^^ " O V ' ^> 9' . ^ ' '^^ <; •^^55:vv^*'.. o ^^ ♦* '< -^^0^ ! ^^ ♦.-«.'* ^4" V<^ 4\^ .«' • .^^'"-^, ^\^. the gambridfle CiteratMre Series. EDITED BY THOMAS HALL, JR., A.B., INSTRUCTOR IK ENGLISH IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY. Ube Cambriboe Xit;evature Series NAMES OF EDITORS. THOMAS HALL, Jr., A3,, Harvard University, General Editor. RAYMOND M, ALDEN, Ph.D., Leland Stanford, Jr., Uni- versity. a% J. GRIFFITH AMES, Lit. B., Professor in Illinois College. FREDERICK L. BLISS, A.M., Principal of Detroit University School. CORNELIUS B. BRADLEY, Ph.D., Professor in the Uni- versity of California. ANNA A. FISHER, A.M., late Professor in the University of Denver. JOHN PHELPS FRUIT, Ph.D., Professor in William JeweU College, Mo. PHILIP CENTNER, A.B., Fellow in Harvard University. HENRY B. HUNTINGTON, A.B., Instructor in Harvard University. AGNES M. LATHE, A.M.. late Professor in Woman's Col- lege, Baltimore. EDWARD S. PARSONS. A.M., Professor in Colorado Col- lege. ROBERT JOHN PETERS. A.M., Professor in Missouri Valley College. LEWIS W. SMITH. Ph.B., Professor in Tabor (la.) College. ELLEN A. VINTON, A.M., Instructor in Literature. Wash- ington, D. C. [Sl] Xlbe Cambci&ge literature Sertes THE SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS FROM THE SPECTATOR EDITED BY FREDERICK LEROY BLISS, A.M. PRINCIPAL OF DETROIT UNIVERSITY SCHOOL AND MYRA Mcpherson post, b.l. TEACHER OF ENGLISH, DETROIT UNIVERSITY SCHOOL 01) nolX ak'Ka noli) BENJ. H. SANBORN & CO. BOSTON, U. S. A. * *• ' »» '•• •• ^J? THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, Two Comes Recsiveo SfP. 6 1902 C<"*>S^l»mMT ENTRY -.;SS £:t/XXc. No, COPY 3. Copyright, 1902, Bv Frederick L. Bjliss. Stanbope Press F. H GILSON COMPANY BOSTON, U.S.A. PEEFACE. The papers here represented do not include every one that contains a reference to Sir Roger, but only those best and most favorably known, and of greatest interest. Acknowledgment is due the Lippincott Company for permission to use the printed text of their edition of Addison's Essays from Tlie Spectator^ edited by G. W. Greene. This text was compared with Morley's edition, modified to conform with it when necessary, with such changes in punctuation and capitalization as accord with present usage. Morley has been followed also in the translation of the mottoes. These translations have been placed inconspicu- ously with the notes, for Addison and Steele themselves refused to translate the mottoes, which were intended only for those who could under- stand and appreciate the allusion. oo]srTE]srTs. Introduction Joseph Addison Yii Sir Richard Steele xii Eustace Budgell xvii Conditions of the Time xviii The Tatler, the Spectator and the Guardian . xxi Suggestions xxviii Bibliography xxxi Sir Roger de Coverlet Papers 1 Notes 229 ESTTEODUOTION. JOSEPH ADDISON. (1672-1719.) Of Joseph Addison's mother, unfortunately, we know very little. His father, Rev. Lancelot Addison, was a man of scholarly tastes, high principles, and independence of character. When, during the Puritan ascendancy, his Royalist and Church-of-England sympathies Ijrought him into disfavor, he sacrificed his comfort rather than his conscience. After the Restoration he enjoyed several preferments, the last and most consideraljle being the Deanery of Lichfield. The little rectory at Milston, Wilt- shire, was the birthplace of Joseph, his two brothers, and three sisters. At the age of fourteen Joseph entered Charterhouse School, London, then second in reputation only to West- minster, among English schools. Here he distinguished himself in his classical studies, which were, indeed, the foundation stones of his later literary work. It Avas here, too, that he formed the most intimate and lasting friend- ship of his life — that with " Dick " Steele. Vlll INTRODUCTION. From Charterhouse, Addison Avent to Oxford and con- tinued his studies first at Queen's College and later at Mag- dalen, where in 1698 he became a Fellow. During this time his translations from the Latin won him a name and brought him to the notice of that ezar of English letters, John Dryden, It was during these years also that Addi- son formed an acquaintance with Charles Montagu, after- wards Lord Halifax. AVhen the time came for Addison to choose his life-work, Montagu helped him to a decision, for it was through Montagu's influence that Addison was granted a pension in order that he might fit himself for diplomatic service by travel on the Continent. The years 1699-1703 Addison spent in France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and Holland, j)erfecting his knowl- edge of foreign tongues, profiting by his contact with such men as Boileau and Malebranche, and everywhere observ- ing with The SiJectator'' s eye, men, manners, institutions. Before Addison returned to England, the death of Wil- liam HI. put an end to the hope of any immediate i:)oliti- cal advancement. Anne, upon coming to the throne, gave evidence of her Stuart blood by overturning the Whig ministry (including Addison's patrons, Halifax and Somers) and replacing it with men who she thought would uphold tlu; prerogative of the crown. Circum- stances, however, made it impossible for the ministry to follow a rigid Tory policy, and Godolphin, Lord Treas- urer, soon saw the necessity of allying to the government the Whig influence, both j^olitical and literary. We must INTRODUCTION. ix realize that in Addison's time the mutual dependence of literature and politics was still very great. Litera- ture was only just beginning to seek its support in the demand of the reading public, rather than in the patronage of the great ; and, on the other hand, the gov- ernment needed the weapon which the pamphleteer and occasional poet wielded. Thus it was tliat Addison, who was living in obscurity in the Haymarket, was sought out to celebrate in verse the great victory of Blenheim, and we have as a result The Campaign. This poem War- ton calls " a gazette in rhyme." It is true that it is remembered chiefly as marking Ad- dison's rise and likewise the rise of the Whig party. Addison was made successively Under-Secretary of State, member of Parliament, secretar}^ to the Lord-lieutenant of Ireland. In 1710 the Whig power was again overthrown with the downfall of Godolphin and Marlborough, and Addison was deprived of his official position. So popular was he, however, that he was returned to Parliament with- out contest. At this time Swift wrote to Stella of Addi- son, "I believe if he had a mind to be king he would hardly be refused." One more revolution in party government, at the time of Anne's death, placed Addison on the crest of the wave, and in 1717 he became Secretary of State. The year be- fore he had married the Countess Dowager of Warwick and taken up his residence in tlie famous Holland House. During these years Addison had been a man of letters, X INTRODUCTION. as well as a man of affairs. His literary work outside his contributions to periodicals took the dramatic form. Rosa- mond, an unsuccessful opera, appeared in 1706 ; Cato, a tragedy, in 1713. Though Cato contains some fine lines and elicited from Voltaire the eulogium that Addison was "the first English writer who composed a regular tra- gedy," it is now thought to have little merit. The inter- est which it aroused upon its appearance was largely due to Addison's personal popularity and to the allusion to con- temporary political conditions which the play was sup- posed to contain. Addison's third dramatic attempt was The Drummer, acted in 1716. Addison's genius was, however, not dramatic or poetic. We remember him not for his Cato, his Campaign, or even his l)eautiful paraphrase of the Twenty-third Psalm. It is as tlie delightful essayist that he occupies a high place in our literature. His essays are valued not for the matter so much as for the manner. The thought con- tained in them is not profound nor often original ; he does not sound tlie depths of our nature, but he has no rival in perfection of form — correctness, absolute trans- parency, easy and unaffected grace. We do not care what he says so long as he says it. Hardly less do we value his essays for the charming personality which breatlies through them. That personality which drew all men to him in his lifetime ; whose power exacted tribute from Swift while he scoffed, and from Pope while he sneered, still holds sway over us. Its elements, so far as INTRODUCTION. xi we can analyze them, are evenness of temper, modera- tion, reason, and justice as guiding principles in the con- duct of life ; refinement of feeling, a high moral sense ; and, not least, a delicate, subtle, all-pervading humor, which never Ijecomes coarse or malicious. In a word, he has perfect poise of character. Macaulay says his tone "is that of a gentleman, in whom the quickest sense of the ridiculous is constantly tempered by good-nature and good-breeding." To turn from the man to his work, it is significant that both Addison's and Steele's best writing was done during their literary partnership. This association began in Steele's first venture in periodical literature. The Tatler. Shortly after this paper appeared, and Addison recognized Steele's hand, he offered to contribute to the paper, an offer Steele was not slow to accept. Thus began the co- operation which bore such rich fruit in The Sj^eciator. The papers which Addison and Steele later pul^lished alone, Addison's Freeholder and Steele's Englif^hman, though affording us excellent examples of the power of the men as political writers, do not show either genius at its best. The years 1716-17 mark the height of Addison's pros- perity, but thougli still a young man, he did not live long to enjoy his success. Ill health forced him to give up his Secretaryship after holding it less than a year, and a few months later, June 17, 1719, he died. His last days were saddened by the estrangement of his old friend, an Xli INTRODUCTION. estrangement which arose in political differences, but which fed upon those very contrasts in character that had first drawn them together and afterward made them so mutually helpful. There are evidences that, in spite of the alienation, these two men really loved each other to the end. Let us believe that it was so. Addison was buried in Westminster Abbey, where the Spectator, when "in a serious humor," loved to walk by himself. SIR RICHARD STEELE. (1672-1729.) "I am an Englishman born in the city of Dublin," says Steele of himself. Beyond this little is known of his parentage and early life. It is only recently that the uat*. of his birth has been fixed as March 12, 1672. All the biographers can say of Steele's father is that he was an attorney, and some add (on insufficient evidence) private secretary to the Duke of Ormond. Steele tells us nothing of the character of his father, and the following sentence (Tatler, No. 181) explains his silence: " The first sense of sorrow I ever knew was upon the death of my father, at which time I was not quite five years old." A few lines further occurs the only reference to his mother, ' ' a very beautiful woman of a noble spirit." From the same passage we learn something of Steele himself, for he tells us that at sight of his mother's grief, sorrow ' ' seized my very soul and has made pity the weakness of my heart ever since.'''' ^, IN TR OD UC TION. xiii Steele's mother died not long- after his father and left the boy under the guardianship of an uncle, who was priv^ate secretary to the Duke of Ormond. Through the Duke's influence Steele was admitted to Charterhouse in 1684. There is little to record of his school days. They seem to have been happy and profitable, and memorable chiefly for the beginning of the friendship with Joseph Addison, who entered the school two years later than Steele. Thackeray, in his English Humorists, has given us a delightful picture of the schoolboy friends, — " that thick-set, square-faced, black-eyed, soft-hearted little Irish boy, who was very idle, got other boys to do his lessons for him, was always in del)t to the tartwoman, and who was withal the servile admirer of Joseph Addison, the ' "jd^ boy," (Tliackeray seems not to know, or not to remember, that Steele entered two years before Addison.) " He ran on Addison's messages, fagged for him and blacked his shoes. To be in Joe's company was Dick's greatest pleasure ; and he took a sermon or a caning from his monitor with the most boundless reverence, acquies- cence, and affection." In reading this, we must remember that Thackeray himself admits that he draws upon his imagination for the sketch. Such, in his opinion, Dick Steele, the boy, must have been to become Richard Steele, the man. Has Thackeray, however, the true conception of the man ? He sees in Steele a cliaracter to be loved an*l excused, rather than admired. " If he is not our friend, he is nothing." Later biographers make him XIV INTRODUCTION. something more than a man of generous but ill-controlled impulses, content to remain Addison's fag through life. They find, upon comparing the two men, that Steele has not only the warmer nature, the deeper sympathy, the greater energy and enthusiasm, but also the more original genius, for Steele is the pioneer, Addison the disciple. Steele entered Oxford two years later than Addison and chose another college — Christ Church. The difference in character between the two friends early evinced itself. In 1694, while Addison was content to pursue his college course, Steele's longing for a life of action led him to enlist as private in the Horse Guards. A few years later he became Cai)tain Steele and with this title left the army after twelve years' service. In 1701, when Steele's military career was a little more than half over, appeared his Christian Hero. This treatise was not at first intended for publication, but was designed, according to the author's own statement, "to fix ujion his own mind a strong impression of virtue and religion, in opposition to a stronger propensity towards unwarrantable pleasures." In that age, it was remarkable not that he should have had this "propensity towards vmwarrantable ])leasures,'' but that he should have tliought necessary to resist it. As to the impression the work made, Steele says, "From being thought no undelightful companion, I was soon reckoned a disagreeable fellow." In part, at least, to offset this impression, Steele next essayed a comed3% The Funeral, or Grief a la Mode. INTRODUCTION. XV Even this has a distinctly othieal purpose, for he declares he shall show Virtue and Vice just as they appear in the world. He is evidently willing, however, that a certain lively humor shall make the dose palatable. Steele con- tinues the warfare against the existing drama in his sub- sequent plays, The Lying Lovers, The Tender Ihisband, The Conscious Lovers, and in several of his essays. Though The Conscious Lovers has some merit, we cannot call Steele a successful dramatist. Soon after Addison's return from tlie Continent, Steele was married. Almost the only circumstance recorded in connection with this marriage is that his wife brought him an estate in the Barbadoes. She lived less than two years after their marriage, and in 1707 Steele married again — Mary Scurlock, a W(dsh beauty, the " charming Prue '^ of his letters. These letters, written at all times and from all places from the days of the courtship to his wifc^'s death, are the chief source of information with regard to Steele's mature life. In them the great and the petty jostle each other as they do in life. We come face to face with the man as he is, perplexed by money diiliculties, allured by financial will-o'-the-wisps or political ambitions ; cast into despair at a caprice of "True"; stumbling, sinning, but always n^pentant and ashamed; keen, energetic, im- pulsive ; moved by strong feeling and as strong conviction ; tender hearted, withal, and generous; to the last, an ardent patriot, a loyal friend, a devoted lover. Steele's first connection with ])olitics was established xvi INTRODUCTION. short!}' Jifter his first marriage, when he became gentle- man-in-waiting to Prince George. Later, in 17U7, he was made Gazetteer, that is, editor, we might say, of The Gazette, the official organ of the government. It was the monopoly of news which The Gazette possessed that sug- gested to him the idea of publishing a periodical on his own account : thus The Tatler came into being. Of this paper and its two chief successors. The Guardian and The Spectator, we have treated elsewhere. It is necessary here only to note that each of these projects originated with Steele. After tlie death of his second periodical, The Guardian, Steele became more and more deeply involved in politics. He entered Parliament, but during the Tory ascendancy could not refrain from making public in a pamplilet ( The Crisis) liis criticism of the Administration, and in conse- quence was expelled from the House. At this time, also, he was publishing The Englishman, a distinctly party organ. The return of the Whigs to power at the accession of George I. reinstated Steele in favor, as it did Addison. He again entered Parliament, and on the occasion of an address to the king was rewarded with the order of knight- hood. Further favor was shown in the bestowal upon him of the patent of Drury Lane Theatre. This, however, he lost later when lie openly and courageously expressed his disapproval of a pending ministerial measure, the Peerage Bill (1719). It was the difference of opinion over this bill that estranged Steele and Addison. INTRODUCTION. xvii Steele's writings during this period and later took the form chiefly of political pamphlets and short-lived papers. Of the former the most celebrated is his Apology for him- self and his writings. Two purely literary works of this period, however, deserve mention; one. The Conscious Lovers, which has been spoken of before ; the other, a ven- ture along the lines of The Spectator — The Lover, which had but a brief career. During the last years of his life Steele's financial embar- rassments thickened, yet it is thouglit that, in spite of fail- ing health and waning i^owers, lie met all obligations before his death, " Prue'' had died in 1718. Steele sur- vived her eleven years. "There may have been wiser, stronger, greater men. But many a strong man would have been stronger for a touch of Steele's indulgent sympathy ; many a great man has wanted his genuine largeness of heart ; many a wise man might learn something from his deep and wide humanity." — Austin Dobson. EUSTACE BUDGELL. (1685-1736.) The biography of Eustace Budgell is brief and unhe- roic. His life was a promise never fulfilled. His birth- place was St. Thomas, near Exeter ; his college, Oxford. When Addison, to whom he was related, went to Ireland, xviii INTRODUCTION. he took young Bndgcll witli liini as hi.