Transcriber's Notes

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.

Variations in spelling, punctuation and accents are as in the original.

Each page in the main body of the book has every 5th line numbered. The Notes section (page 217 onwards) refers back to the main body by page and line number. In order to preserve this association, the line numbers have been enclosed in brackets thus {5} and left in position. The first reference to each page in the notes is linked to the relevant page.

Not all pages have notes and no reference is made to the notes in the original text. As such a facility might prove useful, the first line number {5} on any page for which there are notes has been linked to the relevant notes section.

BASED ON ROCQUE'S MAP OF LONDON IN 1741-5

OF ENGLISH TEXTS

GENERAL EDITOR

HENRY VAN DYKE

Addison's Sir Roger de Coverley Papers. Professor C. T. Winchester, Wesleyan University. 40 cents.

Burke's Speech on Conciliation. Professor William MacDonald, Brown University. 35 cents.

Byron, Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, and Browning. Professor C. T. Copeland, Harvard University.

Carlyle's Essay on Burns. Professor Edwin Mims, Trinity College, North Carolina. 35 cents.

Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner. Professor George E. Woodberry, Columbia University. 30 cents.

Emerson's Essays. Henry van Dyke. 35 cents.

Franklin's Autobiography. Professor Albert Henry Smyth, Central High School, Philadelphia. 40 cents.

Gaskell's Cranford. Professor Charles E. Rhodes, Lafayette High School, Buffalo. 40 cents.

George Eliot's Silas Marner. Professor W. L. Cross, Yale University. 40 cents.

Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield and Deserted Village. Professor James A. Tufts, Phillips Exeter Academy. 45 cents.

Irving's Sketch-Book. Professor Martin W. Sampson, formerly of Indiana University. 45 cents.

Lamb's Essays of Elia. Professor John F. Genung, Amherst College.

Macaulay's Addison. Professor Charles F. McClumpha, University of Minnesota. 35 cents.

Macaulay's Life of Johnson. Professor J. S. Clark, Northwestern University. 35 cents.

Macaulay's Addison and Johnson. In one volume. (McClumpha and Clark.) 45 cents.

Macaulay's Milton. Rev. E. L. Gulick, Lawrenceville School. 35 cents.

Milton's Minor Poems. Professor Mary A. Jordan, Smith College. 35 cents.

Scott's Ivanhoe. Professor Francis H. Stoddard, New York University. 50 cents.

Scott's Lady of the Lake. Professor R. M. Alden, Leland Stanford Jr. University. 40 cents.

Shakespeare's As You Like It. Professor Isaac N. Demmon, University of Michigan. 35 cents.

Shakespeare's Julius Cæsar. Dr. Hamilton W. Mabie, "The Outlook." 35 cents.

Shakespeare's Macbeth. Professor T. M. Parrott, Princeton University. 40 cents.

Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. Professor Felix E. Schelling, University of Pennsylvania. 35 cents.

Tennyson's Gareth and Lynette, Lancelot and Elaine, and The Passing of Arthur. Henry van Dyke. 35 cents.

Tennyson's Princess. Professor Katharine Lee Bates, Wellesley College. 40 cents.

Washington's Farewell Address, and Webster's First Bunker Hill Oration. Professor Charles W. Kent, University of Virginia.

GATEWAY SERIES

THE
SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY
PAPERS

EDITED BY

C. T. WINCHESTER, L.H.D.
PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE,
WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY

NEW YORK CINCINNATI CHICAGO
AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY

Copyright, 1904, by
AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY.
Entered at Stationers' Hall, London.
SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY.
W. P. 2

[PREFACE BY THE GENERAL EDITOR]

This series of books aims, first, to give the English texts required for entrance to college in a form which shall make them clear, interesting, and helpful to those who are beginning the study of literature; and, second, to supply the knowledge which the student needs to pass the entrance examination. For these two reasons it is called The Gateway Series.

The poems, plays, essays, and stories in these small volumes are treated, first of all, as works of literature, which were written to be read and enjoyed, not to be parsed and scanned and pulled to pieces. A short life of the author is given, and a portrait, in order to help the student to know the real person who wrote the book. The introduction tells what it is about, and how it was written, and where the author got the idea, and what it means. The notes at the foot of the page are simply to give the sense of the hard words so that the student can read straight on without turning to a dictionary. The other notes, at the end of the book, explain difficulties and allusions and fine points.

The editors are chosen because of their thorough training and special fitness to deal with the books committed to them, and because they agree with this idea of what a Gateway Series ought to be. They express, in each case, their own views of the books which they edit. Simplicity, thoroughness, shortness, and clearness,—these, we hope, will be the marks of the series.

HENRY VAN DYKE.

PREFACE

The text of the Coverley papers in this volume is that of G. Gregory Smith's edition of The Spectator. This edition has been chosen because it reproduces the original form of the papers after they had been corrected by Steele and Addison for the first Collected Edition of The Spectator, 1712-1715, and before they had been tampered with by later editors. In three or four instances, a few words have been omitted—the omission in every case being indicated, and spelling, punctuation, and capitalization have been modernized, as they must be for a school text. In other particulars it is believed the papers stand in this volume as they were left by their authors.

All the Coverley papers are included except that one by Tickell of which Addison himself disapproved. I have thought it best, however, to print only entire papers; and have not, therefore, culled the few paragraphs in which incidental mention is made of Sir Roger in the course of essays devoted chiefly to other subjects.

In accordance with the plan of this Series, the occasional brief notes needed to explain a word or to call attention to some peculiar idiom or structure are set at the foot of the page; longer, illustrative notes follow the text at the end of the volume.

The best method of approach to the work of any author is usually through a study of his life and surroundings; this is certainly true of a literature so full of personal interest as the literature of the age of Queen Anne. I have, therefore, in the Introduction attempted to give some notion of the personality of Steele and Addison, and then some account of the social conditions that explain the remarkable success of The Tatler and The Spectator. Two or three books, like Thackeray's English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century and Ashton's Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne, will help the student in his endeavour to frame in his imagination a picture of the men and their time; but for comment on The Spectator, nothing, after all, is worth so much as The Spectator itself. The student should be encouraged to read more of these charming papers, and to make himself, if possible, a little at home in that most urbane and hospitable period of English literature.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

I. Steele and Addison

On the morning of the 12th of April, 1709, there was laid upon all the coffee-house tables of London the first number of a double-column sheet in small folio, entitled The Tatler, or the Lucubrations of Isaac Bickerstaff. The Tatler was to be issued thrice a week, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and could be bought for the moderate price of one penny. The pseudonym Isaac Bickerstaff had been made familiar all over London, some months before, by an admirable jest played by Dr. Swift upon a notorious almanac maker and quack astrologer, one Partridge. Swift, writing over the signature of Bickerstaff, had gravely predicted that Partridge would infallibly die at a certain day and hour, and in another pamphlet had given a circumstantial account of his decease; while poor Partridge convulsed the town with frantic protestations that he was still alive. But the editor of The Tatler who now assumed this name of Bickerstaff was not Swift, but Richard Steele. It seems to have been Steele's intention to keep, for a time, his editorship a secret; but his disguise was soon penetrated by at least one of his friends. Joseph Addison, who was in Ireland when The Tatler appeared, detected the hand of his friend in the sixth number. He furnished Steele, it is said, with many hints and suggestions for the early numbers of the paper, and after his return from Ireland in 1710 became himself a regular contributor. In January, 1711, The Tatler came suddenly to an end, with the 271st number. Steele, however, had no thought of abandoning this form of literary effort, and on the first of the following March he started that now more famous journal, The Spectator. The Spectator was similar in form and purpose to The Tatler, but it was to be issued daily. It is usually spoken of as Addison's Spectator; but it was no more Addison's than Steele's. The two men were associated in the conduct of it from the start, and their contributions were about equal in number—Addison writing 274 papers, and Steele 236. The second number of The Spectator, written by Steele, contains the account of that club, of which Sir Roger de Coverley was the most famous member; and the Coverley papers followed at intervals through the next year and a half.

