es Lillie. However there were now and then some
faint endeavours at Humour and Sparks of Wit, which the Town, for want
of better Entertainment, was content to hunt after, through an heap of
Impertinencies; but even those are at present, become wholly Invisible,
and quite swallow'd up in the Blaze of the SPECTATOR.

You may remember I told you before, that one Cause assign'd for the
laying down the TATLER was, want of Matter; and indeed this was the
prevailing Opinion in Town, when we were Surpriz'd all at once by a
paper called The SPECTATOR, which was promised to be continued every
day, and was writ in so excellent a Stile, with so nice a Judgment, and
such a noble profusion of Wit and Humour, that it was not difficult to
determine it could come from no other hands but those which had penn'd
the Lucubrations.

This immediately alarm'd these Gentlemen, who (as 'tis said Mr. Steele
phrases it) had The Censorship in Commission. They found the new
SPECTATOR come on like a Torrent and swept away all before him; they
despaired ever to equal him in Wit, Humour, or Learning; (which had been
their true and certain way of opposing him) and therefore, rather chose
to fall on the Author, and to call out for help to all Good Christians,
by assuring them again and again, that they were the First, Original,
True, and Undisputed Isaac Bickerstaff.

Mean while 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
ones Hand, and a constant Topick 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 continu'd in the Spirit and Stile
of our present SPECTATORS; but to our no small Surprize, 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, out-shone even the
Esquires first TATLERS.

Most People Fancy, from their frequency, that they must be compos'd by a
Society; I, with all, Assign the first places to Mr. Steele and His
Friend.

I have often thought that the Conjunction of those two Great Genius's
(who seem to stand in a Class by themselves, so high above all our other
Wits) resembled that of two famous States-men in a late Reign, whose
Characters are very well expressed in their two Mottoes (viz.) Prodesse
quam conspici, an