-; secretary, and later obtained a government position for him. BudgelVs con- tributions to the periodicals in which Steele and Addison were interested show considerable literary ability, or rather susceptibility, his style bearing a distinct impress of Addison's. But he seems to haye been cursed with a wayward disposition. While he was under the guidance of Addison, who loved him, his life was fairly well regulated, but, after Addison's death, became sadly entangled. Finan- cial diiVicuItics, political disapi)ointments, failure in his profession (law), social obloquy, as a result of his own dishonesty and a cutting couplet from Pope, made his life unendurable. He ended it by leaping into the Thames. In his room was found a paper reading: "What Cato did and Addison approved cannot be wrong.'' This last pathetic conclusion was a false one, for Addison makes clear in his Cato that he does not approve of self murder. Thus Budgell's death was the crowning mistake of a life of many mistakes. CONDITIONS OF THE TIME. To understand tlie conditions out of which The Specta- tor sprang, and with wiiich it wrought, we must consider first that tlie last fifty years of the seventeenth century had seen three revolutions in England. With the execu- tion of Charles I., England had thrown off the yoke of Stuart tyranny. But the despotism of Puritan rule be- IN TR on U C TI ON. xix came as irksome as that of Charles, after CromwelPs per- sonality no longer gave life and vigor to it, and in turn it was cast off. After the stern repression of Puritanism came the Restoration (1660), a period marked by an ex- cess and frivolity such as England has seen but once. But Charles II. was not serious enough in anything to arouse the antagonism of the English people. It was not until the old hated Stuart traits began to reveal themselves in James II., particularly the old leaning toward Catholi- cism, most hated of all, that England once more arose in her might and declared she had had enougli. A third revolution in 1688 — ("the revolution without blood- shed ") — deposed James and placed William of Orange and Mary on the throne. Even then the balance was not restored, nor could it be by a foreigner. Society was still awry when Anne, who was, as she said, " entirely English,'' came to the throne. During her rule the sense of security gave free rein to discussion, and this brought to light violent antag- onisms in opinion, which Ijefore had had little chance to express themselves. The old elements were there, though modified by time and experience : the Roundhead had become a Whig ; the Cavalier a Tory. Between these two parties raged the most intense and bitter warfare. How this strife influenced literary activity has already been shown. It was the golden age of the pamphleteer and the satirist. Pope's stinging couplets ruined many a reputation, and even Swift's intellect, the mightiest of the Augustan age, was lent to the service of politics. XX INTRODUCTION. AVith regard to what we may call pure literature — lit- erature which has "no axe to grind'' — public taste was in a chaotic condition. Literary expression was still cramped as the result of Puritanic prohibitions, and that which did flourish was seared with the licentiousness of the Restoration. It took the form chiefly of the drama, and was addressed to a comparatively small circle, made up of those who clustered about the court. It had little effect, fortmiately, upon the mass of tlie peojjle, for we must remember that communication betw een the different parts of the kingdom w^as dilhcult and slow, and printed matter did not circulate so quickly or so widely as to-day ; the post and the newspaper were young and very crude. There were forces at work, however, which made for the improvement of public taste. In the first place, the almost continuous ascendancy of Whig principles from the revolution of 1688, with brief interruptions during Anne's reign, was un(piestionably beneficial in its effects upon conditions. The strength of the Whigs was in the city, among the commercial class ; the strength of the Tories in the country, among the landed proprietors. Whig rule meant, then, power in the hands cf the middle class and greater consideration for the welfare of that class. This is the period of the establishment of the great free or charity schools, such as St. Margaret's, the Green Coat School, the Westminster Blue Coat, etc. ; in other words, educa- tion was becoming more general. Moreover, mechanical improvements in the art of printing were operating to INTRODUCTION. xxi lower the price of books and therefore increase the num- ber. Thus, there was a considerable and constantly growing part of the English people neither frivolous and licentious nor ignorant. Out of this class, together with fashionable society, Steele and Addison created their reading pul^lic. Moreover, to Swift's cynical disgust, they were the first to recognize women as an important and intelligent part of that reading public, to be interested, amused, and instructed. THE TATLER, THE SPECTATOR, AND THE GUARDIAN. The Taller, as we have seen, had its birth in Steele's mind while he was enjoying the advantages of the office of Gazetteer. There had been many periodicals before The Taller, but only Defoe's Weekly Bevieiv of the Affairs of France, or John Dunton's Athenian Mercury, can be considered in any sense the prototype of a paper chiefly literary in its tone. The first number of The Taller appeared April 12, 1709. The first four numbers were issued gratis ; after that a charge of one penny was made. The paper came out three times a week, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, "for the convenience of the post." Addison had nothing to do with the paper until the eighteenth number, and until the appearance of No. 6, did XXll INTRODUCTION. not even guess the identity of its author. For Steele had taken a name made familiar by Swift in his ridiculous attack upon an almanac-maker, one John Partridge, and issued his ' ' Lucubrations " in the name of Isaac Bicker- staff, Esq., astrologer. The name, associated with the pamphlets that had kept all London in a roar of laughter, at once bespoke popular favor for Steele's enterju-ise. The title of the paper, Steele slyly explains, was chosen " in honor of the fair sex,'' whom he hopes to entertain. The subject-matter was to be arranged under five heads (see note on coffee-liouses, p. 4,23). The aim of the paper was not stated until the first numbers were published in a volume. Then, in the dedication, Steele expresses it thus: "to expose the false arts of life, to pull off the disguises of cunning, vanity, and affectation, and to recommend a general simplicity in our dress, our dis- course, and our behavior." Such the aim of The Tdllcr had come to be. The Tatler's career came to an end suddenly January, 1711, after having run through 271 numbers. The osten- sible reason for terminating its existence so abruptly was that the disguise of Bickerstaff had been penetrated. The more probable explanation is that Steele was in danger of incurring the enmity of political leaders on account of certain articles that had appeared in The Tailcr. However this may be. The Spectator, which appeared INIarch 1, 1711, just three months after the death of The Tatler, states: "I am resolved to observe an exact neu- INTRODUCTION. XXill trality between the Whigs and the Tories, unless I shall be forced to declare myself by the hostilities of either side." The new paper appeared daily, instead of tri-weekly, and each issue consisted of a single essay, in this respect resembling the last numbers of The Taller. Isaac Bicker- staff was replaced by the Club, as outlined in Nos. 1 and 2. Throughout, the moral essay (only occasional in The Taller) predominates, intermixed with critical and literary papers. It is The Speclalor that contains Addison's papers upon Paradise Lost, and Chevy Chase ; the essays upon Wit, his Vision of Mirza, and his criticisms of the con- temporary drama. The popularity of The Spectator was immense. Addi- son estimates that the first numbers sold at the rate of 3000. daily, and even after the half-penny tax imposed by the Stamp Act made it necessary to double the price of the sheet, the reduced circulation was about 10,000 per week. The paper made its daily appearance upon the breakfast tables of London until December 6, 1712, when it came to an end with No. 555. Addison had contributed 274 to Steele's 236, and 45 from Budgell, Hughes, and others. Just why The Spectator should have ended when it did has never been conclusively shown. It is generally supposed that Steele's uneasy Interest in politics, an interest which he could not express in the neutral pages of The Spectator, was the chief cause. In January, 1714, Addison revived The Spectator on his own account (the eighth volume), but it lived only until December. XX iv INTIiODUCriON. In the nn^iuitiiiio, Stcolo had I'lnltarkod u|k)ii aiiotluT vontun^ March \'2, 17 11), a new visitor iippwiri'd in the London coffcH>-hou.scs and drawing-rooms. It was called Thv (huirdiiui, from one Mr. Nestor Ironside, who was rt'presented as standin*:^ in this rehition to the Lizard family. All these characters played their parts, as Mr. Bickerstaff and the (Uub had done before them. Like The Spccl «I<)»'S it commcnioralo. Th(^s(i two <:;it'l«Ml iiuMi siMmuMl inlcmUMl for co-workors ; each was tlu; (•omi)l(Mn(M]t of llu^ otlior in jronius aiul in teniporaincMil. Stcsclii's iinpiiIsiviUiCHSs was toniixinul l)y A(l(Iison\s nio(l(^ration ; and (!an w(! not fan(;y St(3(d(i lirin«i^ tlu^ scHMu; Addison wilh tlni ^low of iiis own cnthnsiasm ? The H]); upon the life wilhin tln^ hom(\ opened the Wi^'wx wiii('h yield(Hl so richly wIkmi workiid by (ioldsmith and other novelists of dom(^sli(r life;. In (!ontrastin<»' the work of tin; two men, w9. The clnl) of which I am a iiiemher is very luckily composed of such persons as are engaged ill different ways of life, and deputed, as it were, out of the most conspicuous classes of mankind : by this means I am furnished with the greatest 5 variety of hints and materials, and know every thing that passes in the different quarters and divisions, not only of this great city, but of the whole kingdom. My readers, too, have the satis- faction to find that there is no rank or degree 10 among them who have not their representative in tliis clul), and that there is always somebody pres- ent who will take care of their respective interests, 28 SIR ROGER DE COVE RLE Y PAPERS. 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 5 select body of friends, who entertained me with several remarks which they and others had made upon these my speculations, as also with the vari- ous success which they had met with among their several ranks and degrees of readers. Will Honey- 10 comb told me, in the softest manner he could, that there were some ladies (but for 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 15 were likewise very much surprised that I should think such serious points as the dress and equipage of persons of quality, proper subjects for raillery. I He was going on, when Sir Andrew Freeport took him up short, and told him that the papers 20 he hinted at had done great good in the city, and that all their wives and daughters were the better for them : and further added that the whole city thought themselves very much obHged to me for declaring my generous intentions to scourge vice THE SPECTATOR AND THE CLUB 29 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 road of falling upon aldermen and citizens, and employ your pen upon 5 the vanity and luxury of courts, your paper must needs be of general use." Upon this my friend the Templar told Sir An- drew that he wondered to hear a man of his sense talk after that manner ; that the city had always 10 been the province for satire ; and that the wits of King Charles's time jested upon nothing else during his whole reign. He then showed, by the exam- ples of Horace, Juvenal, Boileau, and the best writers of every age, that the follies of the stage 15 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 raillery has made too great an excursion, in attacking several persons of the inns 20 of court ; and I do not believe you can show me any precedent for your behavior in that par- ticular." My good friend Sir Roger de Coverley, who had oO SIR ROGER DE COVERLET PAPERS. said nothing all this while, began his speech with a pish ! and told us that he wondered to see so many men of sense so very serious upon fooleries. " Let our good friend," said he, '* attack every 5 one that deserves it: 1 would only advise you, Mr. Spectator," applying himself to me, " to take care how you meddle with country squires : they are the ornaments of the English nation ; men of good heads and sound bodies ! and let me tell you, 10 some of them take it ill of you, that you mention fox-hunters with so little respect." Captain Sentry spoke very sparingly on this oc- casion. What he said was only to commend my pru- dence in not touching upon the army, and advised 15 me to continue to act discreetly in that point. By this time I found every subject of my spec- ulations was taken away from me, by one or other of the club ; and began to think myself in the con- dition of the good man that had one wife who took 20 a dislike to his gray hairs, and another to his black, till by their picking out what each of them had an aversion to, they left his head altogether bald and naked. While I was thus musing with myself, my THE SPECTATOR AND THE CLUB. 31 worthy friend the clergyman, who, very luckily for me, was at the club that night, undertook my cause. He told us that he wondered any order of persons should think themselves too considerable to be advised : that it was not quality, but inno- 5 cence, which exempted men from reproof: that vice and folly ought to be attacked wherever they could be met with, and especially when they were placed in high and conspicuous stations of life. He further added that my paper would only serve 10 to aggravate the pains of poverty, if it chiefly exposed those who are already depressed, and in some measure turned into ridicule, by the mean- ness of their conditions and circumstances. He afterwards proceeded to take notice of the great 15 use this paper might be to the public, by repre- hending those vices which are too trivial for the chastisement of the law, and too fantastical for the cognizance of the pulpit. He then advised me to prosecute my undertaking with cheerfulness, and 20 assured me, that whoever might be displeased with me, I should be approved by all those whose praises do honor to the persons on whom they are bestowed. 82 >S/;^ ROGER BE COVERLET PAPERS. The whole club pa3^s a particular deference to the discourse of this gentleman, and are drawn into what he says, as much by the candid and ingenuous manner with which he delivers himself, 6 as by the strength of argument and force of reason which he makes use of. Will Honeycomb 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 10 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 Cap- tain, who all agreed that I sliould be at liberty to carry the war into what quarter I pleased, provided 15 I continued to combat Avith criminals in a body, and to assault the vice without Inirting the person. This debate, which was held for the good of mankind, put me in mind of that which the Roman triumvirate were formerly engaged in, for their 20 destruction. Every man at first stood hard for his friend, till they found that by this means they should spoil their proscription : and at length, making a sacrifice of all their acquaintance and relations, furnished out a very decent execution. THE SPEC TA TO II AND THE CLUB. 33 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 that shall 5 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 imper- tinence, I sliall not be afraid to animadvert upon it. In short, if I meet with any thing in city, 10 court, or country, that shocks modesty or good manners, I shall use my utmost endeavors to make an example of it. I must, however, entreat every particular person who does me the honor to be a reader of this paper, never to thilik him- 15 self, 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 20 with a love to mankind. C. 34 SIR ROGER BE COVERLET PAPERS. LEONORA'S LIBRARY. No. 37. Thursday, April 12, 1711. Non ilia colo calathisve Minervae Foemineas assueta mauus ViBG. Mn. vii. 805. 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 conse- 5 quence, desired me to deliver it to her with my own hand. Accordingly I waited upon her ladyship pretty early in the morning, and was desired by her woman to walk into her lady's library, till such time as she was in a readiness to receive me. The 10 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 to me, I had an opportunity of turning over a great many of her books, which LEONORA'S LIBRARY. 