The friendship of Steele and Addison was not of recent growth. They had been boys together in the Charterhouse School, London. Dick Steele at that time was a fatherless,[1] and almost friendless, lad who had been recommended to the Charterhouse by a distant relative, the Duke of Ormond. Addison was the son of the Dean of Lichfield, and came up to the Charterhouse from a home of culture and learning. The two young fellows formed here one of those school friendships that last a lifetime. Addison, though a little the younger, was doubtless a good deal the wiser of the two; and there may have been in his regard a touch of that patronizing temper which in later life he sometimes showed in too superior a fashion. But for Steele the acquaintance was certainly very fortunate. There are pleasant glimpses of the young Irish lad invited for a holiday to the home of his friend Addison, the quiet deanery under the trees at Lichfield. Good Dean Addison, Steele said many years after, loved him as one of his own sons; and in that home the fatherless boy saw how domestic love and purity lend a charm to manners that all the wit and fashion of the town can never give. In one of the most delightful of the Tatler papers[2] he gives a portrait of a father, dignified and decorous yet affectionate, which is evidently drawn from his recollections of the Lichfield household.

Addison was entered at Queen's College, Oxford, in 1687, at the early age of fifteen, and next year obtained a scholarship at Magdalen, where he continued in residence, as undergraduate, Master, and Fellow, until 1699. Steele, whose scholarship was probably not brilliant, though he had been in the Charterhouse two years longer than Addison, did not follow him to Oxford until 1690, when he was matriculated at Christ Church. He did not remain there, however, long enough to take any degree. He never had the retiring and scholarly tastes of his friend Addison, and after three years in the university could resist the attractions of the great outside world no longer. Looking about for a career, he not unnaturally decided for the army; and in 1694 he left Oxford to enlist as a private in the Horse Guards. He soon received a commission as ensign in the regiment of Lord Cutts, and before 1700 is mentioned as Captain Steele.

Steele's soldiering, which was nearly all done in London and served chiefly to make him acquainted with the town, might be passed over were it not for one thing that came of it. His life in the Guards was doubtless not so irregular as that of most soldiers; but it was more irregular than his conscience could approve. In the sincerity of his heart the young Captain of the Guards bethought himself of strengthening his moral and religious principles by writing them down in black and white, judging, as he said, that he might thereby be led to think about them the more and by his desire of consistency make his life conform to them the better. The result was the first—if we except some verses printed at the death of Queen Mary in 1695—of Steele's ventures in authorship, The Christian Hero, An Argument to prove that No Principles save those of Religion are sufficient to make a Great Man. The Christian Hero is by no means a piece of priggery, but a sensible and wise little book. It shows, moreover, on almost every page, some flavour of Steele's engaging ingenuousness and humour. It is of historic interest, too, as introducing a new style of writing. For it may be called the first attempt to enlist the charm of wit and good breeding in the service of religion; it contains the germs of scores of essays Steele afterward wrote with that intent.

The Christian Hero did not correct all of Steele's irregularities; but it did reveal to him where his best ability lay. He said complacently, later in life, that when he put on his jack-boots and mounted his horse as a dragoon he wasn't acquainted with his own parts, and didn't know that he could handle a pen better than a sword; The Christian Hero taught him that. As soon as the book was through the press he tried his hand at a comedy, finding it necessary, as he said, to "enliven his character." He might seem to have been careful, however, not to overdo this enlivening of his character, for his comedy was entitled The Funeral, or Grief à la Mode. But in spite of its lugubrious title, it contained some genuinely humorous scenes, and by grace of very good acting and the applause of Steele's fellow soldiers of the Guards—who packed the house—it scored a satisfactory stage success. Two other comedies followed this in the next three years, The Lying Lover in 1703, and The Tender Husband in 1705. By this time Steele's reputation as a wit was assured. Always what Doctor Johnson used to call "a clubbable man," his easy gayety and rather too convivial habits made him a typical man about town; and Captain Steele began to be spoken of as a man who talked charmingly, and who could write as well as he talked.

In 1705 he married a widow, one Mrs. Stretch, who died a year and a half later and left him a snug estate in the Barbadoes. Thus secured against the chance of adverse fortune, he sold his commission in the army, and set up as man of letters. Like all the writers of his time, however, he considered his pen to be at the service of his political party, and expected a reward in some civil office. In 1706 he was appointed Gentleman Usher to Prince George of Denmark, the stupid husband of Queen Anne, and in the following year was given the more lucrative position of Gazetteer. This office he held when, in 1709, he started The Tatler.

About a year after the death of his first wife, Steele had married again, this time a "Welsh beauty," Miss Mary Scurlock. The letters of Steele to this lady, during the few weeks of acquaintance that preceded the marriage and for years thereafter, are the most delightful domestic correspondence in our language. They are most of them mere notelets, written in his office, at the club, in a tavern, anywhere whence he may send her a kind word. Steele never had any mastery of business, and it is probable that the bailiffs had something to do with the frequent absences from home that these letters record. Mrs. Steele, on the other hand, was a woman of unusually thrifty and methodical habit, to whom the carelessness and extravagance of her husband must have been very trying. It is evident from his letters that she sometimes gave him quite as much advice as he felt himself able to use. After the first few months, he has dropped the "Molly," and the letters are uniformly addressed to his "Dear Prue"; and once or twice he goes so far as to remonstrate with her quietly for an unendurable interference with his "business." Yet nothing disturbs his constant affection, and the letters are filled with the same playful, tender prettinesses to the last. That was a truthful signature with which he once signed a midnight letter when he could not come home: "I am, my dear Prue, a little in drink, but at all times, Your Own Faithful Husband, Richard Steele." There was no other man of letters in the Queen Anne time, I am sure, whose domestic life would bear turning wrong side out so well. Indeed, no other writer of that age appreciated so well the character of woman, or has given us such pictures of the beauty and charm of home. It was Steele who paid to Lady Elizabeth Hastings that best compliment ever offered to a lady, "To love her is a liberal education."

It was in these happy, early years of his married life, when his fortunes, though always precarious, were hopeful, when he was enjoying the friendship of Halifax and Addison and Swift, when his own humor and invention were at their brightest, that Steele had the one great inspiration of his life—he conceived the idea of The Tatler.

