The Spectator was founded in 1828 (shortly after the Athenaeum) by Robert Stephen Rintoul with financial assistance from the radical M.P., Joseph Hume, a supporter of the Trades Union movement. Emphasising its impartiality and its moral tone, the Spectator aimed at a family audience. However, while presenting itself as a politically neutral 'spectator', the Spectator was an advocate of radical causes such as the formation of Trades Unions, Chartism and the campaign against the Corn Laws. The Spectator interpreted the press as the public sphere, the channel of the 'national will' ( Thomas, The Story of the Spectator, p.45).
A sympathetic review of Modern Painters I appeared in the Spectator, 7 December 1844.