Obs.: Where there has been Any thing of That which you call Raillery, or Farce; It has amounted to no more then a Speaking to the Common People in their Own Way.... He that Talks Dry Reason to them, does as good as treat 'em in an Unknown Tongue; and there's no Other way of Conveying the True Sense, & Notion of Things, either to their Affections, or to their Understandings, then by the Palate....
(II, No. 15)
And as a link between L'Estrange and Addison we have Defoe's analogous promise in "the Introduction" to the Review: "After our Serious Matters are over, we shall at the end of every Paper, Present you with a little Diversion, as any thing occurs to make the World Merry."[10] These notions rest, of course, on the ancient dulce et utile, though modified in various ways in each of the three papers to suit the temperaments of their writers, the tastes of their mass-audiences, and different times. It is perhaps not irresponsible, then, to say that the synonymous titles of Addison's and L'Estrange's periodicals symbolize an affinity of purpose and technique. Indeed, the Observator can, in many ways, be considered a rather crude and primitive ancestor of the Spectator.[11]
The purpose of the Observator and its main targets are clearly formulated in Observator No. 1, as well as in the prefatory "To the Reader," which was written in 1683 for the publication of Volume 1 of the collected papers. The "faction" which L'Estrange proposes to reprove consists at first (1681-1682) of Shaftesbury's republican-minded followers and of the perpetrators of the Popish Plot. In his evaluation of the Plot, L'Estrange agrees with some modern historians,[12] for he never doubted that it was a Whig fabrication, an invented cause around which the party members could rally and which neatly veiled the parliamentary power-struggle behind the scenes. Titus Oates is consequently the Observator's bête noire, and Andrew Marvell's pamphlet, The Growth of Popery, is for L'Estrange the odious origin of the Plot:
Obs.: I do not know Any man throughout the whole Tract of the Controversy that has held a Candle to the Devil with a Better Grace then the Author of that Pamphlet ... that Furnishes so Clear a Light toward the Opening of the Roots, Springs, and Causes of our Late Miserable Disorders, and Confusions.... Prethee let Otes'es Popish Plot, Stand, or Fall, to it's Own Master; provided that Marvels may be Allow'd to be the Elder Brother....
(II, No. 16)
Toward the end of 1682, when the Whigs had ceased being an imminent threat to the government and all but one of the Whig newspapers had been silenced, L'Estrange turned his attack against the more moderate Trimmers, as illustrated in Observator III, No. 88. But whether the offensive is against Whigs or Trimmers, Dissenters and advocates of toleration are always in the line of L'Estrange's fire as chief subverters of absolute monarchy and of the Church of England, as is evident in the satire of Observator Nos. 13 and 110. On the eve of the Glorious Revolution, this rigid stand lost him the support of both the Anglican clergy and the universities, support of which he was so proud in his "To the Reader." Finally, Observator No. 1 singles out the Whig press as one of its chief targets. The "Smith" referred to in that first number is Anabaptist Francis "Elephant" Smith, publisher of the outrageous Mirabilis Annus books, the inflammatory pamphlet Vox Populi, and the offensive paper Smith's Protestant Intelligence; "Harris" is Benjamin Harris, publisher of the Whig paper, Domestic Intelligence. These, together with Harry Care (Weekly Pacquet of Advice from Rome and Popish Courant), Richard Janeway (Impartial Protestant Mercury), Langley Curtis (The Protestant Mercury), and hordes of anti-Royalist authors or publications are habitually quoted or referred to in L'Estrange's counterpropaganda. His untiring countering of Whig publications earned him Nahum Tate's hyperbolic praise in The Second Part of Absalom and Achitophel:
Than Sheva, none more loyal Zeal have shown, Wakefull, as Judah's Lion for the Crown, Who for that Cause still combats in his Age, For which his Youth with danger did engage. In vain our factious Priests the Cant revive, In vain seditious Scribes with Libels strive T'enflame the Crow'd, while He with watchfull Eye Observes, and shoots their Treasons as they fly. Their weekly Frauds his keen Replies detect, He undeceives more fast than they infect. So Moses when the Pest on Legions prey'd, Advanc'd his Signal and the Plague was stay'd.[13]
Parochial as these concerns seem today, the Observator in its totality goes far beyond the Harry Cares and "Elephant" Smiths in its exhortation to greater rationality in areas ancillary to but transcending politics proper. Its assiduous ridicule of Enthusiasm, following in the steps of Meric Casaubon and Henry More,[14] its analyses of political manipulation of the naive populace, its explanations of psychological appeals, its Orwellian warnings against the snares of loaded diction and the dangers of affective political rhetoric—all these efforts evident in the few Observators represented here are an important step in the direction of a less superstitious, less hysterical century. Paradoxically, L'Estrange mobilized progressive ideas in the service of an archaic political and religious administration, thereby familiarizing the man on the street with notions and attitudes commonly known as Enlightened.
The sugar coating in the Observator is, however, as significant as the pill, and distinguishes L'Estrange's journalism from his predecessors'. Apart from the traditional satiric blend of verbal banter and polemic, which has received ample commentary,[15] his use of established literary modes further enhances the colloquies, making them especially diverting for his audience and interesting for us. As dialogues, the papers belong to a genre whose popularity has remained constant from Plato onward. The appeal of the form lies in its pleasurable verisimilitude, immediacy, adaptability to differing points of view, and, especially after the Restoration, in its potentiality for humorous repartee.[16] As satiric dialogues, L'Estrange's sheets satisfy what seems to be a universal love of ridicule, an innate trait of the human mind, although there is no agreement among students of satire as to its exact psychological operations. In addition to adopting this form, which belongs to imaginative literature rather than to journalism, L'Estrange spices his Observator with a number of other devices designed to provide variety, change in speed, and amusement for his reader, who is in turn bullied, joshed, castigated, reasoned, or laughed into accepting L'Estrange's views.