Meantime, Addison had begun his career both in politics and in letters. He had not been in haste—Mr. Addison was never in haste. In 1698, some three years after his friend Steele left Oxford, he had been elected Fellow of Magdalen College, and seemed well satisfied with the retired and scholarly life there. He had some modest literary aspirations. In 1697 he published some verses entitled An Account of the English Poets, which make it evident that he had no relish for Chaucer and Spenser, and which do not mention Shakespeare at all. In Latin poetry his taste was happier. He made a translation of the Georgics of Virgil, prefaced by an essay that won compliments from the great Dryden, and he wrote Latin verses of his own that were thought to be of quite surprising excellence. His classical studies may not have broadened his taste or his intellect very much, but they doubtless did something to cultivate that smoothness and nicety of phrase for which he was afterward to be so noted. In those years at Magdalen everybody supposed he would go into the church. He seemed a parson born and bred. And he doubtless would have taken orders, had it not been for a piece of signal good fortune that befell him. Dryden had introduced young Addison to Mr. Congreve, and Mr. Congreve had introduced him to Montague, afterward Lord Halifax. Montague it was worth while to know. Really a great statesman and financier, he had won some reputation as a poet in his earlier days, and was always ambitious to be accounted the friend and patron of letters. In those years the leaders of both political parties were coming to see the need of enlisting the services of young men of wit and learning; and Montague, whose appreciation perhaps was quickened by some complimentary verses in excellent Latin, deemed this Mr. Addison too promising an ally to lose. Accordingly, in 1699, when he was twenty-seven, Addison was given a handsome pension of three hundred pounds a year, bidden go travel on the continent, keep his eyes open, and learn French. He remained on the continent about three years, when, at the death of King William, his pension lapsed, and at the breaking out of the great war of the Spanish Succession he was obliged to return to England. His prospects for the next three years were not bright. He had written some good Latin verses, and some English verses that were not so good. On his return from his travels he printed a rather dull account of them, which few people read then and which nobody reads now. He was known to a little circle of great men, but he was dangerously near poverty.

Yet good fortune never deserted Mr. Addison for long. In 1704 the Duke of Marlborough won the famous victory of Blenheim, and forthwith the little Whig poets began to sing it. But much of their fustian was so sublimely bad that even the Lord Treasurer, Godolphin, to whom all poetry was very much alike, began to see that the triumph was suffering for lack of a worthy poet. In this emergency he applied to Montague, whom he supposed to know most about such matters, and Montague recommended his old protégé, Addison. Thus it happened—if Pope's story be correct—that one day there climbed to Mr. Addison's lodgings, up three flights in the Haymarket, no less a person than the Honorable Henry Boyle, Chancellor of the Exchequer, with the request that Mr. Addison write a poem. The Campaign, which Addison produced in response to this august invitation, will be voted by most readers to-day a dull poem; but it was much admired then, and one simile in particular, comparing Marlborough to an avenging angel, is said to have captivated the imagination of Godolphin. At all events, The Campaign served to introduce Addison to public life. He was shortly after made Under-Secretary of State, and was never out of office again so long as he lived. In 1707 he was elected to Parliament; next year was appointed Under-Secretary of State for Ireland—where he was residing when Steele started The Tatler,—and although he lost that office when the Whigs went into a minority in 1710, yet he was one of the few Whigs elected to Parliament that year; after the death of Anne he went to Ireland again as Chief Secretary, and for a little time before his death reached his highest office as Secretary of State for England. It was a career of easy and uninterrupted prosperity. "I believe Mr. Addison could be elected king if he chose," said Swift with a twinge of envy. Yet Addison would never have been remembered for his public services. His title to lasting fame, like that of Steele, rests upon the work done for The Tatler and The Spectator.

The later writings of the two men are of less importance. The Spectator was discontinued at the end of 1712, and through the following year Steele conducted a similar periodical, The Guardian, from which political discussion was not to be so rigidly excluded as it had been from The Spectator. In the next five years he attempted three or four other papers, but they were all short-lived, and of little interest. Addison revived The Spectator in 1714, issuing it thrice a week for a year, and in 1715-16 he conducted for some months a periodical called The Freeholder in the interest of party measures he was then advocating. But neither Steele nor Addison ever had much success in managing an enterprise of this sort alone.

In 1713 Addison produced his once famous play of Cato. The reader of to-day will vote the Cato cold and declamatory; but it was vastly admired then, as the first correct and dignified tragedy upon the English stage. The critics and the crowd united to praise, and all the town went to see it. By this time Addison was regarded as the foremost man of letters in England. He set up a servant of his, one Buttons, as proprietor of a coffee-house in Great Russell Street, almost opposite "Will's," where Dryden had reigned as critic twenty years before, and here he presided over his circle of friends and admirers, and

"Gave his little senate laws."

Perhaps in his later years his happiest hours were passed here. In 1716 he had married the Countess Dowager of Warwick, to whom he had long paid patient and dignified court; but if rumour is to be trusted, his domestic life was not a happy one.

"Marrying discord in a noble wife"

was Pope's last thrust at him. He did not long survive his fortune, good or ill, but died at Holland House, the residence of his Countess, June 17, 1719, at the early age of forty-seven.

Steele survived his friend more than ten years; but they were years of inactivity. The great blow of his life fell when his wife died in 1718. That year was also further embittered by an unfortunate controversy with Addison, which for the first time in their lives estranged the two friends. After 1720 Steele retired from London and passed his remaining years, partly in Hereford and partly in the Welsh town of Carmarthen. He had succeeded in paying all his debts; he kept the love and esteem of all his old friends that were left; and his temper was sweet and gentle to the last. He died at Carmarthen, in September, 1729.

II. The Tatler and The Spectator

The date of the founding of The Tatler is important as marking the beginning of popular literature in England. From this humble origin sprang the great army of magazines and reviews which, for the last two hundred years, have contained so much of the best English writing. Before The Tatler, it may be said that there was no good reading in popular form. The English novel was not yet born. The newspapers, about as large as a lady's pocket handkerchief, contained nothing but news, and very little of that. The political pamphlet was purely partisan, was usually written by penny-a-liners, and could rarely pretend to any permanent interest or literary quality. In 1704 Daniel Defoe had founded his Review, which deserves to be called the earliest of political journals; but the Review, though it contains much vigorous writing, was strictly a party organ. Steele's purpose in The Tatler was quite different. He is a humorist and moralist. He writes to entertain, and incidentally, to correct or improve; he aims to depict all the charms and the humours of society, and to turn a playful satire upon its follies. To do this is always to make literature; to do it as Steele and Addison could, is to "show the very age and body of the time his form and pressure."

The immediate success of The Tatler and The Spectator is easily understood. In the first place, there was now coming to be, for the first time, a large reading public in England. Before 1700 no English author had made a fortune or even a competence by the sale of his books. But the most important social fact in England at the beginning of the eighteenth century is the rapid growth of a great middle class. Shrewd, energetic, these men were getting the trade and commerce of England mostly into their hands, filling up the great towns, and exerting an influence in public affairs which neither political party could afford to overlook. It was for them that the political pamphlet was written. How large a reading public a popular pamphleteer might command at this time, may be inferred from the fact that sixty thousand copies of one of Defoe's pamphlets are said to have been sold on the streets of London, and Swift's famous tract, The Conduct of the Allies, ran through four editions in a week. But these people demanded something better than the party pamphlet. Intelligent, ambitious, they had social aspirations, and were interested in the life of the hour, in the club, in the drawing-room, at the theatre. They had some relish, too, of the best things in poetry and art. When Pope translated the Iliad his publisher issued an elegant subscription edition of six hundred and fifty copies for more aristocratic purchasers; but he issued also a cheap duodecimo edition for the general public, and of this he seems to have sold about seven thousand copies almost immediately after publication. Indeed, if we except Addison, all the prominent men of letters of the Queen Anne time—Steele, Swift, Pope, Prior, Gay—themselves belonged to this middle class; they were all the sons of tradesmen.

