al reproaches, intermeddle
with family breaches, or tend to scandal or indecency
of any kind."

"The current papers are more than sufficient to carry on all
the dirty work the town can have for them to do; and what
with party strife, politics, poetic quarrels, and all the other
consequences of a wrangling age, they are in no danger of
wanting employment; and those readers who delight in such
things, may divert themselves there. But our views, as is
said above, lie another way."

Good writing is what Defoe promises the readers of the _Universal
Spectator_, and this leads him to consider what particular
qualifications go to the composition, or, in a word, "what is required
to denominate a man a _good writer_". His definition is worth quoting as
a statement of his principles of composition.

"One says this is a polite author; another says, that is an
excellent _good writer_; and generally we find some oblique
strokes pointed sideways at themselves; intimating that
whether we think fit to allow it or not, they take themselves
to be very _good writers_. And, indeed, I must excuse them
their vanity; for if a poor author had not some good opinion
of himself, especially when under the discouragement of having
nobody else to be of his mind, he would never write at
all; nay, he could not; it would take off all the little dull
edge that his pen might have on it before, and he would not
be able to say one word to the purpose."

"Now whatever may be the lot of this paper, be that as
common fame shall direct, yet without entering into the
enquiry who writes better, or who writes worse, I shall lay
down one specific, by which you that read shall impartially
determine who are, or are not, to be called _good writers_. In a
word, the character of a good writer, wherever he is to be
found, is this, viz., that he writes so as to please and serve at
the same time."

"If he writes to _please_, and not to _serve_, he is a flatterer and
a hypocrite; if to _serve_ and not to _please_, he turns cynic and
satirist. The first deals in smooth falsehood, the last in
rough scandal; the last may do some good, though little;
the first does no good, and may do mischief, not a little; the
last provokes your rage, the first provokes your pride; and in
a word either of them is hurtful rather than useful. But the
writer that strives to be use