iTf OF SAN DIEGO, JhtMiPI J LONGMANS' ENGLISH CLASSICS EDITED BY GEORGE RICE CARPENTER, A.B. PROFESSOR OP RHETORIC AND ENGLISH COMPOSITION IN COLUMBIA COLLEGE THE SIR ROGER DE COVERLET PAPERS ENGLISH CLASSICS Edited by GEORGE RICE CARPENTER, A.B., Professor of Rhetoric and English Composition in Columbia University. With full Notes, Introductions, Bibliographies, and other Explanatory and Illustrative Matter. Crown 8tx>. BURKE'B SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. Edited by Albert S. Cook, Ph.D., L.H.D., Professor of the English Language and Literature in Yale Uni- versity. CABLYLE'S ESSAY ON BURNS. Edited by Wilson Farrand, A.M., Associate Princi- pal of the Newark Academy, Newark, N.J. COLEBIDGE'B THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. Edited by Herbert Ba'es, A.B., late of the University of Nebraska. In- structor in English in the Manual Train- ing High School, Brooklyn. COOPEB'S THE LAST OP THE MOHICAN?. Ed- ited by Charles F. Richariison, Ph.D., Winkley Professor of the English Lan- guage and Literature ID Dartmouth College. DE QCINCET'B FLIGHT OP A TABTAB TBIBE i REVOLT OP THK TABTAB.'). Edi.ed by Charles Sears Baldwin. Ph.D.. Assistant Professor of Rhetoric In Yale University. DEFOE'S HISTOBY OF THE PLAGUE IN LOS- DON. Edited bv Professor G. R. Carpenter, of Columbia University. DBTDEN'S PALAMON AND ARCITE. Edited by William T. Bte-.vster. A.M., Tutor in Rhetoric in Columbia University. GEORGE ELIOT'S SILAS MARKER. Edited by Robert Herrick, A.B , Assistant Professor of Riietoric in the University of Chicago. GOLDSMITH'S THE VICAR OP WAKEFIFI.D. Edited by Mary A. Jordan, A.M., Pro- fessor of Rhetoric aud Old English in Smith College. IEVING'S TALES OF A TBAVELLEB. With an Introduction by Brandi-r Matthews, Pro- fessor of Literature in Columbia Univer- sitv, and Explanatory Notes by the general editor of the series. MACAULAY'B ESSAYS ON MILTON AND ADDI- BON. Edited, with Notes and Introduction, by J-imes Greenleaf Croswell, A.B., Head Master of the Brearley School, New York. MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. Edited by James Greenleaf Croswell, A.B.. Head Master of the Brearley School, New York. MACAULAY'S LIFE OP SAMUEL JOHNSON. Ed- ited by the Rev. Huber Gray Buehler, of the Hotcbkiss School, Lakeville, Conn. MILTON'S L' ALLEGRO, IL PENSEBOSO. COMUS, AND LYCIDAS. Edited by William P. Trent, A.M., Professor of English in the Univer- sity of the South. MILTON'S PABADISE LOST. BOOKS I. AND II. Bolted by Edward Everett Hale, Jr., Ph.D., Professor of Rhetoric and Lcgic iu Union College. POPE'S HOMER'S ILIAD. BOOKS I.,VI_. XXII., AND XXIV. Edited by William H Max- well, A. M , City Superintendent of Schools, New York, and pcrcival Chubb, of the Ethical Culture Schools, New York. SCOTT'S WOODSTOCK. Edited by Bliss Perry, A.M., Profisjr of Oratory and ^Esthetic Criticism In Jfrinceton Umvers.ty. SCOTT'S IVANHOE. Edited by Bliss Perry, A.M., Professor of Oratory and ^Esthetic Criticism in Princeton University. SCOTT'S MABMION. Edited by Robert Morss Lovett.A.B.. Assistant Professor of English in the University of Chicago. SRAKSPERE'S JULIUS CAESAR. Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George C. D. Odell, Ph.D., Tutor in Rhetoric andEnglish Composition in Columbia University. SHAKSPEBE'S MACBETH. Edited by John .Matthews Manly, Ph. D., Professor of English in the University of Chicago. SHAKSPEBE'S MERCHANT op VENICE. Ed- ited by Francis B. Gummere, Ph.D., Pro- fessor of English in Haverford College. SHAKSPEBE'S As You LIKE IT. With an Introduction by Barrett Wendell, A.B.. Assistant Profe>.sor of English in Harvard University, and Notes by William Lycn Pbelps, Ph.D , Assistant Professor of Eng- lish in Yale University. SHAKSPEBE'S A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. Edited bv George Pierce Baktr, A.B., Assistant Professor of English in Harvard University. THE SIB ROGER DE COVEELEY PAPERS, from " The Spectator." Edited By D. O. S. Lowell, A.M., of the Roxbury Latin School, Roxbury, Mu-f. SOUTHEY'S LIPE OP NELSON. Edited by Ed- win L. Miller, A.M., of the Euglewood High School, Illinois. TENNYSON'S THE PRINCESS. Edited by George Edward Wocdberry, A.B., Pro- fessor of Literature in Columbia Uni- versity. WEBSTER'S FIRST BUNKER HILL ORATION, together with other Addresses relating to the Revolution. Edited bv Fred Newton Scott, Ph.D., Professor of Rhetoric in the University of Michigan. presented to the LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO by FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY MR. JOHN C. ROSE donor JOSEPH ADDISON (After the painting by Sir Godfrey Kneller) flongmnns* (English Clossics THE SIR ROGER DE COVERLET PAPERS FROM "THE SPECTATOR" EDITED WITH NOTES AND AN INTRODUCTION D. O. S. LOWELL, A.M., M.D. ENGLISH MASTER IN THE ROXBCRY LATIN SCHOOL NEW YORK LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. LONDON AND BOMBAY 1900 COPYRIGHT, 189<5 BT LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. All rights reserved FIRST EDITION, JUNE, 1?96 REPRINTED, JUNE AND OCTOBER, 1897 MAT AND AUGUST, 1899 JUNE, 1900 Press of J. J. Little & Co. Astor Place, New York TO MY DEAR WIFE, IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF HER SYMPATHETIC CRITICISM AND KINDLY AID, I LOVINGLY INSCRIBE THIS EDITION. :;; fb /""* PEEFACE IN this volume of selections from the Spectator, the text of Tickell's (1721) edition of Addison's works has been compared with Henry Morley's (1888) new edition of the Spectator, " reproducing the original text, both as first is- sued, and as corrected by its authors." In each instance the text has been given ''as corrected;" but it has not been thought best to give an exact reprint of spelling, capi- tals, and punctuation. As it is the aim of secondary teachers to make their pupils familiar with the best modern usage, and as some pupils are prone to misspell, mispunc- tuate, and miscapitalize in spite of both precept and ex- ample, it seems wise to sacrifice a bookish sentiment to utilitarian ends, As to Addison's grammar, while his principal departures from modern idioms have been noted, the sacrilege of par- aphrasing has been studiously avoided. Here and there the papers have been slightly edited for obvious reasons. The Partridge hoax has been purposely treated at consider- able length in the Introduction, not only because it is famous in literature, has a direct bearing upon the incep- tion of the Tatler, and is most amusing in itself, but also because it gives an interesting glimpse of one of the most famous contemporaries of Steele and Addison Dean Swift. The chronological table has been made a little fuller than in other books of this series, in the thought that some may become interested in the lives of the two principal characters and wish to follow them up in detail. After a brief course of reading in some of the books suggested under BIBLIOGRAPHY (p. xlv.), the student might be re- viii PREFACE quired to write a sketch of Addison or Steele, using as a "brief" the chronological table. My thanks are especially due to Prof. G. E. Carpenter, the general editor of the series, for his scholarly criticisms of this edition while it has been passing through the press, and for the courtesy with which he has pointed out infe- licities and inaccuracies that would otherwise have escaped my notice. D. 0. S. L. ROXBURY LATIN SCHOOL, May, 1896. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. PAGE. I. THE TATLER AND THE SPECTATOR .... xiii II. THE AUTHORS OF THE DE COVERLEY PAPERS 1. Joseph Addison xxiv 2. Richard Steele xxxi 3. Eustace Budgell xl III. SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS . . xiii IV. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE ...... xlix THE DE COVERLEY PAPERS. KO. OF BAPTEB. TITLE. AUTHOR. PAGE. SPECTATOR. THE SPECTATOR Addison .... No. 1 ... 1 . THE CLUB. . . .'. Steeh No. 2. . . 7 III. SIR ROGER'S PHILOSOPHY Steele No. 6. . . 15 TV. SIR ROGER AND THE CLUB. - MAKE CONCESSIONS TO THE SPECTATOR Addison... No. 34... 20 l . SIR ROQER'S CLIENT Addison ... No. 37. .. 25 COVERLEY HALL Addison No. 106. .. 31 THE COVERLEY HOUSEHOLD. . .Steele No. 107. . . 36 WIMBLE. . ..Addison No. 108. . 40 CONTENTS TITLE. AUTHOK. HE COVERLEY ANCESTRY. . , ..Steele . . NO. OP SPECTATOR. PAf:E - 44 49 54 58 64 ...No. 109... THE COVERLEY GHOST Addison No. 110. .. A COUNTRY SUNDAY Addison No. 112. . . SIR ROGER IN LOVE Steele No. '113. .. CONTENTMENT AND POVERTY . . Steele No. 114. .. SIR ROGER'S LABORS AND TROPHIES Addison. . . .No. 115. . SIR ROGER GOES A- HUNTING. . ..Budgdl No. 116. ., A VILLAGE WITCH Addison No. 117. . A PERVERSE WOMAN. . ..Steele.. ..No. 118.. 2T .GOOD BREEDING IN THE COUN- TRY . . . .Addison. XIX. SIR ROGER'S POULTRY Addison. SIR ROGER ON THK BENCH Addison. THE EDUCATION OF AN HEIR. .Addison. SIR ROGER AND PARTY SPIRIT. .Addison. PARTY PREJUDICE Addison. GYPSIES Addison. A SUMBIONS TO LONDON Addison. A JOURNEY TO LONDON Steele . . . SIR ROGER IN AN ARGUMENT.' .Steele . . . SIR ROGER IN LONDON / Addison. SIR ROGER IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY Addison. SIR ROGER AT THE PLAY Addison. .No. 119... . Nos. -/ (181 .No. 122... .No. 123... .No. 125... .No. 126... .No. 130... .No. 131... .No. 1'32. . .No. 174. .No. 269. 69 74 80 84 89 93 99 104 110 115 120 124 128 133 138 .No. 829... 143 .No. 335... 148 CONTEXTS XI NO. OP CHAPTER. TITLE. AUTHOR. PAGE. SPECTATOR. XXXI. SIR ROGER'S ADVICE FROM WILL HONEYCOMB Budgdl . . . .No. 359. . . 153 XXXII. SIR ROGER AT VAUXHALL . . . .Addison No. 383. . . 157 XXXIII. SIR ROGER'S DEATH Addison No. 517... 161 XXXIV. SIR ROGER'S CHARACTER, ESTATE, AND SUCCESSOR. .Stede No. 544. . . 164 NOTE APPENDIX The Mottoes Translated 167 . 169 INTRODUCTION. I. THE TATLER AND THE SPECTATOR. THE Sir Eoger de Coverloy Papers are selections from five hundred and fifty-five daily issues l of a sheet called the Spectator. This was the natural successor of another peri- odical of similar character the Tatler, founded in London, in 1709, by Richard Steele, and published three times a week over the signature of ISAAC BICKERSTAFF. The circumstances which led to the selection of the pen name are of curious interest. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, prophetic almanacs were extremely popular in England, under the title of "Prognostications." The Stationers' Company employed for several years as its principal ''prophet "a fellow who was a shoemaker by trade, named John Par- tridge. He appropriated to himself the title of '' Student .in Astrology," and like other astrological impostors pre- tended to tell the course of events by consulting the stars. After Partridge's " Prognostications for 1708 " appeared, that mad wag Jonathan Swift the author of " Gulliver's Travels," then an Irish vicar of rising fame visiting in London published a satire entitled '' Predictions for the year 1708, wherein the month, and the day of the month, are set down, the persons named, and the great actions and events of next year particularly related, as they will come to pass. Written to prevent the people of England from being further imposed on by the vulgar almanac 1 There were 635 Spectators, but there was a break after 555 had been issued, and the last 80 were not daily issues, as will be seen farther on. xiv INTRODUCTION makers. By ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, ESQ." He begins very solemnly by deploring the fact that faith in astrology seems to be on the wane, and attributes it to the fact that so many " illiterate traders between us and the stars impart a yearly stock of nonsense, lies, folly, and impertinence, which they offer to the world as genuine from the planets, though they descend from no greater a height than their own brains." After showing up the frailties of pseudo- astrologers, " Bickerstaff " vaunts his own ability as a star- gazer and star-reader, with so much seeming seriousness and candor as to take in many good people and some bad ones; in fact, the Inquisition at Portugal actually burnt his tract because of its heresy, and thundered its anathemas against the author and his readers. Finally Bickerstaff begins his concrete prophecies: " My first prediction is but a trifle, ... it relates to Partridge the almanac-maker. I have consulted the star of his nativity by my own rules, and find he will in- fallibly die upon the 29th of March next, about eleven at night, of a raging fever: therefore I advise him to con- sider of it, and settle his affairs in time." On the day following the fateful twenty-ninth of March appeared another pamphlet, entitled " The accomplish- ment of the first of Mr. Bickerstaff's predictions, being an account of the death of Mr. Partridge, the almanac- maker, upon the 29th instant, in a letter to a person of honor." In this it was stated that Partridge died at "about five minutes after seven; by which it is clear that Mr. Bickerstaff was mistaken almost four hours in his cal- culation." Partridge, however, was not only very much alive, but incomparably angry; and the fact that all the wits of the time aided in spreading the report of his demise, served to increase his wrath. He is said to have knocked down before liis very door a vender of Swift's obituary pamphlet who was crying it about the streets. Finally there appeared a INTRODUCTION xv pamphlefc purporting to come from Partridge (but really written by Congreve and the Rev. Dr. Yalden) and com- plaining most piteously of the joke which had been prac- tised upon him. He stigmatizes Isaac Bickerstaff as an " unscientific Frenchman and Papist who is striving to bury alive a respectable Protestant astrologer." He then goes on to state that when the night of his pretended decease " of a raging fever " had come, though he was in his usual health, his wife, who had been wrought upon somewhat by the false prophet, prevailed upon him to take a sweat and retire early. Suddenly a neighbouring bell began to toll, and as the servant went to a window to inquire the cause she was told that Doctor Partridge had suddenly died. The maid hotly gave her informer the lie, but he insisted that if we may paraphrase Hood's conceit some one had told the sexton so and the sexton had tolled the bell. Every passer- by also stoutly affirmed that Partridge was dead. Presently a grave person called and asked if that were Doctor Partridge's residence. lie was supposed to be a patient and shown into the dining-room. Partridge went down and found him measuring the room to be hung with mourning for the doctor's death. Nothing could con- vince the undertaker's deputy that the supposed corpse stood before him; and when the latter, summoning up his spirit, ordered the ghostly decorator out of doors, the dep- uty said that he perceived the doctor's death had disordered the gentleman's mind. Doubtless he was a near relative perhaps a brother. The draper would go away, and return next morning. Partridge again repaired to his bed, but again, like an ill-laid ghost, was conjured up by the sexton. He had come to see about the grave, the funeral sermon, etc. Partridge insisted that all this was a work of supererogation ; but the fellow stoutly declared that the whole town knew the almanac-maker was dead, and the joiner was hurrying up his coffin for fear he would become impatient for it. He re- xv i INTRODUCTION proached Partridge for trying to keep his death so secret, and hinted that he might be mean enough to try to avoid paying his funeral expenses. "In short," Congreve and Yalden make Partridge say, " what with undertakers, embalmers, joiners, sextons, and elegy-hawkers upon a ' late practitioner in physic and astrol- ogy,' 1 got not one wink of sleep that night, nor scarce a moment's rest ever since. I could not stir out of doors for the space of three months after this but presently one comes up to me in the street: " ' Mr. Partridge, that coffin you was last buried in, I have not been yet paid for. ' " My poor wife is run almost distracted with being called 'widow Partridge,' when she knows it is false; and once a term she is cited into the court to take out letters of administration." l "The most memorable consequence of SAvift's frolic," writes Sir Walter Scott, "was the establishment of the Taller, the first of that long series of periodical works which, from the days of Addison to those of Mackenzie, have enriched our literature with so many effusions of genius, humor, wit, and learning." Early in 1709 Steel e resolved upon the issue of a tri- weekly 2 literary periodical which should convey to its readers in a chatty, informal style a variety of information. As the name of "Isaac Bickerstaff " was then in every- body's mouth, it seemed a peculiarly favorable opportunity to publish the new paper over his name. Acting perhaps upon the advice, certainly with the consent, of Swift, Steele availed himself of all the advantages accruing from the use of the well-known name, and began the Tatter. For a hundred years previous there had been occasional 1 The whole of this diverting paper may be found in Swift's Works, and in Nathan Drake's Essays on the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian, vol. i., p. 64,^. 2 Look up this word in the dictionary and see what it does mean, and also what it, properly, should mean. It is an interesting example of the fact that custom makes law. INTRODUCTION xvii short-lived periodicals, most of Avhich are now forgotten. Finally, in 1704, there appeared the Heview, edited, and mainly written, by Daniel Defoe, the author of " Eobin- son Crusoe," one of the four great prose writers of his time. This continued until 1713. At first it was weekly, then semi-weekly, and then, as the demand increased, tri- weekly. It contained news, both foreign and domestic, but had a corner devoted to matters in general, such as love and war, ethics, theology, and literature. This was superior to anything which had preceded it and undoubt- edly suggested to Steele his idea of the Taller. 1 But Steele did not intend to devote so large a space to politics. He aimed rather to treat of literary topics, soci- ety matters, and the follies of the times. In his original dedication of the first volume he says: '' The general pur- pose of this paper is to expose the false arts of life, to pull off the disguises of cunning, vanity, and affectation, and to recommend a general simplicity in our dress, our dis- course, and our behavior." The great success of Steele's novel plan is well summed up by Dr. Nathan Drake: "The invention of a paper calculated for general instruction and entertainment, abounding in elegant literature, appearing periodically, and forming a whole under an assumed name and charac- ter, is without doubt to be ascribed to this country [Eng- land], and confers on it no small degree of honor. The Tatler presented to Europe in 1709 the first legitimate model." 2 The price of the Tatler was one penny, equal if we consider the greater value of money in those days to about ten cents at the present time. The first few num- 1 Others think Steele was inspired by the Athenian Gazette (1690. See chronological table). " It seems to have been read by as many distinguished men of the period as Notes and Queries in our own time, and there can be no doubt that the quaint humors it originated gave the first hint to the inventors of the Tatler and the Spectator.''' Courthope's Addison, chap, v., p. 84. "Essays. Vol. i., p. 22. xviii INTRODUCTION bers, however, were distributed gratis by way of advertise- ment. The first issue (April 12, 1709) opens with a kind of prospectus, in which the editor shows the need of a pe- riodical differing from the other journals of the day. He makes the somewhat suggestive statement that the name has been invented in honor of the "fair sex," and then proceeds to show the variety of entertainment which he lias in store for all his patrons: "All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertain- ment, shall be under the article of White's chocolate- house; poetry, under that of Will's coffee-house; learning, under the title of Grecian; foreign and domestic news you will have from St. James's coffee-house; and what else I have to offer on any other subject shall be dated from my own apartment." Mr. " Bickerstaff " finally reminds his readers that he has " besides the force of his own parts, the power of di- vination, and that he can [as in the case of Partridge] by casting a figure tell all that will happen before it comes to pass; but that he shall use this faculty sparingly for fear of divulging matters which may offend his superiors." This same introduction was also printed in the second and third numbers. /r He begins his paper proper with an article from White's chocolate-house, describing the desperate condition of a young man in love, with a promise " from time to time to be very exact in the progress the unhappy gentleman makes; " this is followed by an article from Will's coffee- house dealing ostensibly with "poetry," bitt mainly occu- pied with the description of a benefit to that " Roscius of the stage," Thomas Betterton, with a side hit at the opera fad and the gaming propensities of theatre-goers. Then comes the foreign news, dated, of course, from St. James's coffee-house, and giving the latest intelligence from The Hague and the surrounding region. As Steele was the official Gazetteer at this time, he had peculiar INTRODUCTION xix facilities for thus furnishing late and reliable information. The paper concludes with an article dated " From my own Apartment," which reads as follows: " I am sorry I am obliged to trouble the public with so much discourse upon a matter which I at first men- tioned as a trifle, viz., the death of Mr. Partridge, under whose name there is an almanac come out for the year 1709, in one page of which it is asserted by the said Jobu Partridge that he is still living, and not only so, but that he was also living some time before, and even at the in- stant when I writ of his death. I have, in another place, and in a paper by itself, sufficiently convinced this man that he is dead, and, if he has any shame, I do not doubt but that by this time he owns it to all his acquaintance; for though the legs and arms and whole body of that man may still appear and perform their animal functions, yet since, as I have elsewhere observed, his art is gone, the man is gone. I am, as I said, concerned that this matter should make so much noise; but since I am engaged, I take myself obliged to go on in my lucubrations, and by the help of these arts, of which I am master, as well as my skill in astrological speculations, I shall, as I see occasion, proceed to confute other dead men who pretend to be in being, although they are actually deceased. I therefore give all men fair warning to mend their manners; for I shall, from time to time, print bills of mortality; and I beg the pardon of all sitch who sball be named therein, if they who are good for nothing shall find themselves in the num- ber of the deceased." After the subject-matter, there appears the advertise- ment of a pamphlet (written by the original " Bicker- staff " Swift), entitled, "A Vindication of Isaac Bicker- etaff, Esq., against what is objected to him by Mr. Par- tridge, in his almanac for the year 1709. By the said Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq." This was the last that Swift wrote upon the now well-worn theme; but subsequent men- tion of Partridge is made in several Tatlers (see Xos. 56, 59, 96, 99, 113, 118, and 216). xx INTRODUCTION The motto for the first forty numbers was a quotation from Juvenal : Quicquid agunt homines . . . . . . nostri est farrago libelli, which has been translated, " Whate'er men do, or say, or think, or dream, Our motley paper seizes for its theme " ; and also, " "Whatever good is done, whatever ill, By human kind, shall this collection fill." After the fortieth Taller, Steele began to use other mot- toes occasionally, until at about the eightieth number he dropped the original motto altogether, and either used none at all, or selected some one appropriate to his subject. When the Tatler first appeared, Addison, the old school- mate and bosom friend of Steele, was in Ireland and knew nothing as to the authorship of the projected paper. He read the first five numbers with interest, and in the sixth was startled to find a literary comment upon a passage in Virgil which he himself had made to Steele a short time pre- vious. This passage revealed the identity of the new " Bick- erstaff," and Addison at once wrote to Steele congratulating him upon his enterprise and offering to help him. Steele gladly closed with this offer, and in No. 18 we find Addi- son's first contribution. After that his articles appeared at somewhat rare intervals until No. 81, and then more frequently as long as the Tatler continued. Of the 271 numbers of the Tatler, it has been tolerably well settled that Steele wrote 164; Steele and Addison jointly, 36; Steele and others (unknown), 24; Addison, 42; Addison and Swift jointly, 1; Swift, 1; Hughes, 2; and Fuller, 1. On January 2, 1711, the Tatler came to a sudden close. TROD U( 'TJOX xxi The reason for this is in dispute. Steele said in the final number that his " lucubrations " had lost their force be- cause his identity had become established; he admitted that he could preach better than he could practice and there- fore had preferred to preach through a mask. As the mask had been penetrated he signed himself the indulgent reader's most obliged, most obedient, humble servant, and laid down his pen. Swift wrote to " Stella " a slightly different view: " Steele's last Tatler came out to-day. You will see it be- fore this comes to you, and how he takes leave of the world. He never told so mi:ch as Mr. Addison of it, who was surprised as much as I; but to say the truth, it was time, for he grew cruel dull and dry. To my knowledge he had several good hints to go upon: but he was so lazy and weak of the work that he would not improve them." Other reasons assigned were political ones. Steele had written several articles against the government, had lost his office as Gazetteer and could not furnish foreign news, etc. These arguments are still mooted, and we will not dwell upon them. Whatever was the reason for the dis- continuance of the paper, it Avas not from lack of material; for in about two months there sprang up, like a phoenix, from the ashes of the Tatler, a fresher, livelier, daily sheet called the Spectator. As the first two numbers of the Spectator are found in the body of this book, a reading of these will be far better than any comment upon them. The new sheet became popular at once and had a wide sale. Beginning on March 1, 1711, it appeared every week-day until Decem- ber 6, 1712, when it completed its 555th issue. All but 45 of these numbers were written by Addison and Steele. Addison furnished 274, and Steele 236. Budgell, Tickell, Pope, Hughes, and one or two others, wrote the remaining 45. The Spectator was revived by Addison on January 18, 1714, and continued three times each week until December xx ii INTRODUCTION 20. But in these numbers Steele had little if any part, and Sir Roger de Coverley and the Club were likewise absent. The Taller and the Spectator will always remain among the gems of English literature. Xo amount of reading about them will give one an adequate idea of their exqui- site grace and perennial interest. If we adopt the view of Hazlitt, we shall consider their authors as belonging to the school of Montaigne writers who " do not treat of minerals and fossils, of the virtues of plants or the influence of plan- ets," but "make us familiar with the world of men and women, record their actions, assign their motives, exhibit their whims, and play the game of human life before us." * Of course it is life two centuries ago we must never forget that fact; and whether we believe that the good times are all old times, or whether we have a brighter faith in com- ing years, we all are ready to admit that the days of Queen Anne were different from our own, and that, to appreciate the literature of that era, we must adjust our thought to those different conditions. Both Addison and Steele could say with Terence, "Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto." Both were inspired with a sincere wish to make the world better. They attempted this by attacking evil on its own ground. To be witty, when Addison and Steele began to write, was often synonymous with being indecent. Men of genius were not bold enough to defy the prevalent taste, and weakly pandered to it and became penitent, like Dry- den; or else attempted to beat down the bulwarks of sin, like Jeremy Collier, and became unpopular. Addisou and Steele took a different course. They dealt good-humored but telling blows at all the fads and follies of the times; they shot, between the joints of many a respectable har- ness, arrows of sarcasm pointed with wit and winged with mirth; they smilingly dissected the empty brain of the 1 HAZLITT, On the Periodical Essayists. INTRODUCTION xxiii bean and the frivolous heart of the coquette; they held np the vicious and the vain to the scorn of the thoughtful; and they ended by making morality respectable and vice ridiculous. One writer says that the Spectator "civilized England more, perhaps, than any one book." 1 Another declaims that " It is not so very much of a hyperbole to call the English eighteenth century the century of the Spec- tutor ; and it maybe doubted whether any one man or any group of men has ever, through literature, exercised such an extensive and durable influence over life as Addison and Steele did by means of those little sheets issued originally day by day, to be served up with the teapot and the choco- late cups." 2 Taiue did not admire Addison's literary abilities. French wit is so unlike English humor that French critics cannot appreciate English humorists. Taine calls Addison " char- acteristically mediocre " and " useful because he is narrow. " But he admits that he wrought a great work through his essays (for he almost ignores Steele and seems to consider Addison the soul of the Spectator). lie says: "It is no small thing to make morality fashionable. Addison did it, and it remained in fashion. Formerly honest men were not polished, and polished men were not honest ; piety was fanatical, and urbanity depraved; in manners, as in let- ters, one could meet only Puritans or libertines. For the first time Addisou reconciled virtue with elegance, taught duty in an accomplished style, and made pleasure subser- vient to reason." 3 Most readers consider the Spectator a greater work than the Tatter, but there is at least one notable exception. Hazlitt says: "I have always preferred the Taller to the Spectator. Whether it is owing to my having been earlier or better acquainted with the one than the other, my 1 T. S. PERRY, English Literature in the Eighteenth Century, p. 179. a TRAILL, Social England, iv., p. 579. s TAINE, English Literature. Translated by Van Laun, vol. ii., book iii., chap, iv., section v. INTRODUCTION pleasure in reading these two admirable works is not at all in proportion to their comparative reputation." l The central figure in the Spectator is undeniably that of Sir Roger de Coverley. In fact, the papers which sketch his life and describe his amiable character and inurbane urbanity may almost be considered the first great English novel. That he is drawn from life, no one can for a mo- ment doubt ; that he is a portrait, it seems incredible that any one should believe. But he becomes real to us as we proceed, and we see his characteristics in a score of living men to-day. "V II. THE AUTHORS OF THE DE COVERLET PAPERS. JOSEPH ADDISOJT. On May-day, 1672, two years before Milton died, in the little town of Milston, near Amesbury, England, there was born to the rector, Lancelot Addison, a son. It seemed im- probable that the babe would live; in fact, there is a story that at first he was laid out as dead. In consequence of his feeble vitality he was baptised on the day of his birth; he was christened Joseph. Little is known of Joseph's boyhood. There are tradi- tions of childish escapades which would have passed un- noticed, even if true, in the case of any common man. Finally he went to the Charterhouse and there made the acquaintance of Richard Steele, who was six weeks his senior. The two became fast friends, and, in after years, Steele wrote a pleasing description (Tatler Xo. 235) of a visit evidently made during their school-days to Addi- son's home. In 1087 Addisou preceded Steele to Oxford, where he entered Queen's College. Through his superior scholarship he soon became a demy 2 of Magdalen College. 1 On the Periodical Essayists. * Pronounced de-raJ'. A half-fellow ; one who partakes of the founder's benefaction and is in the line of succession to become a fellow. INTRODUCTION xxv In 1693 he became Muster of Arts, and in 1G98 a Fellow. He added to his means by taking pupils, and gained a wide reputation for classical .scholarship. His Latin po- etry attracted especial attention, and a poem written on the Peace of Ryswick was called by an able critic the finest of its kind since Virgil's '^Eneid." His first English publication (1693) was an address to Dryden, praising that famous poet's translations from the classics. This was fol- lowed by a translation of part of the fourth Georgic, which Dryden commended as if he believed it equal to his own work. It seems clear that Addison at first expected to become a clergyman, but circumstances changed his purpose. Congreve introduced him to Charles Montague, Chancellor of the Exchequer and later Earl of Halifax, and he after- wards gained the favor of Lord Somers by dedicating to him a poem "To the King" (1095): through the inter- vention of these two noblemen he secured a pension of 300, with which he set out to travel on the continent. In 1699 he left England for France. For about a year he lived in comparative retirement, studying the French lan- guage. In Paris he met Boileau, who. it is said, first formed a favorable opinion of English ability to write poetry, by reading Addison's Latin verses. In 1700 Addison pro- ceeded to Italy, made a tour of its principal cities, and finally came to Geneva. There he expected to receive an appointment from King William to attend Prince Eugene's army as a Secretary. But William died in March, 1702, and Addison found himself not only without employment but without his pension. "Thus Addison, by lords caress'd, "Was left in foreign hinds distress'd ; Forgot at home, became for hire A travelling tutor to a squire : But wisely left the Muse's hill, To business shaped the poet's quill, xxvi INTRODUCTION Let all his barren laurels fade, Took up himself the courtier's trade, And, grown a minister of state, Saw poets at his levees wait," wrote one of his contemporaries in later years. 1 But there was less truth than poetry (or rhyme) in these lines : for Addison was not " forgot at home," did not become a " travelling tutor; " did not " leave the Muse's hill," but climbed higher; had not had "barren" honors and they didn't " fade; " and was never in any true sense a " cour- tier." He did "shape his quill" to business, however, and later in life became a high " minister of state." Still, it must be confessed that when Addison returned to Eng- land, late in 1703, the outlook was somewhat dismal. His father had died during his absence, so that to Joseph's fallen fortunes was added the sorrow of personal bereavement. But the innate genius of the author soon found an oppor- tunity for its display, and from that moment his upward career was almost continuous. While Addison was living in poverty, "Great praise the Duke of Marlborough won, And our good Prince Eugene," by gaining the " famous victory " at Blenheim. The Lord Treasurer of England one day said to the Earl of Halifax that he wished to find a poet worthy to celebrate the event. At the earl's recommendation the commission was given to Addison, who wrote his " Campaign." It has been main- tained that during the whole of the so-called "Augustan age of English Literature" the reign of Queen Anne only two poems of note were written in Great Britain, and that of these two the " Campaign " was one. 2 The poem 1 SWIFT. A Libel on Dr. Delany. 2 The other was Pope's Essay on Criticism. See Spectator, No. 253. INTR 01) I Y 'TION xx vii is not ofteif read in these days, but one passage, comparing Marlborongh to an angel that " Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm," has become fairly famous. 1 With the publication of the " Campaign " began a rise in Addison's fortunes. He speedily became famous and, as Macaulay says, " climbed higher in the State than any other Englishman has ever, by means merely of literary talents, been able to climb." He became Under Secretary of State, Chief Secretary of Ireland. Member of Parliament, and finally Secretary of State. Addison continued to Avrite occasionally in the midst of his political activities. He produced a prologue to the "Tender Husband" of Steele, published his "Remarks on Italy" a description of his travels during three years and brought out an opera, "Rosamond." The last seems to have been a notorious failure, though Macaulay thinks the music to which it was set was responsible for the failure. Finally, in 1709, he began his contributions to the Tatler, and followed those with his papers in the Spectator, interspersed with some political writings. In 1713, just after the Spectator had closed its seventh vol- ume, and while the Guardian was, in a sense, taking its place, Addison busied himself in writing the concluding act of " Cato," a tragedy of which he is believed to have elaborated the greater part during his continental travels, from a plan which he had sketched while still at Oxford. In April, the play was produced and met with astonishing favor. It ran for thirty-five nights in succession, was translated into three or four continental languages, and was praised by Voltaire as superior to any work of Shakes- peare's. In the second scene occurs the famous passage : 1 An interesting but highly fanciful sketch of the writing of the Campaign, and of Addison at this period of his career, may be found in the eleventh chapter of Thackeray's Henry Esmond. xxviii INTRODUCTION " 'Tis not in mortals to command success, But we'll do more, Sempronius ; we'll deserve it." Paradoxically enough, the author not only " commanded success " upon the spot, as we have seen, but the critics ever since his day have labored to prove that he did not deserve it. Although a tragedy, " Oato " is not dramatic, and the stilted and sometimes labored declamation too often prevents it from " holding the mirror up to nature. " Yet there are several lines in it as imperishable as any that Shakespeare or Milton ever wrote; lines that shall " Flourish in immortal youth, Unhurt amidst the wars of elements, The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds." ' After the production of " Cato," Addison contributed regularly to the Guardian. This paper had been begun by Steele on March 12, 1713, and continued every week- day until October 1 (175 numbers). In No. 33 we find " Cato " eulogized by Steele, on the Saturday following its first representation, and in No. 67 Addison makes his first contribution, which is followed by 52 others. In June, 1714, he revived the Spectator and edited it through 80 numbers. It appeared three times each week, but, as Bishop Hurd remarks, " Everything shows that Mr. Addi- son was much embarrassed in contriving how to protract this paper beyond its natural term." It came out Mon- days, Wednesdays, and Fridays, until December 20, 1714; but, to quote Hurd again, " the speculations turn on general topics, ... so that it was high time to drop the name of Spectator." Yet, according to Macaulay, this "eighth volume of the Spectator contains, perhaps, the finest essays, both serious and playful, in the English language." 1 The reader will be interested to find the number of passages from Cato which are recorded in Barllett's Familiar Quotations. INTRODUCTION xx ix In 1715 Addison incurred the bitter enmity of Pope. The general feeling seems to be that Addison was much more sinned against than Binning, and the " quarrel," famous in literary annals, seems to have been mainly on Pope's side. The matter is considerably involved and is too long to enter upon here. 1 In the same year there appeared a comedy entitled " The Drummer," which is gen- erally ascribed to Addison, though it was not included in the first collected edition of his works. It did not prove successful, and has well-nigh fallen into oblivion. After this, the most of his productions were of a political sort, and near the close of his life he was engaged in a somewhat bitter partisan contention with his former associate, Stecle. In 1710 Addison's political fortunes suffered from a change of ministry, 2 and in consequence of these reverses, perhaps, that perverse widow the Countess of Warwick, to whose hand he had long aspired, looked down coldly upon him. But upon the accession of George I., in 1714, he again found preferment in the State, and presently was appointed for a second time Irish Secretary. "It never rains but it pours." Addison had amassed, apparently, a small fortune as well as a great reputation from his share in the Tatters and Spectators; had been made famous throughout Europe by his tragedy of " Cato ; " was now a favorite of the predominant party; and in August, 171G, the Countess capitulated. To crown all, in 1717 he was appointed Secretary of State the highest rung in the lad- der to which the " Campaign " had proved a stepping-stone. Of the last two bits of fortune, Lady Mary Montague wrote to Pope: " I received the news of Mr. Addison's being declared Secretary of State with the less surprise, in that I know 1 A full and dispassionate discussion of the case may be found in Courthope's Addison, chap, vii., and a passionate, almost dramatic, presentation in Macaulay's Essay on Addison. 2 See p. 109, note 2. xxx INTRODUCTION that post was almost offered to him before. At that time he declined it, and I really believe that he would have done well to have declined it now. Such a post as that, and such a wife as the Countess, do not seem to be, in prudence, eligible for a man that is asthmatic, and we may see the day when he will be heartily glad to resign them both." It is probable that the marriage did not prove a happy one, but if so Addison did not have to suffer long. His health failed him soon after he was made Secretary, and in 1719 he died. Throughout his life, Addison was a sincere Christian, and on his dying bed he sent for his step-son, a dissipated young nobleman, " to see in what peace a Christian could die." His personality was an amiable one, and he was greatly beloved by most of his associates. Tickell wrote an elegy upon him which, as Macaulay says, "would do honor to the greatest name in our literature." With Swift, his relations were for the most part cordial, though Swift was a bitter Tory and Addison a zealous Whig. Steele loved and admired him, though, as we have seen, there was an unhappy estrangement between them at the time of Addison's death. But the old affection returned. In the preface to " The Drummer," published soon after, Steele refers feelingly to the fact that he (Steele) had ever ''rejoiced in being excelled," and was gladly " subservient to the superior qualities of his friend whom he loved." Pope was at first his friend, and with good reason ; for Addison helped by means of the Spectator to make Pope's reputation. But when the Wasp of Twickenham became angry, he forgot all debts of gratitude. His celebrated satire upon Addison contains point as well as poison, for it outlines some undoubted frailties of " Atticus," commin- gled with passing mention of certain of his talents and accomplishments, so as to give a crafty semblance of realism to the whole. It has been most aptly termed INTRODUCTION xxxi POPE';* VKNOMED SHAFT. " Peace to all such ! but were there one whose fires True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires ; Blest with each talent and each art to please, And born to write, converse, and live at ease : Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne, View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, And hate for arts that caused himself to rise ; Damn with faiut praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering teach the rest to sneer ; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike ; Alike reserved to blame, or to commend, A tim'rous foe, and a suspicious friend : Dreading ev'n fools, by flatterers besieged, And so obliging, that he ne'er obliged ; Like ' Cato,' give his little senate laws, And sit attentive to his own applause ; While wits and Templars every sentence raise, And wonder with a foolish face of praise : Who but must laugh, if such a man there be ? Who would not weep, if ATTICUS were he ? '' RICHARD STEELE. For many years the date of Steele's birth was in dispute. It was believed that he was younger than Addison, and indeed Thackeray, drawing upon his exuberant imagina- tion, says that Steele fagged for Addison at school, ran of his errands, and blacked his boots. But recent investiga- tions have proved that he was born on the 12th of March, lb'72; thus he was about six weeks older than Addison. Add to this the fact that Steele went to the famous Charter- house school about two years before Addison Avas sent thither, and Thackeray's picturesque account of the " head boy," which he relates with such telling effect, falls below xxxii INTRODUCTION the rank of historical fiction into that of fictitious biog- raphy. Although Steele always wished to be considered an Eng- lishman, he was born in Dublin and died in Wales. His father died when he was about five years old, and one of the most pathetic passages which Steele ever wrote is a description of his own remembrance of the sad event. 