Chapter XI: Part II: | Indulgence (6)

As I was sitting in my chamber and thinking on a subject
for my next _Spectator_, I heard two or three irregular
bounces at my landlady's door, and upon the opening of
it, a loud, cheerful voice inquiring whether the philosopher
was at home. The child who went to the door (205: 5)
answered very innocently that he did not lodge there. I
immediately recollected that it was my good friend Sir
Roger's voice, and that I had promised to go with him
on the water to Spring Garden, in case it proved a good
evening. The knight put me in mind of my promise (10)
from the bottom of the staircase, but told me that if I
was speculating he would stay below till I had done.
Upon my coming down, I found all the children of the
family got about my old friend, and my landlady herself
who is a notable prating gossip, engaged in a conference (15)
with him, being mightily pleased with his stroking her
little boy upon the head, and bidding him be a good
child and mind his book.

We were no sooner come to the Temple Stairs but we
were surrounded with a crowd of watermen, offering us (20)
their respective services. Sir Roger, after having looked
about him very attentively, spied one with a wooden leg,
and immediately gave him orders to get his boat ready.
As we were walking towards it, "You must know," says
Sir Roger, "I never make use of anybody to row me that (206: 5)
has not either lost a leg or an arm. I would rather bate
him a few strokes of his oar than not employ an honest
man that had been wounded in the Queen's service. If
I was a lord or a bishop, and kept a barge, I would not
put a fellow in my livery that had not a wooden leg." (10)

My old friend, after having seated himself and trimmed
the boat with his coachman,--who, being a very sober
man, always serves for ballast on these occasions,--we
made the best of our way for Fox-hall. Sir Roger obliged
the waterman to give us the history of his right leg, and (15)
hearing that he had left it at La Hogue, with many particulars
which passed in that glorious action, the knight,
in the triumph of his heart, made several reflections on
the greatness of the British nation; as, that one Englishman
could beat three Frenchmen; that we could never (20)
be in danger of popery so long as we took care of our
fleet; that the Thames was the noblest river in Europe;
that London Bridge was a greater piece of work than any
of the seven wonders of the world; with many other
honest prejudices which naturally cleave to the heart of a (25)
true Englishman.

After some short pause, the old knight, turning about
his head twice or thrice to take a survey of this great
metropolis, bid me observe how thick the city was set
with churches, and that there was scarce a single steeple
on this side Temple Bar. "A most heathenish sight!"
says Sir Roger; "there is no religion at this end of the
town. The fifty new churches will very much mend the
prospect; but church work is slow, church work is (207: 5)
slow!"

I do not remember I have anywhere mentioned, in Sir
Roger's character, his custom of saluting everybody that
passes by him with a good-morrow or a good-night. This
the old man does out of the overflowings of his humanity, (10)
though at the same time it renders him so popular among
all his country neighbours that it is thought to have gone
a good way in making him once or twice knight of the
shire.

He cannot forbear this exercise of benevolence even in (15)
town, when he meets with any one in his morning or evening
walk. It broke from him to several boats that passed
by us upon the water; but to the knight's great surprise,
as he gave the good-night to two or three young fellows a
little before our landing, one of them, instead of returning (20)
the civility, asked us what queer old put we had in
the boat, ... with a great deal of the like Thames
ribaldry. Sir Roger seemed a little shocked at first, but
at length, assuming a face of magistracy, told us that if
he were a Middlesex justice he would make such vagrants (25)
know that her Majesty's subjects were no more to be
abused by water than by land.

We were now arrived at Spring Garden, which is exquisitely
pleasant at this time of year. When I considered
the fragrancy of the walks and bowers, with the choirs
of birds that sung upon the trees, and the loose tribe of
people that walked under their shades, I could not but
look upon the place as a kind of Mahometan paradise.
Sir Roger told me it put him in mind of a little coppice (208: 5)
by his house in the country, which his chaplain used to call
an aviary of nightingales. "You must understand," says
the knight, "there is nothing in the world that pleases a
man in love so much as your nightingale. Ah, Mr. Spectator!
the many moonlight nights that I have walked by (10)
myself and thought on the widow by the music of the
nightingales!" He here fetched a deep sigh, and was
falling into a fit of musing, when a mask,[153] who came
behind him, gave him a gentle tap upon the shoulder, and
asked him if he would drink a bottle of mead with her. (15)
But the knight, being startled at so unexpected a familiarity,
and displeased to be interrupted in his thoughts of the
widow, told her she was a wanton baggage, and bid her
go about her business.

[153] _I.e_. a woman wearing a mask.

We concluded our walk with a glass of Burton ale and (20)
a slice of hung beef. When we had done eating, ourselves,
the knight called a waiter to him and bid him carry
the remainder to the waterman that had but one leg. I
perceived the fellow stared upon him at the oddness of
the message, and was going to be saucy; upon which I (25)
ratified the knight's commands with a peremptory look.

As we were going out of the garden, my old friend,
thinking himself obliged as a member of the quorum to
animadvert upon the morals of the place, told the mistress
of the house, who sat at the bar, that he should be a better
customer to her garden if there were more nightingales
and fewer strumpets. I.

XXXII. DEATH OF SIR ROGER

[No. 517. Thursday, October 23, 1712. ADDISON.]

Heu pietas! heu prisca fides!

VIRG.

We last night received a piece of ill news at our club (209: 5)
which very sensibly afflicted every one of us. I question
not but my readers themselves will be troubled at the
hearing of it. To keep them no longer in suspense,--Sir
Roger de Coverley _is dead_. He departed this life at his
house in the country, after a few weeks' sickness. Sir (10)
Andrew Freeport has a letter from one of his correspondents
in those parts, that informs him the old man caught
a cold at the county sessions, as he was very warmly
promoting an address of his own penning, in which he
succeeded according to his wishes. But this particular (15)
comes from a Whig justice of peace, who was always Sir
Roger's enemy and antagonist. I have letters both from
the chaplain and Captain Sentry which mention nothing
of it, but are filled with many particulars to the honour of
the good old man. I have likewise a letter from the (20)
butler, who took so much care of me last summer when
I was at the knight's house. As my friend the butler
mentions, in the simplicity of his heart, several circumstances
the others have passed over in silence, I shall
give my reader a copy of his letter without any alteration (210: 5)
or diminution.

