of our present 'Spectators': but, to our no small surprise, we find
them still rising upon us, and can only wonder from whence so
prodigious a run of Wit and Learning can proceed; since some of our
best judges seem to think that they have hitherto, in general,
outshone even the 'Esquire's' first 'Tatlers'.

Most people fancy, from their frequency, that they must be composed by
a Society: I withal assign the first places to Mr. Steele and his
Friend.

So far John Gay, whose discussion of the 'Tatlers' and 'Spectators'
appeared when only fifty-five numbers of the 'Spectator' had been
published.

There was high strife of faction; and there was real peril to the
country by a possible turn of affairs after Queen Anne's death, that
another Stuart restoration, in the name of divine right of kings, would
leave rights of the people to be reconquered in civil war. The chiefs of
either party were appealing to the people, and engaging all the wit they
could secure to fight on their side in the war of pamphlets. Steele's
heart was in the momentous issue. Both he and Addison had it in mind
while they were blending their calm playfulness with all the clamour of
the press. The spirit in which these friends worked, young Pope must
have felt; for after Addison had helped him in his first approach to
fame by giving honour in the 'Spectator' to his 'Essay on Criticism,'
and when he was thankful for that service, he contributed to the
'Spectator' his 'Messiah.' Such offering clearly showed how Pope
interpreted the labour of the essayists.

In the fens of Lincolnshire the antiquary Maurice Johnson collected his