1 It is not quite certain how long his mother lived, but she must have died soon after her husband. Left thus early an orphan, Steele was cared for by an uncle, who provided the means of a good education. When he was about twelve years old he was admitted to the Charterhouse "upon the foundation," and there pre- pared for Oxford. In 168G Joseph Addison entered the same school, and a friendship sprung up between these two congenial boys, destined to last almost uninterrupted until they were separated by death, and to remain a fragrant memory with the survivor Steele. But although Steele went first to the fitting school, he went last to the university, and chose a different college, Christ's Church. His life at college seems to have been a happy one, and he gave some evidence of literary tastes; but he left Oxford in 1694, enlisting as a private in the Horse Guards. This step was probably due to his natural bent towards an active life. In later life he thus describes it, speaking of himself in the third person: " When he mounted a war-horse, with a great sword in his hand, and planted himself behind King William the Third against Lewis the Fourteenth, he lost the succession to a very good estate in Ireland, from the same humor which he has pursued ever since, of preferring the state of his mind to that of his fortune." Steele's pen proved mightier than his sword. With this he Avon his first promotion, for he wrote a poem upon the death of the queen and dedicated it, although aiiony- 1 Tatter No. 181. INTRODUCTION xxxiii mously, to Lord Cutts, a gallant soldier and an ardent Whig of literary tastes. Steele alluded to his lordship's ability as a poet, and signed himself his " most passionate admirer and most devoted humble servant. " In consequence, Lord Cutts made his passionate admirer a member of his military household, and got him an ensign's commission in the Coldstream Guards, Avhich he himself commanded. From this date there is little to record of Steele until 1700. By that time he had become a captain, and in that year we find him warmly defending Addisoii against some epigrams of Sir Richard Blackmore (see page 17, note 3), and fighting, against his will, a duel, in which he seriously wounded his antagonist a circumstance which perhaps accounts for his frequent condemnations of duelling in the Tatter and the Spectator. While in the army, Steele had dissolute associates and found himself yielding to the temptations of an irregular life. He consequently wrote a little work called the " Chris- tian Hero," which he designed as a private monitor to keep himself in the paths of virtue. As he still found it hard to reconcile his deeds and his duties, he resolved to publish his book, " in hopes," he says, " that a standing testimony against himself might curb his desires and make him ashamed of understanding and seeming to feel what was virtuous, and living so quite contrary a life." Years later, however, he remarked that his book "had no other good effect, but that from being thought no undelightful com- panion, he was soon reckoned a disagreeable fellow." But whatever his real faults, Steele had an honest desire to make the world better. The English stage was then notoriously immoral, and writers of reputation lent their influence to keep it so. Steele took a noble stand and wrote several comedies far above the level of his age. They were not great works: the style is often unnatural and prosy, but they deserve remembrance as the first serious effort of a playwright to reverse the current of public taste. The xxxiv INTRODUCTION revulsion came in time, and Steele's comedies, supple- mented in the Tatler and Spectator by his more graceful prose, had no small effect in creating a love of virtue and a contempt for vice. In 1702 Steele was appointed a Captain of Foot in Lord Lucas's regiment, Avhere he remained, always on duty in or near London, till after the death of his colonel in 1705. In the spring of that year he married Margaret Stretch, a widow, who had an estate of some value. in the Barbadoes. About this time Steele sold his commission, and, according to a malicious rumor, squandered his avail- able means in a fruitless search for the philosopher's stone. Steele's first wife lived less than two years; and less than a year later he married Mary Scurlock, a Welsh "beauty." Before the death of his first wife he had been appointed gentleman-waiter to Prince George (husband of Queen Anne) at 100 a year, and shortly after her death he was made Gazetteer, with a salary of 300. He says of him- self in this new office, that " his next appearance as a writer was in the quality of the lowest Minister of State to wit, in the office of Gazetteer; where he worked faithfully accord- ing to order, without ever erring against the rule observed by all Ministries, to keep that paper very innocent and very insipid." Notwithstanding a considerable income, Steele was throughout the rest of his life perpetually harassed by debt. This has been attributed to dissipation, but it was probably due more to mismanagement. His second mar- riage seems to have been a very happy one, and many of his letters to "Dear Prue " have been preserved, which are often an amusing medley of conjugal affection and financial distress. In 1708 Prince George died, but the salary of the gentleman-waiter was continued in the form of a pen- sion. Meantime Steele's debts accumulated. Matters were in a confused state when some good genius, perhaps Swift, whispered into Steele's ear the idea of the Tatler. The INTRODUCTION xxxv story of its rise has been already told and need not be repeated. It made for Steele a high place in English litera- ture, and was no small help financially, although he did not escape arrest for debt. In 1710 he was made a Commis- sioner of Stamps with 300 a year, but this was offset in the same year by the loss of his Gazetteership, for political reasons, and shortly after he brought his periodical to a close. It will be remembered that about two months after the close of the Tatter, the Spectator began; and it will be seen by a reference to Chapter II. that Steele first sketched the character of Sir Koger de Coverley: but Addison was prin- cipally concerned afterwards in filling in the sketch. That he gave the most masterly strokes to Sir Roger's portrait, few will dispute; yet Steele must be given credit for much that is fine in it. But finally Addison " killed Sir Eoger that no one else might murder him," and shortly after that the Spectator, so far as Steele had anything to do with it, came to a close with its five hundred and fifty-fifth number. On March 12, 1713, Steele became identified with the publication of a new periodical, the Guardian; but this Avas inferior to both the Tatlcr and the Spectator in literary interest, though it marks the beginning of a political career, in which he proved himself a sturdy defender of Whig principles. Meanwhile, in the preceding summer, Steele sent in his resignation as Commissioner of Stamps, gave up his pension as gentleman-waiter, and stood for Parliament, to which he was elected in August. Immedi- ately after discontinuing the Guardian, he began another publication The Englishman professedly political, in which, as well as in a pamphlet called " The Crisis, " he made a powerful attack on the Tory government. For these utterances he was tried by Parliament and expelled from the House. But the death of Queen Anne and the accession of George I. gave the victory to the Whigs, and turned the xxxvi INTRODUCTION tide of Steele's fortune. He was given several valuable offices, including the control of Drury Lane Theatre, was knighted by the king, and again returned to Parliament. In 1714 he published two short-lived periodicals, the Lover and the Reader, and in 1715 a short second volume of the Englishman. In 1718 Steele's wife died, and in 1719 he became engaged in a political controversy with Addison. This quarrel, the only one of their lives, was suddenly brought to a close not by a reconciliation, but by the death of Addison. We may imagine with what grief Steele's ten- der heart was penetrated in consequence. There is little to be said of Steele after the death of Addison. He took part against the South Sea Bubble, was for some time engaged in theatrical affairs, and wrote his fourth comedy; but he was continually involved in pecu- niary embarrassments, and withdrew to a small estate in Wales which he inherited from his second wife, where he died in 1729. It Avas formerly the custom to think lightly of the character of "poor Dick Steele." 1 For this, Macaulay, Thackeray, and Steele himself are largely responsible. Macaulay, with his innate love of antithesis, having raised one mortal to the skies, felt impelled to reverse the process when he considered Steele; and instead of drawing him down, he dragged him. Thus he says: " Steele had left college without taking a degree, had been disinherited by a rich relation, had led a vagrant life, had served in the army, had tried to find the philosopher'? stone, and had written a religious treatise and several come- 'Much wrong was done to Steele's memory by the personal attack." of his political antagonists, perhaps the bitterest of which was made by Swift in the cruel lines : " Thus Steele. who owned what others writ, And flourished bv imputed wit, From perils of a Luiiured jails, Withdrew to f-tarve and die in Wales." INTRODUCTION xxxvii dies. He was one of those people whom it is impossible either to hate or to respect. His temper was sweet, his affections warm, his spirits lively, his passions strong, and his principles weak. His life was passed in sinning and repenting; in inculcating what was right, and doing what was wrong. In speculation, he was a man of piety and honor; in practice he was much of the rake and a little of the swindler." l Thackeray writes of Steele in his most charming vein, but there is one material defect in his description. He tells what might have been instead of what was, and his fanci- ful sketches of Steele and Addison in " Henry Esmond" are as reliable as his false facts and mistaken inferences in his lectures on the " English Humorists." Hear him: " Besides being very kind, lazy, and good-natured, this boy went invariably into debt with the tart woman; ran out of bounds, and entered into pecuniary, or rather prom- issory, engagements with the neighboring lollipop venders and piemen; exhibited an early fondness and capacity for drinking mum and sack ; and borrowed from all his com- rades who had money to lend." 2 Here even Thackeray feels that it is due to his reader to state that all these bits of interesting detail are not matters of absolute record, and he continues : "I have no sort of authority for the statements here made of Steele's early life; but if the child is father of the man, the father of young Steele of Merton, who left Oxford without taking a degree, and entered the Life Guards the father of Captain Steele of Lucas's Fusi- leers, who got his company through the patronage of my Lord Cutts the father of Mr. Steele the Commissioner of Stamps, the editor of the Gazette, the Tatter, and Spec- tator, the expelled Member of Parliament, and the author of the 'Tender Husband' and the 'Conscious Lovers;' 1 Essay on Addison. 4 English Humorists Steele. xxxviii INTRODUCTION if man and boy resembled each other, Dick Steele must have been one of the most generous, good-for-nothing, amiable little creatures that ever conjugated the verb tupto, I beat, tuptomai, I am whipped, in any school in Great Britain." 1 He then makes the mistake of supposing that Addison was several } r ears older than Steele (instead of six weeks his junior) and that when Steele went to the Charterhouse he was in a lower form aud fagged for Addison (Steele went to this school in 1684 and Addison in 1686). So he proceeds with his false logic, for which, again, he has " no sort of authority ' ' : "Dick Steele, the Charterhouse gownboy, contracted such an admiration [for the head boy of his school] in the years of his childhood, and retained it faithfully through his life. Through the school and through the world, whith- ersoever his strange fortune led this erring, wayward, affectionate creature, Joseph Addison was always his head boy. Addison wrote his exercises. Addison did his best themes. He ran on Addison 's messages, fagged for him, and blacked his shoes. To be in Joe's company was Dick's greatest pleasure; and he took a sermon or a caning from his monitor with the most boundless reverence, acquies- cence, and affection. " 2 Every part of Thackeray's article is most delightful reading; but although, unlike Macaulay, he does not excite our scorn of Steele, he arouses only our sympathy not our admiration. It has been said that Steele himself is partly responsible for the view of his ability and character that has prevailed. This is true, for while Macaulay contemns and Thackeray commiserates him, he disparages himself repeatedly, and constantly refers to Addisou as his superior: " I fared like a distressed prince, who calls in a power- ful neighbor to his aid; I was undone by my auxiliary; 1 English Humorists Steele. 2 Ibid. INTRODUCTION xxxix when I had once called him in, I could not subsist with- out dependence on him." l " I shall not carry my humility so far as to call myself a vicious man, but at the same time must confess, my life is at best but pardonable. ' ' ~ " The most approved pieces in it [the Taller] were writ- ten by others, and those which have been most excepted against, by myself. The hand that has assisted me in those noble discourses . . . is a person who is too fondly my friend ever to own them; but I should little deserve to be his, if I usurped the glory of them. I must acknowledge at the same time, that I think the finest strokes of wit and humor in all Mr. Bickerstaff's lucubrations, are those for which he is also beholden to him." 3 " I am, indeed, much more proud of his [Addison's] long-continued friendship, than I should be of being thought the author of any writings which he himself is capable of producing. I remember when I finished the "Tender Husband," I told him there Avas nothing I so ardently wished, as that we Tnight some time or other pub- lish a work written by us both, which should bear the name of the Monument, in honor of our friendship. I heartily wish what I have done here were as honorary to that sacred name, as learning, wit, and humanity render those pieces which I have taught the reader how to distin- guish for his. When the play above mentioned was last acted, there were so many applauded strokes in it which I had from the same hand, that I thought very meanly of myself that Iliad never publicly acknowledged them." 4 " I rejoiced in being excelled, and made those little talents, whatever they are, which I have, give way and be subservient to the superior qualities of a friend whom I loved. . . . But whatever Steele owes to Mr. Addi- son, the public owes Addison to Steele." 5 The only " reputation " of which Steele seemed especially jealous was that of fairness and justice. His preface to Ad- dison's " Drummer" shows that. He is wildly indignant 1 Preface to the octavo edition of the Tatter, vol. iv. 8 Tatter No. 271 (last number). 3 Ibid. 4 Spectator No. 555. 6 Preface to the Drummer. xl INTRODUCTION at the imputations of Tickell that he could be "guilty of anything that was disingenuous. " But lie candidly admits that he always " preferred the state of his mind to that of his fortune; " that Addison " could always send for him, from his natural power over him, as much as he could send for any of his clerks when he was Secretary of State;" and when, in Tatler No. 89, he gives a whimsical picture of himself, he seems perfectly willing to be laughed at. But tardy justice is at last being done to Steele. John Forster in his " Essay, " Mr. Aitken in his extended "Life," and Austin Dobson in his brief one, present the amiable founder of the Tatler in a far more favorable light as to literary ability and especially as to character, so that were Leigh Hunt now living he would have added reason for his famous remark : "I love Steele with all bis faults better than Addison with all his essays." EUSTACE BUDGELL. This unfortunate writer was also an Oxford man, and intended to follow the law. But Addison, who was his cousin, and several years his senior, took him to Ireland as a clerk when he himself received his first appointment as Irish Secretary. Budgell developed considerable literary ability, and wrote occasional papers for the Tatler, Specta- tor, and Guardian. Chapters XV. and XXXI. of this col- lection are from his pen, and it will be seen that he has suc- cessfully imitated the Addisonian style. Later he became a member of the Irish Parliament, and not long after was made comptroller-general of the Irish revenues. Macau lay thinks that if Addison had lived, Budgell would have pros- pered, but he paints a most lurid picture of his closing years. He is said to have lost one year after Addison's death 20,000 in the South Sea Bubble, and to have spent 5,000 more in an unsuccessful attempt to enter Parliament. lie founded the Bee, a short-lived literarv INTRODUCTION xli periodical, endeavored to retrieve his numerous failures by forgery, and finally, in 1030. loading his pockets with stones, leaped into the Thames from a boat near London Bridge and was drowned. On his table was found a slip of paper containing the words, " What Cato did and Addison approved, cannot be wrong." l ' Budgell's inference was untrue. Those who read the words of the dying Cato will see that Addison makes even the stern Roman re- pent of his deed, and confess the fear that he has been too hasty. SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS WHEX books "for reading" are prescribed by our col- leges, it is not wise to look upon them as an added load to the already considerable burden under which young men and women struggle up the steep hill Difficulty toward the palace Beautiful and fields that are wide and green; rather do they resemble the arbor by the way, built by the lord of the country, in which Pilgrim sat down for a while to rest and refresh himself. They should profit by Pil- grim's experience, however, and not fall asleep while resting. Although Queen Anne herself was not a particularly attractive character, she has lent her name to an era which, in social, political, and literary interest, rivals any period of English civilization ; and there is no better gate of admission to this interesting field than that presided over by Addison and Steele. The de Coverley papers are by common consent among the choicest portions of the Spec- tator, and the Spectator and Tatler are undeniably superior to any of the periodical essays of the time. They are the beginnings of elegant periodical literature; and though they have had countless imitators, few, if any, have equalled them, and none have surpassed them. Interest in a subject increases with knowledge. I have found it an incentive to exhaustive work to begin with an outline of some subject whether in history, literature, or biography and, using this as a skeleton, to proceed to clothe it with flesh and endue it with life. These papers very happily present such an outline of social life in SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS xliii Queen Anne's time. Allusions are constantly made to obsolete customs and fashions, then matters of common, everyday experience, that pique our curiosity and make us eager to know more. The notes in this edition are not intended to clear away all obstructions. Many of them serve merely as finger-posts to point the way to unfamiliar regions; others aim to lead the thinking pupil to conclu- sions of his own and to tempt him sooner or later into the field of original research. While it is believed that the charm of these essays is so great that the pupil of developing literary sense will read and search, read and search, read and search and read again, on independent lines, yet for concerted class-work some method like- the following is suggested, subject of course to the limitations of time and circumstance. I. It is assumed that every student will have access to a complete Spectator, and it is hoped that most will be able to consult a complete Tatter also. All who have this opportunity are urged to read the papers referred to in the notes, leisurely, as they were read when published. Soon they will find themselves breathing in the very atmosphere of old-time days, drinking coffee and listening to the latest news from Flanders, not over three days old; tiptoe- ing along the muddy alleys, dodging into the shops to avoid a city shower, jostling to keep the wall, and going home at night by link and chair through the narrow streets of Mohock-infested London. II. While thus becoming familiar with the daily life of modern Babylon two centuries ago, the readers will con-; tinually stumble upon political allusions and historical refer- ences, which will need to be cleared up in order to ensure a full appreciation and consequent enjoyment of the sub- ject. A question box may be kept at the teacher's desk, into Avhich members of the class may be invited to drop requests for information on obscure points. These may be assigned to different members of the class for iuvestiga- xliv SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS tion and written report. Thus in Chapter III. there is a reference to Spectator No. 262. In that number there is a mention of the " Koyal Society." Some might be curious to know whether that was the beginning of the F.R.S.'s, and if so what the Fellows were supposed to do. An explanatory note would be helpful to all, but especially to one who should prepare it. III. To insure a general acquaintance with the subject matter of the Spectators and Tatlers referred to in the notes, the teacher may adapt Benjamin Franklin's method to his class. 1 Thus in Chapter I., eight Spectators and one Tatter are referred to. Let a summary of these be assigned to nine pupils, and invite all who will, to criticise as well as to summarize. Let this work be written into books and presented at the next recitation. Books con- taining work of this sort may usually be submitted as a part of college entrance examinations. IV. If pupils have access to a public library, they should be instructed as to the wealth that lies within their grasp too often iinappropriated through ignorance of methods' of research. Steele said of Lady Elizabeth Hastings (Taller No. 49) " To love her is a liberal education." To be a book-lover is also to be a liberally educated man. To get inspiration from the very presence of books; to go readily from one alcove to another as one visits the houses of his friends; to become familiar with Poole's Index and its descendants, and with the growing list of standard 1 " About this time I met with an old volume of the Spectator. It was the third. 1 had never before seen any of them. I bought it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought the writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it. With this view I took some of the papers, and making short hints of the sentiments in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, tried to complete the papers again. . . . I also sometimes jumbled my collections of hints into con- fusion, and after some weeks endeavored to reduce them into the best order, before I began to form the full sentences and complete the paper. This was to teach me method in the arrangement of thoughts." Franklin's Autobiography. SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS xlv works of reference; to learn how to use bibliographies, and how to make them for one's self; these are the ways of pleasantness, the paths of terrestrial peace. V. Formal compositions should not be forgotten in addition to the frequent and varied short themes already mentioned. These may be multiplied ad infinitum as one investigates eighteenth century literature. Whenever a topic is selected, it will be best for the teacher to recom- mend books which will be useful in preparation, and to let the pupils prepare themselves with notes. When the time comes, let them be seated with a sheet of notes from which to elaborate their compositions. The notes may be passed in also, to prove that the composition is actually composed. A list of possible subjects is appended. Doubt- less a hundred better ones may be found : Addisou's Boyhood. Steinkirk. The Censorship of the Press. The Kit-Cat Club. The Charterhouse. Coffee-houses. The Mohocks. Whigs and Tories. The Battle of Blenheim. Addison and Steele. Addison and Swift. Addison and Pope. Steele in "Henry Esmond." How the "Campaign" was written. The Countess of Warwick. Addisou's "Cato." The Great Prose Writers of Queen Anne's Reign. Early Newspapers, London Streets. VI. BIBLIOGRAPHY. The Spectator. The best edition is that of Henry Morley (Koutledge, 1883), in three volumes; also in one volume (1888, fine print). The advantage of the latter is that AVilliam AVheeler has prepared a Digest Index (Routledge) as a companion volume. The Taller. This may be somewhat difficult to procure. It was published in Boston (4 vols.) as late as 1856 and in Edinburgh (Tatter and Guardian, 8vo.) in 1880. In the Chandos Classics (F. Warne and Co.) there is a volume of "Selected Essays," with an interesting introduction and notes, by Alex. Charles Ewald (1888). xlvi SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS History. Those who like to read of battles and study excellent charts of the opposing forces, can find a full description of Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudeuarde, Malpla- quet, etc., in Sir Archibald Alison's "Military Life of John, Duke of Marlborongh," wherein are portrayed the " consummate abilities," "unbroken success," and "im- mense services" of the same. J. Hill Burton's "History of the British Empire under Queen Anne " (Blackwood) is the best and most readable history of this time. The last chapter on intellectual progress may be read to great advantage in. connection with the Roger de Coverley papers. Bishop Burnet's " History of my own Times " is "comparatively worthless as an authority, but valuable as a record of events as seen by one who helped make them." Edward E. Morris's "Age of Anne" (Longmans) may also be read with profit. A list of books on Queen Anne may be found in the Literary World, July 2, 1881. Biography. Addison : Articles in " Encyclopaedia Bri- tannica; " Allibone's " Dictionary of English Literature," " Dictionary of National Biography; " Macaulay's " Essay on Addison;" Thackeray's "English Humorists" and " Henry Esmond; " W. J. Courthope's " Addison " (Eng- lish Men of Letters series); H. Ward's " English Poets," vol. iii. ; Edmund Gosse's " History of Eighteenth Century Literature," pp. 105-107, 189-195; Taine's "English Lit- erature, vol. ii., bk. iii.; Dr. Johnson's "Lives of the Poets*; " Chambers's " Cyclopedia of English Literature; " Lucy Aikin's " Life of Addison." Steele: Geo. A. Aitken's "Life of Richard Steele " (2 yols. , London, Isbister; Boston, Houghton and Miffliii) is late, complete, and authentic, and has a fine bibli- ography of collections, single works, biography and criti- cism, magazine articles, pamphlets, etc. Austin Dobson's "Steele" (London, Longmans; New York, Appleton) is a very readable small book. Like John Forster's " Essay on Steele " it is corrective of the views of Macaulay in his SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS xlvii " Essay on Addison " and of Thackeray in his "English Humorists" and "Henry Esmond." See also Gosse's " History of Eighteenth Century Literature," pp. 186-192. Social History. Wm. Connor Sydney's " England and the English in the Eighteenth Century " should be read by all who can procure it, as a companion volume to Sir Roger de Coverley (2 vols., London, Ward and Downey; New York, Macmillan). "Social Life in England from the Restoration to the Revolution," by the same author, has much that is interesting concerning the reigns previous to Queen Anne. W. H. Davenport Adams's " Good Queen Anne" is admirable; second only to Burton's history, mentioned above. See also H. D. Truill's " Social Eng- land," vol. iv., p. 592 ff., Wm. Andre \vs's " Bygone Eng- land," the Duke of Manchester's "Court and Society from Elizabeth to Anne," Index (under England social] to Lecky's " History of England in the Eighteenth Cen- tury," Knight's "Popular History of England," vol. v., chaps, xvii.-xxvii. (especially xxvi. and xxvii.), and John Ashton's "Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne," 2 vols. (especially chaps, xiv., xviii., and xix.). Miscellaneous. Other works that may be helpful to one who is making a study of this era especially to teachers who wish to have a thorough knowledge of the subject and to suggest topics for research to individual pupils are: "Old and New London," by Walter Thornbury and Edward Walford (Cassell), H. B. Wheatley's "London Past and Present " (more like an encyclopaedic dictionary, but valuable for reference), Reynolds's " Shilling Map of London " (Reynolds: 174 Strand), Hare's " Walks in Lon- don," John Thomas Smith's " Antiquarian Ramble in the Streets of London," Malcolm's "Manners of London," Timbs's " Curiosities of London," Baedeker's " London," Walter Besant's "London" (Harper's Magazine, 1892), Gay's "Trivia," Prior's "Town and Country Mouse," Joseph Spence's " Anecdotes," Phillips's " Addisoniana," xlviii SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS Nathan Drake's "Essays on the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian," 3 vols., Swift's " Journal to Stella," Hazlitt's lecture "On the Periodical Essayists," and an elegant edition of the Sir Roger de Coverley papers with illustra- tions by Chas. 0. Murray (London, Sampson Low; New York, Appleton). An excellent idea of social, literary, and political conditions, with good biographical sketches of the principal writers, may be found succinctly stated in Welsh's " Development of English Literature and Lan- guage," vol. ii., chap. ii. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE xlix S *" .- . - .5 .a-= = a ^sal^-S .5 fao K " c ^< fc fe^ 3 s5 BW J es s S5 fflCi S3 Ss CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE !- Ill I s . Ck 5, o M W 3 * * a thH yrj c3 O O jj a> ^~- E 3 03 t **** ~ gf O H o < K | 111 -si 2 < c is^3 - ^ cc n^ "t* 53 ^ 'UcJ rrS TS^noS SG,: Si^O, S& 5 "ss^i M is l^al S| si M c ^-s *- ^ J^ t^> ^ GO ^ .' j O -*- 1 rr- Jrr-* O ^ ti P H iS^Sig g>s r s bo.5^0 S fe c .2-S "S O H l a) '"^ fe "' s^^w 1 ( JS ' B ! p" " os o (N S ifi i- QO OS O S S 52 $S S S S S J4 H i 00 >. p as *^ EH w s J s QO S > a> BB W %, O a) a W ** - a> 3 5? ^* EH 3 o.l'.S , A y. i * ii H c- " ^3 o H ^ S-g^ E-i ^ j5"3) ^ K o W , a> y- g" g K'W K s - = ^ - .2 o> ."S o^l A & i" En H? R CO P O fa M O fi s! 9J J ~ o? 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N 2 S" o ^ SJgr r2 $> 2 .2 == s! O 1=3 ||| || 5| ^jgH 1 < II ! | * " x = 2 C ~ i. - c o H S3|3 rSS 5J* n ^s 6 EO-5 O | 1 1 1 to | c-* sL > i = i ^ -.2 o OQ "V r^ s 5~^ ^ ? '~ l o . ~J^ 3^ p C 33 !i 03 o 3 a (5 ^ l*^o : ^ ,' ^ '1 73 S S o So-3 > O ^3^ 2''^ 5 I" 3 LordH "Sb o Is O 3 SJ BO-i O S"^ ^ 3 _o if Letter to Returns 1 The Cam missioi Remarks Italy. Tender Uosamon seereta 15 -S-? itlll j Contribu PI | 1 3 g X i o lii CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE g g> || H h ja V a. i ^ll M s s o fo 1O ^- (3 . p w 'gfi p QJ 9 1 s i ^ >o J^ ^ n n H 1 ^j y -2^2 S* J^< 6*8-. Q .jQ^i D so 5 H * Q W O ^ 3 *C pfi *H *j ^ ^ rt . O tc o3 7 M ii _a M M 1 ll^ili III H W H o ^ -^ ^H tn ^_J- 2 l H E rs j III S5 O l-H OJ Olrf >o s s ss | i 3j= ^ 8 s 0*0 S S -, M ges&S j|j^||-g| c ; l|'Si"|" (? ,* ;gO-35-S Cj^ O^^ > C "^ .S ^j S r* ^ H w *^ O H M PH 1-1 IN CO "*' i2 O t- t- t- s s " ' ' J-j 0) A OJ -i -^ llcS i i PH ^ o oaP- 1 c * '?">, " ^ O ,g 3) g n5 a) ^,-S . '5 ? 3 s o 2 ^^ a * c S ? 5? ^ o ^ *^ 2 'H r* ** r~\ ^Q^^^SCS -^ ^^ D3 fc g =o|.S^ _ K c"S 2 S fa c H 2 H? Q n < C^OD ||lj c^ 1 3^5 S J 1 |=l.|l || 1 IIS 1 si Tt* pH ^ 5 e 55 * * T 1 ? 5? t> i^ >.i n K n n CHRONOLOGIC A L TA P>LE liii le born. illed. Garrickborn. Horace Walp Charles XII. og-o 3S s ?> 1-2 II 3-3 o 5 Ifl | . .g^ SO "E g ts t,- S 3 ' 4l4<| l gl| > i 3 r^ L- ; . :, 3D n U-,.* *- h | S B "-SP 5 5 5 5 SIR ROGER DE COVERLET. i. THE SPECTATOR. [Spectator No. 1. Thursday, March 1. 1711. * Addison.] Non fumum ex fulgore, sed ex fumo dare lucein Cogitat, ut speciosa dehinc miracula proniat.- HORACE. I HATE observed that a reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure till he knows whether the writer of it be a black or a fair man, of a mild or choleric disposition, mar- ried or a bachelor, with other particulars of the like nature that conduce very much to the right understanding of an author. To gratify this curiosity, which is so natural to a reader, I design this paper and my next as prefatory dis- courses to my following writings, and shall give some account in them of the several persons that are engaged in 1 The date of this first paper was March 1. 1711. The year is some- times written 1710-1711, because until 1752 England considered the legal new year to begin on March 25; so in dates previous to 1752 occurring between January 1 and March 24 inclusive, two years are often given the first being old style, the second new style. But Addison dated this simply 1711, as the customary year in England and Ireland, and both the customary and legal year in Scotland, dated from January 1. In Scotland the new style had been legal since 1600. The first number of the Spectator was called by Addi- son a prefatory discourse a term which he extended to the second number also and forms a fitting introduction to the de Coverley papers. 2 See Appendix. 2 SIR ROGER DE COVERLET this work. 1 As the chief trouble of compiling, digesting, and correcting will fall to my share, I must do myself the justice to open the work with my own history. I was born to a small hereditary estate, 2 which, according to the tradition of the village where it lies, was bounded by the same hedges and ditches in William the Conqueror's time that it is at present, and has been delivered down frona father to son whole and entire, without the loss or acquisi- tion of a single field or meadow, during the space of six hundred years. There runs a story in the family, that my mother dreamt that she was brought to bed of a judge: whether this might proceed from a lawsuit which was then depending in the family, or my father's being a justice of the peace, I cannot determine; for I am not so vain as to think it presaged any dignity that I should arrive at in my future life, though that was the interpretation which the neighborhood pivt upon it. 3 The gravity of my behavior at my very first appearance in the world seemed to favor my mother's dream; for, as she has often told me, I threw away my rattle before I was two months old, and woujd not make use of my coral 4 till they had taken away the bells from it. As for the rest of my infancy, there being nothing in it remarkable, 5 I shall pass it over in silence. I find that, during my nonage, 6 I had the reputation of 7 a very sullen 1 The editing of the daily sheet which the Spectator Club is about to issue. See the concluding paragraph of this number. 2 Of course this " history" is a fictitious one; but as you read it, note whether there are any resemblances to what you know of Addi- son's history and personality. See the Introduction (Biography), Macaulay's Essay on Addison, and Thackeray's English Humorists. Also consult the encyclopaedias and biographical dictionaries. * Like many other writers, as, for instance, Hawthorne and Irving, while denying his own belief in some theory, the author contrives to convince the reader that the theory may be true, after all. 4 See some large dictionary, like Webster's International, the Standard, the Century, or Murray's. 6 What does this imply as to the first two months? See note 3. * See the dictionary. 7 1. e., of being; or, the reputation which a sullen youth would gain. THE SPECTATOR 3 youth, but was always a favorite of my school-master, who used to say " that my parts were solid and would wear well. " I had not been long at the University before I distinguished myself by a most profound silence; for during the space of eight years, excepting in the public exercises of the college, I scarce uttered the quantity of an hundred words; and in- deed do not remember that I ever spoke three sentences together in my whole life. 1 Whilst I was in this learned body, I applied myself with so much diligence to my studies that there are very few celebrated books, either in the learned or the modern tongues, which I am not ac- quainted with. Upon the death of my father, I was resolved to travel into foreign countries, and therefore left the University with the character of 2 an odd, unaccountable fellow, that had a great deal of learning, if I would but show it. An insa- tiable thirst after knowledge carried me into all the coun- tries of Europe in which there was anything new or strange to be seen; nay, to such a degree was my curiosity raised, that having read the controversies of some great men con- cerning the antiquities of Egypt, I made a voyage to Grand Cairo, on purpose to take the measure of a pyramid; and as soon as I had set myself right in that particular, re- turned to my native country with great satisfaction. 3 I have passed my latter years in this city, 4 where I am frequently seen in most public places, though there are not above half a dozen of my select friends that know me; of 1 Read between the lines of this humorous hyperbole and you will be reminded of the German proverb: "Speech is silvern, silence is golden; Speech is human, silence is divine." Sir Walter Scott said: " Silence is deep as eternity; speech is shallow as time." Contrast, also, the Spectator's description of himself with Sydney Smith's witty description of Macaulay: " Macaulay is like a book in breeches. He has occasional flashes of silence, that make his conversation per- fectly delightful." 2 df. with " the reputation of" on p. 2 and note 7. 8 A satire on great undertakings with small returns. How deli- ciously Addison would treat of our Arctic expeditions! 4 London. //,' i:nt;i-:u hi: rnYEliLEY whom my next paper shall give a more particular account. There is no place of general resort wherein I do not often make my appearance; sometimes I am seen thrusting my head into a round of politicians at Will's, 1 and listening with great attention to the narratives that are made in those little circular audiences. Sometimes I smoke a pipe at Child's, 1 and whilst I seem attentive to nothing but the Postman? overhear the conversation of every table in the room. I appear on Sunday nights at St. James's l coffee- house, and sometimes join the little committee of poli- tics in the inner room, as one who comes there to hear and improve. My face is likewise very well known at the Grecian, 1 the Cocoa Tree, 1 and in the theatres both of Drury Lane and the Hay Market. I have been taken for a merchant upon the Exchange for above these ten years, and sometimes pass for a Jew in the assembly of stock- jobbers at Jonathan's. 1 In short, wherever I see a cluster of people, I always mix with them, though I never open my lips but in my own club. Thus I live in the world rather as a SPECTATOR of man- kind than as one of the species; by which means I have made myself a speculative statesman, soldier, merchant, and artisan, without ever meddling with any practical 3 part in life. I am very well versed in the theory of an husband or a father, and can discern the errors in the economy, busi- ness, and diversion of others better than those who are engaged in them : as standers-by discover blots 4 which are 1 These were all coffee-houses (except the Cocoa Tree, which was a chocolate house) places much frequented in Addison's time. For full description see notes on Spectator No. 1, in Henry Morley's edition of the Spectator, and G. \V. Greene's edition of Addison's works. See also Spectators 46. 49, 148, 197, 403, 476, 521, Tatler No. 268, and read chap. iii. in Macaulay's Hist, of England. The Grecian, in Devereux Court, Strand, was one of the first coffee- houses in London. In 1652 an English Turkey merchant brought home with him a Greek servant who first opened this house for making and selling coffee : hence the name. 4 A penny weekly newspaper. 3 Note the two antithetical words. * A term used in backgammon when a single man is left exposed. \THE SPECTATOR * 5 apt to escape those who are in the game. I never espoused any party with violence, and am resolved to observe an ex- act neutrality between the Whigs and Tories, 1 unless I shall be forced to declare myself by the hostilities of either side. In short, I have acted in all the parts of my life as a looker- on, which is the character I intend to preserve in this paper. I have given the reader just so much of my history and character as to let him see I am not altogether unqualified for the business I have undertaken. As for other particu- lars in my life and adventures, I shall insert them in fol- lowing papers as I shall see occasion. In the mean time, when I consider how much I have seen, read, and heard, I begin to blame my own taciturnity: and since I have neither time nor inclination to communicate the fulness of my heart in speech, I am resolved to do it in writing, and to print myself out, if possible, before I die. I have been often told by my friends that it is pity so many use- ful discoveries which I have made, should be in the posses- sion of a silent man. For this reason, therefore, I shall publish a sheetful of thoughts every morning for the benefit of my contemporaries ; and if I can any way contrib- ute to the diversion or improvement of the country in which I live, I shall leave it, when I am summoned out of it, with the secret satisfaction of thinking that I have not lived in vain. There are three very material points which I have not spoken to 2 in this paper, and which, for several important reasons, I must keep to myself, at least for some time : I mean, an account of my name, my age, and my lodgings. I must confess, I would gratify my reader in anything that is reasonable; but, as for these three particulars, though I am sensible they might tend very much to the embellish- ment of my paper, I cannot yet come to a resolution of I To which party did Addison belong? A good, brief description of these parties is given in Gardiner's Student's History of England, chap, xliii., 14. II This is idiomatic English. One may speak to A point or speak to THE point. fi 8IR ROGER DE COVE RLE Y communicating them to the public. They would indeed draw me out of that obscurity which I have enjoyed for many years, and expose me in public places to several salutes and civilities which have been always very dis- agreeable to me; for the greatest pain I can suffer is the being talked to and being stared at. It is for this reason, likewise, that I keep my complexion and dress as very great secrets: though it is not impossible but I may make discoveries of both in the progress of the work I have undertaken. After having been thus particular upon myself, I shall in to-morrow's paper give an account of those gentlemen who are concerned with me in this work; for, as I have before intimated, 1 a plan of it is laid and concerted (as all other matters of importance are) in a club. However, as my friends have engaged me to stand in the front, those who have a mind to correspond with me may direct their letters to the SPECTATOB, at Mr. Buckley's in Little Britain. 2 For I must further acquaint the reader that, though our club meets only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we have appointed a committee to sit every night, for the inspection of all such papers as may contribute to the ad- vancement of the public weal. C. 3 1 See note 1, p. 2. 9 A short street near the present Smithfield market. 3 Addison took as a keyword CLIO (the name of the Muse of His- tory), and signed one of those letters to all papers written by him. Steele signed his contributions either R, or T. Morley stigmatizes as baseless "a suggestion of Dr. Calder's, which has been copied and recopied, that when Addison signed C he wrote at Chelsea, when L in London, when I in Ireland, and when at the office. This notion was invented to dispose of an idea that there was vanity in taking the name of a Muse as a word from which to get the four "letters used to abate the reader's over-certainty as to the authorship of papers. If Addison had wanted ten letters instead of four he might have had Bucephalus for a keyword, and then perhaps some editor would have thought it requisite to find a way of proving that he had not actually mistaken himself for a horse." There is a humorous explanation of the "Capital Letters which are placed at the End " in Spectator No. 221, which no one should fail to read. THE CLUB II. THE CLUB. [Spectator No. 2. Friday, March 2, 1711. Steeh.} Ast alii sex, Et plures, uno conclamant ore- JUVEXAL. THE first of our society is a gentleman of Worcester- shire, of ancient descent,, a baronet, his name Sir Roger de Coverley. His great-grandfather was inventor of that famous country-dance which is called after him. 1 All who know that shire 2 are very well acquainted with the parts and merits of Sir Roger. He is a gentleman that is very singular in his behavior, but his singularities proceed from his good sense, and are contradictions to the manners of the world only as he thinks the world is in the wrong. However, this humor creates him no enemies, for he does nothing with sourness or obstinacy; and his being uncon- fined to modes and forms, makes him but the readier and more capable to please and oblige all who know him. When he is in town, he lives in Soho Square. 