As to the substance or worth of what thus divided them, Steele only adds the significant expression of his hope that, if his family is the worse, his country may be the better, 'for the mortification _he_ has undergone.' Such, then, was the Friendship of which the 'Spectator' is the abiding Monument. The 'Spectator' was a modified continuation of the 'Tatler', and the 'Tatler' was suggested by a portion of Defoe's 'Review'. The 'Spectator' belongs to the first days of a period when the people at large extended their reading power into departments of knowledge formerly unsought by them, and their favour was found generally to be more desirable than that of the most princely patron. This period should date from the day in 1703 when the key turned upon Defoe in Newgate, the year of the production of Steele's 'Tender Husband', and the time when Addison was in Holland on the way home from his continental travels. Defoe was then forty-two years old, Addison and Steele being about eleven years younger. In the following year, 1704, the year of Blenheim--Defoe issued, on the 19th of February, No. 1 of 'A Weekly Review of the Affairs of France: Purg'd from the Errors and Partiality of 'News-Writers' and 'Petty-Statesmen', of all Sides,' and in the introductory sketch of its plan, said: 'After our Serious Matters are over, we shall at the end of every Paper, Present you with a little Diversion, as anything occurs to make the World Merry; and whether Friend or Foe, one Party or another, if anything happens so scandalous as to require an open Reproof, the World may meet with it there.' Here is the first 'little Diversion'; the germ of 'Tatlers' and 'Spectators' which in after years amused and edified the town. 'Mercure Scandale: or, ADVICE from the Scandalous CLUB. 'Translated out of French'. This Society is a Corporation long since established in 'Paris', and we cannot compleat our Advices from 'France', without entertaining the World with everything we meet with from that Country. And, tho Corresponding with the Queens Enemies is prohibited; yet since the Matter will be so honest, as only to tell the World of what everybody will own to be scandalous, we reckon we shall be welcome. This Corporation has been set up some months, and opend their first Sessions about last 'Bartholomew' Fair; but having not yet obtaind a Patent, they have never, till now, made their Resolves publick. The Business of this Society is to censure the Actions of Men, not of Parties, and in particular, those Actions which are made publick so by their Authors, as to be, in their own Nature, an Appeal to the general Approbation.