Since April 12th, 1709, that delightful periodical had regularly appeared
three times a week. With the two hundredth and seventy-first number on
January 2nd, 1711, it suddenly ceased. Of the great surprise and
disappointment caused by its cessation, of the causes assigned for it,
and of the high appreciation of all it had effected for moral and
intellectual improvement and pleasure, Gay gives a vivid picture. What he
says conjecturally about the reasons for its discontinuance is so near the
truth that we may suspect he had had some light on the subject from Steele
himself. It was, of course, from the preface to the edition of the first
three volumes of the collected _Tatlers_, published in 1710, that Gay
derived what he says about the contributions of Addison (though Steele
had not mentioned him by name, in accordance, no doubt, with Addison's
request) and about the verses of Swift. In all probability this was the
first public association of Addison's name with the _Tatler_. The Mr.
Henley referred to was Anthony Henley, a man of family and fortune, and
one of the most distinguished of the wits of that age, to whom Garth
dedicated _The Dispensary_. In politics he was a rabid Whig, and it was
he who described Swift as 'a beast for ever after the order of
Melchisedec.' Gay had not been misinformed, for Henley was the author of
the first letter in No. 26 and of the letter in No. 193, under the
character of Downes.

The cessation of the _Tatler_ had been the signal for the appearance of
several spurious papers purporting to be new numbers. One entitling
itself No. 272 was published by one John Baker; another, purporting to be
No. 273, was by 'Isaac Bickerstaff, Junior.' Then, on January 6th,
appeared what purported to be Nos. 272 and 273 of the original issue,
with a letter from Charles Lillie, one of the publishers of the original
_Tatler_. Later in January, William Harrison, a _protégé_ of Swift, a
young man whose name will be familiar to all who are acquainted with