3 It is said he keeps himself a bachelor by reason he was crossed in love by a perverse, beautiful widow of the next county to him. Before this disappointment, Sir Roger was what 1 The tune was called " Roger a Calverley " at first and was named after a knight of the time of Richard I. To show the popularity of the tune at country-dances when Addison wrote, G. W. Greene quotes from a work published in 1715 : ''Upon the preludes being ended, each party fell to bawling and calling for particular tunes. The hobnailed fellows, whose breeches arid lungs seemed to be of the same leather, cried out for ' Cheshire Round,' ' Roger of Cover- ley,' 'Joan's Placket,' and ' Northern Nancy.' " Swift suggested the adaptation of the name to the knight of the Spectator Club. 7 Does this mean the same as county ? See dictionary. * At that time a very fashionable quarter. 8 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY you call a fine gentleman, had often supped with my Lord Rochester 1 and Sir George Etherege, 1 fought a duel upon his first coming to town, and kicked Bully Dawson 2 in a pub- lic coffee-house for calling him "youngster." But be- ing ill-used by the above-mentioned widow, he was very serious for a year and a half; and though, his temper being naturally jovial, he at last got over it, he grew careless of himself, and never dressed afterwards. He continues to wear a coat and doublet of the same cut that were in fash- ion at the time of his repulse, which, in his merry humors, he tells us, has been in 3 and out twelve times since he first wore it. 'Tis said Sir Roger grew humble in his desires after he had forgot this cruel beauty; but this is looked upon by his friends rather as matter of raillery than truth. He is now in his fifty-sixth year, cheerful, gay, and hearty; keeps a good house in both town and country; a great lover of mankind; but there is such a mirthful cast in his be- havior that he is rather beloved than esteemed. 4 His tenants grow rich, his servants look satisfied, all the young women profess love to him, and the young men are glad of his company ; when he comes into a house he calls the servants by their names, and talks all the way up stairs to a visit. I must not omit that Sir Roger is a justice of the quorum; 5 that he fills the chair at a quarter-session 6 with great 'Both "fine gentlemen" who lived fast lives. The first was a favorite of Charles II. He died at thirty-one, confessing to Bishop Burnet that he had "for five years been continually drunk." The second was a witty writer of some ability (Spec, No. 51), but lie fell down stairs while intoxicated and broke his neck. Perhaps it was well that Sir Roger became " very serious for a year and a half," as stated below. 2 A noted sharper and debauchee. 3 I.e., in fashion. 4 Could this sentence (from the last period) be recast to advantage ? 5 The commission formerly issued to justices of the peace, in Eng- land, contained a clause beginning, Quorum aliquem vestrtim unum esse volumus ; hence magistrates acting under this commission were called '^justices of the quorum." 6 A general court of criminal jurisdiction held quarterly by the justices of pence in different counties. THE CLUB 9 abilities; and, three mouths ago, gained universal applause by explaining a passage in the Game Act. ' The gentleman next in esteem and authority among us is another bachelor, who is a member of the Inner Temple; 2 a man of great probity, wit, and understanding; but he has chosen his place of residence rather to obey the direc- tion of an old humorsome father, than in pursuit of his own inclinations. He was placed there to study the laws of the land, and is the most learned of any of the house in those of the stage. Aristotle 3 and Lorigiuus 3 are much better understood by him than Littleton 4 or Coke. 4 The father sends up, every post, questions relating to mar- riage-articles, leases, and tenures, in the neighborhood; all which questions he agrees with an attorney to answer and take care of in the lump. He is studying the passions themselves, when he should be inquiring into the debates, among men, which arise from them. He knows the argu- ment of each of the orations of Demosthenes 5 and Tally 5 , but not one case in the reports of our own courts. Xo one ever took him for a fool, but none, except his intimate friends, know he has a great deal of wit. This turn makes him at once both disinterested and agreeable; as few of his thoughts are drawn from business, they are most of them fit for conversation. 6 His taste of books is a little too just for the age he lives in; he has read all, but approves of very few. His familiarity with the customs, manners, 1 Explain the humor and note the mild sarcasm. * There are four societies in London which have the sole right of calling persons to the English bar the Inner Temple, tlie Middle Temple, Lincoln's Inn, and Gray's Inn. The Inner and Middle Tem- ples are the two Inns of Court which occupy two ranges of build- ings on the site of a former establishment of the Knights Templars, called the Temple. 3 Two famous Greek philosophers. See a classical dictionary. 4 Two celebrated English judges, both members of the Inner Tem- Kle. Coke's Commentary upon Littleton's Tenures is a standard igal text- book. 5 The most illlustrious orators of Greece and Rome. What name is commonly used in place of Tully nowadays ? 8 He does not " talk shoo." 10 SIR ROGER DE COVE 'RLE Y actions, and writings of the ancients makes him a very delicate observer of what occurs to him in the present world. He is an excellent critic, and the time of the play 1 is his hour of business; 2 exactly at five he passes through New Inn, crosses through Russell Court, and takes a turn at Will's till the play begins; he has his shoes rubbed and his periwig powdered at the barber's as you go into the Rose. 3 It is for the good of the audience when he is at a play, for the actors have an ambition to please him. The person of next consideration is Sir Andrew Free- port, 4 a merchant of great eminence in the city of London, a person of indefatigable industiy, strong reason, and great experience. His notions of trade are noble and generous, and (as every rich man has usually some sly way of jesting which would make no great figure were he not a rich man) 5 he calls the sea the British Common. He is ac- quainted with commerce in all its parts, and will tell you that it is a stupid and barbarous way to extend dominion by arms; for true power is to be got by arts and industry. He will often argue that if this part of our trade were well cul- tivated, we should gain from one nation; and if another, from another. I have heard him prove that diligence makes more lasting acquisitions than valor, and that sloth has ruined more nations than the sword. He abounds in several frugal maxims, amongst which the greatest favorite is, "A penny saved is a penny got." A general trader of good sense is pleasanter company than a general scholar; 6 and Sir Andrew having a natural unaffected eloquence, 1 It was the custom then to dine before noon, and the play began in the afternoon. A flag was raised, which floated over the theatre while the performance continued. 2 Note the antithesis. 8 A tavern near Druiy Lane Theatre. 4 Is there any significance in this name ? See if any other mem- bers of the club have names equally appropriate. * Is this a satire upon the jester or upon those who laugh at his jests ? * Is this false or true; and why? THE CLUB 11 the perspicuity of his discourse gives the same pleasure that wit would in another man. He has made his fortunes himself, and says that England may be richer than other kingdoms by as plain methods as he himself is richer than other men; though 1 at the same time I can say this of him, that there is not a point in the compass but blows home a ship in which he is an owner. Next to Sir Andrew in the club-room sits Captain Sentry, a gentleman of great courage, good understanding, but in- vincible modesty. He is one of those that deserve very well, but are very awkward at putting their talents within the observation of such as should take notice of them. He was some years a captain, and behaved himself with great gallantry in several engagements and at several sieges; but having a small estate of his own, and being next heir to Sir Koger, he has quitted a way of life in which no man can rise suitably to his merit who is not something of a courtier as well as a soldier. ( I have heard him often lament that in a profession where merit is placed in so conspicu- ous a view, impudence should get the better of modesty. When he has talked to this purpose I never heard, him make a sour expression, but frankly confess that he left the world because he Avas not fit for it. A strict honesty and an even, regular behavior are in themselves obstacles to him that must press through crowds who endeavor at the same end with himself, the favor of a commander. He will, however, in this way of talk, excuse generals for not disposing according to men's desert, or inquiring into it, "For," says he, "that great man who has a mind to help me, has as many to break through to come at me as I have to come at him "; therefore he will conclude that the man who would make a figure,^ especially in a military way, must get over all false modesty, and assist his patron against fhe importunity of other pretenders by a proper assurance in his own vindication. He says it is a civil cowardice to be 1 What does this word imply? 2 Secure promotion. 12 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY backward in asserting what you ought to expect, as it is a military fear to be slow in attacking when it is your duty. With this candor does the gentleman speak of himself and others. The same frankness runs through all his conver- sation. The military part of his life has furnished him with many adventures, in the relation of which he is very agreeable to the company; for he is never overbearing, though accustomed to command men in the utmost degree below him ; nor ever too obsequious from an habit of obey- ing men highly above him. But that our society may not appear a set of humorists unacquainted with the gallantries and pleasures of the age, we have among us the gallant Will Honeycomb, a gentle- man who, according to his years, should be in the decline of his life, but having ever been very careful of his person, and always had 1 a very easy fortune, time has made but very little impression either by wrinkles on his forehead or traces in his brain. His person is well turned and of a good height. He is very ready at that sort of discourse with which men usually entertain women. He has all his life dressed very well, and remembers habits 2 as others do men. He can smile when one speaks to him, and laughs easily. He knows the history of every mode, 3 and can inform you from which of the French king's wenches our wives and daughters had this manner of curling their hair, that way of placing their hoods; whose frailty was covered by such a sort of petticoat, and whose vanity to show her foot made that part of the dress so short in such a year. In a word, all his conversation and knowledge has been in the female world. As other men of his age will take notice to you 4 what such a minister said upon such and such an occasion, he will tell you when the Duke of Monmouth 5 danced at 1 Note the anacoluthon here. Recast the sentence after but in the preceding line. 'Styles of dress. 3 Fashion. 4 ^yhat would be a more modern expression? 4 For an interesting account of Monmouth and his rebellion, read A. Conan Dovle's Micah Clarke. THE CLUB 13 court such a woman was then smitten, another was taken with him at the head of his troop in the Park. In all these important relations, he has ever about the same time re- ceived a kind glance or a blow of a fan from some cele- brated beauty, mother of the present Lord Such-a-one. If you speak of a young commoner that said a lively thing in the House, he starts up: " He has good blood in his veins; Tom Mirabell, the rogue, cheated me in that affair; that young fellow's mother used me more like a dog than any woman I ever made advances to." This way of talking of his very much enlivens the conversation among us of a more sedate turn; and I find there is not one of the company but myself, who rarely speak at all, but speaks of him as of that sort of man who is usually called 1 a well-bred, fine gentleman. To conclude his character, where women are not concerned he is an honest, worthy man. I cannot tell whether I am to account him Avhom I am next to speak of as one of our company, for he visits us but seldom; but Avhen he does, it adds to every man else a new enjoyment of himself. He is a clergyman, a very philosophic man, of general learning, great sanctity of life, and the most exact good breeding. He has the misfortune to be of a very weak constitution, and consequently cannot accept of such cares and business as preferments in his function would oblige him to; he is therefore among di- vines what a chamber-counsellor is among lawyers. The probity of his mind and the integrity of his life create him followers, as being eloquent or loud advances others. He seldom introduces the subject he speaks upon ; but we are so far gone in years that he observes, when he is among us, an earnestness to have him fall on some divine topic, which he always treats with much authority, as one who has no interests in this world, as one who is hastening to the object of all his wishes, and conceives hope from 1 What does our modern epithet " so-called " imply? 14 SIR ROGER DE COVERLET his decays and infirmities. These are my ordinary com- panions. 1 / R. 2 1 Some people imagine that an author can never draw a character without having a live model. The fact is, he usually has a dozen, makes a composite photograph, so to speak, and then colors it to suit his fancy. The originals of several of the club have often been pointed out, but it is not probable that they resembled the characters any more than Addison resembled the Spectator. Sir John Pack- ington of Worcestershire has been called the prototype of Sir Roger, Col. Kempenfeldt the father of the Admiral immortalized by Cow- per's poem, the Loss of the Royal George of Captain Sentry, and Col. Cleland, of the Life Guards, of Will Honeycomb. But a can- did reading of Spectators 34 and 262 will show the falsity of such surmises. * See note 3, p. 6. SIR ROGERS PHILOSOPHY 15 III. SIR ROGER'S PHILOSOPHY. [Spectator No. 6, Wednesday, March 7, 1711. Steele.] Credebant hoc grande nefas, et morte piandum, Si juvenis vetulo non assurrexerat . JUVENAL. I KNOW no evil under the sun so great as the abuse of the understanding, and yet there is no one vice more common. It has diffused itself through both sexes and all qualities of mankind, and there is hardly that person to be found who is not more concerned for the reputation of 1 wit and sense, than honesty and virtue. But this unhappy affectation of being wise rather than honest, witty than good-natured, is the source of most of the ill habits of life. Such false impressions are owing to the abandoned writ- ings of men of wit, and the awkward imitation of the rest of mankind. For this reason, Sir Roger was saying last night " that he was of opinion that none but men of fine parts de- serve to be hanged. The reflections of such men are so delicate upon all occurrences which they are concerned in, that they should be exposed to more than ordinary infamy and punishment for offending against such quick admoni- tions as their own souls give them, and blunting the fine edge of their minds in such a manner that they are no more shocked at vice and folly than men of slower capaci- ties. There is no greater monster in being, than a very ill man of great parts. He lives like a man in a palsy, with one side of him dead. While perhaps he enjoys the sat- isfaction of luxury, of wealth, of ambition, he has lost the taste of good-will, of friendship, of innocence. Scare- 1 I. e., of having. Cf. note 7, p. 2. 16 SIR ROGER DE COVERLET crow, the beggar in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, who disabled him- self in his right leg and asks alms all day to get himself a warm supper at night, is not half so despicable a wretch as such a man of sense. The beggar has no relish above sensations; he finds rest more agreeable than motion, and while he has a warm fire, never reflects that he deserves to be whipped. ''Every man who terminates his satisfaction and enjoy, ments within the supply of his own necessities and pas- sions, is,' 1 says Sir Roger, " in my eye, as poor a rogue as Scarecrow. But," continued he, "for the loss of public and private virtue we are beholden to your men of fine parts, forsooth; it is with them no matter what is done, so it is done with an air. 1 But to me, who am so whimsical in a corrupt age as to act according to nature and reason, a selfish man in the most shining circumstance and equi- page, 2 appears in the same condition with the fellow above- mentioned, but more contemptible in proportion to what more he robs the public of and enjoys above him. 3 I lay it down therefore for a rule, that the whole man is to 4 move together; that every action of any importance is to 4 have a prospect of public good; and that the general ten- dency of our indifferent actions ought to be agreeable to the dictates of reason, of religion, of good-breeding: with- out this, a man, as I have before hinted, is hopping instead of walking; he is not in his entire and proper motion." While the honest knight was thus bewildering himself in good starts, 3 I looked intentively 6 upon him, which made him, I thought, collect his mind a little. "What I aim at," says he, "is to represent that I am of opinion, to 1 With style. a Amid the most brilliant surroundings. 8 The " fellow above-mentioned." 4 Ought to. 6 A hunting term humorously applied to the utterances of the knight, who was a famous fox-hunter. Thus Shakespeare says : " I see yon stand like greyhounds in the slips Straining upon the start.' 1 ' 1 See, also, note 2, p. 124. Attentively. Silt KOGEirx PHILOSOPHY 17 polisli our understandings and neglect our manners is of all things the most inexcusable. Reason should govern passion, but instead of that, you see, it is often subservient to it; and as 1 unaccountable as one would think it, a wise man is not always a good man." This degeneracy is not only the guilt of particular per- sons, but also at some times of a whole people; and perhaps it may appear upon examination that the most polite ages are the least 'virtuous. This may be attributed to the folly of admitting wit and learning as merit in themselves, with- out considering the application of them. By this means it becomes a rule not so much to regard what \ve do, as how we do it. But this false beauty will not pass upon '-'men of honest minds and true taste. Sir Richard Blackmore 3 says, with as much good sense as virtue, "It is a mightv dishonor and shame to employ excellent faculties and abundance of wit, to humor and please men in their vices and follies. The great enemy of mankind, notwithstand- ing his wit and angelic faculties, is the most odious being in the whole creation." He goes on soon after to say, very generously, that lie undertook the writing of his poem " to rescue the Muses, to restore them to their sweet and chaste mansions, and to engage them in an employment suitable to their dignity." This certainly ought to be the purpose of every man who appears in public, and whoever does not proceed upon that foundation, injures his country as fast as he succeeds in his studies. When modesty ceases to be the chief armament of one sex and integrity of the other, society is upon a wrong basis, and we shall be ever after without rules to guide our judgment in what is really 1 Omit " as" and the meaning is clearer. With. 3 A somewhat tedious writer of the time. He was about to pub- lish a poem (Creation) from which Steele condenses the following sentiments. The poem aimed to refute the theories of Epicurus and Lucretius and to prove the existence of God ; a long preface was directed against the atheism and licentiousness which succeeded the Restoration. 18 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY becoming and ornamental. Nature and reason direct one thing, passion and humor another. To follow the dictates of these two latter, is going into a road that is both end- less and intricate; when we pursue the other, our passage is delightful, and what we aim at easily attainable. I do not doubt but England is at present as polite a nation as any in the world ; but any man who thinks, can easily see that the affectation of being gay and in fashion has very near 1 eaten up our good sense and our religion. Is there anything so just, as that mode and gallantry 2 should be built upon exerting ourselves in what is proper and agree- able to the institutions of justice and piety among us? And yet is there anything more common, than that we run in perfect contradiction to them ? All which is supported by no other pretension than that it is done with what we call a good grace. Nothing ought to be held laudable, or becoming, but what nature itself should prompt us to think so. Respect to all kind of superiors is founded, methinks, upon in- stinct; and yet what is so ridiculous 3 as age? I make this abrupt transition to the mention of this vice 4 more than any other, in order to introduce a little story, which I think a pretty instance 5 that the most polite age is in danger of being the most vicious. It happened at Athens, during a public representation of some play exhibited in honor of the commonwealth, that an old gentleman came too late for a place suitable to his age and quality. Many of the young gentlemen who observed the difficulty and confusion he was in, made signs to him that they would accommodate him if he came where they sat. The good man bustled through the crowd accordingly; but when he came to the seats to which he was invited, the jest was to sit close and expose him, as he stood out of countenance, 6 to the whole audience. The 1 Nearly. a Fashion and politeness. * At present. * Disrespect for age. 6 A good illustration. 8 Embarrassed. SIR ROGER'S PHILOSOPHY 19 frolic went round all the Athenian benches. But on those occasions there were also particular places assigned for for- eigners. When the good man skulked towards the boxes appointed for the Lacedemonians, that honest people, more virtuous than polite, rose up all * to a man, and with the greatest respect received him among them. The Athenians being suddenly touched with a sense of the Spartan virtue and their own degeneracy, gave a thunder of applause; and the old man cried out, " The Athenians understand what is good, but the Lacedemonians practise it." E. 1 All rose up. 20 MR ROGER DE COVERLET IV. SIR ROGER AND THE CLUB MAKE CONCESSIONS TO THE SPECTATOR. [Spectator No. 84. Monday, April 9, 1711. Addison.} Parcit Cognatis raaeulis similis fera . JlJVEXAL. THE club of which I am a member is very luckily com- posed of such persons as are engaged in different ways of life, and deputed as it were out of the most conspicuous classes of mankind. By this means I am furnished with the greatest variety of hints and materials, and know every- thing that passes in the different quarters and divisions, not only of this great city, but of the whole kingdom. My readers, too, have the satisfaction to find l that there is no rank or degree among them who have 2 not their 3 rep- resentative in this club, and that there is always somebody present who will take care of their 4 respective interests. that nothing may be written or published to the prejudice or infringement of their just rights and privileges. I last night sat very late in company with this select body of friends, who entertained me with several remarks which they and others had made upon these my specula- tions, as also with the various success which they 5 had met with among their several ranks and degrees of readers. Will Honeycomb told me, in the softest 6 manner he could, that there were some ladies ('' But for your comfort, " says Will, "they are not those of the most wit") that were 1 Of finding. - Which has. 3 Its. 4 *' My readers'." c The '' speculations." * Most delicate. CONCESSIONS TO THE SPECTATOR 31 offended at the liberties I had taken with the opera 1 and the puppet-show; 1 that some of them were likewise very much surprised that I should think such serious points as the dress and equipage of persons of quality, proper sub- jects for raillery. 2 He was going on, when Sir Andrew Freeport took him up short, and told him that the papers he hinted at had done great good in the city, and that all their 3 wives and daughters were the better for them; and further added, that the whole city thought themselves very much obliged to me for declaring my generous intentions to scourge vice and folly as they appear in a multitude, without con- descending to be a publisher of particular intrigues. '' In short," says Sir Andrew, " if yon avoid that foolish beaten road of falling upon aldermen and citizens, 4 and employ your pen upon the vanity and luxury of courts, your paper must needs be of general use." Upon this my friend the Templar told Sir Andrew '"' that he wondered to hear a man of his sense talk after that manner; that the city had always been the province for satire; and that the wits of King Charles's 5 time jested upon nothing else during his whole reign." He then shewed, by the examples of Horace. 7 Juvenal. 7 Boileau," and the best writers of every age, that the follies of the stage and court had never been accounted too sacred for ridicule, how great soever the persons might be that pat- ronized them. " But after all," says he, "\ think your raillery has made too great an excursion, in attacking sev- eral persons of the Inns of Court; 8 and I do not believe 1 See Spectator Nos. 5, 13, 14, 18, 22, 29, and 31. Morley's edi- tion has interesting notes. 4 See Spectator No. 16. 3 The citizens'. 4 See Spectator Nos. 8, 16, 19, 20, 21. 5 Charles II. 8 How long was that? 7 All wrote satires. See biographical dictionaries or encyclopaedias. "Spectator No. 21. See, also, No. 49, which was written after- wards. 22 SIR ROGER DE COVERLET you can show me any precedent for your behavior in that particular." My good friend Sir Roger de Coverley, who had said nothing all this while, began his speech with a "Pish! " and told us that he wondered to see so many men of sense so very serious upon fooleries. "Let our good friend," says he, "attack every one that deserves it; I would only advise you, Mr. Spectator " (applying himself to me), "to take care how you meddle with country squires. They are the ornaments of the English nation; men of good heads and sound bodies! and, let me tell you, some of them take it ill of you that you mention fox-hunters with so little respect." ! Captain Sentry spoke very sparingly on this occasion. What he said was only to commend my prudence in not touching upon the army, and advised me to continue to act discreetly in that point. By this time I found every subject of my speculations was taken away from me, by one or other of the club, and began to think myself in the condition of the good man that had one wife who took a dislike to his grey hairs, and another to his black, till by their picking out what each of them had an aversion to, they left his head alto- gether bald and naked. While I was thus musing with myself, my worthy friend the clergyman, who, very luckily for me, was at the club that night, undertook my cause. He told us that he won- dered any order of persons should think themselves too considerable to be advised. That it was not quality, but innocence, which exempted men from reproof. That vice and folly ought to be attacked wherever they could be met with, and especially when they were placed in high and conspicuous stations of life. He further added, that my paper would only serve to aggravate the pains of poverty, 1 Spectator No. 474. In Sir Roger's criticism there is something of anticipation, since, of course, No. 474 had not yet appeared. CONCESSIONS TO THE SPECTATOR 23 if it chiefly exposed those who are already depressed, and in some measure turned into ridicule, by the meanness of their conditions and circumstances. He afterward pro- ceeded to take notice of the great use this paper might be of to the public, by reprehending those vices which are too trivial for the chastisement of the law, and too fantastical for the cognizance of the pulpit. He then advised me to prosecute my undertaking with cheerfulness, and assured me, that whoever might be displeased with me, I should be approved by all those whose praises do honor to the persons on whom they are bestowed. The whole club pays a particular deference to the dis- course of this gentleman, and are drawn into what he says, as much by the candid and ingenuous manner with which he delivers himself, as by the strength of argument and force of reason which he makes use of. Will Honeycomb immediately agreed that what he 1 had said was right, and that, for his 2 part, he would not insist upon the quarter which he had demanded for the ladies. Sir Andrew gave up the city with the same frankness. The Templar would not stand out, and Avas followed by Sir Roger and the Cap- tain who all agreed that I should be at liberty to carry the war into what quarter I pleased, provided I continued to combat with criminals in a body, and to assault the vice without hurting the person. This debate, which was held for the good of mankind, put me in mind of that which the Roman triumvirate were formerly engaged in for their 3 destruction. Every man at first stood hard for his friend, till they found that by this means they should spoil their proscription; and at length, making a sacrifice of all their acquaintance and relations, furnished out a very decent execution. 4 1 The clergyman. 2 Will's. 3 Mankind's. Note the antithesis. 4 See Shakespeare's Julius Ccesar, Act IV. Sc. i. ; also see Plu- tarch's Life of Antony. 24 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY Having thus taken my resolution l to march on boldly in the cause of virtue and good sense, and to annoy their 2 adversaries in whatever degree or rank of men they 8 may be found I shall be deaf for the future to all the remon- strances that shall be made to me on this account. If Punch grows extravagant, 4 I shall reprimand him very freely. If the stage becomes a nursery of folly and imperti- nence, I shall not be afraid to animadvert upon it. In short, if I meet with anything in city, court, or country, that shocks modesty or good manners, I shall use my utmost endeavors to make an example of it. I must, however, intreat every particular person who does me the honor to be a reader of this paper, never to think himself, or any one of his friends or enemies, aimed at in what is said : for I promise him, never to draw a faulty character which does not fit a thousand people ; or to publish a single paper that is not written in the spirit of benevolence and with a love to mankind. C. 'Resolved. 'Virtue and good sense's. 'The adversaries. 4 In the puppet-show, where great license of speech was some- times tolerated. See Tatter Xo. 16. SIR ROGER'S CLIENT V. SIR ROGER'S CLIENT. [Spectator No. 37. Thursday, April 12, 1T11. Addison.] Non ilia colo calathisve Minervic Feraineas assueta maims . VIRGIL. SOME months ago, my friend Sir Roger, being in the country, enclosed a letter to me, directed to a certain lady whom I shall here call by the name of Leonora, and as it contained matters of consequence, desired me to deliver it to her with my own hand. Accordingly I waited upon her ladyship pretty early in the morning, and was desired by her woman to walk into her lady's library, till such time as she was in a readiness to receive me. The very sound of a lady's library l gave me a great curiosity to see it; and as it was some time before the lady came to me. I had an opportunity of turning over a great many of her books, which were ranged together in a very beautiful order. At the end of the folios (which were iinely bound and gilt) were great jars of china? placed one above another in a very noble piece of architecture. 3 The quartos were sepa- rated from the octavos by a pile of smaller vessels, which rose in a delightful pyramid. 3 The octavos were bounded by tea-dishes of all shapes, colors, and sizes, which Avere so disposed on a Avooden frame that they looked like one continued pillar indented with the finest strokes of sculp- ture and stained Avith the greatest variety of dyes. 'See Tatler No. 248. In 1714 Steele published three volumes called The Ladies 1 Library. 2 Shortly before this time a fashion of collecting useless pieces of china had begun to be very prevalent. It was indulged for some years at great expense and to an astonishing degree. See Tatler No. 23. 3 Is this real praise ? 26 SIR ROOER DE COVERLEY That part of the library which was designed for the reception of plays and pamphlets, and other loose papers, was enclosed in a kind of square, consisting of one of the prettiest grotesque * works that ever I saw, and made up of scaramouches, lions, monkeys, mandarins, trees, shells, and a thousand other odd figures in china ware. In the midst of the room was a little japan table, with a quire of gilt paper upon it, and on the paper a silver snuff box made in the shape of a little book. I found there were several other counterfeit books upon the upper shelves, which were carved in wood, and served only to fill up the number, 2 like fagots 3 in the muster of a regiment. I was wonderfully pleased with such a mixed kind of furniture as seemed very suitable both to the lady and the scholar, 4 and did not know, at first, whether I should fancy myself in a grotto or in a library. Upon my looking into the books, I found there were some few which the lady had bought for her own use; but that most of them had been got together, either because she had heard them praised, or because she had seen the authors of them. 5 Among several that I examined, I very well remember these that follow : Ogilby's Virgil. 6 Dryden's Juvenal. Cassandra. 7 Cleopatra. 7 Astrasa. 7 Sir Isaac Newton's Works. 1 How would this term apply to the whole librai-y ? 8 What docs this imply as to the lady's literary accomplishments ? 8 An uncommon word in this sense. See dictionary. 4 Note the concealed satire. A famous college president once gave the following testimonial to a graceless fellow who had the effrontery to request a recommendation: "Mr. is about. to graduate with equal credit to himself and honor to the institution." 6 She valued them as relics. 6 Of course the reader will readily infer that the collection is a veritable miscellany, showing no evidence of literary taste. There are, however, some literary weaknesses. Full notes may be found in Morley's Spectator. 1 Translations of French romances. SIR ROGER'S CLIENT 27 The Grand Cyrus; 1 with a pin stuck in one of the middle leaves. Pembroke's Arcadia. 2 Locke 3 of Human Understanding; 4 with a paper of patches in it. A spelling book. A dictionary for the explanation of hard words. Sherlock 5 upon Death. The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony. Sir William Temple's G Essays. Father Malebrauche's 7 Search after Truth; translated into English. A book of novels. The Academy of Compliments. The Ladies' Calling. Tales in Verse, by Mr. D'Urfey; 8 bound in red leather, gilt on the back, and doubled down in several places. All the classic authors in wood. 9 A set of Elzevirs by the same hand. 10 Clelia n ; which opened of itself in the place that describes two lovers in a bower. I The most famous French romance of the time, in ten volumes, by Mile, de Scudery. s By Sir Philip Sydney, but published by his sister, the Countess of Pembroke. 3 In Tickell's (1721) edition this reads : " Lock of human under- standing." * Rather heavy for Leonora, but a good portfolio for patches (bits of black silk stuck upon the faces of fashionable ladies, and used as foils to heighten the whiteness of their complexions). 5 Dean of St. Paul's. "English statesman, diplomat, and author. Died 1G90. 7 A French philosopher, then at the height of his fame. 8 A Restoration writer of dissolute songs and plays. "If there was anything which Addison admired in literature it was the classic authors. This line, then, is most keenly satirical. See note 2, p. 20. 10 /. e., the carpenter's. " By the same hand " was a common phrase in Addison's time to denote by the same author. Notwithstanding his strictures against puns (Spectators Nos. 61 ff., 396, 454, 504) he could not resist the temptation here. II Another French romance in ten volumes by Mile, de Scudery. 28 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY Baker's Chronicle. 1 Advice to a Daughter. The New Atalantis, 2 with a key to it. Mr. Steele's Christian Hero. 3 A prayer-book; with a bottle of Hungary water* by the side of it. Dr. Sacheverell's 5 speech. Fielding's Trial. Seneca's Morals. Taylor's Holy Living and" Dying. La Ferte's Instructions for Country Dances. I was taking a catalogue in my pocket-book of these and several other authors, when Leonora entered, and, upon my presenting her with the letter from the knight, told me, with an unspeakable grace, that she hoped Sir Roger was in good health; I answered " Yes," 6 for I hate long speeches, and after a bow or two retired. Leonora was formerly a celebrated beauty, and is still a very lovely woman. She has been a widow for two or three years, 7 and being unfortunate in her first marriage, has taken a resolution never to venture upon a second. She has 110 children to take care of, and leaves the manage- ment of her estate to my good friend Sir Roger. But as the mind naturally sinks into a kind of lethargy, and falls asleep, that is not agitated 8 by some favorite pleasures 'A Chronicle of the Kings of England, by Sir Richard Baker. A favorite book of Sir Roger's, as will be seen, but " a dry and jejune performance." 3 A somewhat scandalous book by Mrs. Manley, attacking promi- nent Whigs under concealed names ; hence the need of a key. 3 A treatise published by Steele in 1701 " as a check on his own irregularites a self monitor." * Aqua regintB Ilungariw, a favorite perfume of the time, in which lavender and rosemary were the principal ingredients. 5 A famous Tory divine \vho had been impeached for preaching two political sermons ridiculing the Whigs. "Has the Spectator spoke n'bef ore ? See p. 3 and note 1. Also read p. 4. 7 She was a Mrs. Perry, formerly Miss Shepheard. b Is a better arrangement possible '' SIR HOVER'S CLIENT 29 and pursuits, Leonora has turned all the passions of her sex into a love of books and retirement. She converses chiefly with men (as she has often said herself), but it is only in their writings; and admits of very few male visit- ants except my friend Sir Roger, whom she hears with great pleasure and without scandal. As her reading has lain very much among romances, it has given her a very particular turn of thinking, and discovers itself even in her house, her gardens, and her furniture. Sir Roger has entertained me an hour together with a description of her country seat, which is situated in a kind of wilderness, about an hundred miles distant from London, and looks like a little enchanted palace. The rocks about her are shaped into artificial grottoes covered with woodbines and jessamines. The woods are cut into shady walks, twisted into bowers, and filled with cages of turtles. 1 The springs are made to run among pebbles, and by that means taught 2 to murmur very agreeably. They are likewise collected into a beautiful lake that us inhabited by a couple of swans, and empties itself by a little rivulet which runs through a green meadow, and is known in the family by the name of The Purling Stream. 3 The knight likewise tells me that this lady preserves her game better than any of the gentlemen in the country. "Not," says Sir Roger, "that she sets so great a value upon her partridges and pheasants, as upon her larks and nightingales; for she says that every bird which is killed in her ground will spoil a concert, and that she shall certainly miss him the next year." 4 1 With wings, not with shells. Of. Song of Songs, ii. 12, and a ludicrous incident which happened in Palestine (as related by Mark Twain in Innocents Abroad), when one of the ''innocents" waited by a f rog-poffd to hear a tortoise sing. 8 A delicious sarcasm. The romantic Leonora " teaches" brooks how to murmur in genteel fashion, instead of running wild and brawling. 3 This is worthy of Mile. Scudery herself, or of Moliere's satire, Les Pi'fc, ie uses ridic ides. 4 Xole the comical effect produced by the contrast of the old 30 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY When I think how oddly this lady is improved by learn- ing, I look upon her with a mixture of admiration and pity. 1 Amidst these innocent entertainments which she has formed to herself, how much more valuable does she appear than those of her sex who employ themselves in diversions that are less reasonable, though more in fashion. What improvements would a woman have made, who is so susceptible of impressions from what she reads, had she been guided to such books as have a tendency to enlighten the understanding and rectify the passions, as well as to those which are of little more use than to divert the imagination. But the manner of a lady's employing herself usefully in reading shall be the subject of another paper, in which I design to recommend such particular books as may be proper for the improvement of the sex. And as this is a subject of a very nice nature, I shall desire my corre- spondents to give me their thoughts upon it. 3 C. knight's views with those of his fair client; one is densely practical, the other absurdly romantic : yet from opposite motives each pre- serves the game. 1 Here Addison drops humor and satire, and talks plain sense. 9 They did. See Nos. 92, 140. COVERLEY HALL 31 COVERLET HALL. [Spectator No. 100. Monday, July 2, 1711. Addison.] -Hinc tibi copia Manabit ad plenum, benigno Ruris honorum opulenta cornu. HORACE. HAVING often received an invitation from my friend, Sir Roger de Coverley, to pass a\vay a month with him in the country, I last week accompanied him thither, and am settled with him for some time at his country-house, where I intend to form several of my ensuing speculations. Sir Roger, who is very well acquainted with my humor, lets me rise and go to bed when I please, dine at his own table or in my chamber, as I think fit, sit still and say nothing without bidding me be merry. AVhen the gentlemen of the country come to see him, he only shows me at a dis- tance : as I have been walking in his fields I have observed them stealing a sight of me over an hedge, and have heard the knight desiring them not to let me see them, for that I hated to be stared at. I am the more at ease in Sir Roger's family because it consists of sober and staid persons; for, as the knight is the best master in the world, he seldom changes his serv- ants; and as he is beloved by all about him, his servants never care for leaving him; by this means his domestics are all in years, and grown old with their master. You would take his valet de cliambre for his brother, his but- ler is gray-headed, his groom is one of the gravest men that I have ever seen, and his coachman has the looks of a privy counsellor. You see the goodness of the master even 32 KIR ROGER DE COVERLET in the old house-dog, and in a gray pad l that is kept in the stable with great care and tenderness, out of regard to his past services, though he has been useless for several years. I could not but observe with a great deal of pleasure the joy that appeared in the countenances of these ancient domestics upon my friend's arrival at his country-seat. Some of them could not refrain from tears at the sight of their old master; every one of them pressed forward to do something for him, and seemed discouraged if they were not employed. At the same time the good old knight, with a mixture of the father and the master of the family, tempered the inquiries after his own affairs with several kind questions relating to themselves. 2 This humanity and good-nature engages everybody to him, so that when he is pleasant upon any of them, all his family are in good humor, and none so much as the person whom he diverts himself with; on the contrary, if he coughs, or betrays any infirmity of old age, it is easy for a stander-by to observe a secret concern in the looks of all his servants. My worthy friend has put me under the particular care of his butler j who is a very prudent man, and, as well as the rest of his fellow-servants, wonderfully desirous of pleasing me, because they have often heard their master talk of me as of his particular friend. My chief companion, when Sir Eoger is diverting himself in the woods or the fields, is a very venerable man who is ever with Sir Roger, and has lived at his house in the nature of a chaplain 3 above thirty years. This gentleman is a per- son of good sense and some learning, of a very regular life and obliging conversation ; he heartily loves Sir Roger, and knows that he is very much in the old knight's esteem, 4 so 1 An easy-going horse. "An abbot on an ambling pad." Lady of Shalott. 2 The domestics. 8 Capacity of chaplain. 