The readers for whom Steele and Addison wrote nearly all lived in London—and loved it. They were interested in the passing life of the town, in the street, the stage, the coffee-house. Doubtless that old London was an ugly, unkempt town. Its population was only about half a million—less than one-tenth what it is to-day. Its streets were narrow, ill-paved, and dirty, separated from the strip of sidewalk on either hand by reeking gutters. After nightfall, lighted only by flickering oil lamps, they were the haunt of footpads who terrorized the watchmen, and of bands of roistering young blades who headed up women in barrels and rolled them down hill for diversion, or chased the unwary stranger into a corner and made him dance by pricking him with their sword points. Public morals were very low. Drunkenness and license confronted the decent citizen on every hand, and, in public gardens like Vauxhall, often held high carnival. Taste and manners, even in what called itself polite society, were often coarse. Profanity, loud and open, might have been heard on the lips of fine ladies in places of public resort; while Swift's Polite Conversation affords convincing proof of how vapid and how gross the talk might be at the ridotto or over the card table.

Yet if society at this time had its seamy side, it was in the age of Anne that Englishmen began to feel the charm of wit and manners, of fashion and breeding. To the man about town, this murky London was the centre of all that was best and brightest in a new society. It was not so large but that he felt at home in every part of it. In one coffee-house he met the wits and men of letters, in another the scholars and clergy, in another the merchants, in another the men of fashion and gallantry, and in all he could hear bright talk upon the news of the day. In the theatre he could see the latest play, written by Mr. Congreve or Mr. Addison, and with a prologue by Mr. Pope. He probably belonged to two or three clubs; and in the drawing-room or at the assembly he enjoyed the society of women with the charm of gentle manners and brilliant conversation. All that served to make life attractive and character urbane he found between Hyde Park and the Bank.

Now it was to this quickened social sense that The Tatler and The Spectator made appeal. They pictured the life of the town from day to day, especially in its lighter, more humorous phases. And this was always done with some underlying moral purpose. As the months go past, we have in these papers an exhaustless flow of kindly satire upon the manners and minor morals of society,—on behaviour at church, on ogling the ladies, on snuff-taking, on the folly of enormous petticoats and low tuckers, on the brainless fops that display themselves in club windows and the brainless flirts that display themselves in stage boxes. We have bits of keen character-painting too—the small poet who assures you that poets are born, not made; the beau who is caught practising before the mirror to catch a careless air; the man who is so ambitious to be thought wise that he sets up for a free-thinker and talks atheism all day at the club, though he says his prayers very carefully every night at home. One can imagine with what pleasure the town must have seen its follies taken off so smartly. Occasionally, too, there are short stories—usually written by Steele—bits of domestic narrative showing the peace and purity of home. In The Spectator, the papers are somewhat longer and more ambitious than those of The Tatler, and here are many essays on graver themes, and carefully elaborated critical studies, like the famous series by Addison on Milton's Paradise Lost. Yet, from first to last, the most interesting papers, both of The Tatler and The Spectator, are those which depict with kindly irony the daily life of the town. There is not to be found in English literature up to that time any satire so wholesome, any pictures of contemporary society so vivid and so entertaining. Indeed, it may perhaps be said that, of the sort, we have had nothing better in English literature since.

For such writing as this it would be difficult to imagine two men better fitted than Richard Steele and Joseph Addison. Each supplied the deficiencies of the other. Steele was an impulsive, warm-hearted man of the world. Few men knew the society of that day in all its phases better than he did, and certainly no man liked it better. No English writer before him feels so keenly the charm of the passing hour, or takes such brisk and cheery interest in all the thousand events of daily experience. His sympathies, too, were warm as well as broad. His heart was tender, and he always carried it on his sleeve. This amiable and ingenuous temper made his writing very attractive, and still goes far to atone for all its imperfections. Addison, on the other hand, was a rather cool, self-contained, observant man, who loved to sit in his club with a little circle of admirers about him, and promote the good-nature of the world in a somewhat superior and distant fashion. His temper, less buoyant than Steele's, was more thoughtful and reflective; his humour, more delicate and subtle. And if his observation was not so broad as that of Steele, it was nicer and more penetrating. Steele, seeing life at more points, struck out more new incidents and characters; Addison had more skill to elaborate them.

In point of style the work of Addison is manifestly superior to that of Steele. Steele's writing has, indeed, the great merit of spontaneity. It is full of himself. To read his easy, lively page is like hearing him talk at your elbow; and, now and then, when his emotions are warmed, he can snatch a grace beyond the reach of art. But he was too impulsive and eager to stay for that painstaking correction without which literary finish is impossible. His rhetoric and even his grammar are sometimes sadly to seek. The faults of his extempore writing were matter of caustic comment by the critics of his own day; and ever since it has been customary to award the literary honours of The Tatler and The Spectator not to Steele but to Addison. Nor is this unjust. For Addison was the first of our writers to perceive clearly that simple and popular prose was capable of finished, artistic treatment. That minute care, that trained skill which hitherto had been reserved for poetry, he bestowed upon his prose. He had naturally a nice taste, an especially quick sense of movement and melody in prose, and he took infinite pains. He would stop the press to change a phrase, or set right a conjunction. And this effort issued in a style in which all sense of effort is lost in graceful ease. His thought is never profound, and seldom vigorous; his range is not wide; on serious subjects he is sometimes a little dull, and on lighter subjects sometimes a little trivial; but his manner is always suave, refined, urbane. He was the first Englishman who succeeded in writing prose at once familiar, idiomatic to the very verge of colloquialism, and at the same time highly finished. You think such writing is easily done until you try it yourself; then you soon find your mistake.

III. The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers

The Sir Roger de Coverley papers are often said to be the precursor of the modern English novel. And in a very real sense they are. There are, to be sure, crude specimens of prose fiction in the preceding century that may perhaps dispute this title, though most of them, like the long-winded romances that found place in the library of Sir Roger's lady friend, were of French origin or pattern. But these romances, while they supply the element of plot and adventure most liberally, were deficient in genuine characters. There are no real men and women in them. Moreover, they made no attempt to depict contemporary life as it was. But Sir Roger de Coverley is no personage of romance. He is a hearty, red-blooded, Tory gentleman who lives in Worcestershire. And he has no adventures more striking than might naturally befall a country squire who comes up to London for the season once a year. There were scores of just such men in every shire in England. His speech, his habits, his prejudices, are all shown us with simple truth. And yet this is done with so much art and humour that Sir Roger is one of the most living persons in our literature. He is as immortal as Hamlet or Julius Cæsar. We know him as well as we know our nearest neighbour; and we like him quite as well as we like most of our neighbours.

