and says the supposed author of it is Dr. Swift.  But, above all things, he praises the Tatlers and Spectators, and I believe Steele and Addison were privy to the printing of it.  Thus is one treated by the impudent dogs.”  In this unambitious little sketch, as the author puts it, he gives “the histories and characters of all our periodical papers, whether monthly, weekly or diurnal,” and it is, therefore, of value to the student of the early days of English journalism.  He claimed to write without political bias:  “I shall only promise that, as you know, I never cared one farthing either for Whig or Tory, so I shall consider our writers purely as they are such, without any respect to which party they belong.”  In “The Present State of Wit” most of the better-known periodical writers are introduced.  Dr. William King is mentioned, not he who was the Archbishop of Dublin, nor he who was the Principal of St. Mary Hall, Oxford, but he of whom it was said that he “could write verses in a tavern three hours after he could not speak,” who was the author of the “Art of Cookery” and the “Art of Love,” and who in 1709 had fluttered the scientific dovecotes by parodying the “Philosophical Transactions” in the Useful Transactions in Philosophy and Other Sorts of Learning, of which, however, only three numbers were issued.  John Ozell was pilloried as the author of the Monthly Amusement, which was not, as the title suggests, a periodical, but was merely a title invented to summarise his frequent appearances in print.  “It is generally some French novel or play, indifferently translated, it is more or less taken notice of, as the original piece is more or less agreeable.”  Defoe takes his place in the gallery as the editor and principal contributor to the weekly Poor Review, that is, the Weekly Review (which was published weekly from February 19th, 1704, until 1712) which, says Gay, “is quite exhausted and grown so very contemptible, that though he has provoked all his brothers of the quill round, none of them will enter into a controversy with him.”

The periodical publications of the day are passed under review:  the Observer, founded in 1702 by John Tutchin, and after his death five years later, conducted by George Ridpath, editor of the Flying Post, until 1712, when it had almost entirely ceased to please, and was finally extinguished by the Stamp Tax; the weekly Examiner, set up in August, 1710, in opposition to the Whig Taller, numbering among its contributors Dr. King, St. John, Prior, Atterbury, and Freind, and managed by Swift from No. 14 (October 26th, 1710); the Whig Examiner, the first issue of which appeared on September 14th, 1710, its five numbers being written by Addison; the Medley, another Whig paper, which ran from August, 1710, to August, 1711, and was edited by Arthur Mainwaring, with the assistance of Steele, Oldmixon, and Anthony Henley (a wit and a man of fortune, to