When Baker retired from the paper five years afterwards, he drew up a list of the articles which had appeared under his editorship, with the names of the writers attached.

This list has been preserved, and from it we learn that the first number, containing a prospectus and an introductory essay on the qualifications of a good writer, was written by Defoe.

That experienced journalist naturally tried to give an air of novelty to the enterprise.

"If this paper," the first sentence runs, "was not intended to be what no paper at present is, we should never attempt to crowd in among such a throng of public writers as at this time oppress the town." In effect the scheme of the _Universal Spectator_ was to revive the higher kind of periodical essays which made the reputation of the earlier _Spectator_.

Attempts to follow in the wake of Addison and Steele had for so long ceased to be features in journalism; their manner had been so effectually superseded by less refined purveyors of light literature--Defoe himself going heartily with the stream--that the revival was opportune, and in point of fact proved successful, the _Universal Spectator_ continuing to exist for nearly twenty years.