SOURCE: “Addison and Steele's Spectator: Towards a Reappraisal,” in Journal of Newspaper and Periodical History, Vol. 4, No. 1, Winter 1987, pp. 2-11.

In this essay, Dwyer analyzes the moral perspective promulgated by Addison and Steele through the persona of Mr. Spectator. In response to the ethical confusion of English society, this character, Dwyer contends, “attempted to present virtue and contentment in a clearer, basically classical, light in the pages of his papers.”

In an article written for Encounter twenty years ago, Peter Gay called for a greater appreciation of the role of the Spectator in early eighteenth-century British society.¹ He rightly pointed out that this daily publication was by far the most widely read of its day and, if the comments of contemporaries mean anything, it effected a quiet revolution in manners and morals. Such was the popularity of this series of morning lectures that its influence soon spread to...