35 were ranged togetlier 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 were separated from the octavos by a pile 5 of smaller vessels, which rose in a delightful pyramid. The octavos were bounded by tea-dishes of all shapes, colors, and sizes, which were so dis- posed on a wooden frame, that they looked like one continued pillar indented with the finest strokes 10 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 prettiest grotesque 15 works that ever I saw, and made up of scara- mouches, lions, monkeys, mandarines, 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 20 paper a silver snuff-box made in the shape of a little book. I found there were several other counterfeit books upon the upper shelves, which were carved in wood, and served only to fill up the 36 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS. numbers, like fagots in the muster of a regiment. I was wonderfully pleased with such a mixed kind of furniture, as seemed very suitable to both the lady and the scholar, and did not know at first 5 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 10 together, either because 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. 15 Dryden's Juvenal. Cassandra. Cleopatra. Astraea. Sir Isaac Newton's Works. 20 The Grand Cyrus : with a pin stuck in one of the middle leaves. Pembroke's Arcadia. Locke on Human Understanding : with a paper of jDatches in it. 25 A Spelling-book. A Dictionary for the Explanation of Hard Words. LEONORA'S LIBRARY. 37 Sherlock upon Death. The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony. Sir William Temple's Essays. Father Malebranche's Search after Truth, translated into English. 5 A Boolv of Novels. The Academy of Compliments. The Ladies' Calling. Tales in Verse by Mr. DTIrfey : Bound in red leather, gilt on the back, and doubled down in several places. 10 All the Classic authors in wood. A Set of Elzevirs by the same hand. Clelia : which opened of itself in the place that describes two lovers in a bower. Baker's Chronicle. 15 Advice to a Daughter. The New Atalantis, with a key to it. Mr. Steele's Christian Hero. A Prayer-book : with a bottle of Hungary water by the side of it. 20 Dr. Sachevereirs Speech. Fielding's Trial. Seneca's Morals. Taylor's Holy Living and Dying. La Ferte's Instructions for Country Dances. 25 I was taking a catalogue in my pocket-book of these and several other authors, when Leonora entered, and, upon my presenting her with the 38 SIR ROGER BE COVE RLE Y PAPERS. letter from the Knight, told me, with an unspeak- able grace, that she hoped Sir Roger was in good health. I answered i/es ; for I hate long speeclies, and after a bow or two retired. 5 Leonora was formerly a celebrated beauty, and is still a very lovely woman. She has been a widow for two Or three years, and being unfor- tunate in her first marriage, has taken a resolution never to venture upon a second. She has no 10 children to take care of, and leaves the manage- ment of her estate to my good friend Sir Roger. But as the mind naturally sinks into a kind of lethargy and falls asleep, that is not agitated by some favorite pleasures and pursuits, Leonora has 15 turned all the passions of her sex into a love of books and retirement. She converses chiefly with men (as she has often said herself), but it is only in their writings ; and admits of very few male visitants, except my friend Sir Roger, whom she •20 hears with great pleasure, and without scandal. As her reading has lain very much among romances, it has given her a very particular turn of thinking and discovers itself even in her house, her gardens and her furniture. Sir Roger has entertained me LEONORA'S LIBRARY. 39 an hour together with a description of her country- seat, which is situated in a kind of wilderness, about an hundred miles distant from London, and looks like a little enchanted palace. The rocks about her are shaped into artificial grottoes, covered 5 with woodbines and jessamines. The woods are cut into shady walks, twisted into bowers, and filled with cages of turtles. The springs are made to run among pebbles, and by that means taught to murmur very agreeably. They are likewise col- lO lected 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. The Knight Hkewise tells me 15 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 20 which is killed in her ground will spoil a concert, and that she shall certainly miss him the next year." When I think how oddly this lady is improved 40 SIR ROGER BE COVERLET PAPERS. by learning, I look upon her with a mixture of ad- miration and pity. Amidst these innocent enter- tainments Avhich she has formed to herself, how much more valuable does she appear than those of 5 her sex who employ themselves in diversions that are less reasonable, though more in fashion ! What improvements would a woman have made who is so susceptible of impressions from what she reads, had she been guided to such books as have a 10 tendency to enlighten the understanding and rectify the passions, as well as to those which are of little more use that to divert the imagination ! But the manner of a lady's employing herself usefully in reading shall be the subject of another 15 paper, in which I design to recommend such par- ticular books as may be proper for the improve- ment of the sex. And as this is a subject of ii very nice nature, I shall desire my correspondents to give me their thoughts upon it. C. TB.K Sl'ECTATOR AND FOtiTERlTY. 41 THE SPECTATOR AND POSTERITY. No. 101. Tuesday, June 26, 1711. Romulus, et Liber pater, et cum Castore Pollux, Post ingeiitia, facta, deoi'um in templa recepti ; Dum terras hominumque colunt genus, aspera bella CompoDunt, agros assignant, oppida condunt • Ploravere sui.s non respondere favorem Speratum meritis : HOR. 2. Ep. 1. 5. *' Censure," says a late ingenious author, " is the tax a man pays to the pubhc for being emi- nent." It is a folly for an eminent man to think of escaping it, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and, 6 indeed, of every age in the world, liave passed through this fiery persecution. There is no de- fence against reproach, but obscurity; it is a kind of concomitant to greatness, as satires and invec- tives were an essential part of a Roman triumph, lo 42 SIR ROGEtl DE COVERLET PAPERS. If men of eminence are exposed to censure on one hand, they are as much liable to flattery on the other. If they receive reproaches which are not due to them, they likewise receive praises 5 which they do not deserve. In a word, the man in a high post is never regarded with an indiffer- ent eye, but always considered as a friend or an enemy. For this reason persons in great stations have seldom their true characters drawn till sev- 10 eral years after their deaths. Their personal friendships and enmities must cease, and the par- ties they were engaged in be at an end, before their faults or their virtues can have justice done them. When Avriters have the least opportunities 15 of knowing the truth, they are in the best disposi- tion to tell it. It is, therefore, the privilege of posterity to adjust the characters of illustrious persons, and to set matters right between those antagonists 20 who by their rivalry for greatness divided a whole age into factions. We can now allow Ccesar to be a great man without derogating from Pompey ; and celebrate the virtues of Cato without detract- ing from those of Caesar. Every one that has THE SPECTATOR AND POSTERITY. 43 been long dead has a due proportion of praise allotted him, in which whilst he lived his friends were too profuse, and his enemies too sparing. According to Sir Isaac Newton's calculations, the last comet that made its appearance in 1680, 5 imbibed so much heat by its approaches to tlie sun, that it would have been two thousand times hotter than red hot iron, had it been a globe of that metal ; and that supposing it as big as the earth, and at the same distance from the sun, it 10 woidd be fifty thousand years in cooling before it recovered its natural temper. In the like manner, if an Eno-lishman considers the great ferment into which our political world is thrown at present, and how intensely it is heated in all its parts, he 15 cannot suppose that it will cool again in less than three hundred years. In such a tract of time it is possible that the heats of the present age may be extinguished, and our several classes of great men represented under their proper characters. 20 Some eminent historian may then probably arise, that will not write recenfihus odiis (as Tacitus expresses it) with the passions and prejudices of a contemporary autlior, but make an impartial dis- 44 81 R ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS. tribution of fame among the great men of the present age. I cannot forbear entertaining myself very often with the idea of such an imaginary historian de- 5 scribing the reign of Anne the First, and intro- ducing it with a preface to his reader ; that he is now entering upon the most shining part of the English story. The great rivals in fame will be then distinguished according to their respective 10 merits, and shine in their proper points of light. Such an one (says the historian) though variously represented by the writers of his own age, appears to have been a man of more than ordinary abilities, great application, and uncommon integrity ; nor 15 was such an one (though of an opposite party and interest) inferior to him in au}^ of these respects. The several antagonists who now endeavor to depreciate one another, and are celebrated or tra- duced by different parties, will then have the same 20 body of admirers, and appear illustrious in the opin- ion of the whole British nation. The deserving man, who can now recommend himself to the esteem of but half his countrymen, will then receive the approbations and applauses of a whole age. THE SPECTATOR AND POSTERITY. 45 Among the several persons that flourish in this glorious reign, there is no question but such a future historian as the person of whom I am speaking, will make mention of the men of genius and learning who have now any figure in the 5 British nation. For my own part, I often flatter myself with the honorable mention which will then be made of me : and have drawn up a para- graph in my own imagination, that 1 fancy will not be altogether unlike what will be found in lo some page or other of this imaginary historian. It was under this reign, says he, that the Spec- tator published those little diurnal essays which are still extant. We know very little of the name or person of this author, except only that 15 he was a man of a very short face, extremely addicted to silence, and so great a lover of knowl- edge that he made a voyage to Grand Cairo for no other reason, but to take the measure of a pyra- mid. His chief friend was one Sir Roger de Gov- 20 erley, a whimsical country knight, and a templar whose name he has not transmitted to us. He lived as a lodger at the house of a widow-woman, and was a great humorist in all parts of his life. 4G SIR ROGER DE COVERLET PAPERS, This is all we can affirm with any certainty of his person and character. As for his speculations, notwithstanding the several obsolete words and obscure phrases of the age in which he lived, we 5 still understand enough of them to see the diver- sions and characters of the English nation in his time : not but that we are to make allowance for the mirth and humor of the author, who has doubtless strained many representations of things 10 beyond the truth. For if we interpret his words in the literal meaning, we must suppose that women of the first quality used to pass away whole mornings at a puppet-show : that they attested their principles by their patches : that an 15 audience would sit out an evening to hear a dra- matical performance written in a language which they did not understand : that chairs and flower- pots were introduced as actors upon the British stage : that a promiscuous assembly of men and 20 women were allowed to meet at midnight in masques within the verge of the court; with many improbabilities of the like nature. We must therefore, in these and the like cases, sup- pose that these remote hints and allusions aimed THE SPECTATOR AND POSTERITY. 47 at some certain follies which were then in vogue, and which at present we have not any notion of. We may guess by several passages in the Specu- lations that there were writers who endeavored to detract from the works of this author ; but as 5 nothing of this nature is come down to us, we cannot guess at any objections that could be made to his paper. If we consider his style with that indulgence which we must show to old Eng- lish writers, or if we look into the variety of his 10 subjects, with those several critical dissertations, moral reflections, ****** The following part of the paragraph is so much to my advantage, and beyond anything 1 can pre- tend to, that I hope my reader will excuse me for not inserting it. L. 48 SIR ROGER UK COVERLEY PAPERS. SIR ROGER AT HOME. No. 106. Monday, July 2, 1711. Hie tibi copia Manabit ad plenum beiiigno Ruris honorum opiilenta cornu. HoR. 1 oa. xvii. 14. Having often received an invitation from my friend Sir Roger de Coverley to pass away a month with him in the country, I hist week accomj)anied him thither, and am settled with him for some 5 time at his country-house, where I intend to form several of my ensuing speculations. Sir Roger, who is very well acquainted with my humor, lets me rise and go to bed when I please ; dine at his own table, or in my chamber, as I think fit; sit 10 still and say nothing, without bidding me be merry. When the gentlemen of the country come to see him, he only shows me at a distance. As I SI Ft ROGER AT HOME. 49 have been walking in the fieULs, 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, 5 because it 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 leav- ing him : by this means his domestics are all in 10 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 1 have ever seen ; and his coach- man has the looks of a privy-counsellor. You see 15 the goodness of the master even in the old house- dog ; and in a gray pad that is kept in the stable with great care and tenderness out of regard for his past services, though he has been useless for several years. 20 I could not but observe with a great deal of pleasure, the joy that appeared in the countenances of these ancient domestics upon my friend's arrival at his country-seat. Some of them could not re- 50 SIR ROGER DE COVERLET PAPERS. frain from tears at the sight of their old master; every one of them pressed forward to do some- thing for him, and seemed discouraged if they were not employed. At the same time the good 5 old knight, witli a mixture of the father and the master of the family, tempered the inquiries after his own affairs with several kind questions re- lating to themselves. This humanity and good- nature engages everybody to him, so that when he 10 is pleasant upon any of them, all his family are in good humor, and none so much as the person whom he diverts himself with : on the contrary, if he coughs, or betrays any infirmity of old age, it is easy for a stander-by to observe a secret 15 concern in the looks of all his servants. My worthy friend has put me under the particu- lar 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 20 have often heard their master talk of me as of his particular friend. My chief companion, when Sir Roger is divert- ing himself in the woods or the fields, is a very venerable man, who is ever with Sir Roger, and SIR ROGER AT HOME. 51 has lived at his house in the nature of a chaplain about thirty years. This gentleman is a per- son of good sense, and some learning, of a very regular life, and obliging conversation : he heartily loves Sir Roger, and knows that he is very much 5 in the old knight's esteem ; so that he lives in the family rather as a relation than a dependent. I have observed in several of my papers that my friend Sir Roger, amidst all his good qualities, is something of an humorist ; and that his virtues, 10 as well as imperfections, are, as it were, tinged by a certain extravagance, which makes them par- ticularly his, and distinguishes them from those of other men. This cast of mind, as it is gener- ally very innocent in itself, so it renders his con- 15 versation highly agreeable, and more delightful than the same degree of sense and virtue would appear in their common and ordinary colors. As I was walking with him last night, he asked me how I liked the good man whom I have just now 20 mentioned ; and, without staying for my answer, told me that he was afraid of being insulted with Latin and Greek at his own table, for which rea- son he desired a particular friend of his at the 52 SIR ROGER DE COVERLET PAPERS. 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. 5 " My friend," says Sir Roger, '^ found 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 parson- age of the parish ; and because I know his value, 10 have settled upon him a good annuity for life. If he outlives me, he shall find that he was higher in my esteem than perhaps he thinks he is. He has now been with me thirty years ; and, though he does not know I have taken notice of it, has 16 never in all that time asked any thing of me for himself, though he is every day soliciting me for something 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 20 dispute arises, they apply themselves to him for the decision ; if they do not acquiesce in his judg- ment, which I think never happened above once, or twice at most, they appeal to me. At his first settling with me, I made him a present of all the SIR ROGER AT HOME. 53 good sermons which have been i)rinted in English, and only begged of him that every Sunday he would pronounce one of them in the pulpit. Accordingly, he has digested them into such a series, tliat they follow one another naturally, and 5 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 10 Bishop of St. Asaph in the morning, and Dr. South in the afternoon. He then showed us his list of preachers for the whole year, where I saw with a great deal of pleasure Archbishop Tillotson, Bishop Saunderson, Dr. Barrow, Doctor Calamy, 15 witli 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 the quali- fications of a good aspect and a clear voice ; for I 20 was so charmed with the gracefulness of his figure and delivery, as well as with the discourses he pro- nounced, that I think I never passed any time more to my satisfaction. A sermon repeated after 54 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS. this manner is like the composition of a poet in the mouth of a graceful actor. I could heartily wish that more of our country clergy would follow this example , and, instead of 5 wasting their spirits in laborious compositions of their own, would endeavor after a handsome elo- cution and all those other talents that are proper to enforce what has been penned by greater mas- ters. This would not only be more easy to them- 10 selves, but more edifying to the people. L. SIE ROGEirS DEPENDENTS. 