Mr. Spectator and the Coffeehouse Public Sphere

Jürgen Habermas used the coffeehouse and the periodical essays of Addison and Steele as prime examples of his concept of an eighteenth-century "public sphere." This article revisits Addison's and Steele's attitudes toward the coffeehouse and argues that their understanding of public political life must be read within the context of Whig political fortunes in the later years of Queen Anne's reign. Their purpose was not to celebrate the emergence of a public sphere, but rather to shift the grounds of political debate away from the contentious issues of war and religion that threatened the security of Whig politics after the trial of Sacheverell and the collapse of the junto ministry in 1710.