4 Very much esteemed by the old knight. COVE It LEY HALL 33 that he lives in the family rather a* a relation than a dependant. I have observed in several of my papers that my friend, Sir Roger, amidst all his good qualities, is something of an humorist, 1 and that his virtues as well as imperfections are, as it were, tinged by a certain extravagance, which makes them particularly his, and distinguishes them from those of other men. This cast of mind, as it is generally very innocent in itself, so it renders 3 his conversation highly agreeable, and more delightful than the same degree of sense and virtue would appear in their common and ordi- nary colors. As I was walking with him last night, he asked me how I liked the good man whom I have just now mentioned, and without staying for my answer, 3 told me that he was afraid of being insulted with Latin and Greek at his own table, 4 for which reason he desired a particular friend of his, at the University, to find him out a clergy- man rather of plain sense than much learning, of a good aspect, a clear voice, a sociable temper, and, if pos- sible, a man that understood a little of backgammon. My friend, says Sir Roger, found me out this gentleman, who, besides the endowments required of him, is, they tell me, a 1 Addison does not mean a wit; what other definition is demanded here? Cf." Filling from time to time his humorous stage," in Words- worth's Ode on Immortality. a Recast the sentence for the sake of smoothness. 8 Why not ? 4 " The literary acquirements of the squireantry of Sir Roger's era were few. At a time not long antecedent ' an esquire passed for a great scholar of Hudibras ; and Baker's Chronicle, Tarleton's Jests, and the Seven Champions of Christendom lay in his hall window among angling and fishing lines.' But that Sir Roger may appear in this, as in other respects, above the average of his order, there is in Coverley Hall a library rich in ' divinity and MS. household receipts.' Sir Roger, too, had drawn many observations together out of his reading in Baker's Chronicle and other authors ' who always lie in his hall window '; and, however limited his own classic lore, it is certain that both in love and friendship he displayed strong literary sympa- thies. The perverse widow, whose cruelty darkened his whole exist- ence, was a 'reading lady,' a 'desperate scholar,' and in argument ' as learned as the best philosopher in Europe,' one who, when in the country, ' does r,ot run into dairies, but reads upon the nature of 34 SIS ROGER DE COVERLET good scholar, though he does not show it; l I have given him the parsonage of the parish, and, because I know his value, have settled upon him a good annuity for life. If he out- lives rne, he shall find that he was higher in my esteem than perhaps he thinks he is. He has now been with me thirty years, and though he does not know I have taken notice of it, has never in all that time asked anything of me for himself, though he is every day soliciting me for some- thing in behalf of one or other of my tenants, his parish- ioners. There has not been a lawsuit in the parish since he has lived among them; if any dispute arises they apply themselves to him for the decision; if they do not acqui- esce in his judgment, which I think never happened above once, or twice at most, they appeal to me. At his first settling with me I made him a present of all the good sermons which have been printed in English, and only begged of him that every Sunday he would pronounce a one of them in the pulpit. Accordingly he has digested them into such a series that they follow one another naturally, and make a continued system of practical divinity. As Sir Koger was going on in his story, the gentleman we were talking of came up to us; and upon the knight's asking him who preached to-morrow (for it was Saturday night), told us the Bishop of St. Asaph in the morning and Dr. South in the afternoon. He then showed us his list of preachers for the whole year, where I saw with a great deal of pleasure Archbishop Tillotson, Bishop Saun- derson, Dr. Barrow, Dr. Calamy, with several living authors who have published discourses of practical divinity. I no sooner saw this venerable man in the pulpit but I very plants has a glass hive and comes into the garden out of books to see them work.' In his friendship, again, Sir Roger was all for learn- ing. Besides the Spectator to whom he eventually bequeathed his books he indulged a Platonic admiration for Leonora, a widow, for- merly acelebrated beauty and still a very lovely woman 'who turned all the passion of her sex into a love of books and retirement.' " G. W. GREENE. 1 Unconscious humor on Sir Roger's part. 4 Deliver. Still the quaint old word is more suggestive. COVERLEY HALL 35 much approved of my friend's insisting upon the qualifi- cations of a good aspect and a clear voice; for I was so charmed with the gracefulness of his figure and delivery, as well as with the discourses he pronounced, that I think I never passed any time more to my satisfaction. A sermon repeated after this manner is like the composition of a poet in the mouth of a graceful actor. I could heartily wish that more of our country clergy would follow this example; and, instead of wasting their spirits in laborious compositions of their own> Avould en- deavor after a handsome elocution, and all those other tal- ents that are proper to enforce what has been penned by greater masters. This would not only be more easy to themselves, but more edifying to the people. 1 L. 1 Does Addison speak seriously? 36 SIR ROGER DE COVER LEY VII. THE COVERLEY HOUSEHOLD. [Spectator No. 107. Tuesday, July 3, 1711. Steele.] JEsopo ingentem statuam posuere Attici, Servumque collocfirunt aeterna in basi, Fatere honoris scirent ut cuncti viatn. THE reception, manner of attendance, undisturbed free- dom and quiet, which I meet with here in the country, has confirmed me in the opinion I always had, that the general corruption of manners in servants is owing to the conduct of masters. The aspect of every one in the family carries BO much satisfaction that it appears he knows the happy lot which has befallen him in being a member of it. There is one particular which I have seldom seen but at Sir Koger's; it is usual, in all other places, that servants fly from the parts of the house through which their master is passing; on the contrary, here, they industriously place themselves in his way; and it is on both sides, as it were, understood as a visit, when the servants appear without calling. 1 This proceeds from the humane and equal tem- per of the Man of the House, who also perfectly well knows how to enjoy a great estate with such economy as ever to be much beforehand. This makes his own mind untroubled, and consequently unapt to vent peevish expressions, or give passionate or inconsistent orders to those about him. Thus respect and love go together; and a certain cheerful- ness in performance of their duty is the particular dis- tinction of the lower part of this family. When a servant is called before his master, he does not come with an expec- tation to hear himself rated for some trivial fault, threat- 1 Place the last clause so as to give a clearer idea of the meaning. THE ('OY Ell LEY //Vl'SKIfOL/t ?rf ened to be stripped, or used with any other unbecoming lan- guage, which mean masters often give to worthy servants; but it is often to know what road he took that he came so readily back according to order; whether he passed by such aground; if the old man who rents it is in good health; or whether he gave Sir Roger's love to him, or the like. A man who preserves a respect founded on his benevo- lence to his dependants lives rather like a prince than a master in his family; his orders are received as favors, rather than duties; and the distinction of approaching him is part of the reward for executing what is commanded by him. There is another circumstance in which my friend excels in his management, which is the manner of rewarding his servants; he has ever been of opinion that giving his cast clothes to be worn by valets has a very ill effect upon little minds, and creates a silly sense of equality between the parties, in persons affected only with outward things. I have heard him often pleasant on this occasion, and describe a young gentleman abusing his man in that coat which a month or two before was the most pleasing dis- tinction he was conscious of in himself. He would turn his discourse still more pleasantly upon the ladies' boun- ties of this kind; and I have heard him say he knew a line woman who distributed rewards and punishments in giving becoming or unbecoming dresses to her maids. But my good friend is above these little instances of good-will, in bestowing only trifles on his servants ; a good servant to him is sure of having it in his choice very Boon of being no servant at all. As I before observed, he is so good an husband, 1 and knows so thoroughly that the skill of the purse 2 is the cardinal 3 virtue of this life, I say, he knows so well that frugality is the support of gen- erosity, that he can often spare a large fine when a tene- 1 How could he be a husband if he was a bachelor ? 2 Economy. 8 Principal. 38 SIJR ROGER DE COVE RLE Y ment falls, 1 and give that settlement to a good servant who has a mind to go into the world, or make a stranger pay the fine to that servant, for his more comfortable mainte- nance, if he stays in his service. A man of honor and generosity considers it would be miserable to himself to have no will but that of another, though it were of the best person breathing, and for that reason goes on as fast as he is able to put his servants into independent livelihoods. The greatest part of Sir Roger's estate is tenanted by persons who have served himself or his ancestors. It was to me extremely pleasant to observe the visitants 2 from several parts to welcome his arrival into the country; and all the difference that I could take notice of between the late 8 servants who came to see him and those who stayed in the family, was that these latter were looked upon as finer gentlemen and better courtiers. This manumission and placing them in a way of liveli- hood I look upon as only what is due to a good servant, which encouragement will make his successor be as dili- gent, as humble, and as ready as he Avas. There is some- thing wonderful in the narrowness of those minds which can be pleased and be barren of bounty to those who please them. One might, on this occasion, recount the sense that great persons in all ages have had of the merit of their depend- ants, and the heroic services which men have done their masters in the extremity of their fortunes, and shown to their undone patrons that fortune was all the difference between them; but as I design this my speculation only as a gentle admonition to thankless masters, I shall not go out of the occurrences of common life, but assert it, as a general observation, that I never saw, but in Sir Roger's family and one or two more, good servants treated as they 1 The fine collected from a tenant who has allowed his rent to depreciate in value, is " spared " by Sir Roger i. e., not put into his own pocket and given to a good servant. 2 Tenants who came to greet him. s Recent. THE COVERLET HOUSEHOLD 39 ought to be. Sir Roger's kindness extends to their chil- dren's children, and this very morning he sent his coach- man's grandson to prentice. 1 I shall conclude this paper with an account of a picture in his gallery, where there are many which will deserve my future observation. At the very upper end of this handsome structure I saw the portraiture 2 of two young men standing in a river, the one naked, the other in a livery. The person supported seemed half dead, but still so much alive as to show in his face exquisite joy and love towards the other. I thought the fainting figure resembled my friend, Sir Roger; and, looking at the butler, who stood by me, for an account of it, he informed me that the person in the livery was a servant of Sir Roger's, who stood on the shore while his master was swimming, and observing him taken with some sudden illness, and sink under water, jumped in and saved him. He 3 told me Sir Roger took off the dress he 4 was in as soon as he came home, and by a great bounty at that time, followed by his 5 favor ever since, had made him 6 master of that pretty seat which we saw at a distance as we came to this house. I remembered indeed Sir Roger said there lived a very worthy gentleman, to whom lie was highly obliged, without mentioning anything further. Upon my looking a little dissatisfied " at some part of the picture, my attendant informed me that it was against Sir Roger's will, and at the earnest request of the gentleman himself, that he was drawn in the habit in which he had saved his master. 8 R. 1 To be apprenticed. 2 A painting. 3 The butler. 4 The servant. 6 Sir Roger's. 8 The servant. 7 Why? Observe that he says nothing, however, 8 Which showed the greater delicacy? 40 SIR ROGER DE COVERLET VIII. / WILL WIMBLE. [Spectator 3*0. 108. Wednesday, July 4, 1711. Addison.] Gratis anhelans, inulta agendo nihil agens. PH^EDRUS. As I was yesterday morning walking with Sir Roger before his house, a country fellow brought him a huge fish, which, he told him, Mr. William Wimble 1 had caught that very morning; and that he presented it, with his ser- vice to him, and intended to come and dine with him. At the same time he delivered a letter, which my friend read to me as soon as the messenger left him. " Sir Roger, I desire you to accept of a jack, which is the best I have caught this season. I intend to come and stay with you a week, and see how the perch bite in the Black River. I observed with some concern, the last time I saw you upon the bowling-green, that your whip wanted a lash to it; I will bring half a dozen with me that I twisted last week, which I hope will serve you all the time you are in the country. I have not been out of the saddle for six days last past, having been at Eaton 1 This character, like many others in the Spectator, has been referred to a supposed original, a Mr. Thomas Morecroft, who once received pecuniary aid from Addison. But such " speculations'' have already been answered. See note 1, p. 14. A reading of Tatler No. 256 will show that Will Wimble is only Mr. Thomas Gules retouched a gentleman who was "the cadet of a very ancient family," who "had chosen rather to starve, like a man of honor, than tlo anything beneath his quality"; who "had never employed himself beyond the twisting of a whip ... in order to make a present now and then to his friends/' WILL WIMBLE 41 with Sir John's eldest son. He takes to his learning hugely. l " I am, sir, your humble servant, " WILL WIMBLE." This extraordinary 2 letter, and message that accom- panied it, made me very curious to know the character and quality of the gentleman who sent them, which I found to be as follows. Will Wimble 3 is younger brother to a baronet, and descended of the ancient family of the Wimbles. He is now between forty and fifty, but, being bred to no business and born to no estate, he generally lives with his elder brother as superintendent of his game. He hunts 4 a pack of dogs better than any man in the country, and is very famous for finding out a hare. He is extremely well versed in all the little handicrafts of an idle man; he makes a may-fly 5 to a miracle, and furnishes the whole country with angle-rods. As he is a good-natured, offi- cious fellow, and very much esteemed upon account of his family, he is a welcome guest at every house, and keeps up a good correspondence among all the gentlemen about him. He carries a tulip-root in his pocket from one to another, or exchanges a puppy between a couple of friends that live perhaps in the opposite sides of the county. Will is a particular favorite of all the young heirs, whom he frequently obliges with a net that he has weaved, or a setting-dog that he has made 7 himself. He now and then presents a pair of garters of his own knitting to their mothers or sisters, and raises a great deal of mirth among them by inquiring, as often as he meets them, how they wear. These gentleman-like 8 manufactures and obliging little humors make Will the darling 9 of the country. I Is Will joking? 2 Point out what is " extraordinary." 3 Can the name signify a small-bore? If so, what is the pun? 4 Supply "with." a For fishing. 6 Was this before or after the famous tulip mania? Consult ency- clopedias. 7 Instructed. " Characterize this epithet. II Why is this more expressive than favorite? 42 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY Sir Roger was proceeding in the character of 1 him, 3 when he saw him make up to us with two or three hazel- twigs in his hand that he had cut in Sir Roger's woods, as he came through them, in his way to the house. I was very mucli pleased to observe on one side the hearty and sincere welcome with which Sir Roger received him, and on the other, the secret joy which his guest discovered at sight of the good old knight. After the first salutes were over, Will desired Sir Roger to lend him one of his servants to carry a set of shuttlecocks he had with him in a little box to a lady that lived about a mile off, to whom it seems he had promised such a present for above this half year. 3 Sir Roger's back was no sooner turned but honest Will began to tell me of a large cock-pheasant that he had sprung in one of the neighboring woods, with two or three other adventures of the same nature. Odd and uncommon characters are the game that I look for and most delight in; for which reason I was as much pleased with tjie novelty of the person that talked to me as he could be for his life with the springing of a pheasant, and there- fore listened to him with more than ordinary attention. 4 In the midst of his discourse the bell rung to dinner, where the gentleman I have been speaking of had the pleasure of seeing the huge jack he had caught, served up for the first dish in a most sumptuous manner. Upon our sitting down to it he gave us a long account how he had hooked it, played with it, foiled it, and at length drew it out upon the bank, with several other particulars that lasted all the first course. A dish of wild fowl that came afterwards furnished conversation for the rest of the dinner, which concluded with a late invention of Will's for im- proving the quail-pipe. 5 1 Describing the character of. s Will. 8 Note the appropriateness of the motto at the beginning of this paper. 4 In other words the Spectator makes game of Will. 6 Thus Will proves himself a wimble. WILL WniBLE 43 Upon withdrawing into my room after dinner, I was secretly touched l with compassion towards the honest gentleman that had dined with us. and could not but con- sider, with a great deal of concern, how so good an heart and such busy hands were wholly employed in trifles; that so much humanity should be so little beneficial to others, and so much industry so little advantageous to himself. The same temper of mind and application to affairs a might have recommended him to the public esteem, and have raised his fortune in another station of life. What good to his country or himself might not a trader or merchant have done with such useful though ordinary qualifications V Will Wimble's is the case of many a younger brother of a great family, who had rather see their children starve like gentlemen than thrive in a trade or profession that is beneath their quality. 3 This humor 4 fills several parts of Europe with pride and beggary. It is the happiness of a trading nation, like ours, that the younger sons, though nncapable of any liberal art or profession, may be placed in such a way of life as may perhaps enable them to vie wiiii the best of their family. Accordingly, we find several citi- zens that were launched into the world with narrow for- tunes, rising by an honest industry to greater estates than those of their elder brothers. It is not improbable but AVill was formerly tried at divinity, law, or physic; and that, finding his genius did not lie that way, his parents gave him up at length to his own inventions. But cer- tainly, however improper he might have been for studies of a higher nature, he was perfectly well turned for the occupations of trade and commerce. As I think this is a point which cannot be too much inculcated, I shall desire my reader to compare what I have here written, with what I have said in my twenty-first speculation. 5 L. 1 Note how Addison passes again from satire to seriousness. Business. . 8 Cf. note 1, p. 40. 4 Cf. note 1, p. 33. 6 Be sure to read this paper. 44 SIR ROGER DE COVERLET IX. THE COVERLET ANCESTRY. [Spectator No. 109. Thursday, July 5, 1711. Steele.] Abnormis sapiens. HORACE. I WAS this morning walking in the gallery, 1 when Sir Roger entered at the end opposite to me, and, advancing towards me, said he was glad to meet me among his rela- tions, the de Coverleys, and hoped I liked the conversation of so much good company, who were as silent as myself. I knew he alluded to the pictures; and, as he is a gentle- man who does not a little value himself upon his ancient descent, I expected he would give me some account of them. 2 "We were now arrived at the upper end of the gal- lery, when the knight faced towards one of the pictures, and, as we stood before it, he entered into the matter, after his blunt way of saying things as they occur to his imagination, without regular introduction or care to pre- serve the appearance of chain of thought. " It is," said he, " worth while to consider the force of dress, and how the persons of one age differ from those of another merely by that only. One may observe, also, that the general fashion of one age has been followed by one particular set of people in another, and by them preserved from one generation to another. Thus, the vast jetting coat and small bonnet, which was the habit in Harry the Seventh's time, is kept on in the yeomen of the guard; not without a good and politic view, because they look a foot taller, and a foot and a half broader; besides that the 1 Picture-gallery. 8 Note that the Spectator makes no reply. THE COVER LEY ANCESTRY 45 cap leaves the face expanded, and consequently more ter- rible, and fitter to stand at the entrance of palaces. " This predecessor of ours, you see, is dressed after this manner, and his cheeks would be no larger than mine, were he in a hat as I am. He was the last man that won a prize in the Tilt Yard (which is now a common street before Whitehall). You see the broken lance that lies there by his right foot: he shivered that lance of his adver- sary all to pieces; and, bearing himself, look you, sir, in this manner, at the same time he came within the tar- get of the gentleman who rode against him, and taking him with incredible force before him on the pommel of his saddle, he in that manner rid the tournament over, with an air that showed he did it rather to perform the rule of the lists than expose his enemy; however, it appeared he knew how to make use of a victory, and, with a gentle trot, he marched up to a gallery where their mistress sat (for they were rivals) and let him down with laudable courtesy and pardonable insolence. I don't know but it might be exactly where the coffee-house l is now. " You are to know this my ancestor was not only of a military genius, but fit also for the arts of peace, for he played on the bass-viol as well as any gentleman at court; you see where his viol hangs by his basket-hilt sword. The action at the Tilt Yard you may be sure won the fair lady, who was a maid of honor, and the greatest beauty of her time; here she stands, the next picture. You see, sir, my great-great-great-grandmother has on the new- fashioned petticoat, except that the modern is gathered at the waist; my grandmother appears as if she stood in a large drum, whereas the ladies now walk as if they were in a go-cart. 2 For all this lady was bred at court, she became an excellent country wife; she brought 3 ten chil- dren, and., when I show you the library, you shall see, in 1 Jenny: Man's " Tilt-yard Coffee-house"; now the site of the Pay- master-General's office. MORLEY. a More abnormal wisdom. 3 Bore. 46 SIR ROGER DE COVERLET her own hand (allowing for the difference of the language), the best receipt now in England both for an hasty-pudding and a white-pot. 1 " If you please to fall back a little because 'tis neces- sary to look at the three next pictures at one view these are three sisters. She on the right hand, who is so very beautiful, died a maid ; the next to her, still handsomer, had the same fate, against her will; this homely thing in the middle had both their portions added to her own, und was stolen by a neighboring gentleman, a man of stratagem and resolution, for he poisoned three mastiffs to come at her, and knocked down two deer-stealers in carrying her off. Misfortunes happen in all fam- ilies. The theft of this romp and so much money was no great matter to our estate. But the next heir that possessed it was this soft gentleman, whom you see there; observe the small buttons, the little boots, the laces, the slashes about his clothes, and, above all, the posture he is drawn in (which to be sure was his own choosing); you see he sits with one hand on a desk, writing and looking as it were another way, like an easy writer or a sonneteer. He was one of those that had too much wit to know how to live in the world; ho was a man of no justice, but great good manners; he ruined everybody that had anything to do with him, but never said a rude thing in his life; the most indolent person in the world, he would sign a deed that passed away half his estate, with his gloves on, but would not put on his hat before a lady if it were to save his country. He is said to be the first that made love by squeezing the hand. He le^t the estate with ten thousand pounds' debt upon it; but, however, by all hands I have been informed that he was every way the finest gentleman in the world. 2 That debt lay heavy on our house for one generation; but it was retrieved by a gift from that hon- est man you see there, a citizen of our name, but nothing 1 A kind of custard. ' Cf. note 1, p. 13. THE COVER LET ANCESTRY 47 at all akin to us. I know Sir Andrew Freeport has said behind my back l that this man was descended from one of the ten children of the maid of honor I showed you above; but it was never made out. AVe winked at the thing, indeed, because money was wanting at that time.' 1 Here I saw my friend a little embarrassed, and turned my face 2 to the next portraiture. Sir Roger went on with his account of the gallery in the following manner: ''This man" (pointing to him I looked at) "I take to be the honor of our house, Sir Humphrey de Coverley; lie was, in his dealings, as punc- tual as a tradesman and as generous as a gentleman. He would have thought himself as much undone by breaking his word as if it were to be followed by bankruptcy. He served his country as knight of this shire to his dying day. He found it no easy matter to maintain an integrity in his words and actions, even in things that regarded the offices which were incumbent upon him, in the care of his own affairs and relations of life, and therefore dreaded (though he had great talents) to go into employments of state, where he must be exposed to the snares of ambition. Innocence of life and great ability were tiie distinguishing parts of his character; the latter, he had often observed, had led to the destruction of the former, and used fre- quently to lament that great and good had not the same signification. He was an excellent husbandman, but had resolved not to exceed such a 3 degree of wealth; all above it he bestowed in secret bounties many years after the sum he aimed at for his own use was attained. Yet he did not slacken his industry, but to a decent old age spent the life and fortune which was superfluous to himself, in the ser- vice of his friends and neighbors." Here we were called to dinner, and Sir Roger ended the discourse of 4 this gentleman by telling me, as we followed 1 Later he said it to his face (p. 137). 2 Delicacy and tact are as characteristic of the Spectator as silence. * A certain. 4 Concerning. 48 SIB ROGER DE CQVERLEY the servant, that this his ancestor was a brave man, and narrowly escaped being killed in the Civil Wars; "for," said he, " he was sent out of the field upon a private mes- sage the day before the battle of Worcester." The whim of narrowly escaping by having been within a day of danger, with other matters above mentioned, mixed with good sense, left me at a loss whether I was more delighted with l my friend's wisdom or simplicity. R. 1 A kind of zeugma; he was "delighted with" his wisdom but amused at his simplicity. THE COVERLET GHOST THE COYEELEY GHOST. [Spectator No. 110. Friday, July 6, 1711. Addison.] Horror ubique animos, simul ipsa silentia terrent. VIHGIL. AT a little distance from Sir Roger's house, among the ruins of an old abbey, there is a long walk of aged elms, which are shot up so very high that, when one passes under them, the rooks and crows that rest upon the tops of them seem to be cawing in another region. I am very much delighted with this sort of noise, which I consider as a kind of natural prayer to that Being who supplies the wants of His whole creation, and who, in the beauti- ful language of the Psalms, 1 feedeth the young ravens that call upon Him. I like this retirement the better, because of an ill report it lies under of being haunted; for which reason (as I have been told in the family) no living creature ever walks in it besides the chaplain. My good friend, the butler, desired me, with a very grave face, not to venture myself in it after sunset, for that one of the footmen had been almost frighted out of his wits by a spirit that appeared to him in the shape of a black horse without an head ; to which he added, that about a month ago one of the maids coming home late that way, with a pail of milk upon her head, heard such a rustling among the bushes that she let it fall. I was taking a walk in this place last night, between the hours of nine and ten, and could not but fancy it one of the most proper scenes 2 in the world for a ghost to appear in. The ruins of the abbey are scattered up and down on 1 Find the Scriptural allusion by means of a concordance. * Appropriate places. 50 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY every side, and half covered with ivy and elder bushes, the harbors of several solitary birds, which seldom make their appearance till the dusk of the evening. The place was formerly a church-yard, and has still several marks in it of graves and burying-places. There is such an echo among the old ruins and vaults that, if you stamp but a little louder than ordinary, you hear the sound repeated. At the same time the walk of elms, with the croaking of the ravens, which from time to time are heard from the tops of them, looks exceeding solemn and venerable. These objects naturally raise seriousness and attention; and when night heightens the awf ulness of the place, and pours out her supernumerary horrors upon everything in it, I do not at all wonder that weak minds fill it with spectres and apparitions. Mr. Locke, 1 in his chapter of the Association of Ideas, has very curious remarks to show how, by the prejudice of education, one idea often introduces into the mind a whole set that bear no resemblance to one another in the nature of things. Among several examples of this kind, he pro- duces the following instance: ''The ideas of goblins and sprites have really no more to do with darkness than light; yet, let but a foolish maid inculcate these 2 often on the mind of a child, and raise them there together, pos- sibly he 3 shall never be able to separate them again so long as he lives, but darkness shall ever afterwards bring with it those frightful ideas, and they shall be so joined that he can no more bear the one than the other." 4 As I was walking in this solitude, where the dusk of the evening conspired with so many other occasions of terror, I observed a cow grazing not far from me, which an imagi- nation that is apt to startle might easily have construed into a black horse without an head ; and I dare say the poor footman lost his wits upon some such trivial occasion. 1 Locke was apparently a great favorite with Addison. 2 The ideas of goblins and darkness. 3 The child. 4 Essay on the Human Undertfcmding, bk. ii., eh. 33, 10. THE COVERLET (iHOST Dl My friend Sir Roger has often told me, with a great deal of mirth, that at his first coming to his estate, he found three parts of his house altogether iiseless; that the best room in it had the reputation of being haunted, and by that means was locked up; that noises had been heard in his long gallery, so that he could not get a servant to enter it after eight o'clock at night; that the door of one of his chambers was nailed up, because there went a story in the family that a butler had formerly hanged himself in it; and that his mother, who lived to a great age, had shut up half the rooms in the house, in which either her husband, a son, or daughter had died. The knight, seeing his habita- tion reduced to so small a compass, and himself in a man- ner shut out of his own house, upon the death of his mother ordered all the apartments to be flung open and exorcised by his chaplain, who lay in every room one after another, and by that means dissipated the fears which had so long reigned in the family. I should not have been thus particular upon these ridicu- lous horrors, did not I find them so very much prevail in all parts of the country. At the same time, I think a per- son who is thus terrified with the imagination of ghosts and spectres much more reasonable than one who, contrary to the reports of all historians, sacred and profane, ancient and modern, and to the traditions of all nations, thinks the appearance of spirits fabulous and groundless; could not I give myself up to this general testimony of mankind, I should to * the relations of particular persons who are now living, and whom I cannot distrust in other matters of fact. I might here add, that not only the historians, to whom we may join the poets, but likewise the philosophers of antiquity have favored this opinion. Lucretius himself, though by the coiarse of his philosophy he was obliged to maintain that the soul did not exist separate from the body, makes no doubt of the reality of apparitions, and 1 Should give myself up to ; /. e., believe. 52 SIB ROGER DE COVERLET that men have often appeared after their death. This I think very remarkable; he was so pressed with the matter of fact which he could not have the confidence to deny, that he was forced to account for it by one of the most absurd unphilosophical notions that was ever started. He tells us that the surfaces of all bodies are perpetually flying off from their respective bodies one after another, and that these surfaces or thin cases that included each other, whilst they were joined in the body, like the coats of an onion, are sometimes seen entire when they are separated from it; by which means we often behold the shapes and shadows of persons who are either dead or absent. 1 I shall dismiss this paper with a story out of Josephus, not so much for the sake of the story itself as for the moral reflections with which the author concludes it, and which I shall here set down in his own words : " Glaphyra, the daughter of King Archelaus, after the death of her two first 2 husbands (being married to a third, who was brother to her first husband, and so passionately in love with her that he turned off his former wife to make room for this marriage) had a very odd kind of dream. She fancied that she saw her first husband coming 1 Nunc agere incipiam tibi (quod vehementer ad has res Attinet) esse ea, quae rerum simulacra vocamus, Quae quasi membranae, sum mo de corpore rerum Dereptae, volitant ultro citroque per auras; Atque eadem nobis vigilantibus obvia mentes Terrificant, atque in somnis, cum saepe figuras Contuimur miras, simulacraque luce carentum Quae nos horrifice languentes sacpe sopore Excierunt; ne forte animas Acherunte reamur Effugere, aut umbras inter vivos volitare, Neve aliquid nostri post mortem posse relinqui, Cum corpus sirnul, atque animi natura perempta, In sua discessum dederint primordia quaeque. Dico igitur, rerum effigias tenuesque figuras Mittier ab rebus, summo de corpore earum, Quae quasi membrana, vel cortex, nominitanda est, Quod speciem ac formam similem gerit eius imago, Quoiuscunque cluet de corpora f usa vagari. LUCRETIUS, De Rerum Natura, iv., 38-5G. * Arrange in better order. THE COVE RLE Y GHOST 53 towards her, and that she embraced him with great ten- derness; when in the midst of the pleasure which she ex- pressed at the sight of him, he reproached her after the following manner: " ' Glaphyra,' says he, ' thou hast made good the old saying that women are not to be trusted. Was not I the husband of thy virginity ? Have I not children by thee ? How couldst thou forget our loves so far as to enter into a second marriage, and after that into a third? . . . How- ever, for the sake of our past loves I shall free thee from thy present reproach, and make thee mine for ever. ' " Glaphyra told this dream to several women of her acquaintance, and died soon after. " I thought this story might not be impertinent in this place wherein I speak of those kings. 1 Besides that, the example deserves to be taken notice of, as it contains a most certain proof of the immortality of the soul, and of divine providence. If any man thinks these facts incred- ible, let him enjoy his own opinion to himself, but let him not endeavor to disturb the belief of others, who by in- stances of this nature are excited to the study of virtue." 2 L. 1 Josephus had been speaking of at least four kings: Arehelaus, king of Cappadocia, Glaphyra's father; Herod the Great, father of Glaphyra's first husband, Alexander (whom Herod put to death); Juba, king of Libya, Glaphyra's second husband ; and Archelaus, her third husband, brother of Alexander and " ethnarch " over half his father's kingdom. 4 This story is in Josephus's Antiquities of the Jeivs, book xvii.. ch. 13. 54 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY XL A COUNTRY SUNDAY. [Spectator No. 112. Monday, July 9, 1711. AddisonJ] ukv itpcra QsovS, vono) &5? Tina. PYTHAGORAS. I AM always very well pleased with a country Sunday, and think, if keeping holy the seventh day were only a human institution, it would be the best method that could have been thought of for the polishing and civilizing of man- kind. It is certain the country people would soon degen- erate into a kind of savages and barbarians were there not such frequent returns of a stated time, in which the whole village meet together with their best faces, and in their cleanliest habits, to converse with one another upon indif- ferent subjects, hear their duties explained to them, and join together in adoration of the Supreme Being. Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week, not only as it refreshes in their minds the notions of religion, but as it puts both the sexes upon appearing in their most agreeable forms, and exerting all such qualities as are apt to give them a figure in the eye of the village. A country fellow distinguishes himself as much in the church-yard as a citi- zen does upon the 'Change, the whole parish politics being generally discussed in that place, either after sermon or before the bell rings. My friend Sir Roger, being a good churchman, has beautified the inside of his church with several texts of his own choosing; he has likewise given a handsome pulpit cloth, and railed in the communion table at his own ex- pense. He has often told me that, at his coming to his estate, he found his parishioners very irregular; and that, A HO US TRY SL\\DAY 55 in order to make them kueel and join in the responses, he gave every one of them a hassock and a Common-Prayer- Book, and at the same time employed an itinerant singing- master, who goes about the country for that purpose, to instruct them rightly in the tunes of the Psalms; upon which they now very much value themselves, and indeed outdo 1 most of the country churches that I have ever heard. As Sir Eoger is landlord to the whole congregation, he keeps them in very good order, and will suffer nobody to sleep in it besides himself ; for, if by chance lie has been sur- prised into a short nap at sermon, upon recovering out of it he stands up and looks about him, and, if he sees anybody else nodding, either wakes them himself, or sends his ser- vant to them. Several other of the old knight's particular- ities 2 break out upon these occasions; sometimes he will be lengthening out a verse in the singing Psalms half a minute after the rest of the congregation have done with it; sometimes, when he is pleased with the matter of his devotion, he pronounces '* Amen " three or four times to the same prayer; and sometimes stands up when every- body else is upon their 3 knees, to count the congregation, or see if any of his tenants are missing. I was yesterday very much surprised to hear my old friend, in the midst of the service, calling out to one John Matthews to mind what he was about, and not disturb the congregation. This John Matthews, it seems, is re- markable for being an idle fellow, and at that time was kicking his heels for his diversion. This authority of the knight, though exerted in that odd manner which accom- panies him in all circumstances of life, has a very good effect upon the parish, who are not polite enough to see anything ridiculous in his behavior; besides that the gen- eral good sense and worthiness of his character makes 1 A suggestive word, indicative of volume. 8 We might say humors. 3 Why is this not in accord with modern grammatical usage ? 56 SIB ROGER DE COVERLEY his friends observe these little singularities as foils * that rather set off than blemish his good qualities. As soon as the sermon is finished, nobody presumes to stir till Sir Roger is gone out of the church. The knight walks down from his seat in the chancel between a double row of his tenants, that stand bowing to him on each side, and every now and then inquires how such an one's wife, or mother, or son, or father do, whom he does not see at church, which is understood as a secret reprimand to the person that is absent. The chaplain has often told me that, upon a catechising day, when Sir Roger had been pleased with a boy that an- swers well, he has ordered a Bible to be given him next day for his encouragement, and sometimes accompanies it with a flitch of bacon to his mother. Sir Roger has like- wise added five pounds a year to the clerk's place; and, that he may encourage the young fellows to make them- selves perfect in the church service, has promised, upon the death of the present incumbent, who is very old, to bestow it according to merit. The fair understanding between Sir Roger and his chaplain, and their mutual concurrence in doing good, is the more remarkable because the very next village is famous for the differences and contentions that rise be- tween the parson and the squire, who live in a perpetual state of war. The parson is always preaching at the squire, and the squire, to be revenged on the parson, never comes to church. The squire has made all his tenants atheists and tithe stealers ; 2 while the parson instructs them every Sunday in the dignity of his order, and insinu- ates to them in almost every sermon that he is a better man than his patron. In short, matters are come to such an extremity that the squire has not said his prayers either I Like a fine lady's patches. Cf. note 4, p. 27. II Tithes in England are a sort of ecclesiastical tax upon parishion- ers, allotted to the clergy for their living ; they consist of a tenth part of the profits made upoii land or cattle. A COUNTRY SUNDAY 57 in public or private this half year; and that the parson threatens him, if he does not mend his manners, to pray for him in the face of the whole congregation. 1 Feuds of this nature, though too frequent in the coun- try, are very fatal to the ordinary people, who are so used to be dazzled with riches that they pay as much deference to the understanding of a man of an estate as of a man of learning; and are very hardly brought to regard any truth, how important soever it may be, that is preached to them, when they know there are several men of five hundred a year who do not believe it. L. 1 It is doubtful if more deliciously absurd paragraphs were ever penned. Here Addisou's humor is seen at its best. 58 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY XII. SIR ROGER IN LOVE. [Spectator No. 113. Tuesday, July 10, 1711. SteeU.] Haerent inflxi pectore vultus. VIRGIL. IN my first description of the company in which I pass most of my time, it may be remembered that I mentioned a great affliction which my friend Sir Roger had met with in his youth: which was no less than a disappointment in love. 1 It happened this evening that we fell into a very pleasing walk at a distance from his house : as soon as we came into it, " It is," quoth the good old man, looking round him with a smile, " very hard that any part of my land should be settled upon one who has used me so ill as the perverse widow 2 did; and yet I urn sure I could not see a sprig of any bough of this whole walk of trees but I should reflect upon her and her severity. She has cer- tainly the finest hand of any woman in the world. 3 You are to know this was the place wherein I used to muse upon her; and by 4 that custom I can never come into it but the same tender sentiments revive in my mind, as if I had actually walked with that beautiful creature under these shades. I have been fool enough to carve her name on the bark of several of these trees; so unhappy is the condition of men in love to attempt the removing of their passion by 1 See page 8. a Speculators have suggested that a Mrs. Catherine Boevey was drawn in this character. She was a widow, was doubtless beautiful, and perhaps perverse; but probably Addison and Steele no more intended to sketch her portrait than that of Queen Anne, who at this time was a widow and perverse, but not beautiful. * Watch for a repetition of this inconsequent remark. 