Meanwhile, the 'Spectator', whom we regard as our Shelter from that flood of false wit and impertinence which was breaking in upon us, is in every one's hands; and a constant for our morning conversation at tea-tables and coffee-houses. We had at first, indeed, no manner of notion how a diurnal paper could be continued in the spirit and style of our present 'Spectators': but, to our no small surprise, we find them still rising upon us, and can only wonder from whence so prodigious a run of Wit and Learning can proceed; since some of our best judges seem to think that they have hitherto, in general, outshone even the 'Esquire's' first 'Tatlers'. Most people fancy, from their frequency, that they must be composed by a Society: I withal assign the first places to Mr. Steele and his Friend. So far John Gay, whose discussion of the 'Tatlers' and 'Spectators' appeared when only fifty-five numbers of the 'Spectator' had been published. There was high strife of faction; and there was real peril to the country by a possible turn of affairs after Queen Anne's death, that another Stuart restoration, in the name of divine right of kings, would leave rights of the people to be reconquered in civil war. The chiefs of either party were appealing to the people, and engaging all the wit they could secure to fight on their side in the war of pamphlets. Steele's heart was in the momentous issue. Both he and Addison had it in mind while they were blending their calm playfulness with all the clamour of the press. The spirit in which these friends worked, young Pope must have felt; for after Addison had helped him in his first approach to fame by giving honour in the 'Spectator' to his 'Essay on Criticism,' and when he was thankful for that service, he contributed to the 'Spectator' his 'Messiah.' Such offering clearly showed how Pope interpreted the labour of the essayists. In the fens of Lincolnshire the antiquary Maurice Johnson collected his neighbours of Spalding. 'Taking care,' it is said, 'not to alarm the country gentlemen by any premature mention of antiquities, he endeavoured at first to allure them into the more flowery paths of literature. In 1709 a few of them were brought together every post-day at the coffee-house in the Abbey Yard; and after one of the party had read aloud the last published number of the 'Tatler', they proceeded to talk over the subject among themselves.' Even in distant Perthshire 'the gentlemen met after church on Sunday to discuss the news of the week; the 'Spectators' were read as regularly as the 'Journal'.'