Such, then, was the Friendship of which the ‘Spectator’ is the abiding Monument.  The ‘Spectator’ was a modified continuation of the ‘Tatler’, and the ‘Tatler’ was suggested by a portion of Defoe’s ‘Review’.  The ‘Spectator’ belongs to the first days of a period when the people at large extended their reading power into departments of knowledge formerly unsought by them, and their favour was found generally to be more desirable than that of the most princely patron.  This period should date from the day in 1703 when the key turned upon Defoe in Newgate, the year of the production of Steele’s ‘Tender Husband’, and the time when Addison was in Holland on the way home from his continental travels.  Defoe was then forty-two years old, Addison and Steele being about eleven years younger.

In the following year, 1704, the year of Blenheim—­Defoe issued, on the 19th of February, No. 1 of ’A Weekly Review of the Affairs of France:  Purg’d from the Errors and Partiality of ‘News-Writers’ and ‘Petty-Statesmen’, of all Sides,’ and in the introductory sketch of its plan, said: 

’After our Serious Matters are over, we shall at the end of every Paper, Present you with a little Diversion, as anything occurs to make the World Merry; and whether Friend or Foe, one Party or another, if anything happens so scandalous as to require an open Reproof, the World may meet with it there.’

Here is the first ‘little Diversion’; the germ of ‘Tatlers’ and ‘Spectators’ which in after years amused and edified the town.

  ’Mercure Scandale: 

  or,

  ADVICE from the Scandalous CLUB.  ‘Translated out of French’.

  This Society is a Corporation long since established in ‘Paris’, and
  we cannot compleat our Advices from ‘France’, without entertaining the
  World with everything we meet with from that Country.

  And, tho Corresponding with the Queens Enemies is prohibited; yet
  since the Matter will be so honest, as only to tell the World of what
  everybody will own to be scandalous, we reckon we shall be welcome.

  This Corporation has been set up some months, and opend their first
  Sessions about last ‘Bartholomew’ Fair; but having not yet obtaind a
  Patent, they have never, till now, made their Resolves publick.

The Business of this Society is to censure the Actions of Men, not of Parties, and in particular, those Actions which are made publick so by their Authors, as to be, in their own Nature, an Appeal to the general Approbation.

They do not design to expose Persons but things; and of them, none but such as more than ordinarily deserve it; they who would not be censurd by this Assembly, are desired to act with caution enough, not to fall under their Hands; for they resolve to treat Vice, and Villanous Actions, with the utmost Severity.

The First considerable Matter that came