June 17

Joseph Addison (pictured at right) died on the 17th in 1719. In 1711, he and Richard Steele started the newspaper The Spectator. The paper advised readers that its intention was to "to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality... to bring philosophy out of the closets and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables and coffeehouses." Each issue contained a measly 2,500 words but had an impressive circulation of 3000 per issue. The paper lasted for 55 issues in its original run, which would end in 1712. In 1714, Addison, working alone, revived it and it ran for another six months.
In one issue of the Spectator, Addison provided a profile of a man known as Bully Dawson, a gambler of wide notoriety in England. Dawson had been quoted elsewhere as, following the overturning of a coach he was in as having said “Twas the greatest Piece of Providence that ever befel him, for it had saved him the Trouble of bilking the Coachman”.