Now this was something new in English literature. Sir Roger is the earliest person in English imaginative prose that is really still alive. There are men and women in our poetry before his day—in the drama there is, of course, a great host of them; but in prose literature Sir Roger is the first. Furthermore, the men and women of the drama, even in that comedy of manners which professed to reflect most accurately contemporary society, were almost always drawn with some romantic or satiric exaggeration; but there is no exaggeration in the character of Sir Roger. Here was the beginning of a healthy realism. It was only necessary for Richardson and Fielding, thirty years later, to bring together several such genuine characters into a group, and to show how the incidents of their lives naturally ran into plot or story—and we have a novel.

The original suggestion for the character of Sir Roger seems to have come from Steele, who wrote that account of the Spectator Club (Spectator, No. 2) in which the knight first appears. But it is to Addison's keener perception and nicer art that we owe most of those subtle and humorous touches of characterization which make the portrait so real and so human. There is more of movement and incident in Steele's papers, and there is more of sentiment. It is Steele, for example, who tells the story of the Journey to London, and recounts the adventures of the Coverley ancestry; it is Steele, too, who has most to say of the widow. But in the best papers by Addison, like the Visit to the Abbey or the Evening at the Theater, there is hardly a line that does not reveal, in speech, or manner, or notion, some peculiarity of the kindly gentleman we know and love so well. If Steele outlined the portrait, it was left for Addison to elaborate it. Moreover, a careful reading of the papers will show that Steele's conception of the character was slightly different from Addison's. Steele's Sir Roger is whimsical and sentimental, but a man of good sense; not only beloved but respected. Addison dwells rather upon the old knight's rusticity, his old-fashioned, patriarchal notions of society, his ignorance of the town, his obsolete but kindly prejudices. The truth is that in Addison's portrait there is always a trace of covert satire upon the narrow conservatism of the Tory country gentleman of his day. Addison's Sir Roger is amiable and humorous; but he does not represent the party of intelligence and progress—he is not a Whig.

Yet there are no real inconsistencies in the character of Sir Roger. His whimsical humor, his sentiment, his credulity, his benevolence, his amiable though obstinate temper, are all combined in a personality so convincing that we must always think of him as an actual contemporary of the men who created him. He is the typical conservative English country gentleman of the Queen Anne time, not taking kindly to new ideas, but sturdy, honest, order-loving, of large heart and simple manners. To such men as he England owes the permanence of much that is best in her institutions and her national life. As one walks through Westminster Abbey to-day, listening to the same chattering verger that conducted Sir Roger—he has been going his rounds ever since—one almost expects to see again the knight sitting down in the coronation chair, or leaning on Edward Third's sword while he tells the discomfited guide the whole story of the Black Prince out of Baker's Chronicle. If, indeed, we try in any way to bring back to imagination the life of that bygone age, Sir Roger is sure to come to mind at once, at the assizes, at Vauxhall, or, best of all, at home in the country. He is part of that life; as real to our thought as Swift or Marlborough, or as Steele or Addison themselves.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

No attempt is here made to give an exhaustive bibliography. The following paragraphs contain only such a selection from the literature of the subject as may be most accessible and of most service both to the student and the teacher.

TEXTS

Steele and The Tatler

There is no complete and uniform edition of the writings of Steele. The best edition of The Tatler is that of Chalmers, 4 volumes, 1822 (reissued 1855-1856). A new edition, however, in 4 volumes, edited by George A. Aitken, is now in preparation. Two well-chosen and well-edited volumes of selections from Steele's work are, Selections from Steele, edited by G. R. Carpenter (Athenæum Press Series, 1897), and Selections from Steele's Contributions to the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian, edited by Austin Dobson, 1897. Steele's Plays, edited by George A. Aitken (1896), make one volume of The Mermaid Series. For the letters of Steele, see The Epistolary Correspondence of Richard Steele, edited by John Nichols, 2 volumes, 1789 (reissued 1809).

Addison and The Spectator

The best editions of The Spectator are: Henry Morley's, 3 volumes, 1883, or 1 volume, 1888; G. Gregory Smith's, with Introductory Essay by Austin Dobson, 8 volumes, 1897-1898; and George A. Aitken's, 8 volumes, 1898. The Complete Works of Addison were edited by G. W. Greene, in 1854; a new issue of this edition appeared in 1891. The best volume of selections from Addison is that edited by John Richard Green, Essays of Joseph Addison, 1882.

BIOGRAPHY

Steele

The Life of Richard Steele, by George A. Aitken, 1899. This is the latest and fullest life.

Richard Steele, by Austin Dobson, in the English Worthies Series, 1886; a brief but appreciative study.

Biographical Essays, by John Forster, 1860, Steele. This paper, originally published in the Quarterly Review for March, 1855, gave, for the first time, that more favourable estimate of the character and genius of Steele which is now generally accepted.

Lectures on the English Humorists, Steele, by W. M. Thackeray. Thackeray's lecture, delivered first in 1851, is a most charming and suggestive paper, but hardly just to Steele.

Addison

Addison, by W. J. Courthope, in the English Men of Letters Series, 1884. The best life; it has superseded, for the general reader, the older Life of Joseph Addison, by Lucy Aiken, 1846.

The Life and Writings of Addison, by T. B. Macaulay. Macaulay's familiar essay, which first appeared in the Edinburgh Review for July, 1843, is still the best brief estimate, though it rather exaggerates the merits both of Addison's genius and his writings.

The Lives of the Poets, Addison, by Samuel Johnson, 1781. Judicious and sensible; of permanent value.

Lectures on the English Humourists, Addison, by W. M. Thackeray.

Le Public et les Hommes de Lettres en Angleterre au XVIII^e Siècle, par A. Beljame, 1881. This admirable work—which unfortunately is not translated—contains a full account of Addison's career, as well as an estimate of his work. The bibliography in the Appendix is valuable.

HISTORY

Political

The Age of Anne, by E. E. Morris, in the Epochs of Modern History Series, 1877. A brief, but clear and interesting outline of the history.

A History of England in the Eighteenth Century, by W. E. H. Lecky, 1878, Volume I. Perhaps the best account for the general reader.

A History of the Reign of Queen Anne, by J. H. Burton, 3 volumes, 1880.

The Reign of Queen Anne, by Justin McCarthy, two volumes, 1902. Contains, also, much valuable information upon literary and social matters; written in the manner of the journalist, but entertaining and generally trustworthy.

History of the English People, by John Richard Green, Volume III.

Social

The History of England, by T. B. Macaulay (1849-1851), Chapter III. This famous chapter is still one of the best accounts of social conditions in England at the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries.

Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne, by John Ashton, 1882. This is the best account of dress, manners, amusements, travel, trade, and all the details of social life; it is frequently referred to in the notes of this volume.

Good Queen Anne, by W. H. D. Adams, 1886.

England and the English in the Eighteenth Century, by W. C. Sydney, 1891.

Social England, by H. D. Traill, Volume IV., 1895.

London in the Eighteenth Century, by Walter Besant, 1903. A storehouse of curious and valuable information, with many especially interesting illustrations from contemporary prints, drawings, and portraits.