55 SIR ROGER'S DEPENDENTS. No. 107. Tuesday, July 3, 1711. ^sopo ingentem statuam posueie Attici, Servumque collocaruiit aeterna in basi, Patere honoris scirent lit cnncti viani. Phaed. Epilog, i. 2. The reception, manner of attendance, undis- turbed freedom and quiet, which I meet with here in the country, has confirmed me in the opinic^i I always had, that the general corruption of manners in servants is owing to the conduct of masters. 5 The aspect of every one in the family carries so much satisfaction, that it appears he knows the happy lot which has befallen him in being a mem- ber of it. There is one particular which I have seldom seen but at Sir Roger's ; it is usual in all lo other places that servants fly from the parts of the house through which their master is passing ; on the contrary, here, they industriously place 56 SIR ROGER BE COVE RLE Y PAPERS. themselves in his way ; and it is on both sides, as it were, understood as a visit, when the servants appear without calling. This proceeds from the humane and equal temper of the man of the house, 5 who also perfectly well knows how to enjoy a great estate with such economy as ever to be much be- forehand. This makes his own mind untroubled, and consequently unapt to vent peevish expres- sions, or give passionate or inconsistent orders to 10 those about him. Thus respect and love go to- gether; and a certain cheerfulness in performance of their duty is the particular distinction of the lower part of this family. When a servant is called before his master, he does not come with 15 an expectation to hear himself rated for some trivial fault, threatened to be stripped, or used with any other unbecoming language, which mean masters often give to worthy servants ; but it is often to know what road he took that he came so 20 readily back according to order ; whether he past by such a ground, if the old man who rents it is in good health : or whether he gave Sir Roger's love to him, or the like. A man who preserves a respect founded on his SIR ROGEWS DEPENDENTS. 57 benevolence to his dependents, lives rather like a prince than a master in his family ; his orders are received as favors, rather than duties.; and the distinction of approaching him is part of the re- ward for executing what is commanded by him. 5 There is another circumstance in which my friend excels in liis management, Avhich is the manner of rewarding his servants : he has ever been of opinion, that giving his cast clothes to be worn by valets has a very ill effect upon little 10 minds, and creates a silly sense of equality between the parties, in persons affected only with outward things. I have heard him often pleasant on this occasion, and describe a young gentleman abusing his man in that coat which a month or two before 15 was the most pleasing distinction he was con- scious of in himself. He would turn his discourse still more pleasantly upon the ladies' bounties of this kind; and I have heard him say he knew a fine woman, who distributed rewards and punish- 20 ments in giving becoming or unbecoming dresses to her maids. But my good friend is above these little in- stances of good-will in bestowing only trifles on 58 SIR liOGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS. his servants; a good servant to him is sure of having it in his choice very soon of being no servant at all. As I have before observed, he is so good an husband, and knows so thoroughly that 5 the skill of the purse is the cardinal virtue of this life ; I say, he knows so well that frugality is the support of generosity, that he can often spare a large fine when a tenement falls, and give that settlement to a good servant who has a mind to 10 go into the world, or make a stranger pay the fine to that servant, for his more comfortable main- tenance, if he stays in his service. A man of honor and generosity considers it would be miserable to himself to have no will but 15 that of another, though it were of the best person breathing, and for that reason goes on as fast as lie is able to put his servants into independent livelihoods. The greatest part of Sir Roger's estate is tenanted by persons who have served 20 himself or his ancestors. It was to me extremely pleasant to observe the visitants from several parts to welcome his arrival into the country : and all the difference that I could take notice of between the late servants who came to see him, and those SIR ROGER'S DEPENDENTS. 59 who staid in the family, was that these latter were looked upon as finer gentlemen and better courtiers. This manumission and placing them in a way of livelihood, I look upon as only what is due to a good servant, which encouragement will make 5 his successor be as diligent, as humble, and as ready as he was. There is something wonderful in the narrowness of those minds, which can be pleased, and be barren of bounty to those who please them. 10 One mio^ht on this occasion recount the sense that great persons in all ages have had of the merit of their dependents, and the heroic services which men have done their masters in the ex- tremity of their fortunes, and shown to their 15 undone patrons, that fortune was all the differ- ence between them ; but as I design this my speculation only as a gentle admonition to thank- less masters, I shall not go out of the occurrences of common life, but assert it as a general observa- 20 tion, that I never saw, but in Sir Roger's family, and one or two more, good servants treated as they ought to be. Sir Roger's kindness extends to their children's children, and this very morning 60 SIR ROGFAl BE COVERLEY PAPERS. he sent liis coachman's grandson to prentice. I shall conclude this paper with an account of a picture in his gallery, where there are many which will deserve my future observation. 5 At the very upper end of this handsome struc- ture I saw the portraiture of two young men standing in a river, the one naked, the other in a livery. The person supported seemed half dead, but still so much alive as to show in his face 10 exquisite joy and love towards the other. I thought the fainting figure resembled my friend Sir Roger ; and looking at the butler, who stood by me, for an account of it, he informed me that the person in the livery was a servant of Sir 15 Roger's, who stood on the shore while his master was swimming, and observing him taken with some sudden illness, and sink under water, jumped in and saved him. He told me Sir Roger took off the dress he was in as soon as he came, and by a 20 great bounty at that time, followed by his favor ever since, had made him master of that pretty seat which we saw at a distance as we came to this house. I remembered, indeed. Sir Roger said there lived a very worthy gentleman, to whom SIR ROGER'S DEPENDENTS. 61 he was highly obliged, without mentioning any- thing furtiier. Upon my looking a little dissatis- fied at some part of the picture, my attendant informed me that it was against Sir Roger's will, and at the earnest request of the gentleman him- self, that he was drawn in the habit in which he had saved liis master. K. 62 SIR ROGER DE COVE RLE Y PAPERS. THE COVERLET GUEST. No. 108. Wednesday, July 4, 1711. Gratis anhelans, multa agendo nihil agens. Ph^d. Fab. V. 2. As I was yesterday morning walking with Sir Roger before his house, a country felloAV brought him a huge fish, Avhich he told him Mr. William . Wimble had caught that very morning; and that 5 he presented it with his service to him, and in- tended to come and dine with him. At the same time he delivered a letter, Avhich my friend read to me as soon as the messenger left him. " Sm Roger, 10 "I DESIRE you to accept of a jack, Avhich is the best I have caught this season. I intend to come and stay with you a week, and see how the perch bite in the Black River. I observed with some concern, the last time I saw you THE COVERLET GUEST. (38 Upon the Bowling-green, that your whip wanted a lash to it : I will bring half a dozen with me that I twisted last week, which I hop.e will serve you all the time you are in the country. I have not been out of the saddle for six days last past, having been at Eton with Sir John's eldest 5 son. He takes to his learning hugely. " I am, Sir, " Your humble Servant, " Will. Wimble." This extraordinary letter and message that 10 accompanied it, made me very curious to know the character and quality of the gentleman who sent them ; which I found to be as follows. Will Wimble is younger brother to a baronet, and de- scended of the ancient family of the Wimbles. 15 He is now between forty and fifty ; but being bred to no business, and born to no estate, he generally lives with his elder brother as superintendent of his game. He hunts a pack of dogs better than any man in the country, and is very famous for find- 20 ing out a hare. He is extremely well versed in all the little handicrafts of an idle man : he makes a May-fly to a miracle, and furnishes the whole country with angle-rods. As he is a good-natured, officious fellow, and very much esteemed upon 25 t)4 SIB ROGER 1)JE COVERLET PAPERS. account of his family, he is a welcome guest at every house, and keeps up a good correspondence amonP" all the gfentlenien about him. He carries a tulip root in his pocket from one to another, or 5 exchanges a puppy between a couple of friends that live perhaps in the opposite sides of the county. Will is a particular favorite of all the young heirs, whom he frequently obliges Avith a net that he has weaved, or a setting-dog that he 10 has made himself : he now and then presents a pair of garters of his own knitting to their mothers or sisters ; and raises a great deal of mirth among them, by inquiring as often as he meets them, ' how they wear? ' These gentleman- 15 like manufactures and obliging little humors make Will the darling of the country. Sir Roger was proceeding in the character of him, when he saw him make up to us with two or three hazel-tAvigs in his hand, that he had cut in 20 Sir Roger's woods, as he came through them in his way to the house. I was very much pleased to observe on one side the hearty and sincere welcome A^ath which Sir Roger received him, and on the other, the secret joy which his guest dis- THE COVHRLEY GUEST. 65 covered at sight of the good old knight. After the hrst salutes were over, Will desired Sir Rog-er to lend him one of his servants to cany a set of shuttle-cocks, he had with him in a little box, to a lady that lived about a mile off, to whom it 5 seems he had promised such a present for above this half year. Sir Roger's back was no sooner turned, but honest Will began to tell me of a laro-e cock pheasant that he had sprung i„ one of the neighboring woods, with two or three other 10 adventures of the same nature. Odd and un- common characters are the game that I look for and most delight in; for which reason I was as much pleased with the novelty of the person that talked to me, as he could be for his life with the 15 springing of a pheasant, and therefore listened to him with more than ordinary attention. In the midst of his discourse the bell rung to dmneis where the gentleman I have been speakin.. of had the pleasure of seeing the huge jack he 20 had caught served up for the first dish in a most sumptuous manner. Upon our sitting down to it he gave us a long account how he had hooked it played with it, foiled it, and at length drew it out 66 SIR ROGER BE COVERLEY PAPERS. upon the bank, with several other particulars, that lasted all the first course. A dish of wild- fowl, that came afterwards, furnished conversa- tion for the rest of the dinner, which concluded 5 with a late invention of Will's for improving the quail-pipe. Upon withdrawing into my room after dinner, I was secretly touched with compassion towards the honest gentleman that had dined with us ; 10 and could not but consider with a great deal of concern, how so good an heart and such busy hands, were wholly employed in trifles; that so much humanity should be so little beneficial to others, and so much industry so little advan- 15 tageous to himself. The same temper of mind and application to affairs might have recom- mended him to the public esteem, and have raised his fortune in another station of life. What good to his country or himself, might not a trader or 20 merchant have done with such useful though ordinary qualifications ? Will Wimble's is the case of many a younger brother of a great family, who had rather see their children starve like gentlemen, than thrive THE COVE RLE Y GUEST. 67 in a trade or profession that is beneath their quality. This huinor fills several parts of Europe with pride and beggary. It is the happi- ness of a trading nation, like ours, tliat the younger sons, though incapable of any liberal art 5 or profession, may be placed in such a way of life as may perhaps enable them to vie with the best of their family : accordingly we find several citizens that were launched into the world with narrow fortunes, rising by an honest industry to 10 greater estates than those of their elder brothers. It is not improbable but Will was formerly tried at divinity, law, or physic ; and that finding his genius did not lie that way, his parents gave him up at length to his own inventions. Bat certainly, 15 however improper he might have been for studies of a higher nature, he was perfectly well turned for the occupations of trade and commerce. As I think this is a point which cannot be too much inculcated, I shall desire my reader to compare 20 what I have liere written with what I have said in my twenty-first speculation. L. 08 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS. THE COVERLEY PORTRAITS. No. 109. Thursday, July 5, 1711. Abnormis sapiens HOR. Sat. ii. 2, 3. I WAS this morning walking in the gallery^ when Sir Roger entered at the end opposite to me, and advancing towards me, said he was glad to meet me among his relations the de Coverleys, and r) hoped I liked the conversation of so much good company, who were as silent as myself. I knew he alluded to the pictures, and as he is a gentleman who does not a little value himself upon his ancient descent, I expected he would give me some account 10 of them. We were now arrived at the upper end of the gallery, when the knight faced towards one of the pictures, and as we stood before it, he entered into the matter, after his blunt way of say- ing things, as they occur to his imagination, with- THE COVERLEY PORTRAITS. 69 out regular introduction, or care to preserve the appearance of chain of thought. " It is," said he, " worth while to consider the force of dress ; and how the persons of one age differ from those of another, merely by that only. 5 One may observe also that the general fashion of one age has been followed by one particular set of people in another, and by them preserved from one generation to another. Thus the vast jetting coat and small bonnet, which was the habit in Ilany the 10 Seventh's time, is kept on in the yeomen of the guard ; not without a good and politic view, because they look a foot taller, and a foot and a half broader : besides that, the cap leaves the face ex- panded, and consequently more terrible, and fitter 15 to stand at the entrance of palaces. " This predecessor of ours, you see, is dressed after this manner, and his cheeks would be no larger than mine, were he in a hat as I am. He was the last man that won a prize in the Tilt-Yard 20 (which is now a common street before Whitehall). You see the broken lance that lies there by his right foot ; he shivered that lance of liis adversary all to pieces ; and, bearing himself, look you, sir. 70 SIR ROGER BE COVERLEY PAPERS. in this manner, at tlie same time he came within the target of the gentleman who rode against him, and taking him with incredible force before him on the pommel of his saddle, he in that manner rid the 5 tournament over, with an air that showed he did it rather to perform the rule of the lists than expose his enemy : however, it appeared he knew how to make use of a victory, and with a gentle trot he marched up to a gallery where their mistress sat 10 (for they were rivals), and let him down with laudable courtesy and pardonable insolence. I don't know but it might be exactly where the coffee-house is now. " You are to know this my ancestor was not only 15 of a military genius, but fit also for the arts of peace, for he played on the bass-viol as well as any gentleman at court ; you see where his viol hangs by his basket-hilt sword. The action at the Tilt- Yard you may be sure won the fair lady, who was 20 a maid of honor and the greatest beauty of her time ; here she stands, the next picture. You see, sir, my great-great-great-grandmother has on the new-fashioned petticoat, except that the modern is gathered at the waist ; my grandmother appears as THE COVERLEY PORTRAITS. 