If you like this...

Deeface

Love to see the Addison/Steele Spectator used to promote the
Spectator blog-- great idea. Their thinking, when setting it up was, to paraphrase, “to bring philosophy out of the ivory towers and into the coffee houses". But this Spectator and that Spectator are not the same Spectator. Addison and Steele’s ran from 1 March 1711 to 6 December 1712 (revived by Addison for 80 numbers again in 1714). Our present day Spectator was founded in 1828 by some Scottish bloke and has no connection, other than its name, with the 18th century publication.

To further confuse things, d’Ancona’s mentioning of Steele alone, without Addison, reminds me of Tatler. Previous to Addison and Steele’s Spectator, Steele had founded and run Tatler (1709) on his own. It is probably for this reason that the present-day Tatler believes itself to be the oldest magazine in Britain. But that Tatler was another Tatler as well... The present-day Tatler was launched and advertised as a “new weekly paper” in this very Spectator (17 February 1877), which was already 50 years old at the time. D’Ancona’s Spectator, while not Addison and Steele’s, is Britain’s oldest magazine.