, 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