71 if she stood in a large drum, whereas the ladies now walk as if they were in a go-cart. For all this lady was bred at court, she became an excellent country wife, she brought ten children, and when I show you the library, you shall see in her own 5 hand (allowing for the difference of the language) the best receipt now in England both for an hasty- pudding and a white-pot. " If you please to fall back a little, because 'tis necessary to look at the three next pictures at one 10 view; these are three sisters. She on the right hand, who is so very beautiful, died a maid ; the next to her, still handsomer, had the same fate, against her will ; this homely thing in the middle had both their portions added to her own, and was 15 stolen by a neighboring gentleman, a man of stratagem and resolution, for he poisoned three mastiffs to come at her, and knocked down two deer-stealers in carrying her off. Misfortunes happen in all families : the theft of this romp and 20 so much money was no great matter to our estate. But the next heir that possessed it was this soft gentleman, whom you see there : observe the small buttons, the little boots, the laces, the slashes 72 ."SIR ROGER DE COVERLET PAPERS. about his clothes, and, above all, the posture he is drawn in (which to be sure was his own choosing) ; you see he sits with one hand on a desk writing, and looking, as it were, another way, like an easy 5 writer, or a sonneteer ; he was one of those that had too much wit to know how to live in the world ; he was a man of no justice, but great good manners ; he ruined everybody that had anything to do with him, but never said a rude thing in his life ; the 10 most indolent person in the world, he would sign a deed that passed away half his estate with his gloves on, but would not put on his hat before a lady if it were to save his country. He is said to be the first that made love by squeezing the hand. 15 He left the estate with ten thousand pounds debt upon it, but, however, by all hands I have been in- formed that he was every way the finest gentleman in the world. That debt lay heavy on our house for one generation, but it was retrieved by a gift 20 from that honest man you see there, a citizen of our name, but nothing at all a-kin to us. I know Sir Andrew Freeport has said behind my back, that this man was descended from one of the ten children of the maid of honor I showed you above ; THE COVERLEY PORTRAITS. T3 but it was never made out. We winked at the tiling, indeed, because money was wanting at that time." Here I, saw my friend a little embarrassed, and turned my face to tlie next portraiture. 5 Sir Roger went on with his account of the gallery in the following manner. '' This man " (pointing to him I looked at) " I take to be the honor of our house, Sir Humphrey de Coverley ; he was in his dealings as punctual as a tradesman, lo and as generous as a gentleman. He would have thought himself as much undone by breaking his word, as if it were to be followed by bankruptcy. He served his country as knight of this shire to his dying day. He found it no easy matter to main- 15 tain an integrity in his words and actions, even in tilings that regarded the offices which were incum- bent upon him, in the care of his own affairs and relations of life, and, therefore, dreaded (though he had great talents) to go into employments of 20 state, where he must be exposed to the snares of ambition. Innocence of life and great ability were tlie distinguishing parts of his character ; the latter, he had often observed, had led to the destruction 74 SIR ROGER DE COVERLET PAPERS. of the former, and used frequently to lament that great and good had not the same signification. He was an excellent husbandman, but had resolved not to exceed such a degree of wealth ; all above 5 it he bestowed in secret bounties many years after the sum he aimed at for his own use was attained. Yet he did not slacken his industry, but to a decent old age spent the life and fortune which was superfluous to himself in the service of his 10 friends and neighbors." Here we were called to dinner, and Sir Roger ended the discourse of this gentleman by telling me, as we followed the servant, that this his ancestor was a brave man, and narrowly escaped 15 being killed in the Civil Wars ; " for," said he, " he was sent out of the field upon a private message, the day before the battle of Worcester." The whim of narrowly escaping by having been within a day of danger, with other matters above-men- 20 tioned, mixed with good sense, left me at a loss whether I was more delighted with my friend's wisdom or simplicit}^ R. GHOSTS. 75 GHOSTS. No. 110. Friday, July 6, 1711. Horror ubique animos, simul ipsa silentia terrent. ViRG. Mn. ii. 755. At a little distance from Sir Roger's house, among the ruins of an old abbey, there is a long walk of aged elms, which are shot up so very high, that when one passes under them, the rooks and crows that rest upon the tops of them seem 5 to be cawing in another region. I am very much delighted with this sort of noise, which I consider as a kind of natural prayer to that Being who supplies the wants of his whole creation, and who, in the beautiful language of the Psalms, feedeth 10 the young ravens that call upon him. I like this retirement the better, because of an ill report it lies under of being haunted ; for which reason (as I have been told in the family) no living creature 76 SIR ROGER 1)E COVERLET PAPERS. ever walks in it besides the chaplain. My good friend the butler desired me, with a very grave face, not to venture myself in it after sunset, for that one of the footmen had been almost frightened 5 out of his wits by a spirit that appeared to him in the shape of a black horse without an head ; to which he added that about a month ago one of the maids, coming home late tliat way with a pail of milk upon her head, heard such a rustling 10 among the bushes that she let it fall. I was taking a walk in this place last night between the hours of nine and ten, and could not but fancy it one of the most proper scenes in the world for a ghost to appear in. The ruins of 15 the abbey are scattered up and down on every side, and half covered with ivy and elder bushes, the harbors of several solitary bii'ds, which seldom make their appearance till the dusk of the even- ing. The place was formerly a church-yard and 20 has still several marks in it of graves and burying- places. There is such an echo among the old ruins and vaults that if you stamp but a little louder than ordinary, you hear the sound repeated. At the same time the walk of elms, with the GHOSTS. 77 croaking of the ravens, which from time to time are heard from the tops of them, looks exceeding solemn and venerable. These objects naturally raise seriousness and attention : and when night heightens the awfulness of the place, and pours 5 out her supernumerary horrors upon every thing in it, I do not at all wonder that weak minds fill it with spectres and apparitions. Mr. Locke, in his chapter of the association of ideas, has very curious remarks to show how by lo the prejudice of education one idea often intro- duces into the mind a whole set that bear no resemblance to one another in the nature of thino-s. o Among several examples of this kind, he produces the following instance. ' The ideas of goblins 15 and sprites have really no more to do with dark- ness than light : yet let but a foolish maid incul- cate these- often on the mind of a child, and raise them there together, possibly he shall never be able to separate them again so long as he lives ; 20 but darkness shall ever afterward bring with it those frightful ideas, and they shall be so joined that he can no more bear the one than the other." As I was walking in this solitude, where the 78 SIR ROGER BE COVERLET PAPERS. dusk of the evening conspired with so many other occasions of terror, I observed a cow grazing not far from me, Avhich an imagination that is apt to startle might easily have construed into a black 5 horse without an head : and I dare say the poor footman lost his wits upon some such trivial occasion. My friend Sir Roger has often told me with a great deal of mirth that at his first coming to his 10 estate, he found three parts of his house altogether useless ; that the best room in it had the reputa- tion of being haunted, and by that means was locked up ; that noises had been heard in his long gallery, so that he could not get a servant to enter 15 it after eight o'clock at night ; that the door of one of his chambers was nailed up, because there went a story in the family that a butler had formerly hanged himself in it ; and that his mother, who lived to a great age, had shut up 20 half the rooms in the house, in which either her husband, a son or daughter, had died. The knight, seeing his habitation reduced to so small a com- pass, and himself in a manner shut out of his own house, upon the death of liis mother ordered GHOSTS. 79 all the apartments to be flung open and exorcised by his chaplain, who lay in every room one after another, and by that means dissipated the fears which had so long reigned iii the family. I should not have been thus particular upon 5 these ridiculous horrors, did not I find them so very much prevail in all i^Q,vts of the country. At the same time I think a person who is thus terrified with the imagination of ghosts and spec- tres much more reasonable, than one who, contrary lO to the reports of all historians, sacred and profane, ancient and modern, and to the traditions of all nations, thinks the appearance of spirits fabulous and groundless. L. 80 SIR ROGKR DE COVEKLEY PAPERS. SUNDAY AT SIR ROGER^S. No. 112. Monday, July 9, 1711. ' Adavdrovs jxkv irpCJTa deovs, vdfxip d>s 8idK€LTat, Pythagoras. I AM always very well pleased with a country Sunday; and think, if keeping holy the seventh day were only a human institution, it would be the best method that could have been thought of 5 for the polishing and civilizing of mankind. It is certain the country-people would soon degenerate into a kind of savages and barbarians, Avere there not such frequent returns of a stated time, in which the whole village meet together with their 10 best faces, and in their cleanliest habits, to con- verse with one another upon indifferent subjects, hear their duties explained to them, and join to- gether in adoration of the Supreme Being. Sunday SUNDAY AT SIR lUJGEWS. 81 clears away the rust of the whole week, not only as it refreshes in their minds the notions of reli- i,aon, but as it puts both the sexes upon appearing in their most agreeable forms, and exerting all such (luaiities as are apt to give them a figure in the 5 eye of the village. A country-fellow distinguishes himself as much in the Church-yard, as a citizen does upon the Change, the whole parish politics being generally discussed in that place either after sermon or before the bell rings. ■ lo My friend Sir Roger, being a good churchman, lias beautified the inside of his church with several texts of his own choosing ; he has likewise given a handsome pulpit-cloth, and railed in the commu- nion-table at his own expense. He has often told 15 me that at his coming to his estate he found his parishioners very irregular ; and that in order to make them kneel and join in the responses, he gave every one of them a hassock and a common- prayer-book ; and at the same time employed an 20 itinerant singing-master, who goes about the coun- try for that purpose, to instruct them rightly in the tunes of the psalms; upon which they now very much value tliemselves, and indeed out-do 82 SIR ROGER DE COVERLET PAPERS. most of the country churches that I have ever heard. As Sir Roger is hindlord to the whole congrega- tion, lie keeps them in very good order, and will 5 suffer nobody to sleep in it besides himself ; for if by chance he has been surprised into a short nap at sermon, upon recovering out of it he stands up and looks about him, and if he sees anybody else nodding, either wakes them himself, or sends his 10 servant to them. Several other of the old knight's particularities break out upon these occasions : sometimes he will be lengthening out a verse in the singing-psalms half a minute after the rest of the congregation have done with it; sometimes, 15 when he is pleased with the matter of his devo- tion, he pronounces Amen three or four times to the same prayer; and sometimes stands up when everybody else is upon their knees, to count the congregation, or see if any of his tenants are 20 missing. I was yesterday very much surprised to hear my old friend in the midst of the service calling out to one John Matthews to mind what he was about, and not disturb the congregation. This SUNDAY AT SIE EOGER'S. 83 John Matthews, it seems, is remarkable for being an idle fellow, and at that time was kicking his heels for his diversion. This authority of the knight, though exerted in that odd manner which accompanies him in all circumstances of life, has 5 a very good effect upon the parish, who are not polite enough to see anything ridiculous in his behavior ; besides that the general good sense and worthiness of his character make his friends ob- serve these little singularities as foils that rather 10 set off than blemish his good qualities. As soon as the sermon is finished, nobody pre- sumes to stir till Sir Roger is gone out of the church. The knight walks down from his seat in the chancel between a double row of his tenants, 15 that stand bowing to him on each side ; and every now and then inquires how such an one's wife, or mother, or son, or father do, whom he does not see at church ; which is understood as a secret reprimand to the person that is absent. 20 The chaplain has often told me that upon a catechising-day when Sir Roger has been pleased with a boy that answers well, he has ordered a Bible to be given him next day for his encourage- 84 SIR ROGER BE COVERLEY PAPERS. ment; and sometimes accompanies it with a flitch of bacon to his mother. Sir Roger has likewise added five pounds a year to the clerk's place ; and that he may encourage the young fellows to make 5 themselves perfect in the church-service, has prom- ised, upon the death of the present incumbent, who is very old, to bestow it according to merit. The fair understanding between Sir Roger and his chaplain, and their mutual concurrence in doing 10 good, is the more remarkable, because the very next village is famous for the differences and con- tentions that rise between the parson and the 'squire, who live in a perpetual state of war. The parson is always preaching at the 'squire, and the 15 'squire to be revenged on the parson never comes to church. The 'squire has made all his tenants atheists and tithe-stealers ; while the parson in- structs them every Sunday in the dignity of his order, and insinuates to them in almost every ser- 20 mon that he is a better man than his patron. In short, matters are come to such an extremity that the 'squire has not said his prayers either in pub- lic or private this half year; and that the parson threatens him, if he does not mend his manners, SUNDAY AT SIR ROGER'S. 85 to pray for him in the face of the whole congrega- tion. F'euds of this nature, though too frequent in the country, are very fatal to the orclijiaiy people ; who are so used to be dazzled with riches, that 5 they pay as much deference to the understanding of a man of an estate, as of a man of learning ,- and are very hardly brought to regard any truth, how important soever it may be, that is preached to them, when they know there are several men of 10 five hundred a year who do not believe it. L. 86 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS. SIR ROGER'S ROMANCE. No. 113. Tuesday, July 10, 1711. Haerent inlixi pectore vultus. VlliG. ^11. iv. 4. In my first description of tlie company in which I passed most of my time, it may be remembered that I mentioned a great affliction whicli my friend Sir Roger liad met witli in his youth ; wliich was no less than a disappointment in love. It hap- pened this evening that we fell into a pleasing walk at a distance from his house : as soon as we came into it, " It is," quoth the good old man, looking round him with a smile, " very hard that any part of my land should be settled upon one who has used me so ill as the perverse widow did ; and yet I am sure I could not sell a sprig of any bough of this whole walk of trees, but I should reflect upon her and her severity. She has cer- SIR ROGER'S ROMANCE. 87 tainly the finest hand of any woman in the world. You are to know this was the phice wherein 1 used to muse upon her ; and by that custom I can never come into it, but the same tender sentiments revive in my mind, as if I had actually walked 5 with that beautiful creature under these shades. I have been fool enough to carve her name on the bark of several of these trees ; so unhappy is the condition of men in love, to attempt the removing of their passion by the methods which serve only lo to imprint it deeper. She has certainly the finest hand of any woman in tlie world." Here followed a profound silence ; and I was not displeased to observe my friend falling so nat- urally into a discourse which 1 had ever before 15 taken notice he industriously avoided. After a very long pause, he entered upon an account of this great circumstance in his life, with an air which, I thought, raised my idea of him above what I had ever had before ; and gave me the 20 picture of that cheerful mind of his, before it re- ceived that stroke which has ever since affected his words and actions. But he went on as fol- lows : 88 SIR ROGER DE COVERLET PAPERS " I came to my estate in my twenty-second year, and resolved to follow the steps of the most worthy of my ancestors who have inhabited this spot of earth before me, in all the methods of 5 hospitality and good neighborhood, for the sake of my fame ; and in country sports and recrea- tions, for the sake of my health. In my twenty- third year I Avas obliged to serve as sheriff of the county; and in my servants, officers, and whole 10 equipage, indulged the pleasure of a young man (who did not think ill of his own person) in taking that public occasion of shoAving my figure and behavior to advantage. You may easily im- agine to yourself what appearance I made, who 15 am pretty tall, rid well, and was very well dressed, at the head of a whole county, with music before me, a feather in my hat, and my horse well bitted. I can assure you 1 was not a little pleased with the kind looks and glances I had from all the balconies 20 and windows as I rode to the hall where the assizes were held. But when I came there, a beautiful creature in a widow's habit sat in court to hear the event of a cause concerning her dower. This commanding creature (who was born for destruc- SIR ROGEIVS ROMANCE. 