Although _Citt and Bumpkin_ was the first of L'Estrange's Popish Plot pamphlets written in dialogue, he was thoroughly familiar with the form and had often employed it in his polemic skirmishes during the Civil War. In fact, L'Estrange found the genre so congenial that he chose to write his famous newspaper _The Observator_ (1681-87) in dialogue. This literary device, employed by hack writers, controversialists, and eminent _littérateurs_, was extremely popular in England between 1660 and 1700 and was used to conspicuous advantage for discussing issues of momentary importance as well as serious philosophical questions. According to Eugene R. Purpus in his study of the "Dialogue in English Literature, 1660-1725," few other literary forms had such universal and continual appeal.[4] In an age when the drama was the reigning literary fashion, the dialogue naturally enough had a concomitant vogue. Its popularity is attested to by the large number of dialoguists as well as by the bulk of their writing. As Purpus notes, party writers quickly discovered that this genre was an excellent vehicle for presenting highly controversial ideas and forceful arguments. During the Restoration, there were no rigid conventions governing the genre, and any work passed as a dialogue which represented a conversation between two or more persons or which was organized in a question-and-answer manner.[5] Frequently, dialogues resembled an interrogation or a catechism rather than natural discourse between real human beings. Often writers of such artificial dialogues abandoned any attempt at characterization or conversational verisimilitude, merely substituting "Q." and "A." to indicate a series of queries and responses. Sometimes authors identified the speakers with proper names but made no effort at actual characterization. Concern for dramatic realism varied from writer to writer; and all too often, improbable puppet-like creatures were represented in illogical, unbelievable, and contrived conversations. The artistic integrity of a successful dialogue, however, lies in the dramatic exchange of differing points of view or the interplay of opposing arguments in realistic conversation between credible characters with clearly differentiated personalities. The stilted, artificial quality of some dialogues is in part attributable to the fact that many writers turned to the genre as a facile means of expressing a particular point of view.[6] As Purpus observes, the inherent dramatic quality of the form is lost if: 1) the writer substitutes invective, prejudice, and railing for realistic conversation, and/or 2) the author obviously contrives the dialogue merely to reflect his particular bias on a given question. On the other hand, although some writers used the form as a convenient frame on which to display their opinions, other writers erred by including too much dramatic machinery. Dialogues of this sort almost became short dramas.