Tatler
and
Spectator
and its more familiar descendants. There is a trick of voice common to all, and some papers of Defoe's might have been written for the
Spectator
. Take the little allegory, for instance, in No. 45, which tells of a desponding young Lady brought before the Society, as found by Rosamond's Pond in the Park in a strange condition, taken by the mob for a lunatic, and whose clothes were all out of fashion, but whose face, when it was seen, astonished the whole society by its extraordinary sweetness and majesty. She told how she had been brought to despair, and her name proved to be — Modesty. In letters, questions, and comments also which might be taken from Defoe's
Monthly Supplementary Journal
to the
Advice from the Scandal Club
, we catch a likeness to the spirit of the