"Honoured Sir,--

"Knowing that you was my old master's good friend, I could
not forbear sending you the melancholy news of his death, which
has afflicted the whole country, as well as his poor servants, who (10)
loved him, I may say, better than we did our lives. I am afraid
he caught his death the last county sessions, where he would go
to see justice done to a poor widow woman, and her fatherless
children, that had been wronged by a neighbouring gentleman; for
you know, sir, my good master was always the poor man's friend. (15)
Upon his coming home, the first complaint he made was, that he
had lost his roast beef stomach, not being able to touch a sirloin,
which was served up according to custom; and you know he used
to take great delight in it. From that time forward he grew worse
and worse, but still kept a good heart[154] to the last. Indeed, (20)
we were once in great hope of his recovery, upon a kind message that
was sent him from the widow lady whom he had made love to the
forty last years of his life; but this only proved a light'ning before
death. He has bequeathed to this lady, as a token of his love, a
great pearl necklace, and a couple of silver bracelets set with (25)
jewels, which belonged to my good old lady his mother. He has
bequeathed the fine white gelding, that he used to ride a hunting
upon, to his chaplain, because he thought he would be kind to him,
and has left you all his books. He has, moreover, bequeathed to
the chaplain a very pretty tenement with good lands about it. It (30)
being a very cold day when he made his will, he left for mourning,
to every man in the parish, a great frieze coat, and to every woman
a black riding-hood. It was a most moving sight to see him take
leave of his poor servants, commending us all for our fidelity, whilst
we were not able to speak a word for weeping. As we most of us are
grown gray-headed in our dear master's service, he has left (211: 5)
us pensions and legacies, which we may live very comfortably upon,
the remaining part of our days. He has bequeath'd a great deal
more in charity, which is not yet come to my knowledge, and it is
peremptorily said in the parish, that he has left money to build a
steeple to the church; for he was heard to say some time ago, that (10)
if he lived two years longer, Coverley Church should have a steeple
to it. The chaplain tells everybody that he made a very good end,
and never speaks of him without tears. He was buried according
to his own directions, among the family of the Coverley's, on the
left hand of his father, Sir Arthur. The coffin was carried by six (15)
of his tenants, and the pall held up by six of the quorum. The whole
parish follow'd the corpse with heavy hearts, and in their mourning
suits, the men in frieze, and the women in riding-hoods. Captain
Sentry, my master's nephew, has taken possession of the hall
house, and the whole estate. When my old master saw him a (20)
little before his death, he shook him by the hand, and wished him
joy of the estate which was falling to him, desiring him only to
make good use of it, and to pay the several legacies, and the gifts
of charity which he told him he had left as quitrents upon the
estate. The captain truly seems a courteous man, though he says (25)
but little. He makes much of those whom my master loved, and
shows great kindness to the old house dog, that you know my poor
master was so fond of. It would have gone to your heart to have
heard the moans the dumb creature made on the day of my master's
death. He has ne'er joyed himself since; no more has any (30)
of us. 'Twas the melancholiest day for the poor people that ever
happened in Worcestershire. This being all from,

"Honoured Sir,

"Your most Sorrowful Servant,

"Edward Biscuit." (35)

"P. S. My master desired, some weeks before he died, that a
book which comes up to you by the carrier should be given to Sir
Andrew Freeport, in his name."

[154] Good courage.

This letter, notwithstanding the poor butler's manner
of writing it, gave us such an idea of our good old friend, (212: 5)
that upon the reading of it there was not a dry eye in
the club. Sir Andrew, opening the book, found it to be
a collection of Acts of Parliament. There was in particular
the Act of Uniformity, with some passages in it
marked by Sir Roger's own hand. Sir Andrew found (10)
that they related to two or three points which he had
disputed with Sir Roger the last time he appeared at the
club. Sir Andrew, who would have been merry at such
an incident on another occasion, at the sight of the old
man's handwriting burst into tears, and put the book (15)
into his pocket. Captain Sentry informs me that the
knight has left rings and mourning for every one in the
club. O.

XXXIII. CAPTAIN SENTRY AS MASTER OF
COVERLEY HALL

[No. 544. Monday, Nov. 24, 1712. STEELE.]

Nunquam ita quisquam bene subducta ratione ad vitam fuit
Quin res, aetas, usus semper aliquid apportet novi,
Aliquid moneat: ut illa, quae te scire credas, nescias;
Et, quae tibi putaris prima, in experiundo ut repudies.

TER.

There are, I think, sentiments in the following letter
from my friend Captain Sentry, which discover a rational
and equal frame of mind, as well prepared for an advantageous
as an unfortunate change of condition.

"Coverley Hall, Nov. 15, (213: 5)
"Worcestershire.

"Sir,

"I am come to the succession of the estate of my honoured
kinsman, Sir Roger de Coverley; and I assure you I find it no
easy task to keep up the figure of master of the fortune which (10)
was so handsomely enjoyed by that honest, plain man. I cannot
(with respect to the great obligations I have, be it spoken) reflect
upon his character, but I am confirmed in the truth which I have,
I think, heard spoken at the club; to wit, that a man of a warm
and well-disposed heart, with a very small capacity, is highly (15)
superior in human society to him who, with the greatest talents,
is cold and languid in his affections.

"But, alas! why do I make a difficulty in speaking of my worthy
ancestor's failings? His little absurdities and incapacity for the
conversation[155] of the politest men are dead with him, and his
greater qualities are even now useful to him. I know not whether
by naming those disabilities I do not enhance his merit, since (214: 5)
he has left behind him a reputation in his country which would be
worth the pains of the wisest man's whole life to arrive at.