The Popular History of England, by Charles Knight (1859), Volume V., Chapters XXVI-XXX.

Thackeray's Henry Esmond—perhaps the most remarkable historical novel in the language—represents with wonderful fidelity the very atmosphere of the Queen Anne time.

But, above all, the student who wishes to gain a sympathetic acquaintance with the life of this most interesting period, and to enter into its spirit, should read more of its literature—especially the Tatler and Spectator, Swift's Journal to Stella, Pope's Satires and Epistles, Gay's Trivia, and the Letters of Steele, Swift, Pope, and Bolingbroke.

Literary

A History of Eighteenth Century Literature (1889), and From Shakespeare to Pope (1885), by Edmund Gosse.

English Literature in the Eighteenth Century, by T. S. Perry (1883).

An Illustrated History of English Literature, by Richard Garnett and Edmund Gosse, Volume III., From Milton to Johnson, by Edmund Gosse (1903), Chapter III. A popular survey of English literary history, most profusely illustrated with portraits and facsimiles.

A Few Words about the Eighteenth Century, by Frederic Harrison. (The Choice of Books, 1886.)

Le Public et les Hommes de Lettres en Angleterre au XVIII^e Siècle, by A. Beljame, 1881.

Lectures on the Comic Writers and Periodical Essayists, by William Hazlitt. (Delivered in 1819; best edition in the Temple Classics, edited by Austin Dobson, 1900.)

Chronological Table

THE SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS

I. THE SPECTATOR

[No. 1. Thursday, March 1, 1711. Addison.]

Non fumum ex fulgore, sed ex fumo dare lucem

Cogitat, ut speciosa dehinc miracula promat.

Hor.

I have observed that a reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure till he knows whether the writer of it be a black[3] or a fair man, of a mild or choleric disposition, married or a bachelor, with other particulars of the like nature that conduce very much to the right understanding {[5]} of an author. To gratify this curiosity, which is so natural to a reader, I design this paper and my next as prefatory discourses to my following writings, and shall give some account in them of the several persons that are engaged in this work. As the chief trouble of compiling, digesting, {10} 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, 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 from father to son whole and entire, without the loss or acquisition {5} 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[4] in the family, or my father's being a {10} 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 neighbourhood put upon it. The gravity of my behaviour at my very first appearance in the world, {15} and all the time that I sucked, seemed to favour my mother's dream; for, as she had often told me, I threw away my rattle before I was two months old, and would not make use of my coral[5] till they had taken away the bells from it. {20}

As for the rest of my infancy, there being nothing in it remarkable, I shall pass it over in silence. I find that, during my nonage,[6] I had the reputation of a very sullen youth, but was always a favourite of my schoolmaster, who used to say that my parts were solid and would wear well. {25} 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 indeed do not remember that I ever {[5]} spoke three sentences together in my whole life. 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 acquainted with. {10}

Upon the death of my father, I was resolved to travel into foreign countries, and therefore left the university with the character of an odd, unaccountable fellow, that had a great deal of learning, if I would but show it. An insatiable thirst after knowledge carried me into all the {15} countries 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 concerning the antiquities of Egypt, I made a voyage to Grand Cairo on purpose to take the measure {20} of a pyramid; and as soon as I had set myself right in that particular, returned to my native country with great satisfaction.

I have passed my latter years in this city, where I am frequently seen in most public places, though there are {25} not above half a dozen of my select friends that know me; of 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, and listening with great attention to the narratives that are made in those little circular audiences. Sometimes I smoke a pipe at Child's, and whilst I seem attentive to nothing but the Postman, overhear the conversation of {[5]} every table in the room. I appear on Sunday nights at St. James's Coffee-house, and sometimes join the little committee of politics in the inner room, as one who comes there to hear and improve. My face is likewise very well known at the Grecian, the Cocoa Tree, and in {10} the theatres both of Drury Lane and the Haymarket. 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 stockjobbers at Jonathan's. In short, wherever I see a cluster of people, I always mix with {15} them, though I never open my lips but in my own club.

Thus I live in the world rather as a Spectator of mankind 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 {20} 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, business, and diversion of others better than those who are engaged in them: as standers-by discover blots[7] which are apt to escape those who are in the game. {25} I never espoused any party with violence, and am resolved to observe an exact neutrality between the Whigs and Tories, 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 {5} character as to let him see I am not altogether unqualified for the business I have undertaken. As for other particulars in my life and adventures, I shall insert them in following papers as I shall see occasion. In the mean time, when I consider how much I have seen, read, and {10} 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 {15} useful discoveries which I have made, should be in the possession 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 contribute to the diversion or improvement of the country in which I live, {20} 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 in this paper, and which, for several important reasons, I must keep to myself, at least for some time: I {25} 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 embellishment of my paper, I cannot yet come to a resolution of 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 disagreeable {[5]} 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[8] of both in the progress of the work I have {10} 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, a plan of it is laid and concerted—as {15} 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 Spectator, at Mr. Buckley's in Little Britain. For I must further acquaint the reader {20} 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 advancement of the public weal.

C.

[II. THE CLUB]

[No. 2. Friday, March 2, 1711. Steele.]

Ast alii sex

Et plures uno conclamant ore.

The first of our society is a gentleman of Worcestershire, 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. All who know that shire are very well acquainted with the parts {[5]} and merits of Sir Roger. He is a gentleman that is very singular in his behaviour, 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 humour creates him no enemies, for he does {10} nothing with sourness or obstinacy; and his being unconfined to modes and forms, makes him but the readier and more capable[9] to please and oblige all who know him. When he is in town, he lives in Soho Square. It is said he keeps himself a bachelor by reason he was {15} crossed in love by a perverse, beautiful widow of the next county to him. Before this disappointment, Sir Roger was what you call a fine gentleman; had often supped with my Lord Rochester and Sir George Etherege, fought a duel upon his first coming to town, and kicked Bully Dawson in a public coffee-house for calling him "youngster." But being ill-used by the above-mentioned widow, he was very serious for a year and a half; and though, {[5]} 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 fashion at the time of his repulse, which,[10] in his merry humours, he tells us, has been in and out twelve {10} times since he first wore it.... He is now in his fifty-sixth year, cheerful, gay, and hearty; keeps a good house both in town and country; a great lover of mankind; but there is such a mirthful cast in his behaviour that he is rather beloved than esteemed. His tenants grow rich, {15} 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;[11] {20} that he fills the chair at a quarter session[12] with great abilities; and, three months 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; a man of great probity, wit, and understanding; but he has chosen his place of residence rather to obey the direction of an old humoursome father, than in pursuit {[5]} 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 and Longinus are much better understood by him than Littleton or Coke. The father sends up, every post, questions {10} relating to marriage-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 {15} them. He knows the argument of each of the orations of Demosthenes and Tully but not one case in the reports of our own courts. No 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 {20} and agreeable; as few of his thoughts are drawn from business, they are most of them fit for conversation. 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, actions, and writings {25} 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 is his hour of business; 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. It is for the good of the audience when he is at a play, for the actors have an ambition to please him. {[5]}