4 Because of. SIR ROGER IN LOVE 59 the methods which serve only to imprint it deeper. She has certainly the finest hand of any woman in the world." Here followed a profound silence; and J was not dis- pleased to observe my friend falling so naturally into a discourse which I had ever before taken notice he industri- ously avoided. After a very long pause he entered upon an account of this great circumstance in his life, with an air which I thought raised my idea of him above what I had ever had before; and gave me the picture of that cheerful mind of his before it received that stroke which has ever since affected his words and actions. But he went on as follows : " I came to my estate in my twenty-second year, and resolved to follow the steps of the most worthy of my an- cestors who have inhabited this spot of earth before me, in all the methods of hospitality and good neighborhood, for the sake of my fame, and in country sports and recrea- tions, for the sake of my health. In my twenty-third year I was obliged to serve as sheriff of the county; and in my servants, officers, and whole equipage, indulged the pleas- ure of a young man (who did not think ill of his own per- son) in taking that public occasion of showing my figure and behavior to advantage. You may easily imagine to yourself what appearance I made, who am pretty tall, rid well, and was very well dressed, at the head of a whole county, with music before me, a feather in my hat, and my horse well bitted. I can assure you I was not a little pleased with the kind looks and glances I had from all the balconies and windows, as I rode to the hall where the assizes 1 Avere held. But when I came there, a beautiful creature in a widow's habit 2 sat in court, to hear the event of a cause concerning her dower. This commanding crea- ture (who was born for destruction of all who behold her) put on such a resignation in her countenance, and bore the 1 Periodical sessions of the judges of the superior courts in the various counties of England. 2 Garments. 60 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY whispers of all around the court with such a pretty uneasi- ness, I warrant you, and then recovered herself from one eye to another, till she was perfectly confused by meeting something so wistful in all she encountered, that at last, with a murrain to * her, she cast her bewitching eye upon me. I no sooner met it but I bowed like a great surprised booby ; and, knowing her cause to be the first which came on, I cried, like a captivated calf as I was, ' Make way for the defendant's witnesses. ' This sudden partiality made all the county immediately see the sheriff also was become a slave to the fine widow. During the time her cause was upon trial, she behaved herself, I warrant you, with such a deep attention to her business, took opportunities to have little billets handed to her counsel, then would be in such a pretty confusion, occasioned, you must know, by acting before so much company, that not only I but the whole court was prejudiced in her favor; and all that the next heir to her husband had to urge was thought so groundless and frivolous that, when it came to her counsel to reply, there was not half so much said as eveiy one besides in the court thought he could have urged to her advantage. You must understand, sir, this perverse woman is one of those unaccountable creatures that secretly rejoice in the admi- ration of men, but indulge themselves in no further con- sequences. Hence it is that she has ever had a train of admirers, and she removes from her slaves in town to those in the country according to the seasons of the year. She is a reading lady, 2 and far gone in the pleasures of friend- ship; she is always accompanied by a confidante, who is witness to her daily protestations against our sex, and con- sequently a bar to her first steps towards love, upon the strength of her own maxims and declarations. " However, I must needs say this accomplished mistress of mine has distinguished me above the rest, and has been known to declare Sir Roger de Coverley was the tamest 1 A mild imprecation, like " confound her." s See note 4, p. 33. SIR ROGER IN LOVE Gl and most human of all the brutes in the country. I was told she said so by one who thought he rallied me; but, upon the strength of this slender encouragement of being thought -least detestable, I made new liveries, new-paired my coach-horses, sent them all to town to be bitted and taught to throw their legs well and move all together, be- fore I pretended to cross the country and wait upon her. As soon as I thought my retinue suitable to the character of my fortune and youth, I set out from hence to make my addresses. The particular skill of this lady has ever been to inflame your l wishes and yet command respect. To make her mistress of this art, she has a greater share of knowledge, wit, and good sense than is usual even among men of merit. Then she is beautiful beyond the race of women. If you J won't let her go on with a certain artifice with her eyes, and the skill of beauty, she will arm herself with her real charms, and strike you J with admiration. It is certain that, if you were to behold the whole woman, there is that dignity in her aspect, that composure in her motion, that complacency in her manner, that if her form makes you J hope, her merit makes you l fear. But then again, she is such a desperate scholar ~ that no country gentleman can approach her without being a jest. As I was going to tell you, when I came to her house I was admitted to her pres- ence with great civility; at the same time she placed her- self to be first seen by me in such an attitude, as I think you call the posture of a picture, that she discovered new charms, and I at last came towards her with such an awe as made me speechless. This she no sooner observed but she made her advantage of it, and began a discourse to me concerning love and honor, as they both are followed by pre- tenders, and the real votaries to them. . When she had dis- cussed these points in a discourse which I verily believe was as learned as the best philosopher in Europe could possibly make, 2 she asked me whether she was so happy as to fall 1 The colloquial you (your}. 2 See note 4, p. 33. 62 SIR ROGER DE COVE RLE Y in with my sentiments on these important particulars. Her confidante sat by her, and, upon my being in the last confusion and silence, this malicious aid of hers, turning to her, says, ' I am very glad to observe Sir Roger pauses upon this subject, and seems resolved to deliver all his sentiments upon the matter when he pleases to speak.' They both kept their countenances, and after I had sat half an hour meditating how to behave before such pro- found casuists, I rose up and took my leave. Chance has since that time thrown me very often in her way, and she as often has directed a discourse to me which I do not understand. This barbarity has kept me ever at a distance from the most beautiful object my eyes ever beheld. It is thus also she deals with all mankind, and you must make love to her, as you would conquer the sphinx, by posing l her. But were she like other women, and that there were any talking to her, how constant must the pleasure of that man be who could converse with a creature But, after all, you may be sure her heart is fixed on some one or other; and yet I have been credibly informed but who can believe half that is said ? After she had done speak- ing to me, she put her hand to her bosom and adjusted her tucker. 2 Then she cast her eyes a little down, upon my beholding her too earnestly. They say she sings excel- lently; her voice in her ordinary speech has something in it inexpressibly sweet. You must know I dined with her at a public table the day after I first saw her, and she helped me to some tansy in the eye of all the gentlemen in the country: she has certainly the finest hand of any woman in the world. 3 I can assure you, sir, were you to behold her, you would be in the same condition; for, as her speech is music, her form is angelic. But I find I grow irregular while I am talking of her; but indeed it would be stupidity to be unconcerned at such perfection. Oh, 1 Getting the better of. How did CEdipus " pose " the sphinx? 1 A piece of muslin or lace attached to the gown at the neck. ' Here, for the first time, the remark has some point. SIR ROGER IN LOVE 63 the excellent creature ! she is as inimitable to all women as she is inaccessible to all men." I found my friend begin to rave, and insensibly led him towards the house, that we might be joined by some other company; and am convinced that the widow is the secret cause of all that inconsistency which appears in some parts of my friend's discourse; though he has so much command of himself as not directly to mention her, yet according to that [passage] of Martial, 1 which one knows not how to render in English, " Dum facet Jianc loquitur." I shall end this paper with thatr whole epigram, which represents with much humor my honest friend's condition. " Quicquid agit Rufus, nihil est nisi Naevia Rufo ; Si gaudc-t, si flet, si tacet, hanc loquitur : Cenat, propinat, poscit, ncgat, annuit" uua est Naevia ; si non sit Naevia, nmtus erit. Scriberet hesterua patri cum luce salutem, 'Naevia lux,' iuquit, 'Naevia lumen, ave.' " " Let Rufus weep, rejoice, stand, sit, or walk, Still he can nothing but of Naevia talk ; Let him eat, drink, ask questions, or dispute; Still he must speak of Naevia or be mute ; He writ to his father, ending with this line, 'I am, my lovely Naevia, ever thine.' " R. 1 Martial, Book L, Ep. 68. There are, however, two more lines in the epigram. 1 Some texts have innuit. 64 SHt ROGER DE COVERLET XIII. CONTENTMENT AND POVERTY. [Spectator No. 114. Wednesday, July 11, 1711. Steele.] Paupertatis pudor et fuga . PIOEACE. ECONOMY in our affairs has the same effect upon our for- tunes which good breeding has upon our conversations. There is a pretending behavior in both cases, which, instead of making men esteemed, renders them both miserable and contemptible. We had yesterday at Sir Roger's a set of country gentlemen who dined with him ; and after dinner the glass was taken, by those who pleased, pretty plenti- fully. Among others, I observed a person of a tolerable good aspect, who seemed to be more greedy of liquor than any of the company, and yet, methought, he did not taste it with delight. As he grew warm, he was suspicious of everything that was said; and as he advanced towards being fuddled, his humor grew worse. At the same time his bitterness seemed to be rather an inward dissatisfaction in his own mind than any dislike he had taken at the com- pany. Upon hearing his name, I knew him to be a gentle- man of a considerable fortune in this county, but greatly in debt. What gives the unhappy man this peevishness of spirit is, that his estate is dipped, 1 and is eating out with usury; 2 and yet he has not the heart to sell any part of it. His proud stomach, at the cost of restless nights, constant inquietudes, danger of affronts, and a thousand nameless inconveniences, preserves this canker in his fortune, rather than it shall be said he is a man of fewer hundreds a year than he has been commonly reputed. Thus he endures the torment of poverty, to avoid the name of being less 1 Involved, mortgaged. 2 Interest. ENT AND POVERTY 65 rich. If you go to his house you see great plenty, but served in a manner that shows it is all unnatural, and that the master's mind is not at home. There is a certain waste and carelessness in the air of everything, and the whole appears but a covered indigence, a magnificent povert} 7 . That neatness and cheerfulness which attends the table of him who lives within compass, 1 is wanting, and exchanged for a libertine 2 way of service in all about him. This gentleman's conduct, though a very common way of management, is as ridiculous as that officer's would be who had but few men under his command, and should take the charge of an extent of country rather than of a small pass. To pay for, personate, and keep in a man's hands a greater estate than he really has, is of all others 3 the most unpardonable vanity, and must in the end reduce the man who is guilty of it to dishonor. Yet, if we look round us in any county of Great Britain, we shall see many in this fatal error if that may be called by so soft a name Avhich proceeds from a false shame of appearing what they really are when the contrary behavior would in a short time advance them to the condition which they pretend to. Laertes 4 has fifteen hundred pounds a year, which is mortgaged for six thousand pounds; but it is impossible to convince him that if he sold as much as would pay off that debt he would save four shillings in the pound, 5 which he gives for the vanity of being the reputed master of it. Yet, if Laertes did this, he would perhaps be easier in his own fortune; 6 but then, Irus, T a fellow of yesterday, who has but twelve hundred a year, would be his equal. Rather 1 Within his means. 2 Reckless. ' Show that this is bad English. State Steele's meaning cor- rectly. 4 Olassic names were frequently assigned to fancied and some- times to real individuals, where we should speak of Smith, Jones, and Robinson; or John Doe and Richard Roe. 6 At 5% he has to pay 300 interest, which, compared with his income (1500), is " four shillings in the pound." 6 Because he has to pay the taxes on his reputed possessions. T Who were Laertes and Irus originally ': See Pope's Odyssey. 66 SIS ROGER DE COVER LEY than this shall be, Laertes goes on to bring well-born beg- gars into the world/ and every twelvemonth charges his estate with at least one year's rent more by the birth of a child. Laertes and Irus are neighbors, whose way of living are an abomination to each other. Irus as moved by the fear of poverty, and Laertes by the shame of it. Though the motive of action is of so near affinity in both, and may be resolved into this, "That to each of them poverty is the greatest of all evils," yet are their manners very widely different. Shame of poverty makes Laertes launch into unnecessary equipage, vain expense, and lavish entertain- ments; fear of poverty makes Irus allow himself only plain necessaries, appear without a servant, sell his own corn, attend his laborers, and be himself a laborer. Shame of poverty makes Laertes go every day a step nearer to it, and fear of poverty stirs up Irus to make every day some further progress from it. These different motives produce the excesses which men are guilty of in the negligence of and provision for themselves. Usury, stock- jobbing, extortion, and oppres- sion have their seed in the dread of want; and vanity, riot, and prodigality, from the shame of it; but both these excesses are infinitely below the pursuit of a reasonable creature. After we have taken care to command so much as is necessary for maintaining ourselves in the order of men suitable to our character, the care of superfluities is a vice no less extravagant than the neglect of necessaries would have been before. Certain it is that they are both out of 1 Nature when she is followed with Reason and Good Sense. It is from this reflection that I always read Mr. Cowley with the greatest pleasure. His magnanimity is as much above that of other considerable men, as his understanding; and it is a true distinguishing spirit in the elegant author who published 1 Unlike. CONTENTMENT AND POVERTY 67 his works, 1 to dwell so much upon the temper of his mind and the moderation of his desires. By this means he has rendered his friend as amiable as famous. That state of life which bears the face of poverty with Mr. Cowley's "great vulgar," 2 is admirably described; and it is no small satisfaction to those of the same turn of desire, that he produces the authority of the wisest men of the best age of the world, to strengthen his opinion of the ordinary pursuits of mankind. It would, methinks-, be no ill maxim of life, if, accord- ing to that ancestor of Sir Roger whom I lately mentioned, every man would point to himself what sum he would resolve not to exceed. He might by this means cheat him- self into a tranquillity on this side of that expectation, or convert what he should get above it to nobler uses than his own pleasures or necessities. This temper of mind would exempt a man from an ignorant envy of restless men above him, and a more inex- cusable contempt of happy men below him. This would be sailing by some compass, living with some design ; but to be eternally bewildered in prospects of future gain, and putting on unnecessary armor against improbable blows of fortune, is a mechanic being, 3 which has not good sense 1 Dr. Thos. Sprat, Bishop of Rochester. 8 " Hence, ye profane ! I hate ye all; Both the great vulgar and the small. To virgin minds which yet their native whiteness hold Nor yet discolored with the love of gold That jaundice of the soul (Which makes it look so gilded and so foul) To you, ye very few, these truths I tell; The Muse inspires my song; hark, and observe it well." These are the opening lines of a paraphrase by Abraham Cowley, found at the conclusion of his essay Of Goodness. The paraphrase is of Horace's famous ode, beginning: " Odi profanum vulgus et arceo : Favete linguis ; carmina non prius AuditaMuparum sacerdos Virginibus puerisque canto." a This seems to mean : one who acts thus is a mechanical being, without good sense, etc. 68 SIR ROGER DE COVERLET for its direction, but is carried on by a sort of acquired instinct towards things below our consideration and un- worthy our esteem. It is possible that the tranquillity I now enjoy at Sir Roger's may have created in me this way of thinking, which is so abstracted from the common relish of the world ; but, as I am now in a pleasing arbor, surrounded with a beautiful landscape, I find no inclination so strong as to continue in these mansions, so remote from the ostenta- tious scenes of life; and am, at this present writing, phi- losopher enough to conclude, with Mr. Cowley, " If e'er ambition did my fancy cheat, With any wish so mean as to be great, Continue, Heaven, still from me to remove The humble blessings of that life I love ! " * T. 1 From Cowley's essay Of Greatness. SIR ROGER'S LABORS AX1) TROPHIES G9 SIR ROGER'S LABORS AND TROPHIES. [SpectptfrNo. 115. Thursday, July 12, 1711. Addison.] Ut sit mens sana in corpore sano. JUVENAL. BODILY labor is of two kinds : cither that which a man submits to for his livelihood, or that which he undergoes for his pleasure. The latter of them generally changes the name of labor for that of exercise, but differs only from ordinary labor as it rises from another motive. A country life abounds in both these kinds of labor, and for that reason gives a man a greater stock of health, and consequently a more perfect enjoyment of himself, than any other way of life. I consider the body as a system of tubes and glands, or, to use a more rustic phrase, a bundle of pipes and strainers, fitted to one another after so won- derful a manner as to make a proper engine J for the soul to work with. This description does not only comprehend the bones, tendons, veins, nerves, and arteries, but every muscle and every ligature, which is a composition of fibres that are so many imperceptible tubes or pipes, interwoven on all sides with invisible glands or strainers. This general idea of a human body, without considering it in its niceties of anatomy, lets us see how absolutely necessary labor is for the right preservation of it. There must be frequent motions and agitations, to mix, digest, and separate the juices contained in it, as well as to clear and cleanse that infinitude of pipes and strainers of which it is composed, and to, give their solid parts a more firm and lasting tone. Labor or exercise ferments the humors, 2 1 Machine. 2 Yet a third sort of humor. (See note 1, page 33.) 70 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY casts them into their proper channels, throws off redundan- cies, and helps nature in those secret distributions without which the body cannot subsist in its vigor, nor the soul act with cheerfulness. I might here mention the effects which this has upon all the faculties of the mind, by keeping the understanding clear, the imagination untroubled, and refining those spirits that are necessary for the proper exertion of our intellectual faculties, during the present laws of union between soul and body. It is to a neglect in this particular that we must ascribe the spleen 1 which is so frequent in men of stu- dious and sedentary tempers, as well as the vapors 2 to which those of the other sex are so often subject. Had not exercise been absolutely necessary for our well- being, nature would not have made the body so proper 3 for it, by giving such an activity to the limbs and such a pliancy to every part as necessarily produce those compres- sions, extensions, contortions, dilatations, and all other kinds of motions that are necessary for the preservation of such a system of tubes and glands as has been before men- tioned. And that we might not want inducements to en- gage us in such an exercise of the body as is proper for its welfare, it is so ordered that nothing valuable can be procured without it. Not to mention riches and honor, even food and raiment are not to be come at without the toil of the hands and sweat of the brows. Providence fur- nishes materials, but expects that we should work them up ourselves. The earth must be labored 4 before it gives its increase; and when it is forced into its several products, how many hands must they pass through before they are fit for use! Manufactures, trade, and agriculture natu- rally employ more than nineteen parts of the species in twenty; and as for those who are not obliged to labor, by the condition in which they are born, they are more mis- 1 Melancholy. " The feminine of spleen melancholy in a woman. * Well-fitted. 4 Cultivated. SIR ROGER'S LABORS AND TROPHIES 71 erable than the rest of mankind unless they indulge them- selves in that voluntary labor which goes by the name of exercise. My friend Sir Roger has been an indefatigable man in business of this kind, and has hung several parts of his house with the trophies of his former labors. The walls of his great hall are covered with the horns of several kinds of deer that he has killed in the chase, which he thinks the most valuable furniture of his house, as they afford him frequent topics of discourse, and show that he has not been idle. /At the lower end of the hall is a large otter's skin stuffed with hay, which his mother ordered to be hung up in that manner, and the knight looks upon with great satisfaction, because it seems he was but nine years old when his dog killed him. A little room adjoining to the hall is a kind of arsenal filled with guns of several sizes and inventions, with which the knight has made great havoc in the woods, and destroyed many thousands of pheasants, partridges, and woodcocks. His stable doors are patched with noses that belonged to foxes of the knight's own hunting down. Sir Roger showed me one of them, that for distinction sake has a brass nail struck through it, which cost him about fifteen hours' riding, carried him through half a dozen counties, killed him a brace of geldings, and lost above half his dogs. 1 This the knight looks upon as one of the greatest exploits of his life. The perverse widow, whom I have given some account of, was the death of several foxes; for Sir Roger has told me that in the course of his amours he patched the western door of his stable. Whenever the widow was cruel, the foxes were sure to pay for it. In proportion as his pas- sion for the widow abated, and old age came on, he left off fox-hunting; but a hare is not yet safe that sits within ten miles of his house. There is no kind of exercise which I would so recom- 2 Does Addison seem to approve of such zeal? 73 SIR ROGER DE COVE RLE Y mend to my readers of both sexes as this of riding, as there is none which so much conduces to health, and is every way accommodated to the body, according to the idea which I have given of it. Dr. Sydenham 1 is very lavish in its praises; and if the English reader will see the mechanical effects of it described at length, lie may find them in a book published not many years since, under the title of the " Medicina Gymnastica. " 2 For my own part, when I am in town, for want of these opportunities/ 1 exercise myself an hour every morning upon a dumb bell that is placed in a corner of my room, v* and pleases me the more because it does everything I require of it in the most profound silence.) My landlady and her daughters are so well acquainted with my hours of exercise, that they never come into my room to disturb me whilst I am ringing. 3 When I was some years younger than I am at present, I used to employ myself in a more laborious diversion, which I. learned from a Latin treatise of exercises that is written with great erudition. 4 It is there called the ffxiopax* 01 ) or the fighting with a man's own shadow, and consists in the brandishing of two short sticks grasped in each hand, and loaden with plugs of lead at either end. This opens the chest, exercises the limbs, and gives a man all the pleasure of boxing, without the blows. I could wish that several learned men would lay out that time which they employ in controversies and disputes about nothing, in this method of fighting with their own shad- ows. It might conduce very much to evaporate the spleen, which makes them uneasy to the public as well as to themselves. 1 An eminent Englishman, the foremost physician of his time. He died in 1689. * By Francis Fuller. a A " dumb-bell " ringing is much like the Spectator talking. 4 Artis Gymnastica.' apud Antiquos, etc., by Hieronymus Mer- ourialis, published at Venice in 1569. SIR ROGERS LABORS AND TROPHIES 7o To conclude, as I*am a compound of soul and body, I consider myself as obliged to l a double scheme of duties, and I think I have not fulfilled the business of the day when I do not thus employ the one 2 in labor and exercise, as well as the other 3 in study and contemplation. L. 1 I consider that 1 am bound to. a Viz., the body. 'What is "the other"? 74 SIX ROGER DE COVERLET m XV. SIR ROGER GOES A-HUNTING. [Spectator No. 116. Friday, July 13, 1711. Budget!.] Vocat ingenti clamore Cithaeron, Taygetique canes . VIRGIL. THOSE who have searched into human nature, observe that nothing so much shows the nobleness of the soul as that its felicity consists in action. Every man has such an active principle in him that he will find out something to employ himself upon, in whatever place or state of life he is posted. I have heard of a gentleman who was under close confinement in the Bastile 1 seven years; during which time he amused himself in scattering a few small pins about his chamber, gathering them up again, and placing them in different figures on the arm of a great chair. He often told his friends afterwards, that unless he had found out this piece of exercise, he verily believed he should have lost his senses. After what has been said, I need not inform my readers that Sir Koger, with whose character I hope they are at present pretty well acquainted, has in his youth gone through the whole course of those rural diversions which the country abounds in, and which seem to be extremely well suited to that laborious industry a man may observe here in a far greater degree than in towns and cities. I have before hinted at some of my friend's exploits: he has in his youthful days taken forty coveys of partridges in a season, and tired many a salmon with a line consisting but 1 See encyclopaedia and French histories. SIR ROGER GOES A-IWNTING 75 of a single hair. The constant thanks and good wishes of the neighborhood always attended him on account of his remarkable enmity towards foxes, having destroyed l more of those vermin 2 in one year than it was thought the whole country could have produced. Indeed, the knight does not scruple to own, among his most intimate friends, that in order to establish his reputation this way, he has secretly sent for great numbers of them 3 out of other counties, Avhich he used to turn loose about the country by night, that he might the better signalize himself in their destruc- tion the next day. His hunting horses were the finest and best managed in all these parts: his tenants are still full of the praises of a gray stone-horse 4 that unhappily staked 5 himself several years since, and was buried with great solemnity in the orchard. Sir Roger, being at present too old for fox-hunting, to keep himself in action has disposed of his beagles and got a pack of stop-hounds. What these want in speed he en- deavors to make amends for by the deepness of their mouths and the variety of their notes, which are suited in such manner to each other that the whole cry 6 makes up a complete concert. He is so nice in this particular 7 that a gentleman having made him a present of a very fine hound the other day, the knight returned it by the servant with a great many expressions of civility, but desired him to tell his master that the dog he had sent was indeed a most excellent bass, but that at present he only wanted a counter-tenor. Could I believe my friend had ever read Shakespeare, I should certainly conclude he had taken the hint from Theseus, in the ''Midsummer Night's Dream": 8 1 The syntax is faulty here. Amend it. a Vermin (from vermis, a worm) commonly means noxious little animals, as rats, mice, bugs, flies, etc. Its extension to creatures as large as foxes is not in accord with the modern idiom. 3 This would seem to refer to friends, but means foxes. 4 Stallion. 6 Became impaled while leaping a fence. 6 Pack. ' Particular in this respect. * Act IV., Sc. i. 76 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY "'My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind, So flew'd, 1 so sanded, 3 and their heads are hung With ears that sweep away the morning dew : Crook-knee'd and dew-lapp'd 3 like Thessalian bulls ; Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouths, like bells, Each under each, 4 a cry 6 more tuneable Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn." Sir Roger is so keen at this sport that he has been out almost every day since I came down ; and upon the chap- lain's offering to lend me his easy pad, I was prevailed on yesterday morning to make one of the company. I was extremely pleased, as we rid along, to observe the general benevolence of all the neighborhood towards my friend. The farmers' sons thought themselves happy if they could open a gate for the good old knight as he passed by; which he generally requited with a nod or a smile, and a kind inquiry after their fathers and uncles. After we had rid about a mile from home, we came upon a large heath, and the sportsmen began to beat. 6 They had done so for some time, when, as I was at a little dis- tance from the rest of the company, I saw a hare pop out from a small furze-brake 7 almost under my horse's feet. I marked the way she took, which I endeavored to make the company sensible of by extending my arm; but to no purpose, till Sir Roger, who knows that none of my ex- traordinary motions are insignificant, rode up to me, and asked me if puss was gone that way. Upon my answer- ing "Yes," 8 he immediately called in the dogs and put them upon the scent. As they were going off, I heard one of the country fellows muttering to his companion that 1 Having large flews or chops especially prominent in hounds. a Marked with yellow spots. 3 With pendulous skin under the neck especially prominent in cattle. 4 Like notes in a scale. 5 Pack of hounds. * Strike the bushes, etc., for the purpose of rousing game. ' Thicket of furze. * Another speech from the Spectator. (See note 6. page 28). SIH ROGER GOES A-HUXTING 77 'twas a wonder they had not lost all their sport, for want of the silent gentleman's crying " Stole away! " This, 1 with my aversion to leaping hedges, made me withdraw to a rising ground, from a whence I could have the picture of the whole chase, without the fatigue of keep- ing in with the hounds. The hare immediately threw them above 3 a mile behind her; but I was pleased to find that instead of running straight forwards, or, in hunter's language, "flying the country," as I was afraid she might have done, she wheeled about, and described a sort of cir- cle round the hill where I had taken my station, in such manner as gave me a very distinct view of the sport. I could see her first pass by, and the dogs some time after- wards unravelling the whole track she had made, and fol- lowing her through all her doubles. I was at the same time delighted in observing that deference which the rest of the pack paid to each particular hound, according to the character he had acquired amongst them : if they were at fault, and an old hound of reputation opened but once, he was immediately followed by the whole cry; while a raw dog, or one who was a noted liar, might have yelped his heart out, without being taken notice of. The hare now, after having squatted two or three times, and been put up again as often, came still nearer to the place where she was at first started. The dogs pursued her, and these were followed by the jolly knight, who rode upon a white gelding, encompassed by his tenants and ser- vants, and cheering his hounds with all the gaiety of five- and-twenty. One of the sportsmen rode up to me, and told me that he was sure the chase was almost at an end, because the old dogs, which had hitherto lain behind, now headed the pack. The fellow was in the right. Our hare took a large field just under us, followed by the full cry " in view." I must confess the brightness of the weather, the cheerfulness of everything around me, the chiding of 'This what? * Oinit. * More than. 78 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY the hounds, which was returned upon us in a double echo from two neighboring hills, with the hollowing of the sportsmen, and the sounding of the horn, lifted my spirits into a most lively pleasure, which I freely indulged because I was sure it was innocent. If I was under any concern, it was on the account of the poor hare, that was now quite spent, 1 and almost within the reach of her enemies; when the huntsman, getting forward, threw down his pole before the dogs. They were now within eight yards of that game which they had been pursuing for almost as many hours ; yet, on the signal before mentioned, they all made a sud- den stand, and though they continued opening 2 as much as before, durst not once attempt to pass beyond the pole. At the same time Sir Eoger rode forward, and, alighting, took up the hare in his arms, which he soon delivered up to one of his servants with an order, if she could be kept alive, to let her go in his great orchard, where it seems he has several of these prisoners of war, who live together in a very comfortable captivity. I was highly pleased to see the discipline of the pack, and the good-nature of the knight, who could not find 3 in his heart to murder 4 a creature that had given him so much diversion. As we were returning home I remembered that Mon- sieur Pascal, in his most excellent discourse on the " Misery of Man," tells us that all our endeavors after greatness pro- ceed from nothing but a desire of being surrounded by a multitude of persons and affairs that may hinder us from looking into ourselves, which is a view we cannot bear. He afterwards goes on to show that our love of sports comes from the same reason, and is particularly severe upon hunt- ing. "What," says he, "unless it be to drown thought, can make men throw away so much time and pains upon a silly animal, which they might buy cheaper in the mar- ket?" The foregoing reflection is certainly just when a 1 Exhausted. ' Baying. * It. 4 Is this more significant than kill ? ROGER GOES A-HUNTING 79 man suffers his whole mind to be drawn into his sports, and altogether loses himself in the woods; l but does not affect those who propose a far more laudable end from this exercise, I mean, the preservation of health, and keeping all the organs of the soul in a condition to exe- cute her orders. Had that incomparable person, whom I last quoted, been a little more indulgent to himself in this point, the world might probably have enjoyed him much longer; whereas through too great an application to his studies in his youth, he contracted that ill habit of body which, after a tedious sickness, carried him off in the fortieth year of his age; and the whole history we have of his life till that time, is but one continued account of the behavior of a noble soul struggling under innumerable pains and distempers. 2 For my own part, I intend to hunt twice a week during my stay with Sir Eoger; and shall prescribe the moderate use of this exercise to all my country friends, as the best kind of physic for mending a bad constitution and pre- Berviug a good one. I cannot do this better than in the following lines out of Mr. Dryden: " The first physicians by debauch were made ; Excess began, and sloth sustains the trade. By chase our long-lived fathers earned their food ; Toil strung the nerves, and purified the blood ; But we their sons, a pamper'd race of men. Are dwindled down to threescore years and ten. Better to hunt in fields for health unbought Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught. The wise for cure on exercise depend : God never made his work for man to mend." X. 3 1 See note 1, p. 71. a Look up the life of Pascal and see for what he was noted. 3 See Spectator No. 221. 80 SIR ROGER DE COVERLET XVI. A VILLAGE WITCH. [Spectator No. 117. Saturday, July 14, 1711. Addison.] Ipsi sibi soinnia fingunt. VIRGIL. THERE are some opinions in which a man should stand neuter, without engaging his assent to one side or the other. Such a hovering faith as this, which refuses to settle upon any determination, is absolutely necessary to a mind that is careful to avoid errors and prepossessions. When the arguments press equally on both sides, in matters that are indifferent to us, the safest method is to give up ourselves to neither. It is with this temper of mind that I consider the sub- ject of witchcraft. When I hear the relations that are made from all parts of the world, not only from Norway and Lapland, from the East and West Indies, but from every particular nation in Europe, I cannot forbear think- ing that there is such an intercourse and commerce with evil spirits as that which we express by the name of Avitch- craft. But when I consider that the ignorant and credu- lous parts of the world abound most in these relations, and that the persons among us who are supposed to engage in such an infernal commerce are people of a weak under- standing and a crazed imagination, and at the same time reflect upon the many impostures and delusions of this nature that have been detected in all ages, I endeavor to suspend my belief till I hear more certain accounts than any which have yet come to my knowledge. In short, when I consider the question whether there are such per- sons in the world as those we call witches, my mind is divided between the two opposite opinions; or rather (to A VILLAGE WITCH 81 speak my thoughts freely), I believe in general that there is, and has been, such a thing as witchcraft; but at the same time can give no credit to any particular instance of it. I am engaged in this speculation by some occurrences that I met with yesterday, which I shall give my reader an account of at large. As I was walking with my friend Sir Roger by the side of one of his woods, an old woman applied herself to me for my charity. Her dress and figure put me in mind of the following description in Otway: " In a close lane as I pursued my journey. I spied a wrinkled hag. with age grown double, Picking dry sticks, and mumbling to herself. Her eyes with scalding rheum ' were gall'd and red -, Cold palsy shook her head ; her hands seein'd withered ', And on her crooked shoulders had she wrapp'd The tatter'd remnants of an old striped hanging, Which served to keep her carcase from the cold ; So there was nothing of a piece * about her. Her lower weeds 3 were all o'er coarsely patch'd With diff'rent color'd rags black, red, white, yellow And seein'd to speuk variety of wretchedness." As I was musing on this description, and comparing it with the object before me, the knight told me that this very old woman had the reputation of 4 a witch all over the country, that her lips were observed to be always in motion, and that there was not a switch about her house which her neighbors did not believe had carried her several hundreds of miles. If she chanced to stumble, they al- ways found sticks or straws that lay in the figure of a cross before her. If she made any mistake at church, and cried Amen in a wrong place, they never failed to conclude that she was saying her prayers backwards. There Avas not a maid in the parish that would take a pin of her, though 1 A serous or mucous discharge from eyes or nose. 9 Her clothing (rags) did not match. 3 Garments. 4 See note 7, p. 2. 82 SIR ROGER DE COYERLEY she would offer a bag of money with it. 1 She goes by the name of Moll White, and has made the country ring with several imaginary exploits which are palmed upon her. If the dairy maid does not make her butter come so soon as she should have it, Moll White is at the bottom of the churn. If a horse sweats in the stable, Moll White has been upon his back. If a hare makes an unexpected escape from the hounds, the huntsman curses Moll AVhite. "Nay" (says Sir Eoger), "I have known the master of the pack, upon such an occasion, send one of his servants to see if Moll White had been out that morning." This account raised my curiosity so far that I begged my friend Sir Roger to go with me into her hovel, which stood in a solitary corner under the side of the wood. Upon our first entering, Sir Roger winked to me, and pointed at something that stood behind the door, which, upon looking that way, I found to be an old broomstaff. 2 At the same time he whispered me in the ear to take notice of a tabby cat that sat in the chimney-corner, which, as the old knight told me, lay under as bad a report as Moll White herself; for besides that Moll is said often to accompany her in the same shape, the cat is reported to have spoken twice or thvice in her life, and to have played several pranks above the capacity of an ordinary cat. 8 I was secretly concerned to see human nature in so much wretchedness and disgrace, but at the same time could not 1 The belief in witches at this time was quite general. Under the law decreeing death to those who "dealt with evil spirits, or in- voked them whereby any persons were killed or lamed," etc., two women had recently been executed at Northampton, and five years later (171G) a Mrs. Hicks and her daughter were hanged at Hunting- ton for "selling their souls to the devil, making their neighbors vomit pins," etc., etc. GREENE. Morley has an interesting note. He says the last condemnation to death was in 1712, and that the culprit was pardoned; but his ac- counts of the evidence at the trial are well-nigh incredible. 8 Witches were supposed to mount them in their nocturnal rides through the air. 3 The devil was believed to assume the form of a cat, in order to converse with witches under the same shape. A VILLAGE WITCH 83 forbear smiling to hear Sir Roger, who is a little puzzled about the old woman, advising her, as a justice of peace, to avoid all communication with the devil, and never to hurt any of her neighbor's cattle. AVe concluded our visit with a bounty, which was very acceptable. In our return home, Sir Roger told me that old Moll had been often brought before him for making children spit pins, and giving maids the nightmare; and that the coun- try people would be tossing her into a pond and trying experiments with her every day, if it was not for him and his chaplain. I have since found, upon inquiry, that Sir Roger was several times staggered with the reports that had been brought him concerning this old woman, and would fre- quently have bound her over to the county sessions had not his chaplain with much ado persuaded him to the contrary. J have been the more particular in this account because I hear there is scarce a village in England that has not a Moll AVhite in it. AVhen an old woman begins to dote, and grow chargeable to a parish, she is generally turned into a witch, and fills the whole country with extravagant fancies, imaginary distempers, and terrifying dreams. In the mean time the poor wretch that is the innocent occa- sion of so many evils begins to be frighted at herself, and sometimes confesses secret commerce and familiarities that her imagination forms in a delirious old age. This fre- quently cuts off charity from the greatest objects of com- passion, and inspires people with a malevolence towards those poor, decrepit parts of our species in whom human nature is defaced by infirmity and dotage. L. 84 SIR ROGER DE COVERLET XVII. A PERVERSE WOMAN. [Spectator No. 118. Monday, July 16, 1711. Steele.] Haeret later! lethalis arundo. VIRGIL. THIS agreeable seat is surrounded with so many pleasing walks which are struck out of a wood in the midst of which the house stands, that one can hardly ever be weary of rambling from one labyrinth of delight to another. To one used to live in a city, the charms of the country are so exquisite that the mind is lost in a certain transport which raises us above ordinary life, and is yet not strong enough to be inconsistent with tranquillity. This state of mind was I in, ravished with the murmur of waters, the whis- per of breezes, the singing of birds; and whether I looked up to the heavens, down on the earth, or turned to the prospects around me, still struck with new sense of pleas- ure; when I found by the voice of my friend, who walked by me, that we had insensibly strolled into the grove sacred to the widow. " This woman," says he, "is of all others the most unintelligible; she either designs to marry, or she does not. What is the most perplexing of all is, that she doth not either say to her lovers she has any resolution against that condition of life in general, or that she ban- ishes them; but, conscious of her own merit, she permits their addresses without fear of any ill consequence, or want of respect, from their rage or despair. She has that in her aspect against which it is impossible to offend. A man whose thoughts are constantly bent upon so agreeable an object must be excused if the ordinary occurrences in conversation are below his attention. I call her, indeed, A PERVERSE WOMAN $5 perverse, but, alas ! why do I call her so ? Because her superior merit is such that I cauuot approach her without awe, that my heart is checked by too much esteem; I am angry that her charms are not more accessible, that I am more inclined to worship than salute her; how often have I wished her unhappy that I might have an opportunity of serving her ? and how often troubled in that very imagina- tion, at giving her the pain of being obliged? Well, I have led a miserable life in secret upon her account; but fancy she would have condescended to have some regard for me if it had not been for that watchful animal, her confidante. "Of all persons under the sun" (continued he, calling me by my name), " be sure to set a mark upon confidantes; they are of all people the most impertinent. What is most pleasant to observe in them is that they assume to themselves the merit of the persons whom they have in their custody. Orestilla is a great fortune, and in wonder- ful danger of surprises, therefore full of suspicions of the least indifferent thing, particularly careful of new acquaint- ance, and of growing too familiar with the old. Themista, her favorite woman, is every whit as careful of whom she speaks to and what she says. Let the ward be a beauty, her confidante shall treat you with an air of distance; let her be a fortune, and she assumes the suspicious behavior of her friend and patroness. Thus it is that very many of our unmarried women of distinction are to all intents and purposes married, except the consideration of different sexes. They are directly under the conduct of their whis- perer, 1 and think they are in a state of freedom while they. can prate with one of these attendants of all men in gen- eral and still avoid the man they most like. You do not see one heiress in a hundred whose fate does not turn upon this circumstance of choosing a confidante. Thus it is that the lady is addressed to, presented, and nattered, only 1 Intimate female friend. 