[155] The society of.

* * * * *

"But, indeed, my chief business at this time is to represent to
you my present state of mind, and the satisfactions I promise to
myself in the possession of my new fortune. I have continued all (10)
Sir Roger's servants, except such as it was a relief to dismiss into
little beings[156] within my manor. Those who are in a list of the
good knight's own hand to be taken care of by me, I have quartered
upon such as have taken new leases of me, and added so
many advantages during the lives of the persons so quartered, that (15)
it is the interest of those whom they are joined with, to cherish
and befriend them upon all occasions.

[156] Livings.

"I find a considerable sum of ready money, which I am laying
out among my dependants at the common interest, but with a
design to lend it according to their merit, rather than according (20)
to their ability. I shall lay a tax upon such as I have highly
obliged, to become security to me for such of their own poor youth,
whether male or female, as want help towards getting into some
being in the world.[157] I hope I shall be able to manage my affairs
so as to improve my fortune every year by doing acts of kindness. (25)
I will lend my money to the use of none but indigent men, secured
by such as have ceased to be indigent by the favour of my family or
myself. What makes this the more practicable is, that if they will
do any one good with my money, they are welcome to it upon their
own security: and I make no exception against it, because the (30)
persons who enter into the obligations, do it for their own family.
I have laid out four thousand pounds this way, and it is not to be
imagined what a crowd of people are obliged by it. In cases where
Sir Roger has recommended, I have lent money to put out[158] children,
with a clause which makes void the obligation in case the infant[159]
dies before he is out of his apprenticeship; by (215: 5) which
means the kindred and masters are extremely careful of breeding him to
industry, that he may repay it himself by his labour, in three years'
journey-work after his time is out, for the use of his securities.[160]
Opportunities of this kind are all that have occurred since I came to
my estate; but I assure you I will preserve a constant disposition (10)
to catch at all the occasions I can to promote the good and
happiness of my neighbourhood.

[157] Getting their living in some way.

[158] Apprentice.

[159] A minor, one not twenty-one years of age.

[160] Those who have given security for him. But it is difficult to
get any precise meaning from the sentence--another instance of
Steele's carelessness of expression.

"But give me leave to lay before you a little establishment which
has grown out of my past life, that I doubt not will administer
great satisfaction to me in that part of it, whatever that is, (15)
which is to come.

"There is a prejudice in favour of the way of life to which a man
has been educated, which I know not whether it would not be
faulty to overcome. It is like a partiality to the interest of one's
own country before that of any other nation. It is from an habit (20)
of thinking, grown upon me from my youth spent in arms, that I
have ever held gentlemen who have preserved modesty, good-nature,
justice and humanity in a soldier's life, to be the most
valuable and worthy persons of the human race. To pass through
imminent dangers, suffer painful watchings, frightful alarms, and (25)
laborious marches for the greater part of a man's time, and pass
the rest in a sobriety conformable to the rules of the most virtuous
civil life, is a merit too great to deserve the treatment it usually
meets with among the other part of the world. But I assure you,
sir, were there not very many who have this worth, we could never (30)
have seen the glorious events which we have in our days. I need not
say more to illustrate the character of a soldier than to tell you he
is the very contrary to him you observe loud, saucy, and overbearing,
in a red coat about town. But I was going to tell you that, in honour
of the profession of arms, I have set apart a certain sum (216: 5)
of money for a table for such gentlemen as have served their country
in the army, and will please from time to time to sojourn all or any
part of the year, at Coverley. Such of them as will do me that
honour shall find horses, servants, and all things necessary for their
accommodation and enjoyment of all the conveniences of life in a (10)
pleasant, various[161] country. If Colonel Camperfelt be in town, and
his abilities are not employed another way in the service, there is no
man would be more welcome here. That gentleman's thorough knowledge
in his profession, together with the simplicity of his manners
and goodness of his heart, would induce others like him to honour (15)
my abode; and I should be glad my acquaintance would take themselves
to be invited or not, as their characters have an affinity to his.

[161] Varied.

"I would have all my friends know that they need not fear
(though I am become a country gentleman) I will trespass against
their temperance and sobriety. No, sir, I shall retain so much of (20)
the good sentiments for the conduct of life which we cultivated in
each other at our club, as to contemn all inordinate pleasures; but
particularly remember, with our beloved Tully,[162] that the delight in
food consists in desire, not satiety. They who most passionately
pursue pleasure, seldomest arrive at it. Now I am writing to a (25)
philosopher, I cannot forbear mentioning the satisfaction I took in
the passage I read yesterday in the same Tully. A nobleman of
Athens made a compliment to Plato the morning after he had
supped at his house: 'Your entertainments do not only please
when you give them, but also the day after.' (30)

[162] Marcus Tullius Cicero.

"I am, my worthy friend,

"Your most obedient, humble servant,

"William Sentry." T.

NOTES

The heavy marginal figures stand for page, and the lighter ones for line

I. THE SPECTATOR

=Motto.= "He does not lavish at a blaze his fire,
Sudden to glare and in a smoke expire;
But rises from a cloud of smoke to light,
And pours his specious miracles to sight."

--Horace, _Ars Poetica_, 143. P. Francis's tr.

That is, a well-planned work of art will not begin with a flash and end in smoke; but, beginning modestly, will grow more lucid and brilliant as it proceeds. Horace, in the lines immediately preceding these, quotes in translation the opening words of the _Odyssey_ as an example of a good introduction.

The mottoes of the Spectator papers--nearly all chosen from the Latin poets--are usually, as in this case, very apt. They give a certain air of dignity and easy scholarship to the treatment of familiar themes. In a later paper (No. 221, written by Addison) the Spectator defends himself with charming humour against any charge of pedantry in the use of them.

