st we have no power to please, unless
we come up to the full height of those inimitable performances?
Is there no wit or humour left because they are
gone? Is the spirit of the _Spectators_ all lost, and their mantle
fallen upon nobody? Have they said all that can be
said? Has the world offered no variety, and presented no
new scenes, since they retired from us? Or did they leave
off, because they were quite exhausted, and had no more to
say?"

Defoe did not always speak so respectfully of the authors of the
_Spectator_. If he had been asked why they left off, he would probably
have given the reason contained in the last sentence, and backed his
opinion by contemptuous remarks about the want of fertility in the
scholarly brain. He himself could have gone on producing for ever; he
was never gravelled for lack of matter, had no nice ideas about manner,
and was sometimes sore about the superior respectability of those who
had. But here he was on business, addressing people who looked back
regretfully from the vulgarity of _Mist's_ and _Applebee's_ to the
refinement of earlier periodicals, and making a bid for their custom. A
few more sentences from his advertisement will show how well he
understood their prejudices:--

"The main design of this work is, to turn your thoughts a
little off from the clamour of contending parties, which has
so long surfeited you with their ill-timed politics, and restore
your taste to things truly superior and sublime."

"In order to this, we shall endeavour to present you with
such subjects as are capable, if well handled, both to divert
and to instruct you; such as shall render conversation pleasant,
and help to make mankind agreeable to one another."

"As for our management of them, not to promise too much
for ourselves, we shall only say we hope, at least, to make our
work acceptable to everybody, because we resolve, if possible,
to displease nobody."

"We assure the world, by way of negative, that we shall
engage in no quarrels, meddle with no parties, deal in no scandal,
nor endeavour to make any men merry at the expense of
their neighbours. In a word, we shall set nobody together
by the ears. And though we have encouraged the ingenious
world to correspond with us by letters, we hope they will not
take it ill, that we say beforehand, no letters will be taken
notice of by us which contain any person