86 SIR ROGER DE COVERLET by proxy, in her woman. In my case, how is it possible that" Sir Roger was proceeding in his harangue, when we heard the voice of one speaking very importunately, and repeat- ing these words, " What, not one smile? " We followed the sound till we came to a close thicket, on the other side of which we saw a young woman sitting as it were in a personated sullenness just over a transparent fountain. Opposite to her stood Mr. William, Sir Roger's master of the game. The knight whispered me, " Hist, these are lovers." The huntsman, looking earnestly at the shadow of the young maiden in the stream: J " O thou dear pict- ure, if thou couldst remain there in the absence of that fair creature, whom you represent 2 in the water, how will- ingly could I stand here satisfied for ever, without troub- ling my dear Betty herself with any mention of her unfor- tunate William, whom she is angry with; but alas! when she pleases to be gone, thou wilt also vanish yet let me talk to thee while thou dost stay. Tell my dearest Betty thou dost not more depend upon her than does her William; her absence will make away with me as well as thee. If she offers to remove thee, I'll jump into these waves to lay hold on thee; herself, her own dear person, I must never embrace again. Still do you 8 hear me without one smile ? it is too much to bear." He had no sooner spoke these words but he made an offer of throwing himself into the water; at which his mistress started up, and at the next instant he jumped across the fountain and met her in an embrace. She, half recovering from her fright, said in the most charming voice imaginable, and with a tone of complaint, "I thought how well you would drown your- self. No, no, you won't drown yourself till you have taken your leave of Susan Holliday." 4 The huntsman, with a tenderness that spoke the most passionate love, and 1 Understand said. ' a Thou representest. ' Dost thou. 4 A rival. A PERVERSE WOMAN 87 with his cheek close to hers, whispered the softest vows of fidelity in her ear, and cried, ''Don't, my dear, believe a word Kate Willow says; she is spiteful and makes stories, because she loves to hear me talk to herself for your sake." " Look you there," quoth Sir Roger, ' ; do you see there, all mischief comes from confidantes! But let us not inter- rupt them; the maid is honest, and the man dares not be otherwise, for he knows I loved her father; I will interpose in this matter, and hasten the wedding. Kate AYillow is a witty, mischievous wench in the neighborhood, who was a beauty; and makes me hope I shall see the perverse widow in her condition. 1 She was so flippant with her answers to all the honest fellows that came near her, and so very vain of her beauty, that she has valued herself upon her charms till they are ceased. She therefore now makes it her business to prevent other young women from being more discreet than she was herself; however, the saucy thing said the other day Avell enough, ' Sir Roger and I must make a match, for we are both despised by those we loved.' The hussy has a great deal of power wherever she comes, and has her share of cunning. "However, when I reflect upon this woman. 2 I do not know whether in the main I am the worse for having loved her; whenever she is recalled to my imagination my youth returns, and I feel a forgotten warmth in my veins. This affliction in my life has streaked all my conduct with a softness of which I should otherwise have been incapable. It is, perhaps, to this dear image in my heart owing, that I am apt to relent, that I easily forgive, and that many desirable things are grown into my temper which I should not have arrived at by better motives than the thought of being one day hers. I am pretty well satisfied such a pas- sion as I have had is never well cured ; and between you and me, I am often apt to imagine it has had some whin> J With her beautv decaved. 3 Xot Kate Willow the widow. 88 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY sical effect upon my brain. For I frequently find that in my most serious discourse I let fall some comical familiar- ity of speech or odd phrase that makes the company laugh; however, I cannot but allow she J is a most excellent woman. When she is in the country, I warrant she does not run into dairies, but reads upon the nature of plants; but has a glass hive, and comes into the garden out of books to see them work, and observe the policies of their commonwealth. 2 She understands everything. I'd give ten pounds to hear her argue with my friend Sir Andrew Freeport about trade. No, no; for all she looks so inno- cent, as it were, take my word for it she is no fool." T. 1 Look for the antecedent. ' See note 4, p. 33. GOOD BREEDING IN THE COUNTRY 89 XVIII. GOOD BREEDING IN' THE COUNTRY. [Spectator No. 119. Tuesday, July 17, 1711. Addison.] Urbem quara dicunt Komain. Meliboee, putavi Stultus ego huic nostrae sirailem . VIRGIL. THE first and most obvious reflections which arise in a man who changes the city for the country, are upon the different manners of the people whom he meets with in those two different scenes of life. By manners I do not mean morals, but behavior and good breeding as they show themselves in the town and in the country. And here, in the first place, I must observe a very great revolution that has happened in this article of good breed- ing. Several obliging deferences, condescensions, and sub- missions, with many outward forms and ceremonies that accompany them, were first of all brought up among the politer part of mankind, who lived in courts and cities, and distinguished themselves from the rustic part of the species (who on alt occasions acted bluntly and naturally) by such a mutual complaisance and intercourse of civili- ties. These forms of conversation by degrees multiplied and grew troublesome; the modish world found too great a constraint in them, and have therefore thrown most of them aside. Conversation was so encumbered with show and ceremony that it stood in need of a reformation to retrench its superfluities, and restore it to its natural good sense and beauty. At present, therefore, an uncon- strained carriage, and a certain openness of behavior are the heighj of good breeding. The fashionable world is grown free and easy; our manners sit more loose upon us. ig is so modish as an agreeable negligence. lu a 90 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY word, good breeding shows itself most where, to an ordi- nary eye, it appears the least. If after this we look on the people of mode l in the country, we find in them the manners of the last age. They have no sooner fetched themselves up to the fashion of the polite world but 2 the town has dropped them, and are 3 nearer to the first state of nature than to those refine- ments which formerly reigned in the court and still prevail in the country. One may now know a man that never con- versed in the world by his excess of good breeding. A polite country squire shall make you as many bows in half an hour as would serve a courtier for a week. There is infinitely more to do about place and precedency in a meet- ing of justices' wives than in an assembly of duchesses. This rural politeness is very troublesome to a man of my temper, who generally take the chair that is next me, and walk first or last, in the front or in the rear, as chance directs. I have known my friend Sir Roger's dinner almost cold before the company could adjust the ceremo- nial, and be prevailed upon to sit down; and have heartily pitied my old friend, when I have seen him forced to pick and cull his guests, as they sat at the several parts of his table, that he might drink their healths according to their respective ranks and qualities. Honest "Will Wimble, who I should have thought liad been 4 altogether iminfected with ceremony, gives me abundance of trouble in this par- ticular. Though he has been fishing all the morning, he will not help himself at dinner till I am served. When we are going out of the hall, he runs behind me; and last night, as we were walking in the fields, stopped short at a stile till I came up to it, and upon my making signs to him to get over, told me, with a serious smile, that, sure, I believed they had no manners in the country. / There has happened another revolution in the point of 1 Fashion. 9 Than. 9 The subject is "town." 4 \Vonld be. GOOD BREEDING IN THE COUNTRY 91 good breeding, which relates to the conversation among men of mode, 1 and which I cannot but look upon as very extraordinary. It was certainly one of the first distinc- tions of a well-bred man to express everything that had the most remote appearance of being obscene in modest terms and distant phrases; whilst the clown, who had no such delicacy of conception and expression, clothed his ideas in those plain, homely terms that are the most obvi- ous and natural. This kind of good manners was perhaps carried to an excess, so a 5 to make conversation too stiff , formal, and precise; for which reason (as hypocrisy in one age is generally succeeded by atheism in another) conversa- tion is 2 in a great measure relapsed into the first extreme; so that at present several of our men of the town, and pai'ticularly those who have been polished 3 in France, make use of the most coarse, uncivilized words in our language, and utter themselves often in such a manner as a clown would blush to hear. /this infamous piece of good breeding which reigns among the coxcombs of the town has not yet made its way into the country; and as it is impossible for such an irra- tional way of conversation to last long among a people that make any profession of religion, or show of modesty, if the country gentlemen get into it 4 they will certainly be left in the lurch. Their good breeding will come too late to them, and they will be thought a parcel of lewd clowns, while they fancy themselves talking together like men of wit and pleasure. As the two points of good breeding which I have hith- erto insisted upon regard behavior and conversation, there is a third which turns upon dress. In this, too, the coun- try are 5 very much behindhand. The rural beaus are 6 not yet got out of the fashion that took place at the time of the Kevolution, but ride about the country in red coats and 1 Fashion. 2 Has. * Note the satire. * The " irrational wav." 5 Is. ' Have. 92 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY laced hats, while the women in many parts are still trying to outvie one another in the height of their head-dresses. But a friend of mine, who is now upon the western cir- cuit, having promised to give me an account of the several modes and fashions that prevail in the different parts of the nation through which he passes, I shall defer the enlarging upon this last topic till I have received a letter from him, which I expect every post. L. SIR ROGER'S POULTRY 93 XIX. SIR ROGER'S POULTRY. [Spectator N M . \ }; j. $* ; {}};} - Equidcm credo, quia sit divinitus illis Ingeniuin - . Jovis omnia plena. VIRGIL. MY friend Sir Roger is very often merry with me upon my passing so much of my time among his poultry. He has caught me twice or thrice looking after a bird's nest, and several times sitting an hour or two together near an hen and chickens. He tells me he believes I am personally acquainted with every fowl about his house; calls such a particular cock my favorite, and frequently complains that his ducks and geese have more of my company than himself. I must confess I am infinitely delighted with those spec- ulations of nature which are to be made in a country life; and as my reading has very much lain among books of natural history, I cannot forbear recollecting upon this occasion the several remarks which I have met with in authors, and comparing them with what falls under my own observation: the arguments for Providence drawn from the natural history of animals being, in my opinion, demonstrative. The make of every kind of animal is different from that of every other kind ; and yet there is not the least turn in the muscles or twist in the fibres of any one, which does not render them more proper for that particular animal's 1 A considerable portion of each of the two papers is omitted as having no connection with the sketches of Sir Roger and his friends. 94 SIB ROGER DE COVERLEY way of life than any other cast or texture of them would have been. It is astonishing to consider the different degrees of care that descend from the parent to the young, so far as is absolutely necessary for the leaving a posterity. Some creatures cast their eggs as chance directs them, and think of them no farther, as insects and several kinds of fish; others, of a nicer frame, 1 find out proper beds to deposit them in, and there leave them, as the serpent, the croco- dile, and ostrich; others hatch their eggs and tend the birth till it is able to shift for itself. What can we call the principle which directs every dif- ferent kind of bird to observe a particular plan in the structure of its nest, and directs all of the same species to work after the sanio model? It cannot be imitation; for though you hatch a crow under a hen, and never let it see any of the works of its own kind, the nest it makes shall be the same, to the laying of a stick, with all the other nests of the same species. It cannot be reason; for were animals indued with it to as great a degree as man, their buildings would be as different as ours, according to the different conveniences that they would propose to themselves. Is it not remarkable that the same temper of weather which raises this genial warmth in animals, should cover the trees with leaves, and the fields with grass, for their security and concealment, and produce such infinite swarms of insects for the support and sustenance of their respective broods ? Is it not wonderful that the love of the parent should be so violent while it lasts, and that it should last no longer than is necessary for the preservation of the young? . . . For so soon as the wants of the latter cease, the mother withdraws her fondness, and leaves them to provide for themselves; and what is a very remarkable circumstance 1 Higher order. SIR ROGER'S POULTRY 05 in this part of instinct, we find that the love of the parent may be lengthened out beyond its usual time, if the pres- ervation of the species requires it: as we may see in l birds that drive away their young ;is soon as they are able to get their livelihood, but continue to feed them if they are tied to the nest, or coniined within a cage, or by any other means appear to be out of a condition of supplying their own necessities. . . Animals in their generation are wiser than the sons of men; 2 but their wisdom is confined to a few particulars, and lies in a very narrow compass. Take a brute out of 3 his instinct, and you find him wholly deprived of under- standing. To use an instance that comes often under observation : With what caution does the hen provide herself a nest in places unfrequented, and free from noise and disturb- ance! When she has laid her eggs in such a manner that she can cover them, what care does she take in turn- ing them frequently, that all parts may partake of the vital warmth! When she leaves them, to provide for her necessary sustenance, how punctually does she return be- fore they have time to cool and become incapable of pro- ducing an animal! In the summer you see her giving herself greater freedoms, 4 and quitting her care for above two hours together; but in winter, when the rigor of the season would chill the principles of life, and' destroy the young one, she grows more assiduous in her attendance, and stays away but half the time. When the birth ap- proaches, with how much nicety and attention does she help the chick to break its prison ! not to take notice of her covering it from the injuries of the weather, providing it proper nourishment, and teaching it to help itself; nor to mention her forsaking the nest, if after the usual time of reckoning the young one does not make its appearance. 1 The case of. a What is the Scriptural allusion ? Away from. 4 We may say liberties, but not "freedoms." 96 KIR ROGER DE COVERLEY A chemical operation could not be followed with greater art or diligence than is seen in the hatching of a chick; though there are many other birds that show an infinitely greater sagacity in all the forementioned particulars. But at the same time the hen, that has all this seeming ingenuity (which is indeed absolutely necessary for the propagation of the species), considered in other respects, is without the least glimmerings of thought or common- sense. She mistakes a piece of chalk for an egg, and sits upon it in the same manner; she is insensible of any increase or diminution in the number of those she lays; she does not distinguish between her own and those of another species; and when the birth appears of never so different a bird, will cherish it for her own. In all these circumstances which do not carry an immediate re- gard to the subsistence of herself or her species, she is a Very idiot. There is not, in my opinion, anything more mysterious in nature than this instinct in animals, which thus rises above reason, and falls infinitely short of it. It cannot be accounted for by any properties in matter, and at the same time works after so odd a manner that one cannot think it the faculty of an intellectual being. For my own part, I look upon it as upon the principle of gravitation in bod- ies, which is not to be explained by any known qualities inherent in the bodies themselves, nor from any laws of mechanism, but, according to the best notions of the greatest philosophers, is an immediate impression from the first Mover and the divine Energy acting in the creatures. 1 L. As I was walking this morning in the great yard that belongs to my friend's country-house, I was wonderfully pleased to see the different workings of instinct in a hen 'Here No. 120 ends. ,S77? ROGER'S POULTRY 97 followed by a brood of ducks. The young, upon the sight of a pond, immediately ran into it; while the step-mother, with all imaginable anxiety, hovered about the borders of it, to call them out of an element that appeared to her so dangerous and destructive. As the different principle which acted in these different animals cannot be termed i reason, so when- we call it instinct we mean something we have no knowledge of. To me, as I hinted in my last paper, it seems the immediate direction of Providence, and such an operation of the Supreme Being as that which determines all the portions of matter to their proper cen- tres. A modern philosopher, quoted by Monsieur Bayle, 1 in his learned ''Dissertation on the Souls of Brutes," delivers the same opinion, though in a bolder form of words, where he says, " Deus cst anima brutorum (God himself is the soul of brutes)." Who can tell what to call that seeming sagacity in animals which directs them to such food as is proper for them and makes them naturally avoid whatever is noxious or unwholesome ? . Dam- pier, 2 in his "Travels," tells us, that when seamen are thrown upon any of the unknown coasts of America, they never venture upon the fruit of any tree, how tempt- ing soever it may appear, unless they observe that it is marked with the pecking of birds; but fall on without any fear or apprehension where the birds have been before them. . . I could wish our Royal Society would compile a body of natural history, the best that could be gathered together from books and observations. If the several writers among them took each his particular, species, 3 and gave us a. dis- tinct account of its original, birth, and education its poli- cies, hostilities, and alliances, with the frame and texture of its inward and outward parts, and particularly those 1 Pierre Bayle, the author of a famous dictionary published in French in 1695, and in English the year before this essay was written. 2 Capt. William Dampier, in his Voyages Round the World. ' The species with which he was most familiar. 7 98 *S'/S ROGER DE COVERLET that distinguish it from all other animals with their pe- culiar aptitudes for the state of being in which Providence has placed them it would be one of the best services their studies could do mankind, and not a little redound to the glory of the all-wise Contriver. L. MR ROUEU ON THE JlEXCU Doubtless this refers to a lover's quarrel with the Countess of Warwick, a per- verse widow whom he afterwards married. He was chief secretary to Lord Wharton, lord-lieutenant of Ireland. 110 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY XXII. SIR ROGER AND PARTY SPIRIT. [Spectator No. 125. Tuesday, July 24, 1711. Addison.'} Ne, pueri, ne tanta animis assuescite bella : Neu patriae validas in viscera vertite vires. VIRGIL. MY worthy friend. Sir Roger, when we are talking of the malice of parties, very frequently tells us an accident that happened to him when he was a school-boy, which was at a time when the feuds ran high between the Roundheads * and Cavaliers. 1 This worthy knight, being then but a stripling, had occasion to inquire which was the way to St. Anne's Lane, upon which the person whom he spoke to, instead of answering his question, called him a young popish cur, and asked him who had made Anne a saint! The boy, being in some confusion, inquired of the next he met, which was the way to Anne's Lane; but was called a prick-eared cur for his pains, and instead of being shown the way, was told that she had been rf saint before he was born, and would be one after he was hanged. " Upon this," says Sir Roger, "I did not think fit to repeat the former question, but going into every lane of the neigh- borhood, asked what they called the name of that lane." By which ingenious artifice he found out the place he in- quired after, without giving offence to any party. Sir Roger generally closes this narrative with reflections on the mischief that parties do in the country; how they spoil good neighborhood, and make honest gentlemen hate one another; besides that they manifestly tend to the prejudice of the land-tax, and the destruction of the game. 2 1 The partisans of the Commonwealth and of the King. 8 What thoughts are uppermost in Sir Roger's mind ? SIR ROGER AND PARTY SPIRIT \\\ There cannot a greater judgment befall a country than such a dreadful spirit of division as rends a government into two distinct people, and makes them greater stran- gers and more averse to one another than if they were actu- ally two different nations. The effects of such a division are pernicious to the last degree, not only with regard to those advantages which they give the common enemy, but to those private evils which they produce in the heart of almost every particular person. This influence is very fatal both to men's morals and their understandings; it sinks the virtue of a nation, and not only so, but destroys even common sense. A furious party spirit, when it rages in its full violence, exerts itself in civil war and bloodshed; and when it is under its greatest restraints naturally breaks out in false- hood, detraction, calumny, and a partial administration of justice. In a word, it fills a nation with spleen and rancor, and extinguishes all the seeds of good-nature, compassion, and humanity. Plutarch says, 1 very finely, that a man should not allow himself to hate even his enemies; "Because," says he, "if you indulge this passion in some occasions, it will rise of itself in others; if you hate your enemies, you will Con- tract such a vicious habit of mind as by degrees will break out upon those who are your friends, or those who are in- different to you." I might here observe how admirably this precept of morality (which derives the malignity of hatred from the passion itself, and not from its object) answers to that great rule which was dictated 2 to the world about an hundred^ years before this philosopher wrote; but instead of that, I shall only take notice, with a real grief of heart, that the minds of many good men among us appear soured with party principles, and alienated from one another in such a manner as seems to me altogether 1 Moral Essays : " How One shall be helped by Enemies." 9 By whom ? Where is it recorded ? 112 SIR ROGER DE COVE RLE Y inconsistent with the dictates either of reason or religion. /Zeal for a public cause is apt to breed passions in the hearts of virtuous persons to which the regard of 1 their own pri- vate interest would never have betrayed them. If this party spirit has so ill an effect on our morals, it has likewise a very great one upon our judgments. We often hear a poor, insipid paper or pamphlet cried up, and sometimes a noble piece depreciated, by those who are of a different principle from the author. One who is actuated by this spirit is almost under an incapacity of discerning either real blemishes or beauties. A man of merit in a different principle, 2 is like an object seen in two different mediums, that appears crooked or broken, however straight or entire it may be in itself. 3 For this reason, there is scarce a person of any figure in England who does not go by two contrary characters, as opposite to one another as light and darkness. Knowledge and learning suffer in a particular manner from this strange prejudice, which at present prevails amongst all ranks and degrees in the Brit- ish nation. As men formerly became eminent in learned societies by their parts and acquisitions, they now distin- guish themselves by the warmth and violence with which they espouse their respective parties. Books are valued upon the like considerations. An abusive, scurrilous style passes for satire, and a dull scheme of party notions is called fine writing. There is one piece of sophistry practiced by both sides, and that is the taking any scandalous story that has been ever whispered or invented of a private man, for a known, undoubted truth, and raising suitable speculations upon it. Calumnies that have been never proved, or have been often refuted, are the ordinary postulntums 4 of these infamous scribblers, upon which they proceed as upon first principles granted by all men, though in their hearts they know they 1 A regard for. s Whose political principles differ from our own. 8 E. g., a stick in a dish of water the "two mediums " being water and air. * Things taken for granted. SIR ROGER AND PARTY SPIRIT 113 are false, or at best very doubtful. When they have laid these foundations of scurrility, it is no wonder that their superstructure is every way answerable to them. If this shameless practice of the present age endures much longer, 1 praise and reproach will cease to be motives of action in good 2 men. There are certain periods of time in all governments when this inhuman spirit prevails. Italy was long torn iu pieces by the Guelphs and (hibellines. :! and France by those who were for and against the League: 4 but it is very unhappy for a man to be born in such a stormy and tem- pestuous season. It is the restless ambition of artful men that thus breaks a people into factions, and draws several well-meaning persons to their interest by a specious 5 con- cern for their country. How many honest minds are filled with uncharitable and barbarous notions, out of their zeal for the public good! What cruelties and outrages would they not commit against men of an adverse party, whom they would honor and esteem, if, instead of considering them as they are represented, they knew them as they are! Thus are persons of the greatest probity seduced into shameful errors and prejudices, and made bad men even by that noblest of principles, the "love of their country." 6 I cannot here forbear mentioning the famous Spanish proverb, " If there were neither fools nor knaves in the world, all people would be of one mind." For my own part, I could heartily wish that all honest men would enter into an association for the support of one another against the endeavors of those whom they ought 1 Has it ? "Is this logical ? 3 In Dante's time the Guelphs were the partisans of the Pope, and the Ghibellines those of the German emperors. 4 The Guises were at the head of the Confederation of the League, which made war upon the Bourbon princes with great fury from the Massacre of St. Bartholomew (1572) till the accession of Henry of Navarre (1589). 5 Ostensible ; pretended. 8 Find Madame Roland's famous apostrophe to Liberty, as she stood upon the scaffold. 114 SIB ROGER DE COVERLET to look upon as their common enemies, whatsoever side they may belong to. Were there such an honest body of neutral forces, we should never see the worst of men in great figures of life, because they are useful to a party; nor the best unregarded, because they are above practicing those methods which would be grateful to their faction. AVe should then single every criminal out of the herd, and hunt him down, however formidable and overgrown he might appear: on the contrary, we should shelter dis- tressed innocence, and defend virtue, however beset with contempt or ridicule, envy, or defamation. In short, we should not any longer regard our fellow subjects as whigs or tories, but should make the man of merit our friend, and the villain our enemy. 1 C. 1 There is a long and interesting note on party spirit in Addison's time in G. W. Greene's edition of Addison's Works, vol. iv., p. 344. PARTY PREJUDICE 115 XXIII. PAETY PREJUDICE. [Spectator No. 126. Wednesday, July 25, 1711. Addison.] Tros Rutulusve fuat, nullo discrimine habebo. VIRGIL. IN my yesterday's paper, I proposed that the honest men of all parties should enter into a kind of association for the defence of one another and the confusion of their com- mon enemies. As it is designed this neutral body should act with a regard to nothing but truth and equity, and divest themselves of the little heats and prepossessions that cleave to parties of all kinds, I have prepared for them the following form of an association, which may express their intentions in the most plain and simple manner: We whose names are hereunto subscribed, do solemnly declare that we do in our consciences believe two and two make four; and that we shall adjudge any man whatso- ever to be our enemy who endeavors to persuade us to the contrary. We are likewise ready to maintain, with the hazard of all that is near and dear to us, that six is less than seven in all times and all places, and that ten will not be more three years hence than it is at present. We do also firmly declare, that it is our resolution as long as we live to call Black black, and White white. And we shall upon all occasions oppose such persons that, 1 upon any day of the year, shall call Black white, or White black, with the utmost peril of our lives and fortunes. Were there such a combination of honest men, who without any regard to places would endeavor to extirpate 1 As. 116 SIR ROGER DE COVERLET all such furious zealots as would sacrifice one half of their country to the passion and interest of the other; as also such infamous hypocrites that 1 are for promoting their own advantage under color of the public good; with all the 'profligate, immoral retainers to each side, that have noth- ing to recommend them but an implicit submission to their leaders; 2 we should soon see that furious party spirit ex- tinguished, which may in time expose us to the derision and contempt of all the nations about us. A member of this society that would thus carefully employ himself in making room for merit, by throwing down the worthless and depraved part of mankind from those conspicuous stations of life to which they have been sometimes advanced, and all this without any regard to his private interest, would be no small benefactor to his country. I remember to have read in Diodorus Siculus 3 an ac- count of a very active little animal, which I think he calls the ichneumon, that makes it the whole business of his life to break the eggs of the crocodile, which he is always in search after. This instinct is the more remarkable be- cause the ichneumon never feeds upon the eggs he has broken, nor in any other way finds his account in them. Were it not for the incessant labors of this industrious ani- mal, Egypt, says the historian, would be overrun with crocodiles; for the Egyptians are so far from destroying those pernicious creatures that they worship them as gods. If we look into the behavior of ordinary partisans, we shall find them far from resembling this disinterested ani- mal, and rather acting after the example of the wild Tartars, who are ambitious of destroying a man of the most extraordinary parts and accomplishments, as thinking that upon his decease the same talents, whatever post they qualified him for, enter of course into his destroyer. 1 As. 2 The ' ' bosses " of to-day. 8 BibliotTiecae Ilistoricae, book i., 35. PARTY PREJUDICE 117 As in the whole train of my speculations I have endeav- ored, as much as I am able, to extinguish that pernicious spirit of passion and prejudice which rages with the same violence in all parties, I am still the more desirous of doing some good in this particular because I observe that the spirit of party reigns more in the country than in the town. It here contracts a kind of brutality and rus- tic fierceness to which men of a politer conversation are wholly strangers. It extends itself even to the return of the bow and the hat; and at the same time that the heads of parties preserve toward one another an outward show of good breeding, and keep up a perpetual intercourse of civili- ties, their tools that are dispersed in these outlying parts will not so much as mingle together at a cock-match. This humor fills the country with several periodical meet- ings of Whig jockeys and Tory fox-hunters, not to men- tion the innumerable curses, frowns, and whispers it pro- duces at a quarter sessions. I do not know whether I have observed, in any of my former papers, that my friends Sir Roger de Coverley and Sir Andrew Freeport are of different principles; the first of them inclined to the landed and the other to the mon- eyed interest. 1 This humor is so moderate in each of them that it proceeds no farther than to an agreeable raillery, which very often diverts the rest of the club. I find, however, that the knight is a much stronger Tory in the country than in town, which, as he has told me in my ear, is absolutely necessary for the keeping up his interest. In all our journey from London to his house we did not so much as bait at a Whig inn; or if by chance the coachman stopped at a wrong place, one of Sir Roger's servants would ride up to his master full speed, and whisper to him that the master of the house was against such an one in the last election. This often betrayed us into hard beds and bad cheer; for we were not so inquisitive about the inn as the 1 Which was the Whig and which the Tory ? 118 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY innkeeper, and, provided our landlord's principles Avere sound, did not take any notice of the staleness of his provi- sions. This I found still the more inconvenient because the better the host was, the worse generally were his accom- modations; the fellow knowing very well that those who were his friends would take up with coarse diet and an hard lodging. For these reasons, all the while I was upon the road I dreaded entering into an house of any one that Sir Roger had applauded for an honest man. Since my stay at Sir Roger's in the country, I daily find more instances of this narrow party-humor. Being upon a bowling-green at a neighboring market-town the other day (for that is the place Avliere the gentlemen of one side meet once a week), I observed a stranger among them of a better presence and genteeler behavior than ordinary; but was much surprised that, notwithstanding he was a very fair better, 1 nobody would take him up. But, upon in- quiry, I found that he was one who had given a disagree- able vote in a former parliament, for which reason there was not a man upon that bowling-green who would have so much correspondence with him as to win his money of him. Among other instances of this nature, I must not omit one which concerns myself. Will Wimble was the other day relating several strange stories, that he had picked up nobody knows where, of a certain great man, and upon my staring at him, as one that was surprised to hear such things in the country, which had never been so much as whispered in the town, Will stopped short in the thread of his discourse, and after dinner asked my friend Sir Roger in his ear if he was sure that I was not a fanatic. It gives me a serious concern to see such a spirit of dis- sension in the country; not only as it destroys virtue and common sense, and renders us in a manner barbarians 1 There is a lack of euphony from a repetition of " better," as well as some confusion of thought' from its use in a different sense. PARTY PREJUDICE 119 towards one another, but as it perpetuates our animosities, widens our breaches, and transmits our present passions and prejudices to our posterity. For my own part, I am sometimes afraid that I discpver the seeds of a civil war l in these our divisions, and therefore caunot but bewail, as in their first principles, the miseries and calamities of our children. C. *What was the last civil war in England before Addison wrote? Did the American Revolution arise from any such cause as Addison feared ? 120 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY XXIV. GYPSIES. [Spectator No. 130. Monday, July 30, 1711. Addison. j Convectare juvat praedas, et vivere rapto. VIRGIL. As I was yesterday riding out in the fields with my friend Sir Roger, we saw at a little distance from us a troop of gypsies. Upon the first discovery of them, my friend was in some doubt whether he should not exert the justice of the peace 1 upon such a band of lawless vagrants; but not having his clerk with him, who is a necessary counsellor on these occasions, 2 and fearing that his poultry might fare the worse for it, he let the thought drop; but at the same time gave me a particular account of the mis- chiefs they do in the country, in stealing people's goods and spoiling their servants. " If a stray piece of linen hangs upon an hedge," says Sir Roger, "they are sure to have it; if the hog loses his way in the fields, it is ten to one but he becomes their prey; our geese cannot live in peace for them; if a man prosecutes them with severity, his hen-roost is sure to pay for it. They generally straggle into these parts about this time of the year, and set the heads of our servant-maids so agog for husbands that we do not expect to have any business done as it should be whilst they are in the country. I have an honest dairy- maid who crosses their hands with a piece of silver every summer, and never fails being promised the handsomest young fellow in the parish for her pains. Your friend, the butler, has been fool enough to be seduced by them ; 1 Exercise his authority as justice of the peace. a Why ? Gl'PSIES 121 and, though he is sure to lose a knife, a fork, or a spoon every time his fortune is told him, generally shuts himself up in the pantry with an old gypsy for above half an hour once in a twelvemonth. Sweethearts are the things they live upon, which they bestow very plentifully upon all those that apply themselves to them. You see, now and then, some handsome young jades among them; the sluts have very often white teeth and black eyes. ' ' Sir Roger, observing that I listened with great attention to his account of a people who were so entirely new to me, told me that if I would they should tell us our fortunes. As I was very well pleased with the knight's proposal, we rid up and communicated our hands to them. A Cassandra 1 of the crew, after having examined my lines 2 very dili- gently, told me that I loved a pretty maid in a corner; that I was a good woman's man ; with some other particu- lars which I do not think proper to relate. My friend Sir Roger alighted from his horse, and exposing his palm to two or three that stood by him, they crumpled it into all shapes, and diligently scanned every wrinkle that could be made in it; when one of them, who was older and more sunburnt than the rest, told him that he had a widow in his line of life; 3 upon which the knight cried. "Go, go, you are an idle baggage"; and at the same time smiled upon me. The gypsy, finding he was not displeased in his heart, told him, after a farther inquiry into his hand, that his true love was constant, and that she should dream of him to-night; my old friend cried " Pish! " and bid her go on. The gypsy told him that he was a bachelor, but would not be so long; and that he was dearer to somebody than he thought. The knight still repeated she was an idle baggage, and bid her go on. "Ah, master," says the gypsy, "that roguish leer of yours makes a pretty 1 Show why this term is inappropriate. 2 The wrinkles in the palm of the hand. 3 The wrinkle beginning near the wrist, halfway across the palm, and sweeping around between the thumb and forefinger. 122 SIR ROGER DE COVERLET woman's heart ache; you ha'n't that simper about the mouth for nothing ." The uncouth gibberish with which all this was uttered, like the darkness of an oracle, made us the more attentive to it. To be short, the knight left the money with her that he had crossed her hand with, and got up again on his horse. As we were riding away, Sir Roger told me that he knew several sensible people who believed these gypsies now and then foretold very strange things; and for half an hour together appeared more jocund than ordinary. In the height of his good humor, meeting a common beggar upon the road who was no conjurer, as he went to relieve him he found his pocket was picked ; J that being a kind of pal- mistry 2 at which this race of vermin 3 are very dextrous. I might here entertain my reader with historical re- marks on this idle, profligate people, who infest all the countries of Europe, and live in the midst of governments in a kind of commonwealth by themselves. But instead of entering into observations of this nature, I shall fill the remaining part of my paper with a story which is still fresh in Holland, and was printed in one of our monthly accounts about twenty years ago : " As the trekscliuyt, or hackney boat, which carries passengers from Leyden to Amsterdam, was putting off, a boy running along the side of the canal desired to be taken in : which the master of the boat refused, because the lad had not quite money enough to pay the usual fare. 4 An eminent merchant being pleased with the looks of the boy, and secretly touched with compassion towards him, paid the money for him, and ordered him to be taken on board. ''Upon talking with him afterwards, he found that he 1 Had been picked. '"Another pun. See note 10, p. 27, and note 3, p. 41. 'See note 2, p. 75. Addison refers, of course, to the gypsies. 