89 tion of all who behold her) put on such a resigna- tion in her countenance, and bore the whispers of all around the court with such a pretty uneasiness, I warrant you, and then recovered herself from one eye to another, 'till she was perfectly confused 5 by meeting soinethiug so wistful in all she en- countered, that at last, with a murrain to her, she cast her bewitching eye upon me. I no sooner met it, but I bowed like a great surprised booby ; and kuowing her cause to be the first which came 10 on, I cried, like a captivated calf as I was, ' Make way for the defendant's witnesses.' This sudden partiality made all the county immediately see the sheriff also was become a slave to the fine widow. During the time her cause was upon trial she be- 15 haved herself, I warrant you, with such a deep attention to her business, took opportunities to have little billets handed to her counsel, then would be in such a pretty confusion, occasioned, you must know, by acting before so much company, 20 that not only I but the whole court was prejudiced in her favor ; and all that the next heir to her husband had to urge, was thought so groundless and frivolous, that when it came to her counsel to 90 SIR ROGER DE COVERLET PAPERS. reply, there was not half so much said as every one besides in the court thought he could have urged to her advantage. You must understand, sir, this perverse Avoman is one of those unac- 5 countable creatures that secretly rejoice in the admiration of men, but indulge themselves in no further consequences. Hence it is that she has ever had a train of admirers, and she removes from her slaves in town to those in the country, 10 according to the seasons of the j^ear. She is a reading lady, and far gone in the pleasures of friendship ; she is always accompanied by a confi- dant, who is witness to her daily protestations against our sex, and consequently a bar to her 15 first steps towards love, upon the strength of her own maxims and declarations. However, I must needs say this accomplished mistress of mine has distinguished me above the rest, and has been known to declare Sir Roger de 20 Coverley was the tamest and most human of all the brutes in the country. I was told she said so, by one who thought he rallied me ; but upon the strength of this slender encouragement, of being thought least detestable, I made new liveries, new- SIR ROGER'S ROMANCE. 91 paired my coach-horses, sent them all to town to be bitted, and taught to throw their legs well, and move all together, before I pretended to cross the country and wait upon her. As soon as I thought my retinue suitable to the character of my fortune 5 and youth, I set out from hence to make my addresses. The particular skill of this lady has ever been to inflame your wishes, and yet com- mand respect. To make her mistress of this art, slie has a greater share of knowledge, wit and good 10 sense, than is usual even among men of merit. Then she is beautiful beyond the race of women. If you won't let her go on with a certain artifice with her eyes, and the skill of beauty, she will arm herself with her real charms, and strike you 15 with admiration instead of desire. It is certain that if you were to behold the whole woman, there is that dignity in her aspect, that composure in her motion, that complacency in her manner, that if her form makes you hope, her merit makes you 20 fear. But then again, she is such a desperate scholar that no country gentleman can approach her without being a jest. As I was going to tell you, when I came to her house I was admitted to 92 SIR ROGUE I)E COVERLEY PAPERS. her presence Avith great civility ; at the same time she placed herself to be first seen by me in such an attitude, as I think you call the posture of a picture, that she discovered new charms, and I at 5 last came towards her with such an awe as made me speechless. This she no sooner observed but she made her advantage of it, and began a dis- course to me concerning love and honor, as they both are followed by pretenders and the real 10 votaries to them. When she had discussed these points in a discourse, which I verily believe was as learned as the best philosopher in Europe could possibly make, she asked me whether she was so happy as to fall in with my sentiments on these 15 important particulars. Her confidant sat by her, and upon my being in the last confusion and silence, this malicious aid of hers, turning to her, says, ' I am very glad to observe Sir Roger pauses upon this subject, and seems resolved to deliver 20 all his sentiments upon the matter when he pleases to speak.' They both kept their countenances, and after I had sat half an hour meditating how to behave before such profound casuists, I rose up and took my leave. Chance has since that time Slli ROGER'S ROMANCE. 93 thrown me very often in her way, and she as often has directed a discourse to me wliich I do not understand. This barbarity has kept me ever at a distance from the most beautiful object my eyes ever beheld. It is thus also she deals with all 5 mankind, and you must make love to her, as you would conquer the sphinx, by posing her. But were she like other women, and that there were any talking to her, how constant must the pleasure of that man be who could converse with lo a creature But, after all, you may be sure her heart is fixed on some one or other ; and yet I have been credibly informed — but who can believe half that is said ? After she had done speaking to me, she put her hand to her bosom and adjusted 15 her tucker. Then she cast her eyes a little down, upon my beholding her too earnestly. They say she sings excellently : her voice in her ordinary speech has something in it inexpressibly sweet. You must know that I dined with her at a public 20 table the day after I first saw her, and she helped me to some tansy in the eye of all the gentlemen in the country : she has certainly the finest hand of any woman in the world. I can assure you, 94 iSin ROGER 1)E COVERLEY PAPERS. sir, were you to l)ehol(I her, you would be \\\ the same conditiou ; for as her speech is music, lier form is angelic. But I find I grow irregular while I am talking of her ; but, indeed, it 5 would be stupidity to be unconcerned at such perfection. Oh the excellent creature, she is as inimitable to all women, as she is inaccessible to all men." I found my friend begin to rave, and insensibly 10 led him towards the house, that we miglit be joined by some other company ; and am convinced that the widow is the secret cause of all lliat incon- sistency which appears in some parts of my friend's discourse ; thougli lie lias so much com- 15 maud of himself as not directly to mention her, yet according to that of Martial, wliich one knows not how to render in English, " Bum taect hanc loquitur.'' I shall end this paper with that whole epigram, which represents with much humor my 20 honest friend's condition. " Qnicquitl agit Rufus nihil est nisi Naevi.i nifo, Si gaudet, si flet, si tacol, hanc Uxjuitur: Coenat, j)ro])inat, ])Oscit, ncoMt, anniiit, una est Naevia; si non sit Naevia nuitiis erit. SIR 1WGER\S ROMANCE. 95 Scriberet hesterna, patri cum luce salutem, Naevialux, inqiiit, Naevia lumen, ave." Let Rufus weep, rejoice, stand, sit, or walk, Still he can nothing- but of Naevia talk ; Let him eat, drink, ask questions, or dispute. Still he must speak of Naevia, or be mute. He writ to his father, ending with this line, ♦ I am, my lovely Naevia, ever thine.'' " R. 96 SIR ROGER BE COVERLEY PAPERS. TRUE AND FALSE ECONOMY. No. 114. Paupertatis pudor et fuga. HOR. Ep. 1. xviii. 24. Economy in our affairs has the same effect upon our fortunes which good breeding has upon our conversations. There is a pretending behavior in both cases, which, instead of making men 5 esteemed, renders them both miserable and con- temptible. We had yesterday at Sir Roger's a set of country gentlemen who dined with him ; and after dinner the glass was taken, by those who pleased, pretty plentifully. Among others 10 I observed a person of a tolerable good aspect, who seemed to be more greedy of liquor than any of the company, and yet, methought, he did not taste it with delight. As he grew warm, he was suspicious of everything that was said ; and as he 15 advanced towards being fuddled, his humor grew TtiUE AND FALSE ECONOMY. 97 worse. At the same time his bitterness seemed to be rather an inward dissatisfaction in his own mind, than any dislike he had taken at the com- pany. Upon hearing his name, I knew him to be a gentleman of considerable fortune in this 5 county, but greatly in debt. What gives the unhappy man this peevishness of spirit is, that his estate is dipped, and is eating out with usury ; and yet he has not the heart to sell any part of it. His proud stomach, at the cost of restless nights, lo constant inquietudes, danger of affronts, and a thousand nameless inconveniences, preserves this canker in his fortune, rather than it shall be said he is a man of fewer hundreds a year than he has been commonly reputed. Thus he endures the 15 torment of poverty, to avoid the name of being less rich. If you go to his house, you see great plenty, but served in a manner that shows it is all unnatural, and that the master's mind is not at home. There is a certain waste and carelessness 20 in the air of everything, and the whole appears but a covered indigence, a magnificent poverty. That neatness and cheerfulness which attends the tal)le of him who lives within compass, is want- 98 SIR ROGER BE COVERLEY PAPERS. ing, and exchanged for a libertine way of service in all about him. This gentleman's conduct, though a very com- mon way of management, is as ridiculous as that 5 officer's would be who had but few men under his command, and should take the charge of an extent of country rather than of a small pass. To pay for, personate, and keep in a man's hands, a greater estate than he really has, is, of all others, 10 the most unpardonable vanity, and must in the end reduce tlie man who is guilty of it to dis- honor. Yet, if we look round us in any county of Great Britain, we shall see many in this fatal error — if that may be called by so soft a name 15 which proceeds from a false shame of appearing what they really are — when the contrary behavior would in a short time advance them to the con- dition which they pretend to. Laertes has fifteen hundred pounds a year, 20 which is mortgaged for six thousand pounds ; but it is impossible to convince him that if he sold as much as would pay off that debt, he would save four shillings in the pound, which he gives for the vanity of being the reputed master of it. TRUE AND FALSE ECONOMY. 99 Yet, if Laertes did tliis, he would, perhaps, be easier in his own fortune ; but then Irus, a fellow of yesterday, who has but twelve hundred a year, would be his equal. Rather than this shall be, Laertes goes on to bring well-born beggars into 5 the world, and every twelvemonth charges his estate with at least one year's rent by the birth of a child. Laertes and Irus are neighbors, whose way of living are an abomination to each other. Irus is lo moved by the fear of pvoerty, and Laertes by the shame of it. Though the motive of action is of so near affinity in both, and may be resolved into this, " That to each of them poverty is the greatest of all evils," yet are their manners very widely 15 different. Shame of poverty makes Laertes launch into unnecessary equipage, vain expense, and lavish entertainments ; fear of poverty makes Irus allow himself only plain necessaries, appear without a servant, sell his own corn, attend his 20 laborers, and be himself a laborer. Shame of poverty makes Laertes go every day a step nearer to it ; and fear of poverty stirs up Irus to make every day some further progress from it. L.ofC. 100 SIR ROGER DE COVER LEY PAPERS. These different motives produce the excesses which men are guilty of in tlie negligence of and provision for themselves. Usury, stock- jobbing, extortion, and oppression have their seed in the 5 dread of want ; and vanity, riot, and prodigality from the shame of it : but both these excesses are infinitely below the pursuit of a reasonable creature. After we have taken care to command so much as is necessary for maintaining ourselves 10 in the order of men suitable to our character, the care of superfluities is a vice no less extravagant than the neglect of necessaries would have been before. It would, methinks, be no ill maxim of life if, 15 according to that ancestor of Sir Roger Avhom I lately mentioned, every man would j^oint to him- self what sum he would resolve not to exceed. He might by this means cheat himself into a tran- quillity on this side of that expectation, or convert 20 what he should get above it to nobler uses than his own pleasures or necessities. This temper of mind would exempt a man from an ignorant envy of restless men above him, and a more inexcusable contempt of happy men below him. This would TRUE AND FALSE ECONOMY. 101 be sailing by some compass, living with some de- sign ; but to be eternally bewildered in prospects of future gain, and putting on unnecessary armor against improbable blows of fortune, is a mechanic being which has not good sense for its direction, 5 but is carried on by a sort of acquired instinct towards things below our consideration and un- worthy our esteem. It is possible that the tran- quillity I now enjoy at Sir Roger's may have created in me this way of thinking, which is so 10 abstracted from the common relish of the world : but as I am now in a pleasing arbor, surrounded with a beautiful landscape, I find no inclination so strong as to continue in these mansions, so remote from the ostentatious scenes of life ; and 15 am at this present writing philosopher enough to conclude with Mr. Cowley : If e'er ambition did ray fancy cheat, With any wish so mean as to be great ; Continue, Heaven, still from me to remove 20 The humble blessings of that life I love. T. 102 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS. THE SOUND MIND IN THE SOUND BODY. No. 115. Thursday, Juhj 12, 1711. Ut sit mens saua in corpore sano. Juv. Sat. X. 356. Bodily labor is of two kinds ; either that which a man submits to for his livelihood, or that which he undergoes for his pleasure. The latter of them generally changes the name of labor for 5 that of exercise, but differs only from ordinary labor as it rises from another motive. A country life abounds in both these kinds of labor, and for that reason gives a man a greater stock of health, and consequently a more perfect 10 enjoyment of himself, than any other way of life. I consider the body as a system of tubes and glands, or to use a more rustic phrase, a bundle of pipes and strainers, fitted to one another after so THE SOUND MIND IN THE SOUND BODY. 103 wonderful a manner, as to make a proper engine for the soul to work with. This description does not only comprehend the bowels, bones, tendons, veins, nerves, and arteries, but every muscle and every ligature, which is a composition of fibres, 5 that are so many imperceptible tubes or pipes interwoven on all sides with invisible glands or strainers. This general idea of a human body, without considering it in the niceties of anatomy, lets us 10 see how absolutely necessary labor is for the right preservation of it. There must be frequent motions and agitations, to mix, digest, and separate the juices contained in it, as well as to clear and cleanse that infinitude of pipes and strainers of 15 which it is composed, and to give their solid parts a more firm and lasting tone. Labor or exercise ferments the humors, casts them into their proper channels, throws oi¥ redundancies, and helps nature in those secret distributions without which the 20 body cannot subsist in its vigor, nor the soul act with cheerfulness. I might here mention the effects which this has upon all the faculties of the mind, by keeping the 104 SIR ROGER I)E COVE RLE Y PAPERS. understanding clear, the imagination untroubled, and refining those spirits that are necessary for the proper exertion of our intellectual faculties, during the present laws of union between soul 5 and body. It is to a neglect in this particular that we must ascribe the spleen, which is so fre- quent in men of studious and sedentary tempers, as well as the vapors to which those of the other sex are so often subject. 