The person of next consideration is Sir Andrew Freeport, a merchant of great eminence in the city of London; a person of indefatigable industry, strong reason, and great experience. His notions of trade are noble and generous, and—as every rich man has usually some sly way of {10} jesting which would make no great figure were he not a rich man—he calls the sea the British Common. He is acquainted 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 {15} industry. He will often argue that if this part of our trade were well cultivated, we should gain from one nation; and if another, from another. I have heard him prove that diligence makes more lasting acquisitions than valour, and that sloth has ruined more nations than the sword. He {20} abounds in several frugal maxims, amongst which the greatest favourite is, "A penny saved is a penny got." A general trader of good sense is pleasanter company than a general scholar; and Sir Andrew having a natural, unaffected eloquence, the perspicuity of his discourse {25} 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 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, {5} but invincible 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 {10} several sieges; but having a small estate of his own, and being next heir to Sir Roger, 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 {15} where merit is placed in so conspicuous 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 was not fit for it. A strict honesty and an {20} even, regular behaviour are in themselves obstacles to him that must press through crowds who endeavour at the same end with himself,—the favour of a commander. He will, however, in his way of talk, excuse generals for not disposing[13] according to men's desert, or inquiring into it. {25} "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 the importunity of other pretenders by a proper assurance in his own vindication.[14] He says it is a civil cowardice to be backward in asserting what you ought to {5} expect, as it is a military fear to be slow in attacking when it is your duty. With this candour does the gentleman speak of himself and others. The same frankness runs through all his conversation. The military part of his life has furnished him with many adventures, in the relation {10} 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 obeying men highly above him. {15}

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 gentleman who, according to his years, should be in the decline of his life, but having[15] ever been very careful of his person, {20} and always had 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, of a good height. He is very ready at that sort of discourse with which men usually entertain women. He has all his {25} life dressed very well, and remembers habits[16] as others do men. He can smile when one speaks to him, and laughs easily. He knows the history of every mode,[17] and can inform you from which of the French king's wenches our wives and daughters had this manner of curling their hair, {[5]} that way of placing their hoods; ... 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[18] what such a minister said upon {10} such and such an occasion, he will tell you when the Duke of Monmouth danced at 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,[19] he has ever about the same time received a kind glance {15} or a blow of a fan from some celebrated 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; ... that young fellow's mother used me more like a dog than any woman {20} 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 a well-bred, {25} 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 whom I am next to speak of as one of our company, for he visits us {[5]} but seldom; but when 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 {10} cannot accept of such cares and business as preferments in his function would oblige him to; he is therefore among divines 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 {15} 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 {20} world, as one who is hastening to the object of all his wishes, and conceives hope from his decays and infirmities. These are my ordinary companions.

R.

[III. SIR ROGER'S CRITICISMS ON POLITE SOCIETY]

[No. 6. Wednesday, March 7, 1711. Steele.]

Credebant hoc grande nefas et morte piandum,

Si iuvenis vetulo non assurrexerat.

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 {[5]} of 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 writings of men of wit, and the awkward imitation {10} of the rest of mankind.

For this reason, Sir Roger was saying last night that he was of opinion none but men of fine parts deserve to be hanged. The reflections of such men are so delicate upon all occurrences which they are concerned in, {15} that they should be exposed to more than ordinary infamy and punishment for offending against such quick admonitions 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 capacities. 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 {[5]} satisfaction of luxury, of wealth, of ambition, he has lost the taste of good-will, of friendship, of innocence. Scarecrow, the beggar in Lincoln's Inn Fields, who disabled himself in his right leg, and asks alms all day to get himself a warm supper ... at night, is not half so despicable {10} 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 satisfactions and enjoyments {15} within the supply of his own necessities and passions, is," 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 parts, forsooth; it is with them no matter what is done, so it is {20} done with an air. 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 equipage, appears in the same condition with the fellow above-mentioned, but more contemptible in proportion to what {25} more he robs the public of and enjoys above him.[20] I lay it down therefore for a rule, that the whole man is to move together; that every action of any importance is to have a prospect of public good; and that the general tendency of our indifferent actions ought to be agreeable to the dictates of reason, of religion, of good-breeding. Without this, a man, as I have before hinted, is hopping instead of walking; he is not in his entire and proper {[5]} motion."

While the honest knight was thus bewildering himself in good starts,[21] I looked intentively[22] 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, {10} to polish our understandings and neglect our manners[23] 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 unaccountable as one would think it, a wise man is not always a good man." {15}

This degeneracy is not only the guilt of particular persons, 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 {20} themselves, without considering the application of them. By this means it becomes a rule not so much to regard what we do, as how we do it. But this false beauty will not pass upon men of honest minds and true taste. Sir Richard Blackmore says, with as much good sense as {25} virtue,—"It is a mighty dishonour and shame to employ excellent faculties and abundance of wit, to humour and please men in their vices and follies. The great enemy of mankind, notwithstanding his wit and angelic faculties, is the most odious being in the whole creation." He goes {[5]} on soon after to say, very generously, that he 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 {10} 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 ornament of one sex and integrity of the other, society is upon a wrong basis, and we shall be ever after without {15} rules to guide our judgment in what is really becoming and ornamental. Nature and reason direct one thing, passion and humour another. To follow the dictates of the two latter, is going into a road that is both endless and intricate; when we pursue the other, our passage is {20} 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 eaten up our good sense and our religion. {25} Is there anything so just, as that mode[24] and gallantry[25] should be built upon exerting ourselves in what is proper and agreeable 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 {5} 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 instinct; and yet what is so ridiculous as age?[26] I make {10} this abrupt transition to the mention of this vice[27] more than any other, in order to introduce a little story, which I think a pretty instance that the most polite age is in danger of being the most vicious.

It happened at Athens, during a public representation {15} 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 {20} 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, to the whole audience. The frolic went round all the Athenian {25} benches. But on those occasions there were also particular places assigned for foreigners. 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 {5} 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!"

R.

[IV. THE CLUB AND THE SPECTATOR]

[No. 34. Monday, April 9, 1711. Addison.]

Parcit

Cognatis maculis similis fera—

Juv.

The club of which I am a member is very luckily composed of such persons as are engaged in different ways {10} 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 everything that passes in the different quarters and divisions, not only of this great city, but of the whole kingdom. {15} My readers, too, have the satisfaction to find that there is no rank or degree among them who have not their[28] representative in this club, and that there is always somebody present who will take care of their 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 {5} which they and others had made upon these my speculations, as also with the various success which they[29] had met with among their several ranks and degrees of readers. Will Honeycomb told me, in the softest manner he could, that there were some ladies—"but for {10} your comfort," says Will, "they are not those of the most wit"—that were offended at the liberties I had taken with the opera and the puppet-show; that some of them were likewise very much surprised that I should think such serious points as the dress and equipage of {15} persons of quality proper subjects for raillery.

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[30] wives and daughters were the better for them; and further added, {20} 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 condescending to be a publisher of particular intrigues. "In short," says Sir Andrew, "if you avoid that foolish beaten {25} road of falling upon aldermen and citizens, 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 time jested upon nothing else during his whole reign. He then {[5]} showed, by the examples of Horace, Juvenal, 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 patronized them. "But after all," says he, "I think your {10} raillery has made too great an excursion, in attacking several persons of the Inns of Court; and I do not believe you can show me any precedent for your behaviour in that particular."