4 Six or seven cents. GYPSIES ]'>3 could speak readily in three or four languages,, and learned upon farther examination that he had been stolen away when he was a child, by a gypsy, and had rambled ever since with a gang of those strollers up and down several parts of Europe. It happened that the merchant, whose heart seems to have inclined towards the boy by a secret kind of instinct, had himself lost a child some years before. The parents, after a long search for him, gave him. for drowned in one of the canals with which that country 1 abounds; and the mother was so afflicted at the loss of a fine boy, who was her only son, that she died for grief of it. " Upon laying together all particulars, and examining the several moles and marks by which the mother used to de- scribe the child when he was first missing, the boy proved to be the son of the merchant whose heart had so unac- countably melted at the sight of him. The lad was very well pleased to find a father who was so rich, and likely to leave him a good estate: the father, on the other hand, was not a little delighted to see a son return to him, whom he had given for lost, with such a strength of constitu- tion, 2 sharpness of understanding, and skill in languages/' Here the printed story leaves off; but if I may give credit to reports, our linguist having received such ex- traordinary rudiments towards a good education, was after- wards trained up in everything that becomes a gentleman ; wearing off by little and little all the vicious habits and practices that he had been used to in the course of his peregrinations. Nay, it is said that he has since been em- ployed in foreign courts upon national business, with great reputation to himself and honor to those who sent him, and that he has visited several countries as a public min- ister, in which he formerly wandered as a gypsy. C. 1 Holland. a Arrange iu a better order. 124 3J ROGER DE COVERLEY XXV. A SUMMONS TO LONDON. [Spectator No. 131. Tuesday, July 31, 1711. Addison.] Ipsae rursum concedite sylvae. VIRGIL. IT is usual for a man who loves country sports to pre- 4.U 1 ",1 1 V -' t 1 Ifi serve the game m his own gwrtryfTs, and divert himself upon those that belong to his neighbor. My friend Sir Roger generally goes two or three miles from his house, and gets into the frontiers of his estate, before he beats about in search of a ha*fe or partridge, on purpose to spare his own fields, where he is always sure of finding diversion when the worst conies to the worst. By this means the breftd about his house has time to increase and multiply; besides that the sport is the more agreeable where the game is the harder to come at, and where it does not lie so thick as to produce any perplexity or confusion in the pursuit. For these reasons the country gentleman, like the fox, seldom preys near his own home. In the same manner I have made a month's excursion x out of the town, which is the great field of game for sportsmen of my species, to try my fortune in the country, where I have started several subjects and hunted them down, 2 with some pleasure to myself, and I hope to others. I am here forced to use a great deal of diligence before I can spring 3 anything to my mind ;> whereas in town, whilst I am following one character, it is ten to one but I am crossed in my way by another, and put up such a variety of odd creatures in both sexes that they foil ' the 1 Note the date of Spectator No. 106. 2 See note 5, p. 16. 3 Snare ; catch, as game. A SUMMONS TO LONDON 125 scent of one another, and puzzle the chase. My greatest difficulty in the country is to find sport, and, in town, to choose it. In the meantime, as I have given a whole mouth's rest to the cities of London and Westminster, I promise myself abundance of new game upon my return thither. 1 It is indeed high time for me to leave the country, since I find the whole neighborhood begin to grow very -inquisitive after my name and character; my love of soli- tude, taciturnity, and particular way of life, having raised a great curiosity in all these parts. The notions which have been framed of me are various: some look upon me as very proud, some as very modest, and some as very melancholy. Will Wimble, as my friend the butler tells me, observing me very much alone, and extremely silent when I am in company, is afraid I have killed a man. The country people seem to suspect me for a conjurer; and, some of them hearing of the visit which I made to Moll White, will needs have it that Sir Roger has brought down a cunning man with him. to cure the old woman, and free the country from her charms. So that the character which I go under in part of the neighbor- hood, is what they here call a " White Witch." 2 A justice of peace, who lives about five miles off, and is not of Sir Roger's party, has, it seems, said twice or thrice at his table that he wishes 3 Sir Roger does not harbor a 1 Notice the continued metaphor in this paragraph. 4 " At least as little honest as he could, And, like white witches, mischievously good.'' DRYDEN. White spirits caused stolen goods to be restored, and charmed away diseases, but were not wholly averse to mischief ; black spirits did only harm ; gray spirits did both good and ill. In Macbeth (Act IV. Sc. i.), in an old song probably much older than Shakespeare, and also in Middleton's Witch (Act V. Sc. ii.), are the lines : "Black spirits and white, Blue [in some editions red] spirits and gray, Mingle, mingle, mingle, You that niiiigle may." 3 Hopes, 126 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY Jesuit in his house, and that he thinks the gentlemen of the country would do very well to make me give some account of myself. On the other side, some of Sir Roger's friends are afraid the old knight is imposed upon by a designing fel- low, and as they have heard that he converses 1 very pro- miscuously, when he is in town, do not know but he has brought down with him some discarded Whig, that is sul- len and says nothing because he is out of place. Such is the variety of opinions which are here enter- tained of me, so that I pass among some for a disaffected person, and among others for a popish priest; among some for a wizard, and among others for a murderer: and all this for no other reason, that I can imagine, but because I do not hoot and hollow and make a noise. It is true my friend Sir Roger tells them, that it is my way, and that I am only a philosopher; but this will not satisfy them. They think there is more in me than he discovers, and that I do not hold my tongue for nothing. For these and other reasons I shall set out for London to-morrow, having found by experience that the country is not a place for a person of my temper, who does not love jollity, and what they call good neighborhood. A man that is out of humor when an unexpected guest breaks in upon him, and does not care for sacrificing an afternoon to every chance-comer; that will be the master of his own time, and the pursuer of his own inclinations; makes but a very unsociable figure in this kind of life. I shall there- fore retire into the town, 2 if I may make use of that phrase, and get into the crowd again as fast as I can, in order to be alone. 3 I can there raise what speculations I please upon others, without being observed myself, and at the same time enjoy all the advantages of company with all the privileges of solitude. In the meanwhile, to finish the 'Associates. * What is there that is whimsical in this phrase ? 8 Define a paradox. A SVMMOXti TO LONDON 12? month, and conclude these my rural speculations, I shall here insert a letter from my friend Will Honeycomb, who has not lived a month for these forty years out of the smoke of London, and rallies me after his way upon my country life. " Dear Spec, I suppose this letter will find thee picking of daisies, or smelling to l a lock of hay, or passing away thy time in some innocent country diversion of the like nature. I have, however, orders from the club to summon thee up to town, being all - of us cursedly afraid thou wilt not be able to relish our company after thy conversations with Moll White and Will Wimble. Pr'ythee don't send us up any more stories 3 of a cock and a bull, nor frighten the town with spirits and witches. Thy speculations begin to smelt confoundedly of woods and meadows. If thou dost not come up quickly, we shall conclude that thou art in love with one of Sir Eoger's dairy-maids. Service to the knight. Sir Andrew is grown the cock of the club since he left us, and if he does not return quickly will make every mother's son of us Commonwealth's men. " Dear Spec, thine eternally, C. " WILL HONEYCOMB." 1 Smelling of. 2 Since all of us are. *Any more cock-and-bull stories. 128 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY XXVI. A JOURNEY TO LONDON. [Spectator No. 132. Wednesday, Aug. 1, 1711. SteeleJ} Qui aut tempus quid postulet non videt, aut plura loquitur, aut se ostentat, aut eorum quibuscum est rationem non habet, is ineptus esse dicitur. TULLY.' HAVING notified to my good friend Sir Eoger that I should set out for London the next day, his horses were ready at the appointed hour in the evening; and attended by one of his grooms, I arrived at the county town at twilight, in order to be ready for the stage-coach the day following. As soon as we arrived at the inn, the servant who waited upon me, inquired of the chamberlain, in my hearing, what company he had for the coach, The fellow answered, " Mrs. 2 Betty Arable, the great fortune, and the widow, her mother; a recruiting officer (who took a place because they were to go) ; young Squire Quickset, her cousin (that her mother wished her to be married to) ; Ephraim, 3 the Quaker, her guardian; and a gentleman that had studied himself dumb 4 from Sir Roger de Cover- ley's." I observed, by what he said of myself, that ac- cording to his office, he dealt much in intelligence; and doubted not but there was some foundation for his reports of the rest of the company, as well as for the whimsical account he gave of me. The next morning at daybreak we were all called ; and I, who know my own natural shyness, and endeavor to be as little liable to be disputed with as possible, dressed 1 Marcus Tullius Cicero. 2 For " Mistress"; a term regularly applied, in Addison's time, to unmarried as well as to married women. 3 So called in allusion to Psalm Ixxviii. 9. * The Spectator. A JOURNEY TO LONDON 139 immediately, that I might make no one wait. The first preparation for our setting out was, that the captain's half pike * was placed near the coachman, and a drum behind the coach. In the meantime the drummer, the captain's equipage, 2 was very loud 3 that none of the captain's things should be placed so as to be spoiled; upon which his cloak bag was fixed in the seat 4 of the coach; and the captain himself, according to a 5 frequent though invidious 6 be- havior of military men, ordered his man to look sharp 7 that none but one of the ladies should have the place he had taken fronting to the coach-box. We were in some little time fixed in our seats, and sat with that dislike which people not too good-natured usu- ally conceive of each other at first sight. The coach jumbled us insensibly into some sort of familiarity, and we had not moved above two miles when the widow asked the captain what success he had in his recruiting. The officer, with a frankness he believed very graceful, told her that indeed he had but very little luck, and had suf- fered much by desertion, therefore should be glad to end his warfare in the service of her or her fair daughter. "In a word," continued he, "I am a soldier, and to be plain is my character; you see me, madam, young, sound, and impudent; take me yourself, widow, or give me to her; I will be wholly at your disposal. I am a soldier of fortune, ha! " This was followed by a vain laugh of his own, and a deep silence of all the rest of the company. I had nothing left for it but to fall fast asleep, which I did with all speed. 8 ''Come," said he, "resolve upon it, we will make a wedding at the next town : we will wake this pleasant companion who has fallen asleep, to be the bride- man, and " (giving the Quaker a clap on the knee), he concluded, "this sly saint, who, I '11 warrant, understands 1 A short pike, carried by officers of infantry. a Attendant. 3 Insisted very loudly. 4 Placed in the box under the seat. 6 The. Disagreeable, ' To see. 8 In appearance, of course. 9 130 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY what's what as well as you or I, widow, shall give the bride as father." The Quaker, who happened to be a man of smartness, answered, " Friend, I take it in good part, that thou hast given me the authority of a father over this comely and virtuous child; and I must assure thee that, if I have the giving her, I shall not bestow her on thee. Thy mirth, friend, savoreth of folly; thou art a person of a light mind ; thy drum is a type of thee it soundeth because it is empty. Verily, it is not from thy fulness but thy emp- tiness that thou hast spoken this day. Friend, friend, we have hired this coach in partnership with thee, to carry us to the great city; we cannot go any other way. This worthy mother must hear thee if thou wilt needs utter thy follies : we cannot help it, friend, I say if thou wilt, we must hear thee; but, if thou wert a man of understanding, thou wouldst not take advantage of thy courageous countenance to abash us children of peace. Thou art, thou sayest, a soldier; give quarter to us, who cannot resist thee. Why didst thou fleer at our friend, who feigned himself asleep ? He said nothing, but how dost thou know what he con- taineth ? If thou speakest improper things in the hearing of this virtuous young virgin, consider it is an outrage against a distressed person that cannot get from thee: to speak indiscreetly what we are obliged to hear, by being hasped l up with thee in this public vehicle, is in some degree assaulting on the high road." Here Ephraim paused, and the captain, with an happy and uncommon impudence (which can be convicted and support itself at the same time), cries, "Faith, friend, I thank thee; I should have been a little impertinent if thou hadst not reprimanded me. Come, thou art, I see, a smoky old fellow, and I'll be very orderly the ensuing part of the journey. I was going to give myself airs, but, ladies, I beg pardon." 1 Fastened. A JOURNEY TO LOXDON 131 The captain was so little out of humor, and our company was so far from being soured by this little ruffle, that Ephraim and he took a particular delight in being agree- able to each other for the future., and assumed their dif- ferent provinces in the conduct of the company. Our reckonings, apartments, and accommodation fell under l Ephraim; and the captain looked to all disputes on the road, as 2 the good behavior of our coachman, and the right we had of taking place as going to London of all vehicles coming from thence. The occurrences we met with were ordinary, and very little happened which could entertain 3 by the relation of them; but when I considered the company we were in, I took it for no small good fortune that the whole journey was not spent in impertinences, which to one part of us might be an entertainment, to the other a suffering. What, therefore, Ephraim said when we were almost arrived at London, had to me an air not only of good understanding but good breeding. Upon the young lady's expressing her satisfaction in the journey, and declaring how delightful it had been to her, Ephraim declared him- self as follows: " There is no ordinary part of human life which expresseth so much a good mind, and a right inward man, as his behavior upon meeting with strangers, espe- cially such as may seem the most unsuitable companions to him; such a man, when he falleth in the way with persons of simplicity and innocence, however knowing he may be in the ways of men, will not vaunt himself thereof; but will the rather hide his superiority to them, that he may not be painful unto them. My good friend " (continued he, turning to tho officer), " thee and I are to part by and by, and perad venture we may never meet again; but be advised by a plain man; modes and apparel are but trifles to the real man, therefore do not think such a man as thyself 1 The care of. * Such as. 'Would entertain the reader if I were to relate them. 132 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY terrible for thy garb, nor such a one as me contemptible for mine. When two such as thee and I meet, with affections as we ought to have towards each other, thou shouldst re- joice to see my peaceable demeanor, and I should be glad to see thy strength and ability to protect me in it." T. SIR ROGER IN AN ARGUMENT 133 XXVII. SIK ROGER IX AX ARGUMENT. [Spectator No. 174. Wednesday, Sept. 19. 1711. Steele.] Haec memini et victum frustra contendere Thyrsin. VIRGIL. THERE is scarce anything more common than animosi- ties between parties that cannot suhsist but by their agree- ment: this was well represented in the sedition of the members of the Imman body in the old Roman fable. 1 It is often the case of lesser confederate states against a supe- rior power, which are hardly held together, though their unanimity is necessary for their common safety; and this is always the case of the landed and trading interest of Great Britain: the trader is fed by the product of the land, and the landed man cannot be clothed but by the skill of the trader; and yet those interests are ever jarring. We had last winter an instance of this at our club, in Sir Roger de Coverley and Sir Andrew .Freeport, between whom there is generally a constant, though friendly, oppo- sition of opinions. It happened that one of the company, in an historical discourse, was observing that Carthaginian faith 2 was a proverbial phrase to intimate breach of leagues. Sir Roger said it could hardly be otherwise; that "the Carthaginians were the greatest traders in the world, and as gain is the chief end of such a people, they never pur- sue any other, the means to it are never regarded. They will, if it comes easily, get money honestly; but if not, they will not scruple to obtain it by fraud, or cozenage. And, indeed, what is the whole business of the trader's account, but to overreach him who trusts to his memory ? 'Of the Belly and the Members. Told in Livy, book ii., ch. 32. * Punica fides. 134 SIR ROGER DE COVERLET But were that not so, what can there great and noble be expected from him whose attention is forever fixed upon balancing his books, and watching over his expenses? And at best, let frugality and parsimony be the virtues of the merchant, how much is his punctual dealing below a gentleman's charity to the poor, or hospitality among his neighbors ? " Captain Sentry observed Sir Andrew very diligent in hearing Sir Roger, and had a mind to turn the discourse, by taking notice " in general, from the highest to the lowest parts of human society, there was a secret, though unjust, way among men, of indulging the seeds of ill- nature and envy, by comparing their own state of life to that of another, and grudging the approach of their neigh- bor to their own happiness: and on the other side, he who is the less at his ease, repines at the other who, he thinks, has unjustly the advantage over him. Thus the civil and mili- tary lists look upon each other with much ill-nature : the soldier repines at the courtier's power, and the courtier rallies the soldier's honor; or, to come to lower instances, the private men in the horse and foot of an army, 1 the carmen and coachmen in the city streets, mutually look upon each other with ill-will, when they are in competition for quarters or the way, 2 in their respective motions." " It is very Avell, good captain," interrupted Sir Andrew. " You may attempt to turn the discourse if you think fit; but I must, however, have a word or two with Sir Roger, who, I see, thinks he has paid me off, and been very severe upon the merchant. I shall not," continued he, "at this time remind Sir Roger of the great and noble monuments of charity and public spirit which have been erected by merchants since the Reformation, but at present content myself with what he allows us parsimony and frugality. If it were consistent with the quality of so ancient a baro- net as Sir Roger, to keep an account, or measure things 1 Note how each disputant keeps up his character. '-' The street. 772 ROGER IX AX ARGUMENT 333 by the most infallible way, that of numbers, he would pre- fer onr parsimony to his hospitality. If to drink so many hogsheads is to be hospitable, we do not contend for the fame of that virtue; but it would be worth while to con- sider whether so many artificers at work ten days together by my appointment, or so many peasants made merry on Sir Roger's charge, are the men more obliged ? I believe the families of the artificers will thank me more than the households of the peasants shall Sir Roger. Sir Roger gives to his men, but I place mine above the necessity or obliga- tion of my bounty. I am in very little pain for the Roman proverb upon the Carthaginian traders; the Romans were their professed enemies. I am only sorry no Carthaginian histories have come to our hands; we might have been taught, perhaps, by them some proverbs against the Roman generosity, in lighting for and bestowing other people's goods. But since Sir Roger has taken occasion from an old proverb to be out of humor with merchants, it should be no offeuce to offer one not quite so old in their defence. When a man happens to break * in Holland, they say of him that 'he has not kept true accounts.' This phrase, perhaps, among us would appear a soft or humorous way of speaking; but with that exact nation it bears the highest reproach. For a man to be mistaken in the calcula- tion of his expense, in his ability to answer future de- mands, or to be impertinently sanguine 2 in putting bis credit to too great adventure, are all instances of as much infamy as, with gayer nations, to be failing in courage or common honesty. " Numbers are so much the measure of everything that is valuable, that it is not possible to demonstrate the suc- cess of any action, or the prudence of any undertaking, without them. I say this in answer to what Sir Roger is pleased to say, that ' little that is truly noble can be ex- pected from one who is ever poring on his cash-book or 1 Fail. a Unduly confident. 136 SIX ROGER DE COVERLEY balancing his accounts.' When I have my returns from abroad, I can tell to a shilling, by the help of numbers, the profit or loss by my adventure ; but I ought also to be able to show that I had reason for making it, either from my own experience or that of other people, or from, a reasonable presumption that my returns will be sufficient to answer my expense and hazard and this is never to be done with- out the skill of numbers. For instance, if I am to trade to Turkey, I ought beforehand to know the demand of our manufactures there, as well as of their silks in England, and the customary prices that are given for both in each country. I ought to have a clear knowledge of these mat- ters beforehand, that I may presume upon sufficient returns to answer the charge of the cargo I have fitted out, the freight and assurance out and home, the custom l to the queen, and the interest of my own money, and besides all these expenses, a reasonable profit to myself. Now what is there of scandal in this skill ? What has the merchant done that he should be so little in the good graces of Sir Roger ? He throws down no man's enclosure, and tramples upon no man's corn; he takes nothing from the industrious laborer; he pays the poor man for his work; he communi- cates his profit with mankind; by the preparation of his cargo, and the manufacture of his returns, he furnishes employment and subsistence to greater numbers than the richest nobleman ; and even the nobleman is obliged to him for finding out foreign markets for the produce of his estate, and for making a great addition to his rents; and yet it is certain that none of all these things could be done by him without the exercise of his skill in numbers. "This is the economy of the merchant; and the con- duct of the gentleman must be the same, unless by scorn- ing to be the steward, he resolves the steward shall be the gentleman. The gentleman, no more than the merchant, is able, without the help of numbers, to account for the 1 The customs duties. SIR ROGER IN AN ARGUMENT 137 success of any action, or the prudence of any adventure. If, for instance, the chase is his whole adventure, his only returns must be the stag's horns in the great hall and the fox's nose upon the stable door. Without doubt Sir Roger knows the full value of these returns; l and if beforehand he had computed the charges of the chase, a gentleman of his discretion would certainly have hanged np all his dogs; he would never have brought back so many fine horses to the kennel ; he would never have gone so often, like a blast, over fields of corn. If such, too, had been the conduct of all his ancestors, he might truly have boasted, at this day, that the antiquity of his family had never been sullied by a trade; a merchant had never been permitted with his whole estate to purchase a room for his picture in the gallery of the Coverley's, or to claim his descent from the maid of honor. 2 But 'tis very happy for Sir Roger that the merchant paid so dear for his ambi- tion. 'Tis the misfortune of many other gentlemen to turn out of the seats of their ancestors, to make way for such new masters as have been more exact in their accounts than themselves; and certainly he deserves the estate a great deal better who has got it by his industry, than he who has lost it by his negligence." 3 T. 'See p. 71. "Sir Andrew no longer speaks behind Sir Roger's back (see p. 47} * Which comes off second best in the argument ? 138 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY XXVIIL SIR ROGER IN LONDON. [Spectator JVb. 2(59. Tuesday, January 8, 17^.' JEvo rarissima nostro Simplicitas- . OVID. I WAS this morning surprised with a great knocking at the door, when my landlady's daughter came up to me and told me that there was a man below desired to speak with me. Upon my asking her who it was, she told me it was a very grave, elderly person, but that she did not know his name. I immediately went down to him, and found him to be the coachman of my worthy friend, Sir Roger de Coverley. He told me that his master came to town last night, and would be glad to take a turn with me in Gray's Inn Walks. As I was wondering in myself what had brought Sir Roger to town, not having lately received any letter from him, he told me that his master was come up to get a sight of Prince Eugene, 2 and that he desired I would immediately meet him. I was not a little pleased with the curiosity of the old knight, though I did not much wonder at it, having heard him say more than once in private discourse, that he looked upon Prince Eugenio (for so the knight always calls him) 3 to be a greater man than Scanderbeg. 4 1 See note 1, p. 1. "Look him up in connection with the Battle of Blenheim. Read Southey's poem. Prince Eugene was then in London on a visit to Marlborough, to urge his restoration to the (Queen's favor, and also for political reasons ; while there he stood godfather to Steele's second son. * Because it sounds more grandiloquent and foreign. 4 George Castriota, an Albanian hero, called Skander (Alexander) from his daring. Beg (or bey) is Turkish for prince ; thus Scander- SIR ROGER IX LONDON 139 I was 110 sooner come into Gray's Inn Walks, but I heard my friend upon the terrace hemming twice or thrice to himself with great vigor, for he loves to clear his pipes in good air (to make use of his own phrase), and is not a little pleased with any one who takes notice of the strength which he still exerts in his morning hems. I was touched with a secret joy at the sight of the good old man, who before he saw me was engaged in conver- sation with a beggar-man that had asked an alms of him. I could hear my friend chide him for not finding out some work; but at the same time saw him put his hand in his pocket and give him sixpence. Our salutations were very hearty on both sides, consist- ing of many kind shakes of the hand, and several affec- tionate looks which we cast upon one another. After which the knight told me my good friend his chaplain was very well, and much at my service, and that the Sunday before he had made a most incomparable sermon out of Doctor Barrow. 1 "I have left," says he, '"all my affairs in his hands, and being willing to lay an obligation upon him, have deposited Avith him thirty marks, 3 to be distributed among his poor parishioners." He then proceeded to acquaint me with the welfare of Will Wimble. Upon which he put his hand into his fob and presented me, in his name, with a tobacco-stopper, telling me that Will had been busy all the beginning of the winter in turning great quantities of them, and that he made a present of one to every gentleman in the coun- try who has good principles and smokes. He added that poor Will was at present under great tribulation, for that Tom Touchy had taken the law of him for cutting some hazel sticks out of one of his hedges. beg means Prince Alexander. He deserted from the Turks, and fought against them in 1461, winning many victories. See Spectator No. 316. 1 Had preached most eloquently out of Dr. Barrow. To make a, sermon meant to preach. 5 A mark was money of account (not a coin) worth about $3.83. 140 STS ROGER DE COVERLEY Among other pieces of news which the knight brought from his country-seat, he informed me that Moll White was dead; and that about a month after her death the wind was so very high that it blew down the end of one of his barns. "But for my own part," says Sir Eoger, "I do not think that the old woman had any hand in it." He afterwards fell into an account of the diversions which had passed in his house during the holidays; for Sir Roger, after the laudable custom of his ancestors, always keeps open house at Christmas. I learned from him that he had killed eight fat hogs for the season, that he had dealt about his chines very liberally amongst his neighbors, and that in particular he had sent a string of hog's-puddings with a pack of cards to every poor family in the parish. "I have often thought," says Sir Roger, "it happens very well that Christmas should fall out in the middle of the winter. It is the most dead, uncomfortable time of the year, when the poor people would suffer very much from their poverty and cold, if they had not good cheer, warm fires, and Christmas gambols to support them. I love to rejoice their poor hearts at this season, and to see the whole village merry in my great hall. I allow a double quantity of malt to my small beer, and set it a running for twelve days to every one that calls for it. I have always a piece of cold beef and a mince-pie upon the table, and am wonderfully pleased to see my tenants pass away a whole evening in playing their innocent tricks, and smut- ting one another. 1 Our friend Will Wimble is as merry as any of them, and shows a thousand roguish tricks upon these occasions." I was very much delighted with the reflection of my old friend, which carried, so much goodness in it. He then launched out into the praise of the late Act of Parliament 2 1 While playing some rude country game. 3 The Act of "Occasional Conformity," passed for preserving the Protestant religion by better securing the Church of England as by law established. SIR ROGER IX LONDON 141 for securing the Church of England, and told me, with great satisfaction, that he believed it already began to take effect, for that a rigid Dissenter, who chanced to dine at his house on Christmas day, had been observed to eat very plentifully of his plum-porridge. 1 After having dispatched all our country matters, Sir Roger made several inquiries concerning the club, and particularly of his old antagonist, Sir Andrew Freeport. He asked me with a kind of smile whether Sir Andrew had not taken advantage of his absence to vent among them some of his republican doctrines; but soon after, gathering up his countenance into a more than ordinary seriousness, "Tell me truly," says he, "don't you think Sir Andrew had a hand in the Pope's Procession ? " 2 but without giving me time to answer him, "Well, well," says he, " I know you are a wary man, and do not care to talk of public matters." The knight then asked me if I had seen Prince Eugeuio, and made me promise to get him a stand in some con- venient place, where he might have a full sight of that ex- traordinary man, whose presence does so much honor to the British nation. He dwelt very long on the praises of this great general, and I found that, since I was with him in the country, he had drawn many observations together out of his reading in Baker's " Chronicle," and other authors who always lie in his hall window, 3 which very much redound to the honor of this prince. Having passed away the greatest part of the morning in 1 Dissenters disbelieved in Christmas feasts. 8 Ceremonial processions were early adopted by the Christian Church, but after the Reformation, abandoned by all but the Roman Catholics. But a burlesque procession for November 17, 1711, had been arranged by the Whigs, which was broken up by the Tories. For a detailed account of this (to which Sir Roger refers) see Greene's edition of Addition's Works, vol. v. , p. 173. Sir Roger seems struck with the absurdity of his own question, and abruptly breaks off. * See note 4, p. 33. 142 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY hearing the knight's reflections, which were partly private and partly political, he asked me if I would smoke a pipe with him over a dish of coffee at Squire's. As I love the old man, I take delight in complying with everything that is agreeable to him, and accordingly waited on him to the coffee-house, where his venerable figure drew upon us the eyes of the whole room. He had no sooner seated him- self at the upper end of the high table, but he called for a clean pipe, a paper of tobacco, a dish of coffee, a wax candle, and the Supplement, 1 with such an air of cheerful- ness and good humor that all the boys in the coffee-room (who seemed to take pleasure in serving him) were at once employed on his several errands, insomuch that nobody else could come at a dish of tea till the knight had got all his conveniences about him. L. 1 A periodical newspaper. SIR ROGER IX WESTMINSTER ABBEY 143 XXIX. SIR EOGER IX WESTMINSTER ABBEY. [Spectator No. 329. Tuesday, March 18, ITj^. 1 Addison.] Ire tamen restat, Xuma quo devenit et Ancus. HORACE. rf MY friend Sir Roger de Coverley told me t'other night " tliat he had been reading my paper upon Westminster Ab- bey, 2 in which, says he, there are a great many ingenious fancies. He told me, at the same time, that he observed I had promised another paper upon the tombs, and that he should be glad to go and see them with me, not having visited them since he had read history. I could not at first imagine how this came into the knight's head, till I recol- lected that he had been very busy all last summer upon Baker's "Chronicle," which he has quoted several times in his disputes with Sir Andrew Freeport since his last coming to town. Accordingly, I promised to call upon him the next morning, that we might go together to the Abbey. I found the knight under his butler's hands, who always shaves him. He was no sooner dressed than he called for a glass of the Widow Trueby's water, 3 which he told me he always drank before he went abroad. He recommended me to a dram of it at the same time with so much hearti- ness that I could not forbear drinking it. As soon as I had got it down, I found it very unpalatable; upon which the knight, observing that I had made several wry faces, told me that he knew I should not like it at first, but that it was the best thing in the world against the stone or gravel. 'See note 1, p. 1. 2 Spectator No. 26. '"Strong waters" (herb teas with spirits added to make them " keep ") were too commonly drunk, both by men and women "just for the stomach's sake." See Greene's note on this paper. 144 SIR ROGER DE COVERLET I I could have wished, indeed, that he had acquainted me with the virtues of it sooner; but it was too late to com- plain, and I knew what he had done was out of good-will. Sir Roger told me, further, that he looked upon it to be very good for a man, whilst he stayed in town, to keep off infec- tion; and that he got together a quantity of it upon the first news of the sickness being at Dantzic. 1 When, of a sudden, turning short to one of his servants, who stood behind him, he bid him call a hackney-coach, and take care it was an elderly man that drove it. He then resumed his discourse upon Mrs. Trueby's wa- ter, telling me that the Widow Trueby was one who did more good than all the doctors and apothecaries in the country; that she distilled every poppy that grew within five miles of her; that she distributed her water gratis among all sorts of people : to which the knight added that she had a very great jointure, and that the whole country would fain have it a match between him and her; "And truly," said Sir Roger, " if I had not been engaged, per- haps I could not have done better." His discourse was broken off by his man's telling him he had called a coach. Upon our going to it, after having cast his eye upon the wheels, he asked the coachman if his axle-tree was good; upon the fellow's telling him he would warrant it, the knight turned to me, told me he looked like an honest man, and went in without further ceremony. c We had not gone far when Sir Roger, popping out his head, called the coachman down from his box and, upon his presenting himself at the window, asked him if he smoked; as I was considering what this would end in, he bid him stop by the way at any good tobacconist's, and take in a roll of their best Virginia. Nothing material happened in the remaining part of our journey till we were set down at the west end of the Abbey. As we went up the body of the church, the knight >The plague of 1709. SIR ROGER IX WESTJIIXSTER ABBEY U5 pointed at the trophies upon one of the new monuments, and cried out, " A brave man, I warrant him! " Passing afterwards by Sir Cloudesley Shovel, 1 he flung his hand that way, and cried, "Sir Cloudesley Shovel! a very gal- lant man! " As we stood before Busby's tomb, 2 the knight uttered himself again after the same manner:" Dr. Bus- by a great man! he whipped my grandfather a very great man! I should have gone to him myself if I had not been a blockhead a very great man! " We were immediately conducted into the little chapel on the right hand. Sir Eoger, planting himself at our historian's elbow, was very attentive to everything lie said, particularly to the account he gave us of the lord who had cut off the King of Morocco's head. Among several other figures, he was very well pleased to see the statesman Cecil upon his knees; 8 and, concluding them all to be great men, was conducted to the figure which represents that martyr to good housewifery who died by the prick of a needle. 4 Upon our interpreter's telling us that she was a maid of honor to Queen Elizabeth, the knight was very inquisitive into her name and family; and, after having regarded her finger for some time, "I wonder," says he, " that Sir Richard Baker has said nothing of her in his 'Chronicle.'" We were then conveyed to the two coronation chairs, 5 where my old friend, after having heard that the stone 'An English admiral who took part in the victory of La Hoguo ; he was drowned in 1707; his body was recovered and buried in West- minster Abbey. See Spectator No. 26. "Dr. Busby, headmaster of Westminster School for fifty-five years; he died in 1095, aged eighty-nine. 3 He erected a tomb to the memory of his wife and daughter, at the base of which he is represented kneeling. * An unfounded "guide's story." See Old Curiosity Shop, c. xxviii. 6 One is said to be the chair of Edward the Confessor ; the other was placed in the Abbey in the reign of William and Mary, having been made especially for the latter when she was crowned joint- sovereign with her husband. "The stone of Scone, on which the Scottish kings were crowned till Edward I. captured it and carried it off. Tradition says it was the 140 SIX ROGER DE COVERLEY underneath the most ancient of them, which was brought from Scotland, was called Jacob's Pillar, sat himself down 1 in the chair, and, looking like the figure of an old Gothic king, asked our interpreter what authority they had to say that Jacob had ever been in Scotland. The fellow, instead of returning him an answer, told him that he hoped his honor would pay his forfeit. 2 I could observe Sir Roger a little ruffled upon being thus trepanned ; 3 but, our guide not insisting upon his demand, the knight soon recovered his good humor, and whispered in my ear that if Will Wimble were with us, and saw those two chairs, it would go hard but he Avould get a tobacco-stopper out of one or t'other of them. Sir Roger, in the next place, laid his hand upon Edward the Third's sword, 4 and, leaning upon the pommel of it, gave us the whole history of the Black Prince; 5 concluding that, in Sir Richard Baker's opinion, Edward the Third was one of the greatest princes that ever sat upon the English throne. We were then shown Edward the Confessor's tomb, upon which Sir Roger acquainted us that he was the first who touched for the evil; 6 and afterwards Henry the Fourth's, upon which he shook his head and told us there was fine reading in the casualties in that reign. Our conductor then pointed to that monument where there is the figure of one of our English kings without an head; 7 and upon giving us to know that the head, which stone which Jacob turned from a pillow into a pillar (Gen. 28 : 18); but this lacks confirmation, for. as Sir Roger shrewdly implies, there is no " authority that Jacob ever was in Scotland." 1 Seated himself. 2 Probably for sitting in the chair. * Caught. 4 The "monumental sword that conquered France" ; it is seven feet long and weighs eigh teen pounds. Edward had it carried before him in France. s What relation did he bear to Edward III. ? Find the origin of the motto of the present Prince of Wales. * " King's evil, or scrofula, supposed to be curable by a king's touch. 'Henry V. The body was of brass, plated, the head of solid silver. The plating was stripped off and the head stolen in the time of Henry V11I. ROGER TX WESTVJXHTER ABBEY 147 was of beaten silver,, had been stolen away several years since, "Some Whig, I'll warrant you," says Sir Koger; "you ought to lock up your kings better; they will carry off the body too, if you don't take care." The glorious names of Henry the Fifth and Queen Elizabeth gave the knight great opportunities of shining and of doing justice to Sir Eichard Baker, who, as our knight observed with some surprise, had a great many kings in him whose monuments he had not seen in the Abbey. For my own part, I could not but be pleased to see the knight show such an honest passion for the glory of his country, and such a respectful gratitude to the memory of its princes. I must not omit that the benevolence of my good old friend, which flows out towards every one he converses with, made him very kind to our interpreter, 1 whom he looked upon as an extraordinary man; for which reason he shook him by the hand at parting, telling him that he should be very glad to see him at his lodgings in Norfolk Buildings, 2 and talk over these matters with him more at leisure. L. 1 Guide. 8 In Norfolk Street. See note 1, p. 149. US KIR ROGER DE COVERLEY XXX. SIR ROGER AT THE PLAT. [Spectator No. 335. Tuesday, March 25, 1712. Addison.'] Respicere exemplar vitae morumque jubebo Doetum imitatorera, et veras hinc ducere voces. HORACE. MY friend Sir Eoger de Coverley, when we last met together at the club, told me that he had a great mind to see the new tragedy l with me, assuring me, at the same time, that he had not been at a play these twenty years. "The last I saw," said Sir Roger, "was the 'Commit- tee,' 2 which I should not have gone to, neither, had not I been told beforehand that it was a good Church of Eng- land comedy." He then proceeded to inquire of me who this distressed mother was, and, upon hearing that she was Hector's widow, he told me that her husband was a brave man, and that when he was a school-boy he had read his life at the end of the dictionary. 3 My friend asked me, in the next place, if there would not be some danger in coming home late, in case the Mohocks 4 should be abroad. " I assure you," says he, " I thought I had fallen into their 1 The Distressed Mother, by Ambrose Philips. See Spectator No. 290. This tragedy was an English adaptation of Racine's Andro- maque. Philips wrote several small poems of smaller merit : with an allusion to the name of the author, these were called Namby-Pamby first, it is said, by Harry Carey, and then by Pope as suited to Philips's "eminence in the infantile style." Hence our well-known epithet. The prologue to the Distressed Mother was by Steele ; the humorous epilogue was probably written by Addison, but ascribed by him to Budgell to bolster up the latter's literary reputation. Bud- gell wrote Spectator 341 in reply to the attack upon the epilogue in Spectator 338. 2 The Committee, or the Faithful Irishman, by Sir Robert Howard ; a play caricaturing the Roundheads and exalting the king's party. 3 See if it is there still. 4 A gang of dissolute young men, who derived their amusement from "hazing" defenceless pedestrians after dark, not even excepting SIR ROGER AT THE PLAY HO hands last night, for I observed two or three lusty black men that followed me half way up Fleet Street, and mended their pace behind me in proportion as I put on to get away from them. You must know," continued the knight, with a smile, " I fancied they had a mind to hunt me, for I re- member an honest gentleman in my neighborhood Avho' was served such a trick in King Charles the Second's time; for which reason he has not ventured himself in town ever since. I might have shown them very good sport had this been their design ; for, as I am an old fox-hunter, I should have turned and dodged, and have played them a thousand tricks they had never seen in their lives before. " Sir Roger added that if these gentlemen had any such intention they did not succeed very well in it; " for I threw them out," says he, "at the end of Norfolk Street, where I doubled the corner and got shelter in my lodgings l before they could imagine what was become of me. However," says the knight, " if Captain Sentry will make one with us to- morrow night, and if you will both of you call upon me about four o'clock, that we may be at the house before it is full, I will have my own coach in readiness to attend you, for John tells me he has got the fore wheels mended." The captain, who did not fail to meet me there at the appointed hour, bid Sir Roger fear nothing, for that he had put on the same sword which he made use of at the battle of Steenkirk. 