It is in these periodicals that we first find the familiar essay. Its only predecessors are such serious essays as those of Bacon, Cowley, and Temple, the turgid paragraphs of Shaftesbury, the vigorous but crude and rough papers of Collier, and the 'characters' of Overbury and Earle. These 'characters' had always been entirely typical; they were treated rather from the abstract than from the human point of view, and had no names or other individualization than that of their character and calling. In some of the numbers of the Spectator we still find these 'characters' occurring, such as the character of Will Wimble, [Footnote: _Spectator_ 108.] of the honest yeoman, [Footnote: _Spectator_ 122.] and of Tom Touchy; [Footnote: _Spectator_ 122.] but they are surrounded by circumstances peculiar to themselves, and so are much more highly individualized. The _Tatler_ and the _Spectator_ very greatly extended the range of essay-writing, and with it the flexibility of prose style; it is this extension that gives to them their modern quality. Nothing came amiss: fable, description, vision, gossip, literary criticism or moral essays, discussion of large questions such as marriage and education, or of the smaller social amenities--any subject which would be of interest to a sufficiently large number of readers would furnish a paper; as Steele wrote at the beginning of the _Tatler_, 'Quicquid agunt homines nostri libelli farrago.' Different interests were voiced by the various members of the club, and the light humorous treatment and an easy style attracted a larger public than had ever been reached by a single publication. [Footnote: v. Appendix IV.] The elasticity of the structure enabled Addison to produce the maximum effect, and to bring into play the full weight of his character.