=45=: 12. =My own history.= In this paper Addison of course is not giving us his own history; but he _is_ giving us a truthful picture of his own temperament. His love of reading and of travel, his dignified composure, his taciturnity, his habit of quiet observation--they are all faithfully set down.

=47=: 20. =The measure of a pyramid.= Addison perhaps had in mind the works on this subject by John Greaves (1602-1652), a mathematician and antiquary; a posthumous pamphlet by him had recently (1706) been published. Addison's own travels never extended farther than Italy.

=47=: 28. =Place of general resort.= The coffee-houses played a very important part in the London life of Queen Anne's time. They were frequented by all classes,--wits and scholars, divines, politicians, men of business, and men of fashion. Each of the more famous houses had its own class of patrons, and thus served as a kind of club. Men frequently had their letters left there--as Swift used to do, instead of at his lodgings--and could count on meeting congenial acquaintances there at any time. An observant French traveler, Henri Misson, whose book was translated in 1719, gives a pleasant glimpse of the coffee-house interior: "You have all Manner of Newes there: You have a good Fire, which you may sit by as long as you please; You have a Dish of Coffee; You meet your Friends for the Transaction of Business; and all for a Penny, if you don't Care to spend more." In the better houses, cards or dicing were not allowed, and swearing and quarrelling were punished by fines.

The coffee-houses mentioned in the text were, in 1710, those most widely known. Will's, at the corner of Bow and Great Russell streets, near the Drury Lane Theatre, was the famous house where, during the last decade of the seventeenth century, the great Dryden had held his chair as literary dictator, and it was still a favourite resort both for men of letters and men of affairs; it was from Will's that Steele dated all those papers in _The Tatler_ which were concerned with poetry. Child's, in St. Paul's church-yard, was frequented by the clergy and by men of learning; the Grecian, in Devereaux Court, just off the Strand, was also the resort of scholars and of barristers from the Temple--Steele dated from there all "accounts of learning" in his _Tatler_. The St James, near the foot of St. James Street, was a thoroughly Whig house, as the Cocoa Tree on the opposite side of the street was a Tory. Jonathan's, in Exchange Alley, near the heart of the city, was the headquarters of stockjobbers. All these were coffee-houses, except the Cocoa Tree, which called itself a chocolate-house. The chocolate-houses were few in number, higher in prices, and less popular than the coffee-houses.

Steele gives a pleasant account of coffee-house customs in _Spectator_, No. 49. See also two papers by Addison on coffee-house talk, _Spectator_, Nos. 403, 568.

For a fuller account of London Coffee-houses in Addison's time, see Ashton's _Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne_, Chap. xviii, and Besant's _London in the Eighteenth Century_, Chap. xii.

=48=: 5. =The Postman.= One of the little newspapers of the Queen Anne time, issued thrice a week and edited by a French Protestant named Fontive.

=48=: 11. =Drury Lane and the Haymarket.= These two famous theaters were, in 1710, the only ones open in London.

=48=: 16. =Never open my lips but in my own club.= "Addison was perfect good company with intimates; and had something more charming in his conversation than I ever knew in any other man; but with any mixture of strangers, and sometimes only with one, he seemed to preserve his dignity much, with a stiff sort of silence." Pope, quoted in Spence's _Anecdotes_, p. 38. It will be noticed that while this taciturnity and reserve were characteristics of Addison, they were utterly foreign to the disposition of Steele. Steele often talked too soon and too fast, and he threw himself most heartily into the game of life.

=48=: 27. =Neutrality between the Whigs and Tories.= The Spectator kept this resolve, though the restriction was difficult for Steele.

=50=: 19. =Mr. Buckley's in Little Britain.= Samuel Buckley was a printer who, in 1702, had started the first English daily newspaper, _The Daily Courant_, a little sheet 14 by 8 inches in size. He undertook to print _The Spectator_ for Steele and Addison. Little Britain is the name of a short street in London, near Smithfield.

=50=: 24. =C.= All Addison's papers in _The Spectator_ are signed with some one of the four letters forming the word Clio, the name of the muse of history. Steele's are signed R or T. In _Spectator_, No. 221, Addison gives a droll comment upon these "Capital Letters placed at the End of the papers."

II. THE CLUB

=Motto.= "But other six and more call out with one voice."--Juvenal, _Satires_, vii, 167.

=51=: 2. =Sir Roger de Coverley.= "The still popular dance-tune from which Addison borrowed the name of Sir Roger de Coverley in _The Spectator_, is contained in Playford's _Division Violin_, 1685; in _The Dancing Master_ of 1696, and all subsequent editions."--Chappell, _Popular Music of the Olden Time_.

Steele says it was Swift who made the happy suggestion of calling the old knight by the name of the popular dance.

=51=: 4. =Country-dance.= This seems to be the original form of which contre-dance and contra-dance are perversions, naturally arising from the fact that in such dances the men and women stand in lines facing each other.

=51=: 14. =Soho Square.= Since the time of Charles II this had been a fashionable quarter of London, but fell into comparative disfavour as a place of residence before the close of the eighteenth century.

We do not hear again of this town residence of Sir Roger; he is considered as a country gentleman, who only makes short visits to London, and then lodges in Norfolk buildings off the Strand.

=52=: 1. =My Lord Rochester and Sir George Etherege.= John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1647-1680), and Sir George Etherege (1634-1694) enjoyed some little reputation as poets and more notoriety as rakes during the reign of Charles II. Etherege had considerable dramatic ability; but both men covered with a veneer of fine manners essentially vulgar lives, and both died drunkards.

=53=: 2. =Bully Dawson.= "A swaggering sharper of Whitefriars."--Morley.