10 Had not exercise been absolutely necessary for our well-being, nature would not have made the body so proper for it, by giving such an activity to the limbs, and such a pliancy to every part as necessarily produces those compressions, exten- 15 sions, contortions, dilatations, and all other kinds of motions that are necessary for the preservation of such a system of tubes and glands as has been before mentioned. And that we might not want inducements to engage us in such an exercise of 20 the body as is proper for its welfare, it is so or- dered that nothing valuable can be procured with- out it. Not to mention riches and honor, even food and raiment are not to be come at without the toil of the hands and sweat of the brows. THE SOUND MIND IN THE SOUND BODY. 105 Providence furnishes materials, but expects that we should work them up ourselves. The earth must be labored before it gives its increase ; and when it is forced into its several products, how many hands must they pass through before they 5 are tit for use ? Manufactures, trade, and agricul- ture naturally employ more than nineteen parts of the species in twenty ; and as for those who are not obliged to labor, by the condition in which they are born, they are more miserable than the 10 rest of mankind, unless they indulge themselves in that voluntary labor which goes by the name of exercise. My friend Sir Roger has been an indefatigable man in business of this kind, and has hung sev- 15 eral parts of his house with the trophies of his former labors. The walls of his great hall are covered with the horns of several kinds of deer that he has killed in the chase, which he thinks the most valuable furniture of his house, as they 20 afford him frequent topics of discourse, and show that he has not been idle. At the lower end of the hall is a large otter's skin stuffed with hay, which his mother ordered to be hung up in that 10(j SIH ROGER DE COVE RLE Y PAPERS. manner, and the knight looks upon with great satisfaction, because, it seems, he was but nine years old when his dog killed him. A little room adjoining to the hall is a kind of arsenal, filled 5 with guns of several sizes and inventions, with which the knight has made great havoc in the woods, and destroyed many thousands of pheas- ants, partridges, and woodcocks. His stable doors are patched with noses that belonged to foxes of 10 the knight's own hunting down. Sir Roger showed me one of them that, for distinction sake, has a brass nail struck through it, which cost him about fifteen hours' riding, carried him through half a dozen counties, killed him a brace of geld- 15 ings, and lost above half his dogs. This the knight looks upon as one of the greatest exploits of his life. The perverse widow, whom I have given some account of, was the death of several foxes ; for Sir Roger has told me that in the 20 course of his amours he patched the western door of his stable. Whenever the widow was cruel, the foxes were sure to pay for it. In proportion as his passion for the widow abated, and old age came on, he left his fox-hunting : but a hare is THE SOUND MIND IN THE SOUND BODY. 107 not yet safe that sits within ten miles of his house. There is no kind of exercise which I would so recommend to my readers of both sexes as this of riding, as there is none which so much conduces 5 to health, and is every way accommodated to the body, accordhig to the idea which I have given of it. Doctor Sydenham is very lavish in its praises ; and if the English reader would see the mechani- cal eifects of it described at lengtli, he may find 10 them in a book published not many years since, under the title of tlie Medicina Gymnastica. For my own part, when I am in town, for want of these opportunities, I exercise myself an hour every morning upon a dumb-bell that is placed in 15 a corner of my room, and pleases me the more because it does everything I require of it in the most profound silence. My landlady and her daughters are so well acquainted with my hours of exercise, that they never come into my room to 20 disturb me whilst I am ringing. When I was some years 3"ounger than T am at present, I used to employ myself in a more la})()ri- ous diversion, which I learned from a Latin treatise 108 tilR ROGER BE COVERLEY PAPERS. of exercises, that is written with great erudition ; it is there called the a-KLOfxaxta, or the fighting with a man's own shadow ; and consists in the brandish- ing of two short sticks grasped in each hand, and 5 headed with plugs of lead at either end. This opens the chest, exercises the limbs, and gives a man all the pleasure of boxing, without the blows. I could wish that several learned men would lay out that time which they employ in controversies 10 and disputes about nothing, in this method of fighting with their own shadows. It might con- duce very much to evaporate the spleen, which makes them uneasy to the public as well as to themselves. 15 To conclude, as I am a compound of soul and body, I consider myself as obliged to a double scheme of duties : and I think I have not fulfilled the business of the day, when I do not thus em- ploy the one in labor and exercise, as well as the 20 other in study and contemplation. L. THE COVERLEY HUNT. 109 THE COVERLEY HUNT. No. 116. Friday, July 13, 1711. Vocat ingenti clamore Cithaeroii, Taygetique canes. ViRG. Georg. iii. 43. • Those who have searched into human nature observe that nothing so much shows the nobleness of the soul, as that its felicity consists in action. Every man has such an active principle in him that he will find out something to employ himself upon in whatever place or state of life he is posted. I have heard of a gentleman who was under close confinement in the Bastile seven years ; during which time he amused himself in scattering a few small pins about his chamber, gathering them up again, and placing them in different figures on the arm of a great chair. He often told his friends afterwards that unless he 10 110 ^SIR ROGER BE COVERLEY PAPERS. had found out this piece of exercise, he verily believed he should have lost his senses. After what has been said, I need not inform my readers, that Sir Roger, with whose chai'acter 5 I hope they are at present pretty well acquainted, has in his youth gone through the whole course of those rural diversions which the country abounds in ; and which seem to be extremely well suited to that laborious industry a man may observe 10 here in a far greater degree than in towns and cities. I have before hinted at some of my friend's exploits : he has in youthful days taken forty coveys of partridges in a season ; and tired many a salmon with a line consisting but of a 15 single hair. The constant thanks and good wishes of the neighborhood always attended him, on account of his remarkable enmity towards foxes ; having destroyed more of those vermin in one year, than it was thought the whole country 20 could have produced. Indeed the knight does not scruple to own, among his most intimate friends, that in order to establish his reputation this way, he had secretly sent for great numbers of them out of other counties, which he used to THE COVERLET HUN'T. Ill turn loose about the country by night, that he might the better signalize himself in their destruc- tion the next clay. His hunting horses were the finest and best managed in all these parts ; his tenants are still full of the praises of a gray stone- 5 horee that unhappily staked himself several years since, and Avas buried with great solemnity in the orchard. Sir Roger, being at present too old for fox hunting, to keep himself in action, has disposed 10 of his beagles and got a pack of stop hounds. What these want in speed, he endeavors to make amends for by the deepness of their mouths and the variety of their notes, which are suited in such manner to each other that the whole cry 15 makes up a complete consort. He is so nice in this particular that a gentleman having made him a present of a very fine hound the other day, the knight returned it by the servant with a great many expressions of civility ; but desired him to 20 tell his master that the dog he had sent was, indeed, a most excellent bass, but that at present he only wanted a counter-tenor. Could I believe my friend had ever read Shakespeare, I should 112 SIR ROGER BE COVERLET PAPERS. certainly conclude he had taken the hint from Theseus in the Midsummer Nighfs Dream. My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind, So flu'd, so sanded ; and their heads are lumg 5 With ears that sweep away the morning dew. Crook-kneed and dew-lap'd like Thessalian bulls ; Slow in pursuit, but matched in mouths like bells, Each under each : a cry more tunaljle Was never holla'd to, nor cheered Avith horn. 10 Sir Roger is so keen at this sport, that he has been out almost every day since I came down ; and upon the chaplain's offering to lend me his easy pad, I was prevailed on yesterday morning to make one of the company. I was extremely 15 pleased, as we rid along, to observe the general benevolence of all the neighborhood towards my friend. The farmers' sons thought themselves happy if they could open a gate for the good old knight as he passed by ; which he generally 20 requited with a nod or a smile, and a kind inquiry after their fathers and uncles. After we had rid about a mile from home, we came upon a large heath, and the sportsmen began to beat. They had done so for some time. THE COVEULEY HUNT. 113 wlieii, as I was a little distance from the rest of the company, 1 saw a hare pop out from a small furze-brake almost under my hoi'se's feet. I marked the way she took, which 1 endeavored to make the company sensible of by extending my 5 arm ; but to no purpose, until Sir Roger, who knows that none of my extraordinary motions are insignificant, rode up to me, and asked me if 2)uss was gone that way? Upon my answering " Yes," he innnediately called in the dogs, and put them 10 upon the scent. As they were going off, I heard one of the country-fellows muttering to his com- panion that it was a wonder they had not lost all their sport, for want of the silent gentleman's crying, " Stole away." This, with my aversion to 15 leaping hedges, made me withdraw to a rising ground, from whence I could have the picture of the whole chase, without the fatigue of keeping in with the hounds. The hare immediately threw them about a mile behind her ; but 1 was pleased 20 to find, that instead of running straight forwards, or in hunter's language, " flying the country," as I was afraid she might have done, she wheeled about, and described a sort of circle round the 114 SIR ROGER DE COVERLET PAPERS. hill where 1 had taken my station, in such manner as gave me a very distinct view of the sport. 1 could see her first pass by, and the dogs some time afterwards unravelling the whole track she had 5 made, and following her through all her doubles. I was at the same time delighted in observing that deference which the rest of the pack paid to each particular hound, according to the character he had acquired amongst them : if they were at 10 fault, and an old hound of reputation opened but once, he was immediately followed by the whole cry ; while a raw dog or one who was a noted liar, might have yelped his heart out, without being taken notice of. 1.5 The hare now, after having squatted two or three times, and been put up again as often, came still nearer to the place where she was at first started. The dogs pursued her, and these were followed by the jolly knight, who rode upon a 20 white gelding, encompassed by his tenants and servants, and cheering his hounds with all the gaiety of five and twenty. One of the sportsmen rode up to me, and told me that he was sure the chase was almost at an end, because the old dogs, THE COVERLEY HUNT. 115 which had hitherto lain behind, now headed the pack. The fellow was in the right. Our hare took a large field just under us, followed by the full cry " In view." I must confess the bright- ness of the weather, the cheerfulness of every- 5 thing around me, the chiding of the hounds, which was returned upon us in a double echo, from two neighboring hills, with the hallooing of the sportsmen, and the sounding of the horn, lifted my spirits into a most Hvely pleasure, which I lo freely indulged because I was sure it was innocent. If I was under any concern, it was on account of the poor hare, that was now quite spent, and almost within the reach of her enemies ; when the huntsman, getting forward, threw down liis pole 15 before the dogs. They were now within eight yards of that game which they had been pursuing for almost as many hours ; yet on the signal before-mentioned they all made a sudden stand, and though they continued opening as much as 20 before, durst not once attempt to pass beyond the pole. At the same time Sir Roger rode forward, and alighting, took up the hare in his arms; which he soon delivered up to one of his servants 116 SIE ROGER BE COVERLET PAPERS. ^Yith an order, if she could be kept alive, to let her go in his great orchard; where it seems he has several of these prisoners of war, who live together in a very comfortable captivity. 1 was 5 highly pleased to see the discipline of the pack, and the good nature of the knight, who could not find in his heart to murder a creature that had given him so much diversion. As we were returning home, I remembered tliat 10 Monsieur Paschal in his most excellent discourse on the Misery of Man tells us that all our en- deavors after greatness proceed from notliing but a desire of being surrounded by a multitude of pei*sons and affairs that may hinder us from look- 15 ing into ourselves, which is a view we cannot bear. He afterwards goes on to show that our love of sports comes from the same reason, and is particularly severe upon hunting. " What," says he, " unless it be to drown thought, can make men 20 throw away so much time and pains upon a silly animal, which they might buy cheaper in the mar- ket?" The foregoing reflection is certainly just when a man suffers his whole mind to be drawn into his sports, and altogether loses himself in the THE COVE RLE Y HUNT. 117 woods ; but does not affect those who propose a far more laudable end from this exercise, 1 mean the preservation of health, and keeping all the organs of the soul in a condition to execute her orders. Had that incomparable person, whom 1 5 last quoted, been a little more indulgent to himself in this point, the world might probably have enjoyed him much longer ; whereas, tlirough too great an application to his studies in his youth, he contracted that ill habit of the body, which, after lo a tedious sickness, carried him oft' in the fortieth year of his age ; and the whole history we have of his life till that time is but one continued account of the behavior of a noble soul struggling under innumerable pains and distempers. 15 For my own part, I intend to hunt twice a week during my stay with Sir Roger, and shall prescribe the moderate use of this exercise to all my country friends, as the best kind of physic for mending a bad constitution and preserving a good 20 one. I cannot do this better than in the following lines out of Mr. Dryden : 118 .s;/t' ROGER DE COVEllLEY PAPERS. The tirst pliysieians by debauch were nuule ; Excess bciian, and sloth sustains the trade. By chase our long-lived fatliers earned their food ; Toil strung the nerves, and puritied the blood ; 5 But we their sons, a pamperM race of men. Are dwindled down to threescore years and ten. Better to hunt in fields for health unbought Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught. The wise for cure on exercise depend : 10 God never made his work for man to mend. X. THE COVEKLEY WITCH. 119 THE COVERLEY WIT(^H. No. 117. Saturday, Jiili/ 14, 1711. -Ipsi sibi somnia tiiif^unt. ViKxi. Eel. viii. 109. There are some opinions in which a man should stand neuter, without engaging his assent to one side or the other. Such a hovering faith as this, which refuses to settle upon any determi- nation, is absolutely necessary to a mind that is 5 careful to avoid errors and prepossessions. When the arguments press equally on both sides in mat- ters that are indifferent to us, the safest method is to give up ourselves to neither. It is with this temper of mind that I consider lo the subject of witchcraft. When 1 hear the rela- tions that are made from all parts of the world, not only from Norway and Lapland, from the East and West Indies, but from every particular na- 120 SIR ROGER BE COVERLEY PAPERS. tion in Europe, I cannot forbear thinking that there is such an intercourse and commerce with evil spirits as that wliich we express by the name of witchcraft. But when I consider that tlie igno- 5 rant and credulous parts of the world abound most in these relations, and that the persons among us who are supposed to engage in such an infernal commerce are people of a weak under- standing and a crazed imagination, and at the same 10 time reflect upon the many impostures and delu- sions of this nature that have been detected in all ages, 1 endeavor to suspend my belief till 1 hear more certain accounts than any which have yet come to my knowledge. In short, when I con- 15 sider the question, whether there are such persons in the world as those we call witches, my mind is divided between the two opposite opinions ; or rather (to speak my thoughts freely) I believe in general that there is, and has been, such a thing 20 as witchcraft ; but at the same time can give no credit to any particular instance of it. I am engaged in this speculation by some oc- currences that I met with yesterday, which I shall give my reader an account of at large. As I was THE COVEHLEY WITCH. 121 walking with my friend Sir Roger, by the side of one of his woods, an old woman appUed herself to me for my charity. Her dress and figure put me in mind of the following description in Otway : In a close lane, as I pursird my journey, 5 I spyM a ^vrinkled hag, with age grown double, Picking dry sticks, and mumbling to herself. Her eyes with scalding rheum were gallVl and red ; Cold ])alsy shook her head ; her Jiands seemVl withered And on her crooked shoulders had she wrappVl 10 The tatterM remnants of an old strip'd hanging. Which servVl to keep her carcass from the cold, So there was nothing of a piece about her. Her lower weeds were all o'er coarsely patch 'd With different colourVl rags, black, red, white, yellow, 15 And seem'd to speak variety of wretchedness. As I was musing on this description, and com- paring it with the object before me, the knight told me that this very old woman had the reputa- tion of a witch all over the country, that her lips 20 were observed to be always in motion, and that there was not a switch about her house which her neighbors did not believe had carried her several hundreds of miles. If she chanced to stumble, they always found sticks or straws that lay in the 25 122 sin ROGER DE COVERLET PAPERS. figure of a cross before lier. If she made any mistake at church, and cried Amen in a wrong place, they never failed to conclude that she was saying her prayers backwards. There was not a 5 maid in the parish that would take a pin of her, though she should offer a bag of money with it. She goes by the name of Moll White, and has made the country ring with several imaginary exploits which are palmed upon her. If the 10 dairy-maid does not make her butter to come so soon as she would have it, Moll White is at the bottom of the churn. If a horse sweats in the stable, Moll White has been upon his back. If a hare makes an unexpected escape from the 15 hounds, tlie huntsman curses Moll White. " Nay," says Sir Roger, " I have known the mas- ter of the pack, upon such an occasion, send one of his servants to see if Moll White had been out that morning." 