to crowd in among such a throng of public writers as at this time oppress the town.”  In effect the scheme of the Universal Spectator was to revive the higher kind of periodical essays which made the reputation of the earlier Spectator.  Attempts to follow in the wake of Addison and Steele had for so long ceased to be features in journalism; their manner had been so effectually superseded by less refined purveyors of light literature—­Defoe himself going heartily with the stream—­that the revival was opportune, and in point of fact proved successful, the Universal Spectator continuing to exist for nearly twenty years.  It shows how quickly the Spectator took its place among the classics, that the writer of the prospectus considered it necessary to deprecate a charge of presumption in seeming to challenge comparison.

“Let no man envy us the celebrated title we have assumed, or charge us with arrogance, as if we bid the world expect great things from us.  Must we have no power to please, unless we come up to the full height of those inimitable performances?  Is there no wit or humour left because they are gone?  Is the spirit of the Spectators all lost, and their mantle fallen upon nobody?  Have they said all that can be said?  Has the world offered no variety, and presented no new scenes, since they retired from us?  Or did they leave off, because they were quite exhausted, and had no more to say?”

Defoe did not always speak so respectfully of the authors of the Spectator.  If he had been asked why they left off, he would probably have given the reason contained in the last sentence, and backed his opinion by contemptuous remarks about the want of fertility in the scholarly brain.  He himself could have gone on producing for ever; he was never gravelled for lack of matter, had no nice ideas about manner, and was sometimes sore about the superior respectability of those who had.  But here he was on business, addressing people who looked back regretfully from the vulgarity of Mist’s and Applebee’s to the refinement of earlier periodicals, and making a bid for their custom.  A few more sentences from his advertisement will show how well he understood their prejudices:—­

“The main design of this work is, to turn your thoughts a little off from the clamour of contending parties, which has so long surfeited you with their ill-timed politics, and restore your taste to things truly superior and sublime.”

“In order to this, we shall endeavour to present you with such subjects as are capable, if well handled, both to divert and to instruct you; such as shall render conversation pleasant, and help to make mankind agreeable to one another.”

“As for our management of them, not to promise too much for ourselves, we shall only say we hope, at least, to make our work acceptable to everybody, because we resolve, if possible, to