SOURCE: Introduction to The Guardian, The University Press of Kentucky, 1982, pp. 1-36.

In following excerpt, Stephens traces the history of Addison and Steele's periodical the Guardian, emphasizing its involvement in politics as the cause of its demise.

If The Spectator had not existed, The Guardian might outrank all periodicals of this kind.

George Sherburn

Of the numerous literary periodicals produced in the eighteenth century, none have been more famous than the Tatler, the Spectator, and the Guardian, in which Addison and Steele brought the familiar essay to a high point of perfection. From their beginnings the three periodicals have been linked together as the prime achievement of their authors' collaboration. For example, a work entitled Histories, Fables, Allegories, and Characters, selected from the Spectator and Guardian reached a fourth edition in 1753 and an eighteenth edition in 1765; and in 1757 there appeared A General Index to the Spectators, Tatlers, and...