The cessation of the _Tatler_ had been the signal for the appearance of several spurious papers purporting to be new numbers. One entitling itself No. 272 was published by one John Baker; another, purporting to be No. 273, was by 'Isaac Bickerstaff, Junior.' Then, on January 6th, appeared what purported to be Nos. 272 and 273 of the original issue, with a letter from Charles Lillie, one of the publishers of the original _Tatler_. Later in January, William Harrison, a _protégé_ of Swift, a young man whose name will be familiar to all who are acquainted with Swift's _Journal to Stella_, was encouraged by Swift to start a new _Tatler_, Swift liberally assisting him with notes, and not only contributing himself but inducing Congreve also to contribute a paper. And this new _Tatler_ actually ran to fifty-two numbers, appearing twice a week between January 13th and May 19th, 1711, but, feeble from the first, it then collapsed. Nor had the _Tatler_ been without rivals. In the two hundred and twenty-ninth number of the _Tatler_, Addison, enumerating his antagonists, says, 'I was threatened to be answered weekly _Tit for Tat_, I was undermined by the _Whisperer_, scolded at by a _Female Tatler_, and slandered by another of the same character under the title of _Atalantis_.' To confine ourselves, however, to the publications mentioned by Gay. The _Growler_ appeared on the 27th of January 1711, on the discontinuance of the _Tatler_. The _Whisperer_ was first published on October 11th, 1709, under the character of 'Mrs. Jenny Distaff, half-sister to Isaac Bickerstaff.' The _Tell Tale_ appears to be a facetious title for the _Female Tatler_, the first number of which appeared on July 8th, 1709, and was continued for a hundred and eleven numbers, under the editorship of Thomas Baker, till March 3rd, 1710. The allusion in the postscript to the _British Apollo_ is to a paper entitled _The British Apollo: or Curious Amusements for the Ingenious_, the first number of which appeared on Friday, March 13th, 1708, the paper regularly continuing on Wednesdays and Fridays till March 16th, 1711. Selections from this curious miscellany were afterwards printed in three volumes, and ran into three editions. Gay does not appear to be aware that this periodical had ceased. The reference in 'the two statesmen of the last reign whose characters are well expressed in their mottoes' are to Lord Somers and the Earl of Halifax, as what follows refers respectively to Addison and Steele. The tract closes with a reference to the _Spectator_, the first number of which had appeared on the first of the preceding March.