The fortunes of the English Spectator (1711-14) and its followers, in Europe and elsewhere, may be said to represent one of the most successful enterprises of both literal and cultural translation in the history of printed communication. Its study provides a vivid illustration of the problems and dilemmas of what was known in the 18th century as good and bad imitations, while this would now be described as cultural translation – in other words, the adaptation of a text in new contexts. This chapter starts by going back to the periodical traditions which the spectator model followed, and then shows how the journal was itself a creative adaptation of earlier periodical traditions, political, learned and fashionable – the Gazette, the Mercure gallant and the Journal des savants. The second part of the chapter, which deals with the Spectator’s imitations, focuses on a case study of the Spectator genre of journalism, the work of Jacques-Vincent Delacroix. Since Delacroix was one of the most, if not the most tireless, convinced and persistent of the followers of the English model of journalism, his work not only illuminates the history of the Spectator genre, but also gives some insights into the debate on cultural translation that it provoked.