=53=: 2. =Inner Temple.= The Inns of Court are legal societies in London which have the exclusive right of admitting candidates to the bar, and provide instruction and examinations for that purpose. There are four of these Inns of Court,--Lincoln's Inn, Gray's Inn, the Middle Temple, and the Inner Temple. The last two derive their names from the fact that they occupy buildings and gardens on the site formerly belonging to the military order of Knights Templar, which was dissolved in the fourteenth century. The famous Temple Church is the only one of the buildings of the great Knights Templar establishment that now remains. We hear but little of the Templar in the following papers; Steele did not find the character as interesting as it might have been expected he would.

=53=: 8. =Aristotle= (384-322 B.C.), the greatest of Greek philosophers in his influence upon later thought, was also perhaps the greatest, as he was the first, of literary critics. The Templar probably cared quite as much for Aristotle's _Rhetoric_ and _Poetics_ as for his philosophical works.

=53=: 9. =Longinus= (210-273) was the author of a treatise _On the Sublime_, more admired two centuries ago than it is to-day.

=53=: 9. =Littleton.= Sir Thomas Littleton (1402-1481), a noted English jurist, author of a famous work in French on _Tenures_.

=53=: 10. =Coke.= _The Institutes of Sir Edward Coke_ (1552-1634), a reprint and translation of Littleton's book, with copious comment,--hence popularly known as _Coke on Littleton_,--are a great authority upon the law of real property.

=53=: 17. =Tully.= Marcus Tullius Cicero.

=53=: 29. =Exactly at five.= In the Queen Anne days the play began at six, or often as early as five. The Templar is going to the Drury Lane Theatre. He passes New Inn, which was one of the buildings of the Middle Temple, crosses the Strand, and through Russell Court reaches Will's Coffee-house, where he looks in for coffee and the news, and he has his shoes rubbed and his wig powdered at the barber's by the Rose Tavern, which stood just beside the theatre.

=54=: 6. =Sir Andrew Freeport.= Steele's Whig sympathies may be seen in this picture of the intelligent and enterprising merchant. The trading classes of England belonged then almost entirely to the Whig party; the landed aristocracy, on the other hand, country squire and country parson, were almost always Tories. See note on p. 242.

=54=: 22. =A penny got.= This would seem to be the source of Franklin's Poor Richard's maxim, "A penny saved is a penny earned."

=57=: 6. =Hoods.= The hood was an important article of woman's attire at this time. See Addison's delightful paper, _Spectator_, No. 265.

=57=: 12. =The Duke of Monmouth.= The natural son of Charles II, who, during the reign of James II, in 1685, invaded England and attempted to seize the crown; but was defeated in the battle of Sedgemoor,--the last battle fought on English soil,--taken prisoner, and executed on Tower Hill. He was a young man of little ability; but his personal beauty and engaging manners won him many friends. See the portrait of him as Absalom in Dryden's _Absalom and Achitophel_, 29, 30:

"His motions all accompanied with grace,
And Paradise was opened in his face."

=58=: 23. =R.= One of Steele's signatures. See note, p. 219.

III. SIR ROGER'S CRITICISMS ON POLITE SOCIETY

=Motto.= "They used to think it a great crime, even deserving of death, if a young man did not rise up in the presence of an elder."--Juvenal, _Satires_, xiii. 54.

=59=: 6. =Wit and sense.= These were reckoned in the Queen Anne time the cardinal virtues not only of literature, but of society. Keenness and quickness of intellect, grace of form in letters, urbanity and good breeding, brilliancy of converse in society--these were the qualities the age most admired. This paper is one of many written by Steele to protest against the divorce of these qualities from morality and religion.

=59=: 9. =Abandoned writings of men of wit.= Steele probably has especially in mind the drama of his time. English comedy was never so witty and never so abandoned as in the fifty years following the Restoration.

=60=: 8. =Lincoln's Inn Fields.= A large square just west of Lincoln's Inn, at this time much frequented by beggars and sharpers.

=61=: 24. =Sir Richard Blackmore= (1650-1729), a dull, long-winded poet of the time, whose verse has little beside its virtue to recommend it. In the Preface to his long philosophical poem, _The Creation_, published a few months after this paper was written, he inveighs at great length against the licentiousness and atheism of men of wit and letters; but the sentences in the text seem to be quoted, though inaccurately, from the Preface to his earlier epic, _Prince Arthur_ (1695).

IV. THE CLUB AND THE SPECTATOR

=Motto.= "A wild beast spares his own kind."--Juvenal, _Satires_, xv. 159.

=65=: 13. =The opera and the puppet-show.= The absurd unrealities of the Italian opera, then recently introduced into England, were a subject of frequent sarcastic comment in _The Spectator_. "Audiences," says Addison, "have often been reproached by writers for the coarseness of their taste; but our present grievance does not seem to be the want of a good taste, but of common sense." For strictures on the opera, see Nos. 1, 13, 18, 22, 29, 31.

=65=: 15. =Dress and equipage of persons of quality.= Perhaps he refers to No. 16, in which the Spectator had ventured some criticism upon muffs and garters and fringed gloves and other "foppish ornaments."

=65=: 19. =The city.= Technically "the city" is that part of London north of the Thames from Temple Bar on the west to the Tower on the east, and extending as far as Finsbury on the north, which constituted the original walled city of London. It is the part of London under the immediate control of the lord mayor and aldermen, and its residents are "citizens." The trade and business of London was in Addison's time almost entirely--and still is very largely--included in this area.

Sir Andrew Freeport, as a merchant, of course stands up for the city.

=66=: 4. =The wits of King Charles's time.= The comedies of the writers of the time of Charles II--Farquhar, Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh--usually turn upon intrigue of which the wives and daughters of citizens are the victims.

=66=: 6. =Horace= (65-8 B.C.) and =Juvenal= (_circa_ 60-140 A.D.), the masters of Latin satire; =Boileau= (1636-1711), a French satirist and critic.

=66=: 12. =Persons of the Inns of Court.= See _Spectator_, No. 21.

