so proper as the frequent publication of short papers, which we
read, not as study, but amusement. If the subject be slight, the
treatise is short. The busy may find time, and the idle may find
patience. This mode of conveying cheap and easy knowledge began
among us in the civil war, when it was much the interest of either
party to raise and fix the prejudices of the people. At that time
appeared Mercurius Aulicus, Mercurius Rusticus, and Mercurius
Civicus. It is said that when any title grew popular, it was stolen
by the antagonist, who by this stratagem conveyed his notions to
those who would not have received him had he not worn the appearance
of a friend. The tumult of those unhappy days left scarcely any man
leisure to treasure up occasional compositions; and so much were
they neglected that a complete collection is nowhere to be found.

These Mercuries were succeeded by L'Estrange's Observator; and that
by Lesley's Rehearsal, and perhaps by others; but hitherto nothing
had been conveyed to the people, in this commodious manner, but
controversy relating to the Church or State; of which they taught
many to talk, whom they could not teach to judge.

It has been suggested that the Royal Society was instituted soon
after the Restoration to divert the attention of the people from
public discontent. The Tatler and Spectator had the same tendency;
they were published at a time when two parties--loud, restless, and
violent, each with plausible declarations, and each perhaps without
any distinct termination of its views--were agitating the nation; to
minds heated with political contest they supplied cooler and more
inoffensive reflections; and it is said by Addison, in a subsequent
work, that they had a perceptible influence upon the conversation of
that time, and taught the frolic and the gay to unite merriment with