given to anything French. The subtitle of the department might well
have sold out the first issue: "Being a Weekly History of Nonsense,
Impertinence, Vice and Debauchery." Later the title was shortened to
"Advice from the Scandalous Club." Probably Defoe borrowed the
idea of this "feature" from an earlier journal with which he seems
to have been temporarily associated, The Athenian Mercury, edited by
John Dunton from 1691 until 1697. Dunton was the ancestor of our
modern radio "quiz programs," the most famous "answer man" of the
late seventeenth century. Then as now, the public seems to have had
unlimited time and inclination for writing letters and inquiries to
popular commentators. No query was too insignificant for Dunton,
who took on all comers and replied to high and low alike (though not
in the order in which he received inquiries, since his periodical abounded
in apologies for procrastination in replying to a neglected letter that
he had just unearthed from the mountain-piles on his editorial desk).
Through his early experience with Dunton, Defoe seems to have dis-
covered--what our modern newspapers and radio "quizzers" know
very well--that adults are as curious as children, that, as Aristotle
said, "Man by nature desires to know."

The "Scandalous Club," like the "Spectator Club" of which Sir
Roger de Coverley was a member, had no existence other than in the
imagination of its creator. It was a journalist's fiction, yet it became
an object of belief to readers. The "Mercure Scandale" differed in one
important way from the earlier Athenian Mercury, and the difference
is significant of Daniel Defoe himself. "Ask-me-another" Dunton had
prided himself on his ability to answer any question, no matter how
absurd, and the official program of his journal--that of "informing"
and "correcting"--often gave way to the most trivial chitchat. Mr. Re-
view, however, took seriously the program of his "Scandalous Club."
"The Society's main battery," he wrote, "was always erected against
vice and folly." Serious questions were answered seriously; "merry"
quips and queries were included only when the editor believed his
answers would benefit readers in general and the querist in particular.
"Our Society," he said, "openly declare, they publish nothing in the
most diverting manner, but what they design for a serious improve-
ment." Implicit in the policies of these early journals is an extension
of the old basic opposition between two schools as to the function of

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