=66=: 25. =Fox hunters.= Whatever Mr. Spectator may have said in private, it does not seem that he had thus far written any paper disparaging fox hunters. A later essay, No. 474,--not written by Addison,--is rather severe upon them. Addison's famous picture of the Tory fox hunter is found in _The Freeholder_, No. 22.

=67=: 23. =Vices ... too trivial for the chastisement of the law, and too fantastical for the cognizance of the pulpit.= This is an admirable indication of the range and purpose of the Spectator's satire.

=68=: 16. =The Roman triumvirate.= Octavius, Antony, Lepidus. For the account of their "debate," see Plutarch's _Life of Mark Antony_ or Shakespeare's version of it in _Julius Cæsar_, iv. 1.

=68=: 27. =Punch.= One Robert Powell, a hunchbacked dwarf, kept a puppet show, or "Punch's theatre," in Covent Garden. The speech of Punch was often very broad. See Ashton's _Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne_, p. 215.

V. A LADY'S LIBRARY

=Motto.= "She had not accustomed her woman's hands to the distaff or the skeins of Minerva."--Virgil, _Æneid_, vii. 305.

=69=: 13. =Leonora.= A letter from a Leonora, perhaps the lady of this paper, is to be found in _Spectator_, No. 91.

=70=: 4. =Great jars of china.= The craze for collecting china was then at its height. It is satirized by Steele in _Tatler_, No. 23, and by Addison in No. 10 of _The Lover_.

=70=: 17. =Scaramouches.= The Scaramouch is a typical buffoon in Italian farces; the name is derived from Scaramuccia, a famous Italian clown of the last half of the seventeenth century.

=70=: 20. =Snuff box.= This indicates that the habit of snuff taking had been adopted by fine ladies. It would seem, however, to have been a new fashion, at all events with ladies. See Steele's criticism upon the habit in _Spectator_, No. 344. For curious facts with reference to the use of tobacco in the Queen Anne time, see Ashton, _Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne_, Chap. xvii.

=71=: 3. =Looking into the books=, etc. The humour consists largely, of course, in the odd miscellany of books suited "to the lady and the scholar."

=71=: 9. =Ogilby's Virgil=, the first complete translation of Virgil, 1649.

=71=: 10. =Dryden's Juvenal=, 1693.

=71=: 11, 12, 13. =Cassandra=, =Cleopatra=, and =Astraea= were translations of long-winded, sentimental French romances, the first two by La Calprenède, the third by Honoré D'Urfé.

=71=: 15. =The Grand Cyrus= and =Clelia= were even more famous romances, by Mademoiselle de Scudéry, each in ten volumes. For delightful satire upon the taste for this sort of reading, see Steele's comedy, _The Tender Husband_; the heroine, Miss Biddy Tipkin, has been nourished upon this delicate literature.

=71=: 17. =Pembroke's Arcadia.= Written in 1580-1581, by Sir Philip Sidney, but published, after his death, by his sister, the Countess of Pembroke. It is the best of the Elizabethan prose romances.

=71=: 18. =Locke.= John Locke's _Essay on the Human Understanding_, an epoch-making work in philosophy, published in 1690. Locke was one of the authors Leonora had "heard praised," and may have "seen"; but she evidently found better use for his book than to read it. The "patches" were bits of black silk or paper, cut in a variety of forms, which ladies stuck upon their faces, presumably to set off their complexions. See _Spectator_, No. 81. Notice the pun in this use of Locke.

=71=: 22. =Sherlock.= William Sherlock (1641-1707), dean of St. Paul's.

=71=: 23. =The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony=, a translation of a French book of the fifteenth century, _Quinze Joies de Mariage_.

=71=: 24. =Sir William Temple's Essays=, published 1692.

=71=: 25. =Malebranche's Search after Truth= had been translated from the French not long before.

=72=: 1. =The Ladies' Calling=, a popular religious book, anonymous, but ascribed to the unknown author of the most widely circulated religious book of the seventeenth century, _The Whole Duty of Man_.

=72=: 2. =Mr. D'Urfey.= Thomas D'Urfey (1650-1720), a playwright and humorous verse writer. His poetical writings were collected, 1720, under the title, _Pills to purge Melancholy_. In 1704 he published _Tales, Tragical and Comical_, which is probably the book here referred to.

=72=: 6. =Clelia.= See note on 71: 15.

=72=: 8. =Baker's Chronicle.= _Sir Richard Baker's Chronicle_ of the kings of England, 1634. Sir Roger was very familiar with this dull book. See _Spectator_, No. 329, XXVIII of this volume.

=72=: 9. =Advice to a Daughter.= By George Saville, Marquis of Halifax.

=72=: 10. =The New Atalantis.= By Mrs. Manley, who had an unsavoury reputation in London journalism during the reign of Anne. This was a scandalous romance, attacking prominent persons, especially of the Whig party, under feigned names.

=72=: 11. =Mr. Steele's Christian Hero.= See Introduction.

=72=: 14. =Dr. Sacheverell's Speech.= A Tory high-church preacher who was impeached before the House of Lords for two violent sermons assailing the Whig party. His trial caused great excitement, and was one of the events immediately preceding the downfall of the Whigs in 1710. The "speech" here mentioned is that delivered in his own defence. It is said to have been written for him by Samuel Wesley, father of John Wesley.

=72=: 15. =Fielding's Trial.= One Robert Fielding, tried for bigamy early in the century.

=72=: 16. =Seneca's Morals.= _The Moral Essays of Seneca_ (4 B.C.-65 A.D.). The translation of Roger L'Estrange was popular at this time.

=72=: 17. =Taylor's Holy Living and Dying.= Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667), the most eloquent of English divines.

=74=: 22. =To give me their thoughts upon it.= Some of "their thoughts" may be found in Nos. 92 and 340.

VI. COVERLEY HALL

=Motto.= "Hence shall flow to the full for thee, from kindly horn, a wealth of rural honours."--Horace, _Odes_, I. xvii. 14-17.