My good friend Sir Roger de Coverley, who had said {15} 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 {20} 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." {25}

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 gray hairs, and another to his black, till by their picking out what each {[5]} of them had an aversion to, they left his head altogether 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 wondered {10} 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 {15} and conspicuous stations of life. He further added, that my paper would only serve to aggravate the pains of poverty, 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 afterwards {20} proceeded 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 {25} cheerfulness, and assured me, that whoever might be displeased with me, I should be approved by all those whose praises do honour to the persons on whom they are bestowed.

The whole club pays a particular deference to the discourse of this gentleman, and are drawn into what he says, as much by the candid, ingenuous manner with which he delivers himself, as by the strength of argument and force of reason which he makes use of. Will Honeycomb {[5]} immediately agreed that what he had said was right, and that, for his 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 was followed by Sir Roger and the {10} Captain,—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, {15} put me in mind of that which the Roman triumvirate were formerly engaged in for their 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, {20} furnished out a very decent execution.

Having thus taken my resolutions to march on boldly in the cause of virtue and good sense, and to annoy their adversaries in whatever degree or rank of men they may be found, I shall be deaf for the future to all the remonstrances {25} that shall be made to me on this account. If Punch grows extravagant, I shall reprimand him very freely. If the stage becomes a nursery of folly and impertinence, 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 endeavours to make an example of it. I must, however, intreat every particular person who does me the honour to be a reader of this paper, never to think himself, {[5]} 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 at least a thousand people; or to publish a single paper that is not written in the spirit of benevolence and with a love to mankind. {10}

[V. A LADY'S LIBRARY]

[No. 37. Thursday, April 12, 1711. Addison.]

Non illa colo calathisve Minervae

Femineas assueta manus....

Virg.

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 {15} 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" gave me a great curiosity to see it; and as it was some time before the lady came {20} 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 finely bound and gilt, were great jars of china placed one above another in a very noble piece of architecture. The quartos {[5]} were separated from the octavos by a pile of smaller vessels, which rose in a delightful pyramid. The octavos were bounded by tea-dishes of all shapes, colours, and sizes, which were so disposed on a wooden frame that they looked like one continued pillar indented with the {10} finest strokes of sculpture and stained with the greatest variety of dyes.

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 {15} 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 {20} 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, like fagots[31] in the muster of a regiment. I was wonderfully pleased with such a mixed kind of furniture {25} as seemed very suitable both to the lady and the scholar, 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 {[5]} she had heard them praised, or because she had seen the authors of them. Among several that I examined, I very well remember these that follow:

Ogilby's Virgil.

Dryden's Juvenal. {10}

Cassandra.

Cleopatra.

Astraea.

Sir Isaac Newton's Works.

The Grand Cyrus, with a pin stuck in one of the {15} middle leaves.

Pembroke's Arcadia.

Locke of Human Understanding, with a paper of patches in it.

A spelling book. {20}

A dictionary for the explanation of hard words.

Sherlock upon Death.

The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony.

Sir William Temple's Essays.

Father Malebranche's Search after Truth, translated {25} into English.

A book of novels.

The Academy of Compliments.

Culpepper's Midwifery.

The Ladies' Calling.

Tales in Verse, by Mr. D'Urfey; bound in red leather, gilt on the back, and doubled down in several places.

All the classic authors in wood.

A set of Elzevirs by the same hand. {[5]}

Clelia, which opened of itself in the place that describes two lovers in a bower.

Baker's Chronicle.

Advice to a Daughter.

The New Atalantis, with a key to it. {10}

Mr. Steele's Christian Hero.

A prayer-book; with a bottle of Hungary water by the side of it.

Dr. Sacheverell's Speech.

Fielding's Trial. {15}

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 {20} 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," for I hate long speeches, and after a bow or two retired.

Leonora was formerly a celebrated beauty, and is still {25} a very lovely woman. She has been a widow for two or three years, and being unfortunate in her first marriage, has taken a resolution never to venture upon a second. She has no children to take care of, and leaves the management of her estate to my good friend Sir Roger. But as the mind naturally sinks into a kind of lethargy, and falls asleep, that[32] is not agitated by some favourite pleasures and pursuits, Leonora has turned all the passions of her sex into a love of books and retirement. She converses {5} chiefly with men,—as she has often said herself,—but it is only in their writings; and admits of very few male visitants except my friend Sir Roger, whom she hears with great pleasure and without scandal.

As her reading has lain very much among romances, {10} 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 {15} 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.[33] The springs are made to run among pebbles, {20} and by that means taught to murmur very agreeably. They are likewise collected into a beautiful lake that is 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. {25}

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 consort,[34] and that she shall certainly miss him the next year."

When I think how oddly this lady is improved by {[5]} learning, I look upon her with a mixture of admiration and pity. 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 {10} 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 {15} 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 {20} subject of a very nice nature, I shall desire my correspondents to give me their thoughts upon it.

C.

[VI. COVERLEY HALL]

[No. 106. Monday, July 2, 1711. Addison.]

Hinc tibi copia

Manabit ad plenum benigno

Ruris honorum opulenta cornu.

Hor.

Having often received an invitation from my friend Sir Roger de Coverley to pass away 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. {5} 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. When the gentlemen of the country come to see him, he only {10} shows me at a distance. 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 {15} consists of sober and staid persons; for, as the knight is the best master in the world, he seldom changes his servants; 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 chambre for his brother, his butler 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 {5} even in the old house dog, and in a gray pad[35] 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 {10} 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 {15} 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. This humanity and good nature engages everybody to him, so {20} that when he is pleasant upon any of them, all his family are in good humour, 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 {25} all of his servants.

My worthy friend has put me under the particular care of his butler, 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 Roger is diverting himself in the woods or the fields, is a very venerable man {[5]} who is ever with Sir Roger, and has lived at his house in the nature[36] of a chaplain above thirty years. This gentleman is a person 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 {10} old knight's esteem, so that he lives in the family rather as 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,[37] and that his virtues as well as imperfections {15} 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 his conversation highly agreeable, and more delightful than the same {20} degree of sense and virtue would appear in their common and ordinary colours. 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, told me that he was afraid of being insulted with {25} Latin and Greek at his own table, for which reason he desired a particular friend of his at the university to find him out a clergyman, rather of plain sense than much learning, of a good aspect, a clear voice, a sociable temper, and, if possible, a man that understood a little of backgammon. "My friend," says Sir Roger, "found {5} me out this gentleman, who, besides the endowments required of him, is, they tell me, a good scholar, though he does not show it. 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 outlives me, he {10} 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 something {15} in behalf of one or other of my tenants, his parishioners. 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 acquiesce in his judgment,—which I think never happened above {20} 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 one of them in the pulpit. Accordingly he has digested {25} them into such a series that they follow one another naturally, and make a continued system of practical divinity."

As Sir Roger 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 {[5]} a great deal of pleasure, Archbishop Tillotson, Bishop Saunderson, 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 much approved of my friend's insisting upon {10} the qualifications 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 {15} 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, would endeavor after a handsome elocution, and all those other {20} talents 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.

L.

[VII. THE COVERLEY HOUSEHOLD]

[No. 107. Tuesday, July 3, 1711. Steele.]

Æsopo ingentem statuam posuere Attici