2 Sir Roger's servants, and among the rest my old friend the butler, had, I found, provided themselves with good oaken plants 3 to attend their master women. Just a week before this date the Queen had issued a procla- mation against them ; but the day after this paper was written Swift exclaims: "The Mohocks go on still, and cut people's faces every night ! but they shan't cut mine ; I like it better as it is." See Greene's note to Spectator 335 ; read Spectators 324, 332, 347. 1 Sir Roger has changed to a less fashionable quarter. Cf, note 3, p. 7. How do you account for this ? 2 In 1692. The English were defeated. In Webster's Interna- tional see how this battle curiously gave rise to a name for a neck- cloth. Read the account of the battle in Macaulay's History of Eng- land. 3 Cudgels. 150 KIR ROGER DE COVERLET upoii this occasion. When he had placed him in his coach, with myself at his left hand, the captain before him, and his butler at the head of his footmen in the rear, we con- voyed him in safety to the playhouse, where, after having marched up the entry in good order, the captain and I went in with him, and seated him betwixt us in the pit. As soon as the house was full, and the candles lighted, my old friend stood up and looked about him with that pleas- ure which a mind seasoned with humanity naturally feels in itself at the sight of a multitude of people who seem pleased with one another, and partake of the same com- mon entertainment. I could not but fancy to myself, as the old man stood up in the middle of the pit, that he made a very proper centre to a tragic audience. Upon the entering of Pyrrhus, the knight told me that he did not believe the King of France l himself had a better strut. I was, indeed, very attentive to my old friend's remarks, because I looked upon them as a piece of natural criticism ; and was well pleased to hear him, at the conclusion of almost every scene, telling me that he could not imagine how the play would end. One while he appeared much concerned for Andromache, and a little while after as much for Hermione; and was extremely puzzled to think what would become of Pyrrhus. When Sir Roger saw Andromache's obstinate refusal to her lover's importunities, he whispered me in the ear, that he was sure she would never have him; to which he added, with a more than ordinary vehemence, '' You can't imag- ine, sir, what 'tis to have to do with a widow." Upon Pyrrhus his 2 threatening afterwards to leave her, the knight shook his head, and muttered to himself, "Ay, do if you can." This part dwelt so much upon my friend's imagi- nation, that at the close of the third act, as I was thinking of something else, he whispered in my ear, " These widows, 1 Who was king of France at this time ? See Thackeray's picture of "Rex," "Louis," and ''Louis Rex," in The Paris Sketch Book " Meditations at Versailles." a 1. e., Pyrrhus's. SIR ROGER AT THE PLAY 151 sir, are the most perverse creatures in the world. But pray," says he, "you that are a critic, is this play accord- ing to your dramatic rules, as you call them ? Should your people in tragedy always talk to be understood ? Why, there is not a single sentence in this play that I do not know the meaning of." The fourth act very luckily 1 begun before I had time to give the old gentleman an answer. ''Well," says the knight, sitting down with great satisfaction, "I suppose we are now to see Hector's ghost." He then renewed his attention, and, from time to time, fell a praising the widow. He made, indeed, a little mistake as to one of her pages, whom at his first entering he took for Astyanax; 2 but he quickly set himself right in that particular, though, at the same time, he owned he should have been very glad to have seen the little boy, " who, " says he, "must needs be a very fine child by the account that is given of him." Upon Hermione's going off with a menace to Pyrrhus, the audience gave a loud clap, to which Sir Roger added, " On my word, a notable young baggage! " As there was a very remarkable silence and stillness in the audience during the whole action, it was natural for them to take the opportunity of these intervals between the acts to express their opinion of the players and of their respective parts. Sir Roger, hearing a cluster of them praise Orestes, struck in with them, and told them that he thought his friend Pylades was a very sensible man; as they were afterwards applauding Pyrrhus, Sir Roger put in a second time: " And let me tell you," says he, " though he speaks but little, I like the old fellow in whiskers 3 as well 'Otherwise the Spectator would have been constrained to speak. 3 See a classical dictionary. In the humorous epilogue referred to above (cf. note 1, p. 148) the boy is nicknamed " Sty " : " My spouse, poor man, could not live out the play, But did cominodiously on his wedding day ; While I, his relict, made at one bold fling. Myself a princess, and young Sty a king." 8 Probably Phoenix. Read, if you can procure it, a copy of Philips's play. 152 SIR ROGER DE COVERLET as any of them." Captain Sentry, seeing two or three wags, who sat near us, lean with an attentive ear towards Sir Roger, and fearing lest they should smoke 1 the knight, plucked him by the elbow, and whispered something in his ear that lasted till the opening of the fifth act. The knight was wonderfully attentive to the account which Orestes gives of Pyrrhus his 2 death, and, at the conclusion of it, told me it was such a bloody piece of work that he was glad it was not clone upon the stage. 8 Seeing afterwards Orestes in his raving fit, he grew more than ordinary seri- ous, and took occasion to moralize (in his way) upon an evil conscience, adding, that Orestes in his madness looked as if he saw something. 4 As we were the first that came into the house, so we were the last that went out of it; being resolved to have a clear passage for our old friend, whom we did not care to venture among the justling of the crowd. Sir Roger went out fully satisfied with his entertainment, and we guarded him to his lodgings in the same manner that we brought him to the playhouse; being highly pleased, for my own part, not only with the performance of the excellent piece Avhich had been presented, but with the satisfaction which it had given to the good old man. L. 1 Quiz ; mock, while pretending to ask him serious questions. 2 7. e., Pyrrhus's. 'How does this accord with the Greek design in the production of a tragedy ? 4 A piece of " natural criticism." See p. 150. SIX ROGER'S ADVICE FROM WILL HONEYCOMB 153 XXXI. SIR ROGER'S ADVICE FROM WILL HONEYCOMB. [Spectator No. 359. Tuesday, April 22, 1712. Budgdl.] Torva leaena lupum sequitur, lupus ipse capellara ; Florentem cytisum sequitur lasciva capella. VIRGIL. As we were at the club, last night,, I observed that my friend Sir Roger, contrary to his usual custom, sat very silent, and instead of minding what was said by the com. pany was whistling to himself in a very thoughtful mood, and playing with a cork. I jogged Sir Andrew Freeport, who sat between us, and as we were both observing him, we saw the knight shake his head and heard him say to himself, " A foolish woman! I can't believe it." Sir Andrew gave him a gentle pat upon the shoulder, and offered to lay him a bottle of wine that he was thinking of the widow. My old friend started, and, recovering out of his brown study, told Sir Andrew that once in his life he had been in the right. In short, after some little hesitation, Sir Roger told us, in the fulness of his heart, that he had just re- ceived a letter from his steward, which acquainted him that his old rival and antagonist in the county, Sir David Dundrum, had been making a visit to the Avidow. '" How- ever," says Sir Roger, " I can never think that she'll have a man that's half a year older than I am, and a noted Republican into the bargain." "Will Honeycomb, who looks upon love as his particular province, interrupting our friend with a jaunty laugh : "I thought, knight," says he, " thou hadst lived long enough in the world not to pin thy happiness upon one that is a woman and a widow. I think that without van- ity I may pretend to know as much of the female world as 154 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY any man in Great Britain, though the chief of my knoM'l- edge consists in this, that they are not to be known." Will immediately, with his usual fluency, rambled into an account of his own amours. " I am now," says he, " upon the verge of fifty " (though, by the way, we all knew he was turned of threescore). "You may easily guess," continued Will, "that I have not lived so long in the world without having had some thoughts of settling in it, as the phrase is. To tell you truly, I have several times tried my fortune that way, though I can't much boast of my success. " I made my first addresses to a young lady in the coun- try; but when I thought things were pretty well drawing to a conclusion, her father, happening to hear that I had formerly boarded with a surgeon, the old put * forbid me his house, and within a fortnight after married his daugh- ter to a fox-hunter in the neighborhood. '" I made my next applications to a widow, and attacked her so briskly that I thought myself within a fortnight of her. As I waited upon her one morning, she told me that she intended to keep her ready money and jointure in her own hand, and desired me to call upon her attorney in Lyon's Inn, who would adjust 2 with me what it was proper for me to add to it. I was so rebuffed by this overture, that I never inquired either for her or her attorney afterwards. " A few months after, I addressed myself to a young lady who was an only daughter and of a good family; I danced with her at several balls, squeezed her by the hand, said soft things to her, and, in short, made no doubt of 3 her heart; and, though my fortune was not equal to hers, I was in hopes that her fond father would not deny her the man she had fixed her affections upon. But, as I went one day to the house in order to break the matter to him, I found the whole family in confusion, and heard, to my unspeak- J Pttt : a term of contempt. s Arrange. * Of capturing. SIR ROGERS ADVICE FROM WILL HONEYCOMB 155 able surprise, that Miss Jenny was 1 that very morning run away with the butler. " I then courted a second widow, and am at a loss to this day how I came to miss her. for she had often com- mended my person and behavior. Her maid, indeed, told me one day that her mistress had said she never saw a gentleman with such a spindle pair of legs 2 as Mr. Honeycomb. "After this I laid siege to four heiresses successively, and being a handsome young dog in those days, quickly made a breach in their hearts; but I don't know how it came to pass, though I seldom failed of getting the daugh- ter's consent, I could never in my life get the old people on my side. " I could give you an account of a thousand other unsuc- cessful attempts, particularly of one which I made some years since upon an old woman, whom 1 had certainly borne away with flying colors if her relations had not come pouring in to her assistance from all parts of England; nay, I believe I should have got her at last, had not she been carried off by an hard frost. ' ' As Will's transitions are extremely quick, he turned from Sir Roger, and, applying himself to me, told me there was a passage in the book I had considered last Sat- urday 3 which deserved to be writ in letters of gold; and, taking out a pocket Milton, read the following lines, which are part of one of Adam's speeches to Eve after the fall; "Oil ! why did our Creator wise ! that peopled highest heav'a With spirits masculine, create at last This novelty on earth, this fair defect Of Nature, and not fill Hie world at once With men, as angels, without feminine, Or find some other way to generate 1 Had. ' J Was this commendation, or does the " indeed" qualify it? 'The tenth book of Paradise Lost, in /Spectator No. 357. 156 KIR ROGER DE COVERLET Mankind ? This mischief had not then befall'n, And more that shall befall ; innumerable Disturbances on earth through female snares, And straight conjunction with this sex : for either He never shall find oat fit mate, but such As some misfortune brings him, or mistake : Or, whom he -wishes most, shall seldom gain Through her perverseness ; but shall see her gain'd By a far worse : or if she lore, withheld By parents : or his happiest choice too late Shall meet already HnkYl, and wedlock-bound To a fell adversary, his hate or shame ; "Which infinite calamity shall cause To human life, and household peace confound." 1 Sir Roger listened to this passage with great attention, and, desiring Mr. Honeycomb to fold down a leaf at the place, and lend him his book, the knight put it up in his pocket, and told us that he would read over those verses again before he went to bed. 2 X. 3 'Find these lines and verify the quotation : you will see that Budgell does not quote exactly. * Imagine the scene and the old knight's " speculations" thereon. ' See note 3, p. 79. SIR HOG EM AT VAUXHALL 157 XXXII. SIR ROGER AT VAUXHALL. {Spectator No. 383. Tuesday, Jfay 20. 1712, Addison.] Criminibus debent hortos . JUVENAL. As I was sitting in my chamber and thinking on a sub- ject for my next " Spectator," I heard two or three irregu- lar bounces at my landlady's door, and upon the opening of it, a loud, cheerful voice inquiring whether the philos- opher was at home. The child who went to the door answered very innocently that he did not lodge there. I immediately recollected that it was my good friend Sir Roger's voice, and that I had promised to go with him on the water to Spring Garden, 1 in case it proved a good evening. The knight put me in mind of my promise from the bottom of the staircase, but told me that if I was speculating he would stay below till I had done. Upon my coming down, I found all the children of the family got about my old friend, and my landlady herself, who is a notable prating gossip, engaged in a conference with him, being mightily pleased with his stroking her little boy upon the head, and bidding him be a good child and mind his book. We were no sooner come to the Temple Stairs but we were surrounded with a crowd of watermen, offering its their respective services. Sir Roger, after having looked about him very attentively, spied one with a wooden leg, and immediately gave him orders to get his boat ready. As we were walking towards it, "You must know," says Sir Roger, " I never make use of anybody to row me that 'At Charing Cross; afterwards called Fox-hall, or Vauxhall, when the gardens began to be built upon. 158 SIB ROGER DE COVERLEY has not either lost a leg or an arm. I would rather bate him a few strokes of his oar than not employ an honest man that had been wounded in the Queen's service. If I was a lord or a bishop, and kept a barge, I would not put a fellow in my livery that had not a wooden leg." My old friend, after having seated himself, and trimmed the boat with his coachman, who, being a very sober man,, always serves for ballast on these occasions, we made the best of our way for Fox-hall. Sir Roger obliged the waterman to give us the history of his right leg, and, hearing that he had left it at La Hogue, 1 with many par- ticulars which passed in that glorious action, the knight, in the triumph of his heart, made several reflections on the greatness of the British nation; as, that one English- man could beat three Frenchmen; that we could never be in danger of popery so long as we took care of our fleet; that the Thames was the noblest river in Europe; that London Bridge was a greater piece of work than any of the seven wonders of the world ; with many other honest prejudices which naturally cleave to the heart of a true Englishman. After some short pause, the old knight, turning about his head twice or thrice, to take a survey of this great me- tropolis, bid me observe how thick the city was set with churches, and that there was scarce a single steeple on this side Temple Bar. " A most heathenish sight! "says Sir Roger; "there is no religion at this end of the town. The fifty new churches will very much mend the prospect; but church work is slow, church work is slow! " t" I do not remember I have anywhere mentioned, in Sir Roger's character,, his custom of saluting everybody that passes by him with a good-morrow or a good-night. This the old man does out of the overflowings of his humanity, though at the same time it renders him so popular among all his country neighbors that it is thought to have gone 1 Head Browning's Herve Rid. KIR ROUER AT VAUXHALL 159 a good way in making him once or twice knight of the shire. 1 He cannot forbear this excrci.se of benevolence even in town, when he meets with any one in his morning or even- ing walk. It broke from him to several boats that passed by us upon the water; but to the knight's great surprise, as he gave the good-night to two or three young fellows a little before our landing, one of them, instead of return- ing the civility, asked us what queer old put 2 we had in the boat, with a great deal of the like Thames ribaldry. Sir Roger seemed a little shocked at first, but at length, assuming a face of magistracy, told us that if he were a Middlesex justice he would make such vagrants know that her Majesty's subjects were no more to be abused by water than by land. We were now arrived at Spring Garden, which is ex- quisitely pleasant at this time of year. When I con- sidered the fragrancy of the walks and bowers, with the choirs of birds that sung upon the trees, and the loose tribe of people that walked under their shades, I could not but look upon the place as a kind of Mahometan paradise. Sir Roger told me it put him in mind of a little coppice by his house in the country, which his chaplain used to call an aviary of nightingales. " You must understand," says the knight, " there is nothing in the world that pleases a man in love so much as your nightingale. Ah, Mr. Spec- tator! the many moonlight nights that I have walked by myself and thought on the widow by the music of the nightingales!" He here fetched a deep sigh, and was falling into a fit of musing, when a mask, 3 who came behind him, gave him a gentle tap upon the shoulder, and asked him if he would drink a bottle of mead with her. But the knight, being startled at so unexpected a familiar- ity, and displeased to be interrupted in his thoughts of the 1 An unconscious politician. 'Notel, p. 154. * One who wore a mask. 1GO SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY widow, told her she was a wanton baggage, and bid her go about her business. We concluded our walk with a glass of Burton ale and a elice of hung beef. When we had done eating, our- selves, the knight called a waiter to him and bid him carry the remainder to the waterman that had but one leg. I perceived the fellow stared upon him at the oddness of the message, and was going to be saucy, upon which I ratified the knight's commands with a peremptory look. 1 As we were going out of the garden, my old friend thinking himself obliged, as a member of the quorum, 2 to animadvert upon the morals of the place, told the mistress of the house, who sat at the bar, that he should be a bet- ter customer to her garden if there were more nightin- gales and fewer masks. I. 1 A look, observe ; not an order. * As a justice of the peace. S2J ROtiEfftf DEATH 1G1 XXXIII. SIR ROGER'S DEATH, . 517. Thursday, October 23, 1712. Addison.] Hen pietas ! heu prisca fides ! . ViRGir,. WE last night received a piece of ill news at our club which very sensibly afflicted every one of us. I question not but my readers themselves will be troubled at the hear- ing of it. To keep them no longer in suspense, Sir Roger de Coverley is dead. He departed this life at his house in the country, after a few weeks' sickness. Sir Andrew Freeport has a letter from one of his correspondents in those parts, that informs him the old man caught a cold at the county-sessions, as he was very warmly promoting an address of his own penning, in which he succeeded according to his wishes. But this particular conies from a Whig justice of peace, who was always Sir Roger's enemy and antagonist. I have letters both from the chap- lain and Captain Sentry which mention nothing of it, but are filled with many particulars to the honor of the good old man. I have likewise a letter from the butler, who took so much care of me last summer Avhen I was at the knight's house. As my friend the butler mentions, in the simplicity of his heart, several circumstances the others have passed over in silence, I shall give my reader a copy of his letter without any alteration or diminution. "Honoured Sir, 11 Knowing that you was my old Master's good Friend, I could not forbear sending you the melancholy Jfews of his Death, which has afflicted the whole Country, as well as his poor Servants, who loved him. I may say, better than we did our Lives. I am afraid he caught his Death the last County Sessions, where he would go to see Justice done to a poor Widow Woman, and her Fatherless Chil- 102 SIR ROGJtR DE COVERLET dren, that had been wronged by a neighbouring Gentle- man; for you know, Sir, my good Master was always the poor Man's Friend. Upon his coming home, the first Complaint he made was, that he had lost his Roast-Beef Stomach, not being able to touch a Sirloin, which was served up according to Custom; and you know he used to take great Delight in it. From that time forward he grew worse and worse, but still kept a good Heart to the last. Indeed, we were once in great Hope of his Recovery, upon a kind Message that was sent him from the Widow Lady whom lie had made love to the Forty last Years of his Life; but this only proved a Lightening before Death. He has be- queathed to this Lady, as a token of his Love, a great Pearl Necklace, and a Couple of Silver Bracelets set with Jewels, which belonged to my good old Lady his Mother: He has bequeathed the fine white Gelding, that he used to ride a hunting upon, to his Chaplain, because he thought he would be kind to him, and has left you all his Books. He has, moreover, bequeathed to the Chaplain a very pretty Tenement with good Lands about it. It being a very cold Day when he made his Will, he left for Mourning, to^every Man in the Parish, a great Frize-Coat, and to every W r o- man a black Riding-hood. It was a most moving Sight to see him take leave of his poor Servants, commending us all for our Fidelity, whilst we were not able to speak a Word for weeping. As we most of us are grown Gray-headed in our Dear Master's Service, he has left us Pensions and Legacies, which we may live very comfortably upon, the remaining part of our Days. He has bequeath'd a great deal more in Charity, which is not yet come to my Knowl- edge, and it is peremptorily said in the Parish, that he has left Mony to build a Steeple to the Church; for he was heard to say some time ago, that if he lived two Years longer, Coverly Church should have a Steeple to it. The Chaplain tells everybody that he made a very good End, and never speaks of him without Tears. He was buried according to his own Directions, among the Family of the Coverly'' s, on the Left Hand of his Father, Sir Arthur. The Coffin was carried by Six of his Tenants, and the Pall held up by Six of the Quorum : The whole Parish fol- low'd the Corps with heavy Hearts, and in their Mourning Suits, the Men in Frize, and the Women in Riding-Hoods. SIR ROGERS DEATH 163 Captain SENTRY, my Master's Xepbew, lias taken Pos- session of the Hall-House, and the whole Estate. When my old Master saw him a little before his Death, he shook him by the Hand, and wished him Joy of the Estate which was falling to him, desiring him only to make good Use of it, and to pay the several Legacies, and the Gifts of Charity which he told him he had left as Quitrents upon the Estate. The Captain truly seems a courteous Man, though he says but little. He makes much of those whom my Master loved, and shews great Kindness to the old House-dog, that you know my poor Master was so fond of. It would have gone to your Heart to have heard the Moans the dumb Creature made on the Day of my Master's Death. He has ne'er joyed himself since; no more has any of us. 'Twas the melaucholiest Day for the poor People that ever happened in Worcestershire. This being all from, "Honoured Sir, "Your most Sorrowful Servant, "Edward Biscuit." " P.S. My Master desired, some Weeks before he died, that a Book which comes up to you by the Carrier should be given to Sir Andrew Freeport, in his Name." This letter, notwithstanding the poor butler's manner of writing it, gave us such an idea of our good old friend that upon the reading of it there was not a dry eye in the club. Sir Andrew, opening the book, found it to be a collection of Acts of Parliament. There was in particular the Act of Uniformity, 1 with some passages in it marked by Sir Eoger's own hand. Sir Andrew found that they related to two or three points which he had disputed with Sir Eoger the last time he appeared at the club. Sir Andrew, who would have been merry at such an incident on another occasion, at the sight of the old man's hand- writing burst into tears, and put the book into his pocket. Captain Sentry informs me that the knight has left rings and mourning for every one in the club. 0. 1 An Act passed in 1661 prescribing the form of public prayers, administration of sacraments, and other rite$ of the Established Church of England. 104 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY XXXIV. SIR ROGER'S CHARACTER, ESTATE, AND SUCCESSOR. [Spectator No. 544. Monday, Nov. 24, 1712. Steele.] Nunquam ita quisquam bcne subducta ratione ad vitam fuit Quin res, aetas usus semper aliquid apportet novi Aliquid moneat, ut ilia, quae te scire credas, nescias Et, quae tibi putaris prima, in experiundo ut repudies. TERENCE. THERE are, I think, sentiments in the following letter from my friend Captain Sentry, which discover a rational and equal frame of mind, as well prepared for an advanta- geous as an unfortunate change of condition. Coverley Hall, Nov. 15, Worcestershire. Sir, I am come to the succession of the estate of my honored kinsman, Sir Eoger de Coverley; and I assure you I find it no easy task to keep up the figure of master of the for- tune which was so handsomely enjoyed by that honest, plain man. I cannot (with respect to the great obligations I have, be it spoken) reflect upon his character, but I am confirmed in the truth which I have, I think, heard spoken at the club; to wit, that a man of a warm and well-dis- posed heart, with a very small capacity, is highly superior in human society to him who, with the greatest talents, is cold and languid in his affections. But, alas! why do I make a difficulty in speaking of my worthy ancestor's failings ? His little absurdities and Incapacity for the conversation of the politest men are dead with him, and his greater qualities are even now useful to him. I know not whether by naming those disabilities I do not enhance his merit, since he has left behind him a reputation in his country which would be worth the pains of the wisest man's whole life to arrive at. SIR ROGER'S CHARACTER, ESTATE, ETC. Ifio By the way, I must observe to you that many of your readers have mistook that passage in your writings, wherein Sir Roger is reported to have inquired into the private character of the young woman at the tavern. 1 I know you mentioned that circumstance as an instance of the sim- plicity and innocence of his mind, which made him imag- ine it a very easy thing to reclaim one of those criminals. The less discerning of your readers cannot enter into that delicacy of description in the character. But, indeed, my chief business at this time is to repre- sent to you my present state of mind, and the satisfactions I promise to myself in the possession of my new fortune. I have continued all Sir Roger's servants, except such as it was a relief to dismiss into little beings 2 within my manor. Those who are in a list of the good knight's own hand to be taken care of by me, I have quartered upon such as have taken new leases of me, and added so many advan- tages during the lives of the persons so quartered, that it is the interest of those whom they are joined with, to cher- ish and befriend them upon all occasions. I find a considerable sum of ready money, which I am laying out among my dependants at the common interest, but with a design to lend it according to their merit, rather than according to their ability. I shall lay a tax upon such as I have highly obliged, to become security to me for such of their own poor youth, whether male or female, as want help towards getting into some being 3 in the world. I hope I shall be able to manage my affairs so as to improve my fortune every year by doing acts of kindness. I will lend my money to the use of none but indigent men, se- cured by such as have ceased to be indigent by the favor of my family or myself. AYhat makes this the more practi- cable is, that if they will do any one good with my money, they are welcome to it upon their own security: and I make no exception against it, because the persons who enter into the obligations, do it for their own family. I have laid out four thousand pounds this way, and it is not to be imag- ined what a crowd of people are obliged by it. In cases where Sir Roger has recommended, I have lent money to 1 Spectator No. 410. 4 Establishments. 'See above, note 2. 166 KIR ROGER J)E COVERLEY put put children, with a clause which makes void the ob- ligation in case the infant J dies before he is out of his apprenticeship; by which means the kindred and masters are extremely careful of breeding him to industry, that he may repay it himself by his labor, in three years' journey- work after his time is out, for the use of his securities. Opportunities of this kind are all that have occurred since I came to my estate; but I assure you I will pre- serve a constant disposition to catch at all the occasions I can to promote the good and happiness of my neigh- borhood. But give me leave to lay before you a little establishment which has grown out of my past life, that I doubt not will administer great satisfaction to me in that part of it, what- ever that is, which is to come. There is a prejudice in favor of the way of life to which a man has been educated, which I know not whether it would not be faulty to overcome. It is like a partiality to the interest of one's own country before that of any other nation. It is from an habit of thinking, grown upon me from my youth spent in arms, that I have ever held gen- tlemen who have preserved modesty, good-nature, jus- tice and humanity in a soldier's life, to be the most valu- able and worthy persons of the human race. To pass through imminent dangers, suffer painful watchings, fright- ful alarms, and laborious marches for the greater part of a man's time, and pass the rest in a sobriety conformable to the rules of the most virtuous civil life, is a merit too great to deserve the treatment it usually meets with among the other part of the world. But I assure you, sir, were there not very many who have this worth, we could never have seen the glorious events 2 which we have in our days. I need not say more to illustrate the character of a soldier than to tell you he is the very contrary to him you observe loud, saucy, and overbearing, in a red coat about town. But I was going to tell you that, in honor of the profes- sion of arms, I have set apart a certain sum of money for a table for such gentlemen as have served their country in the army, and will please from time to time to sojourn all, or any part of the year, at Coverley. Such of them as 1 A child who is under age. 3 Mention some within, twenty. years previous to that date. SIR ROGER'S CHARACTER, ESTATE, ETC. 167 will do me that honor shall find horses, servants, and all things necessary for their accommodation and enjoyment of all the conveniences of life in a pleasant, various coun- try. If Colonel Camperfelt J be in town, and his abilities are not employed another way in the service, there is no man would be more welcome here. That gentleman's thorough knowledge in his profession, together with the simplicity of his manners and goodness of his heart, would induce others like him to honor my abode; and I should be glad my acquaintance would take themselves to be invited or not, as their characters have an affinity to his. 1 would have all my friends know that they need not fear (though I am become a country gentleman) I will trespass against their temperance and sobriety. Xo, sir, I shall retain so much of the good sentiments for the con- duct of life which we cultivated in each other at our club, as to contemn all inordinate pleasures; but particularly remember, with our beloved Tully. 2 that the delight in food consists in desire, not satiety. They who most pas- sionately pursue pleasure, seldomest arrive at it. Now I am writing to a philosopher, I cannot forbear mentioning the satisfaction I took in the passage I read yesterday in the same Tully. A nobleman of Athens made a compli- ment to Plato the morning after he had supped at his house. " Your entertainments do not only please when you give them, but also the day after." I am, my worthy friend, Your most obedient, humble servant, T. William Sentry. 1 1. e., Kempenfeldt. He was the soldier after whom Captain Sentry is, by some, supposed to have been patterned. See note 1, p. 14. 2 Cicero. NOTE. While the foregoing selections embrace several essays that are not commonly found included among the so-called " de Coverley papers," there are still many Spectators in which cursory reference to Sir Tloger is made, and in some cases more extended mention. Such are Nos. 100, 127, 137, 141, 221, 251, 271, 295, 331, 338, 410, 424, 435, and 518. As most of these papers deal mainly with mat- ters foreign to our subject, for the sake of unity they have been omitted ; but they will be found of interest to the careful student. Between Spectators 517-544 (chaps, xxxiii. and xxxiv. of this vol- ume) the Club gradually melts away, leaving only Sir Andrew, the " worthy clergyman, who is dying," and the SPECTATOR. In 168 SIS ROGER DE COVERLEY 517 Sir Roger dies ; in 530 Will Honeycomb marries ; in 541 the Templar abandons poetry, turns to the law, and gives up his com- panions ; in 544 we see Captain Sentry in possession of Sir Roger's estate. Later (in 549) we learn that the clergyman has peacefully passed away, and Sir Andrew retires from business and from club life, leaving the SPECTATOR alone. Finally (in 555) he too makes his bow, and for a year and a half the curtain falls. APPENDIX THE MOTTOES TRANSLATED THE SPECTATOR says (in No. 370) : "Many of my fair readers, as well as very gay and well received persons of the other sex, are extremely perplexed at the Latin sentences at the head of my speculations ; I do not know whether I ought not to indulge them with translations of each of them." In another essay (No. 221) he says : "I must confess, the motto is of little use to an unlearned reader, for which reason I consider it only as a word to the wise. But as for niy unlearned friends, if they cannot relish the motto, I take care to make pro- vision for them in the body of my paper. If they do not under- stand the sign that is hung out, they know very well by it that they may meet with entertainment in the house ; and I think I was never better pleased than with a plain man's compliment, who, upon his friend's telling him that lie would like the Specta- tor much better if he understood the motto, replied that good wine needs no bush." 1 While the most of those who use this little volume are doubt- less learned readers, and capable of "understanding the sign, " it has still been thought best to provide original translations (combined with a few selected ones from the poets), but to place these at the close of the book, so as not to interfere with the en- joyment of any who prefer to exercise their own wits upon the classic tongue. As those who consult this Appendix are presum- ably ignorant of Latin, whenever the translation departs widely from the Latin idiom a literal version is given in parentheses. thing intended to resemble a bush, consisting of three or four tiers of hoops fastened one above another, with vine leaves and grapes richly carved and gilt, and a Bacchus e execi jg after Hist, of Music 170 APPENDIX I. He does not purpose from a flash to produce smoke, but from smoke to derive light ; so that, in succession, he may bring forth wondrous beauties. "Art of Poetry" ("Ars Poetica," or "Epistola ad Pisones "), v. 143. " He does not lavish at a blaze his fire, Sudden to glare, and in a smoke expire ; But rises from a cloud of smoke to light, And pours his specious miracles to sight." Translation by Philip Francis, D.D. II. But six others and more cry out together with one voice. "Seventh Satire," v. 166. (The best Latin texts have haec [these things] in place of ast [but], and vel [even] in place of et [and].) III. They believed it a gross wickedness and one to be atoned for with death, if a youth had not risen up in presence of an old man. "Thirteenth Satire," v. 54. " 'Twas a crime Worthy of death, such awe did years engage, If manhood rose not up to reverend age." Translation by William Giffoi-d. (Compare with " Leviticus," xix. 32.) IV. The wild beast is merciful to those of his own kind. (Literally, A similar wild beast spares cognate spots.) "Fifteenth Satire," v. 159. "From spotted skins the leopard does refrain." Translation by Nahum Tate. V. She had not accustomed her woman's hands to the distaff or work-baskets of Minerva. " yEneid," vii. 805. " Unbred to spinning, in the loom unskilled." Translation by John Dryden. VI. Here abounding Plenty shall flow, and for thee shall she pour forth the wealth of rural honors from her generous horn. ^Literally, Hence for thec plenty shall floic to the full, f rain benig APPENDIX 171 nant horn [pour forth] the riches of the honors of the country.) "Odes," book I. xvii. 14. " And all our rural honors here Their flowery wealth around thee shall diffuse." Translation by Philip Francis, D.D. VII. The Athenians erected a colossal statue of ^Esop, and, although he was a slave, placed it on an enduring pedestal, that men might take knowledge that the Way to Honor lies open to all. (Literally, For ^Esop, the Athenians placed a mighty statue, and established the slave on an eternal foundation, that all might know the way of honor to lie open.) "Epilogue to Phaedrus's Fables." VIII. Uselessly out of breath ; achieving nothing, though attempting much. (Literally, -Panting without recompense, in doing many things doing nothing.) " Fables," v. 2. IX. Unconventionally wise. (Literally. Wise [but] not accord- ing to rule.) " Satires," book ii. 2, 1. 3. X. On all sides an awful dread causes our hearts to quail, while the very silence is terrifying. (Literacy, Everywhere horror [seizes our] spirits, at the same time the silences themselves terrify [them].) (The best text has animo in place of animos [literally, horror is to the spirit], but the idea is the same.) "^Eneid," ii. 755. XL First, reverence the deathless gods as it is fixed by law. "Fragments." J XII. [Her] features abide deeply fixed in [his] breast. "^Eneid," iv. 4. (In the original this means that his [^neas's] features remain in her [Dido's] heart ; but in this paper the rule must be worked the other way.) XIII. The shame and dread of (literally, -flight [from]) Pov- erty. "Epistles," book I. xviii. 24. XIV. That there may be a sound mind in a sound body. "Tenth Satire," v. 356. 1 Only fragments of " Pythagoras " have been preserved, and these were written by eome one else. 172 APPENDIX XV. Cithaerou ' calls with a great cry, and the dogs of Taygetus. 2 "Georgics," iii. 43. " Cithaeron loudly calls me to rny way ; Thy hounds, Taygetus, open, and pursue their prey." Translation by John Dryden. XVI. They themselves invent dreams for themselves. "Ec- logues," viii. 108. XVTI. The deadly shaft is fixed in his side. "^neid," iv. 73. "The fatal dart Sticks in his side, and rankles in his heart." Translation by John Dryden. XVIII. The city which they call Rome, O Meliboeus, I, foolish one, thought [was] like this [village] of ours. "Eclogues," i. 20. " Fool that I was, I thought imperial Rome Like Mantua, where on market days we come." Translation by John Dryden. XIX. First Motto : In sooth, I believe [that they act thus] because a talent has been bestowed upon them by the gods. (Literally, Indeed I believe 3 because [there] may be from heaven to them a natural capacity.') " Georgics," i. 415. Second Motto : All things are full of God [Jove]. "Eclogues," iii. 60. XX. A pleasant companion on the way is equal to (literally, is in the place of) a carriage. "Fragments." 4 1 A mountain in Bceotia. 9 A mountain in Laconia famed for hunting. * Virgil said quite another thing : viz., Hand equldem credo " In truth I do not believe [that when ravens, etc., display intelligence it is] because they have a spirit of discernment from the gods, or superior knowledge of things by fate." Dryden translates it thus : " Not that I think their breasts with heavenly souls Inspired, as man, who destiny controls." But Addison garbled the text, and made it a suitable motto for his own belief. 4 Publius Syrns was a Roman slave from Syria who lived in the time of Virgil. He was freed because of his literary talents. Eight or nine hundred of his maxims are now extant. APPENDIX 173 V XXI. Wise instruction promotes inborn energy And proper culture strengthens the soul ; But whenever morality gives way Vices disfigure talents of noble birth. (Literally, But learning moves forward force situated within, and right cultivations make breasts like oak : at whatever time morals have fallen away, faults disgrace [un-decorate] well-born \things . ., talents (ingenia)].) "Odes," book IV. iv. 33. " But education can the genius raise And wise instructions native virtue aid ; Nobility without them is disgrace, And honor is by vice to shame betrayed." Translation by Lord Lyttleton. XXII. Do not, my sons, familiarize your minds with such great wars ; And do not turn your sturdy strength against the vitals of your country. "^Eueid," vi. 832. " Embrace again, my sons ! be foes no more ; Nor stain your country with her children's gore ! " Translation by John Dryden. XXIII. Whether he be Trojan or Rutulian, I will show no dis- tinction. (Literally, Trojan or Rutulian he may be, in no dis- crimination will 1 hold [him].) " ^Eneid," x. 108. XXIV. And ever they delight to heap up fresh booty and to live upon plunder. (Literally, And it is always pleasing [to them] to carry together recent spoils and to live by means of [a thing] stolen. "vEueid," vii. 748. XXV. Ye forests, again farewell. (Literally, Turned back, woods yourselves, withdraw). "Eclogues," x. 63. XXVI. That man who does not see what the occasion demands, and either talks too much, or makes a display of himself, or has no consideration for those who are present, is an impertinent fellow. (Literally, [He] who either does not see what the time demands, or speaks more [things], or shows himself off, or has not regard of those with whom he is, is said to be " inept.' 1 '') 174 APPENDIX XXVII. These things I remember, and that the conquered Thyrsis contended in vain. " Eclogues," vii. 69. XXVIII. Simplicity, [a thing] most rare in our age. " Art of Love," book I. v. 241. XXIX. Still thou must go down to the grave, whither Numa and Ancus have gone. (Literally, Nevertheless it remains to go whither Numa has departed, and Anew.) "Epistles," book I. vi. 27. XXX. I shall direct the skilful actor to copy his manner from life, and then he will make his utterances true to nature. (Literally, / will order the learned imitator to look back upon an example of life and manners, and hence to lead true voices.) "Art of Poetry" ("Ars Poetica," or "Epistola ad Pisones"), v. 327. XXXT. The savage lioness pursues the wolf, the wolf himself [hunts] the she-goat ; the wanton she-goat seeks for clover blos- soms (the flowering cytisus). " Eclogues," ii. 63. " The greedy lioness the wolf pursues, The wolf the kid, the wanton kid the browse." Translation by John Dryden. XXXII. They owe their pleasure-gardens to vice. "First Satire," v. 75. XXXIII. Alas, for that old-time piety and faith ! " ^Ineid," vi. 878. XXXIV. No one ever has a plan of life so well drawn up but that circumstances, age, or experience may contribute some new and valuable suggestion ; so that one is often unskilled in what he thinks he knows, and that which he at first thought of great importance to himself he may fling aside on trial. (Literally, Never was any one with a plan for life so well arranged but that a thing, age, [or] use may always bring something of new, may advise something : so that thou mayest not knoic what thou thinkest thyself to know ; and so that thou mayest reject, in experimenting, what [things] thou mayest have thought first for thyself. ) " The Broth- ers," Act v. Sc. 4. LONGMANS' ENGLISH CLASSICS The prices named in the following lists are retail. Special terms for class introduction and discounts for regular supplies will be furnished to any teacher upon request. Books prescribed for 1901, Examinations, p. 3. Books prescribed for 1902, - - - p. 4. Books prescribed for 1903,1904, and 1905, p. 5. 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