=77=: 7. =The nature of a chaplain.= The religious influence of the clergy, especially of the country clergy, was doubtless very small in the Queen Anne time. For their condition and work, see Macaulay's famous Chapter iii. in his _History of England_; Lecky's _History of England in the Eighteenth Century_, Chap. ii; Ashton's _Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne_, Chap. xxxii; Besant's _London in the Eighteenth Century_, chapter on Church and Chapel. Abundant confirmation of this low estimate of the character and influence of the clergy may be found in contemporary literature. For example, see Swift's _Project for the Advancement of Religion_, his satirical _Argument against the Abolishing of Christianity_, and _Letter to a Young Clergyman_.

Yet it must be remembered that the Whig prejudices of Addison inclined him, in his kindly satire, to belittle the attainments and the influence of the country clergy, who were, almost to a man, Tories.

=79=: 3. =Bishop of St. Asaph= may have been either William Beveridge (1637-1708) or his successor, William Fleetwood (1656-1723); both had, before this time, published volumes of sermons.

=79=: 4. =Dr. South.= Robert South (1633-1716), a very high churchman and a very eloquent preacher.

=79=: 6. =Tillotson.= John Tillotson (1630-1694), made Archbishop of Canterbury three years before his death.

=79=: 7. =Saunderson.= Robert Saunderson (1587-1663), Bishop of Lincoln.

=79=: 7. =Barrow.= Isaac Barrow (1630-1677) was eminent both as a theologian and a mathematician.

=79=: 7. =Calamy.= Edmund Calamy (1600-1666) is the only one in the chaplain's list of preachers who was not a Churchman; Calamy was a Presbyterian, though a liberal one, who served a little time as chaplain of Charles II.

VII. THE COVERLEY HOUSEHOLD

=Motto.= "The Athenians raised a colossal statue to Æsop, though a slave, and placed it on a lasting foundation, to show that the path of Honor is open to all."--Phaedrus, _Epilogue_, 2.

=80=: 4. =Corruption of manners in servants.= For interesting details, see Ashton's _Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne_, Chap. vi, Servants. Steele had already written a paper on the subject, _Spectator_, No. 88.

=83=: 4. =Put his servants into independent livelihoods.= Note the inconsistency of the statement with those of the previous paper. The two papers were written at the same time,--they were printed on two consecutive days,--and Steele and Addison, it is evident, did not very carefully avoid slight inconsistencies.

VIII. WILL WIMBLE

=Motto.= "Out of breath for naught; doing many things, yet accomplishing nothing."--Phaedrus, _Fables_, II. v. 3.

=85=: 6. =Wimble.= A wimble is a gimlet--the two words are probably from the same root. Possibly, as some of his editors have suggested, Addison meant to indicate that Will Wimble was a small bore. Quite as possibly he meant that the fellow was always turning about, yet making a very small hole.

=86=: 1. =Eton.= The most famous of English schools; in sight of Windsor Castle.

=86=: 8. =Younger brother.= By English law the eldest son succeeds to the family estate and titles.

=86=: 21. =A tulip-root.= About the middle of the seventeenth century there was a craze for tulips in England. The bulbs were grown in Holland, and were sold for fabulous prices. Dealing in them became a kind of speculation, and tulip bulbs were bought and sold on the exchange, as stocks are now, without changing hands at all. As much as a thousand pounds has been paid, it is said, for a single bulb. The Dutch government finally passed a law that no more than two hundred francs should be charged for one bulb. By the time this paper was written the mania had mostly passed, yet tulips were still highly prized. In _The Tatler_, Addison has a pleasant paper (No. 218) telling of a cook maid who mistook a "handful of tulip-roots for a heap of onions and by that means made a dish of pottage that cost above a thousand pounds sterling." Forty years later, young Oliver Goldsmith, when a medical student in Leyden, almost beggared himself by the purchase of a parcel of tulip-roots to send to his good uncle Contarine in Ireland.

=89=: 1. =Trading nation, like ours.= In such passages as this Addison betrays his Whig sympathies. The trading and moneyed classes, it will be remembered, were all in the Whig party; the landed aristocracy, in the Tory party. In _Spectator_, No. 21,--referred to in the closing lines of this paper,--he dwells at length on the opportunities and advantages of the business life as compared with the overcrowded professions.

IX. THE COVERLEY ANCESTRY

=Motto.= "Wise, but not by rule."--Horace. _Satires_, II. ii. 3.

=90=: 19. =Harry the Seventh.= Henry VII, king of England, 1485-1509.

=90=: 19. =Yeomen of the guard.= The bodyguard of the sovereign, numbering one hundred, who attend him at banquets and other state occasions. They are popularly called "beefeaters," and still wear the uniform here described. The wardens of the Tower of London wear a uniform differing but slightly from that of the yeomen of the guard.

=90=: 28. =The Tilt-yard= occupied not only a part of the "common street," now called Whitehall, but the greater part of the "parade ground" in St. James's Park, just behind the Horse Guards building.

=91=: 14. =The coffee-house.= Jenny Man's coffee-house, one of the best known in London, stood on the spot now occupied by the paymaster general's office.

=91=: 24. =New-fashioned petticoat.= The hooped petticoat has made its appearance, in various forms, at various times, throughout the history of British female attire. Sir Roger's grandmother apparently wore what was called the "wheel farthingale," a drum-shaped petticoat worn in the late sixteenth century. The form in vogue in Addison's time--it came in about 1707--was bell shaped, and of most liberal dimensions. For some admirable fooling upon it, see _Spectator_, No. 127, and _Tatler_, No. 116, both by Addison.

=92=: 4. =White-pot.= Made of cream, rice, sugar, and cinnamon, etc. It was a favourite Devonshire dish, as the famous "clotted cream" of Devon is now.

