so happened that the mortality was greatest among Government papers.  The Act presently fell into abeyance, was revived in 1725, and thenceforth maintained the taxation of newspapers until the abolition of the Stamp in 1859.  One of its immediate effects was a fall in the circulation of the ‘Spectator.’  The paper remained unchanged, and some of its subscribers seem to have resented the doubling of the tax upon them, by charging readers an extra penny for each halfpenny with which it had been taxed. (See No. 488.)]

* * * * *

No. 446.  Friday, August 1, 1712.  Addison.

  ‘Quid deceat, quid non; quo Virtus, quo ferat Error.’

  Hor.

Since two or three Writers of Comedy who are now living have taken their Farewell of the Stage, those who succeed them finding themselves incapable of rising up to their Wit, Humour and good Sense, have only imitated them in some of those loose unguarded Strokes, in which they complied with the corrupt Taste of the more Vicious Part of their Audience.  When Persons of a low Genius attempt this kind of Writing, they know no difference between being Merry and being Lewd.  It is with an Eye to some of these degenerate Compositions that I have written the following Discourse.