=93=: 9. =Sir Andrew Freeport has said.= Sir Andrew characteristically stands up for the citizens and the moneyed interest. Later on he reminds Sir Roger of the obligation of his family to trade. See _Spectator_, No. 174, XXVII of this volume.

=93=: 15. =Turned my face.= Note the delicate courtesy of the Spectator.

=94=: 20. =The battle of Worcester=, September 3, 1651, in which Cromwell defeated the Scots, supporters of Charles II.

X. THE COVERLEY GHOST

=Motto.= "All things are full of horror and affright,
And dreadful e'en the silence of the night."

--Virgil, _Æneid_, ii. 755. Dryden's tr.

=95=: 9. =Psalms=, cxlvii. 9.

=96=: 20. =Mr. Locke, in his chapter.= _Essay on the Human Understanding_, Bk. ii, Chap. xxxiii.

=98=: 12. =The relations of particular persons who are now living.= Addison's opinion as to the reality of ghosts and apparitions was shared by most people of his time, the thoughtful and educated as well as the ignorant.

=98=: 17. =Lucretius.= A Roman poet of the century before Christ, whose one work, _De Rerum Natura_, is a philosophic poem, showing much subtlety of thought. The "notion" referred to in the text is found in the early part of the Fourth Book of the _De Rerum Natura_.

=99=: 4. =Josephus= (37-95 A.D.). The Jewish historian. The passage is found in his _Antiquities of the Jews_, Bk. xvii, Chap. xiii.

XI. SUNDAY WITH SIR ROGER

=Motto.= "First honour the immortal gods, as it is commanded by law."--Pythagoras, _Fragments_.

=101=: 20. =Instruct them rightly in the tunes of the Psalms.= The service in the parish churches throughout England at this time was slovenly and spiritless. Samuel Wesley, father of John, who was then rector of the parish of Epworth, complains that his people prefer the "sorry Sternhold Psalms," have "a strange genius at understanding nonsense," and sing decently only "after it has cost a pretty deal to teach them."

=103=: 10. =The clerk's place.= In the English parishes the clerk is the layman who leads in reading the responses of the church service.

=103=: 23. =Tithe stealers.= Tithes are a tax, estimated as a tenth (tithe) of the annual profits from land and stock, appropriated for the support of the clergy. The tithes in England are now commuted to rent charges.

XII. SIR ROGER IN LOVE

=Motto.= "(Her) features remain imprinted on (his) heart."--Virgil, _Æneid_, iv. 4.

=105=: 1. =The perverse widow.= Ingenious commentators have thought to identify the lady with a certain Mrs. Catherine Bovey, to whom Steele dedicated the second volume of his _Ladies Library_; but it seems altogether improbable that Steele and Addison would intend any of their characters as actual portraits.

=108=: 20. =Such a desperate scholar that no country gentleman can approach her.= It is probable that Sir Roger's estimate of the scholarship of country gentlemen in his time does them no great injustice. Macaulay says of the country squire at the end of the seventeenth century: "If he went to school and to college, he generally returned before he was twenty to the seclusion of the old hall, and then, unless his mind was very happily constituted by nature, soon forgot his academical pursuits in rural business and pleasures. His chief serious employment was the care of his property.... His chief pleasures were commonly derived from field sports and from unrefined sensuality. His language and pronunciation were such as we should now expect to hear only from the most ignorant clowns."--_History of England_, Chap. iii.

=109=: 20. =Sphinx.= The sphinx was sent by Juno to devastate the country of the Thebans, until some one could answer her riddle, "What animal goes on four feet in the morning, two at noon, and three at night?" Œdipus gave the right answer, "Man," and so saved his countrymen.

=110=: 3. =Her tucker.= The tucker was an edging of muslin or lace at the top of the dress, covering the neck and bosom.

=110=: 8. =Some tansy.= A kind of pudding flavored with tansy.

=110=: 24. =Dum tacet hanc loquitur.= Even when silent he is speaking of her.

=110=: 25. =Epigram.= Martial, _Epigram_, I. lxviii. The last two lines of the epigram are not quoted.

XIII. HOW TO BEAR POVERTY

=Motto.= "The shame of poverty and the fear of it."--Horace, _Epistles_, I. xviii. 24.

=111=: 16. =The glass was taken ... pretty plentifully.= The Queen Anne men were not very temperate. Says Mr. Lecky: "The amount of hard drinking among the upper classes was still very great, and it is remarkable how many of the most conspicuous characters were addicted to it. Addison, the foremost moralist of his time, was not free from it. Oxford, whose private character was in most respects singularly high, is said to have come, not infrequently, drunk into the very presence of the Queen."--_England in the Eighteenth Century_, Chap. iii.

Swift writes in his _Journal to Stella_, October 31, 1710: "I dined with Mr. Addison and Dick Stuart. They were both half fuddled; but not I."

=113=: 13, 19. =Laertes ... Irus.= Classical names were frequently taken for imaginary personages by the writers of this time. Laertes, in Homer's _Odyssey_, is the father of Ulysses, and Irus is a beggar.

=113=: 16. =Four shillings in the pound.= Laertes evidently has to pay three hundred pounds a year interest on his mortgage of six thousand pounds, which is one fifth of his whole income, or "four shillings in the pound."

=113=: 18. =Easier in his own fortune.= Because, of course, he has to pay taxes on his whole estate.

=114=: 25. =Mr. Cowley.= Abraham Cowley (1618-1667), one of the most popular poets of the second third of the seventeenth century. The vogue of his poetry, however, rapidly declined; but his prose essays are still very pleasant reading. The essay which Steele seems to refer to in the latter part of this paragraph is that on _Greatness_, which closes with a translation of Horace's Ode, _Odi profanum_, Bk. iii. 1.

=114=: 28. =The elegant author who published his works.= Thomas Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, who issued a complete edition of Cowley's Poetical Works, prefaced with a Life, in 1680. Sprat's _Life of Cowley_ is one of the most interesting pieces of biography of the seventeenth century.