20 This account raised my curiosity so far that I begged my friend Sir Roger to go Avith me into her hovel, which stood in a solitar}^ corner under the side of the wood. Upon our first entering, Sir Roger winked to me, and pointed at some- THE COVERLEY WITCH. 123 thing that stood behind the door, which, upon looking that way, I found to be an old broom-staff. At the same time he whispered me in the ear, to take notice of a tabby cat that sat in the chimney- corner, which, as the knight told me, lay under as 5 bad a report as Moll White herself ; for besides that Moll is said often to accompany her in the same shape, the cat is reported to have spoken twice or thrice in her life, and to have played sev- eral pranks above the capacity of an ordinary cat. lo I was secretly concerned to see human nature in so much wretchedness and disgrace, but at the same time could not forbear smilinof to hear Sir Roger, who is a little puzzled about the old woman, advising her, as a justice of peace, to 15 avoid all communication with the Devil, and never to hurt any of her neighbors' cattle. We concluded our visit with a bounty, which was very acceptable. In our return home. Sir Roger told me that old 20 Moll had been often brought before him for mak- ing children spit pins, and giving maids the night- mare ; and that the country people would be toss- ing her into a pond, and trying experiments with 124 SIR ROGER 1)E COVEULEY PAPERS, her every day, if it was not for him and his chap- lain. I have since found, upon inquiry, that Sir Roger was several times staggered with the re- 5 ports that had been brought him concerning this old woman, and would frequently have bound her over to the county sessions, had not his chaplain with much ado persuaded him to the contrary. I have been tlie more particular in this account, 10 because I hear that there is scarce a village in England that has not a Moil White in it. When an old woman begins to dote, and grow chargeable to a palish, she is generally turned into a witch and tills the whole country with extravagaiit 15 fancies, imaginary distempers, and terrify ii g dreams. In the mean time the poor wretch tli; t is the innocent occasion of so many evils, begii s to be frighted at herself, and sometimes confessc s secret commerces and familiarities that her imagi- 20 nation forms in a delirious old age. This frequently cuts off charity from the greatest objects of com- passion, and inspires people with a malevolence towards those poor decrepit parts of our species, in whom human nature is defaced by inlirmity 25 and dotage. L. TOWN AND COUNTRY MANNERS. 125 TOWN AND COUNTRY MANNERS. No. 119. July 17, 1711. Urbem quam dicunt Romam, Meliboee, putavi Stultus ego huic nostras similem ViKG. Eel. i. 20. The first and most obvious reflections wliicli arise in a man who changes the city for the country, are upon the different manners of the people whom he meets with in those two different scenes of life. By manners I do not mean morals, 5 l)ut behavior and good-breeding, as they show themselves in the town and in the country. And here, in the first place, I must observe a very great revolution that has happened in this article of good-breeding. Several obliging defer- 10 ences, condescensions, and submissions, with many outward forms and ceremonies that accompany them, were first of all brought up among the politer part of mankind, who lived in courts 126 sin ROGER BE COVEHLEY PAPERS. and cities, and distinguished themselves from the rustic part of the species (who on all occasions acted bluntly and naturally) by such a mutual complaisance and intercourse of civilities. These 5 forms of conversation by degrees multiplied, and grew troublesome ; the modish world found too great a constraint in them, and have therefore thrown most of them aside. Conversation was so encumbered with show" and ceremony that it 10 stood in need of a reformation to retrench its superfluities, and restore it to its natural good sense and beauty. At present, therefore, an un- constrained carriage and a certain openness of behavior are the height of good-breeding. The 15 fashionable world is grown free and easy ; our maimers sit more loose upon us : nothing is so modish as an agreeable negligence. In a word, good-breeding shows most, Avhere to an ordinary eye it appears the least. 20 If after this we look on the people of mode in the country, we find in them the manners of the last age. They have no sooner fetched them- selves up to the fashion of the [)olite w^orld, but the town has dropped them, and are nearer to the TOWN AND COUNTRY MANNELIS. 127 first state of nature, than to those refinements wliich formerly reigned in the court, and still prevail in the country. One may now know a man that never conversed in the world, by his excess of good-breeding. A polite country squire 5 shall make you as many bows in half an hour as would serve a courtier for a week. There is in- finitely more to do about place and precedency in a meeting of justices' wives, than in an assem- bly of duchesses. 10 This rural politeness is very troublesome to a man of my temper, who generally take the chair that is next me, and walk first or last, in the front or in the rear, as chance directs. I have known my friend Sir Roger's dinner almost cold before 15 the company could adjust the ceremonial, and be prevailed upon to sit down ; and have heartily pitied my old friend, when I have seen him forced to pick and cull his guests, as they sat at the several parts of his table, that he might drink 20 their healths according to their respective ranks and qualities. Honest Will Wimble, who I should have thought had been altogether uninfected Avith ceremony, gives me abundance of trouble in this 128 SIR ROGER DE COVER LEY PAPERS. particular. Though he has been fishing all the morning, he will not help himself at dinner till I am served. When we are going out of the hall, he runs behind me ; and last night, as we were 5 walking in the fields, stopped short at a stile till I came up to it, and upon my making signs to him to get over, told me, with a serious smile, that sure I believed they had no manners in the country. 10 There has happened another revolution in the point of good-breeding, which relates to the con- versation among men of mode, and which I cannot but look upon as very extraordinary. It was cer- tainly one of the first distinctions of a well-bred 15 man, to express every thing that had the most remote appearance of being obscene, in modest terms and distant phrases, whilst the clown, Avho had no such delicacy of conception and expres- sion, clothed his ideas in those plain, homely terms 20 that are the most obvious and natural. This kind of good manners Avas perhaps carried to an excess, so as to make conversation too stiff, formal, and precise ; for which reason (as hypocrisy in one age is generally succeeded by atheism in another) TOWN AND COUNTRY MANNERS. 129 conversation is in a great measure relapsed into the first extreme ; so that at present several of our men of the town, and particularly those w^ho have been polished in France, make use of the most coarse uncivilizfed words in our language, 5 and utter themselves often in such a manner as a clown would blush to hear. This infamous piece of good-breeding, which reigns among the coxcombs of the town, has not yet made its way into the country ; and as it is 10 impossible for such an irrational way of conversa- tion to last long among a people that make any profession of religion, or show of modesty, if the country gentlemen get into it, they will certainly be left in the lurch. Their good-breeding will 15 come too late to them, and they will be thought a parcel of lewd clowns, while they fancy them- selves talking together like men of wit and pleasure. As the two points of good-breeding which I 20 have hitherto insisted upon regard behavior and conversation, there is a third which turns upon dress. In this too the country are very much behind-hand. The rural beaus are not yet got 130 SIR ROGER BE COVERLEY PAPERS. out of the fashion that took place at the time of the Revolution, but ride about the country in red coats and hiced hats ; while the women in many parts are still trying to outvie one another in the 5 height of their head-dresses. But a friend of mine, who is now upon the western circuit, having promised to give me an account of the several modes and fashions that prevail in the different parts of the nation through 10 which he passes, I shall defer the enlarging upon this last topic till I have received a letter from him, which I expect every post. L. THE COVERLEY POULTRY. 131 THE COVERLEY POULTRY. No. 120. Wednesday, July 18, 1711. Equideni credo quia sit divinitus illis Ingeiiium VliKJ. Georg. i. 415. My friend Sir Roger is very often merry with nie, upon my passing so much of my time among his poultry: lie has caught me twice or thrice looking after a bird's nest, and several times sit- ting an hour or two together near an hen and 5 chickens. He tells me he believes I am personally ac(]^uainted with every fowl about his house ; calls such a particular cock my favorite, and frequently complains that his ducks and geese have more of my company than himself. 10 I must confess I am infniitely delighted with those speculations of nature which are to be made in a country life ; and as my reading has very 132 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS. much lain among books of natural history, 1 can- not forbear recollecting upon this occasion the several remarks wliich I have met with in authors, and comparing them with what falls under my 5 own observation: the arguments for Providence drawn from the natural history of animals being in my opinion demonstrative. The make of every kind of animal is different from that of every other kind ; and yet there is 10 not the least turn in the muscles or twist in the fibres of any one, which does not render them more proper for that particular animal's way of life, than any other cast or texture of them would have been. 15 It is astonishing to consider the different de- grees of care that descend from the parent to the young, so far as is absolutely necessary for the leaving a posterity. Some creatures cast their eggs as chance directs them, and think of them no 20 farther, as insects and several kinds of fish : others, of a nicer frame, find out proper beds to deposit them in, and there leave them ; as the serpent, the crocodile, and ostrich : others hatch their eggs and tend the birth till it is able to shift for itself. THE COVERLEY POULTRY. 133 What can we call the principle which directs every different kind of bird to observe a particular plan in the structure of its nest, and directs all of the same species to work after the same model? It cannot be imitation ; for though you hatch a 5 crow under a hen, and never let it see any of the works of its own kind, the nest it makes shall be the same, to the laying of a stick, with all the other nests of the same species. It cannot be reason; for were animals endued with it to as 10 great a degree as man, their buildings would be as different as ours, according to the different con- veniences that they would propose to themselves. Is it not remarkable that the same temper of weather which i-aises this genial warmth in ani- 15 mals, should cover the trees with leaves and the fields with grass, for their security and conceal- ment, and produce such infinite swarms of insects for the support and sustenance of their respective broods ? 20 Is it not wonderful that the love of the parent should be so violent while it lasts ; and that it should last no longer than is necessary for the preservation of the young ? 134 SIR ROGER BE COVERLET PAPERS. But notwitlistciiiding this natural love in brutes is much more violent and intense than in rational creatures, Providence has taken care that it should be no longer troublesome to the parent than it is 5 useful to the young ; for so soon as the wants of the latter cease, the mother withdraws her fond- ness, and leaves them to provide for themselves : and what is a very remarkable circumstance in this part of instinct, we find that the love of the 10 parent may be lengthened out beyond its usual . time, if the preservation of the species requires it ; as we may see in birds that drive away their young as soon as they are able to get their livelihood, but continue to feed them if they are tied to the nest, 15 or confined mthin a cage, or by any other jneans appear to be out of a condition of supplying their own necessities. This natural love is not observed in animals to ascend from the young to the parent, which is not 20 at all necessary for the continuance of the species : nor, indeed, in reasonable creatures does it rise in any proportion, as it spreads itself downwards ; for in all family affection, we find protection granted and favors bestowed are greater motives TFIE COVERLET POULTRY. 135 to love and tenderness, than safety, benefits, or life received. One would wonder to hear sceptical men dis- puting for the reason of animals, and telling us it is only our pride and prejudices that will not 5 allow them the use of that faculty. Reason shows itself in all occurrences of life; whereas the brute makes no discovery of such a talent, but in what immediately regards his own preservation, or the continuance of his species. 10 Animals in their generation are wiser than the sons of men; but their wisdom is confined to a few particulars, and lies in a very narrow compass. Take a brute out of his instinct, and you find him wholly deprived of understanding. To use an in- 15 stance that comes often under observation. With what caution does the hen provide herself a nest in places unfrequented, and free from noise and disturbance ! When she has laid her eggs in such a manner that she can cover them, what care 20 does she take in turning them frequently, that all parts may partake of the vital warmth ! When she leaves them to provide for her necessary sus- tenance, how punctually does she return before 13(3 SIR ROGER 1)E COVERLEY PAPERS. they have time to cool, and l)ecome incapable of producing an animal I In the summer you see her giving herself greater freedoms, and quitting her care for above two hours together ; but in winter, 5 when the rigor of the season would chill the prin- ciples of life, and destroy the young one, she grows more assiduous in her attendance, and stays away but half the time. When the birth approaches, with how much nicety and attention 10 does she help the chick to break its prison ! Not to take notice of her covering it from the injuries of the weather, providing it proper nourishment, and teaching it to help itself ; nor to mention her forsaking the nest, if after the usual time of reckon- 15 ing the young one does not made its appearance. A chemical operation could not be followed with greater art or diligence, than is seen in the hatch- ing of a chick ; though there are many other birds that show an infinitely greater sagacity in all the 20 forementioned particulars. But at the same time the hen, that has all this seeming ingenuity, (which is indeed absolutely necessary for the propagation of the species) considered in other respects, is without the least THK COVEELEY POULTRY. 137 glimmerings of thouglit or common sense. She mistakes a piece of chalk for an egg, and sits upon it in the same manner ; she is insensible of any increase or diminution in the number of those she lays: she does not distinguish between her own 5 and those of another species ; and when the birth appears of never so different a bird, will cherish it for her own. In all these circumstances, which do not carry an immediate regard to the subsistence of herself or her species, she is a very idiot. 10 There is not in my opinion anything more mys- terious in nature than this instinct in animals, which thus rises above reason, and falls infinitely short of it. It cannot be accounted for by any properties in matter, and at the same time works 15 after so odd a manner, that one cannot think it the faculty of an intellectual being. For my own part, I look upon it as upon the principle of gravi- tation in bodies, which is not to be explained by any known qualities inherent in the bodies them- 20 selves, nor from any laws of mechanism, but, ac- cording to the best notions of the greatest philoso- phers, is an immediate impression from the first mover, and the divine energy acting in the crea- tures. L. 25 188 StE ROGER BE COVERLET PAPERS. THE COVERLEY POULTRY. No. 121. Thursday, July 19, 1711. Jovis omnia plena. ViRG. Eel. iii. 60. As I was walking this morning in the great yard that belongs to my friend's country-house, I was wonderfully pleased to see the different work- ings of instinct in a hen followed by a brood of 5 ducks. The young, upon the sight of a pond, immediately ran into it ; while the step-mother, with all imaginable anxiety, hovered about the bor- ders of it, to call them out of an element that appeared to her so dangerous and destructive. As 10 the different principle which acted in these differ- ent animals cannot be termed reason, so when we call it instinct, we mean something we have no knowledge of. To me, as I hinted in my last paper, it seems the immediate direction of Provi- THE COVEllLEY POULTRY. 139 dence, and such an operation of the Supreme Being as that which determines all the portions of matter to their proper centres. A modern philosopher, quoted by Monsieur Bayle in his learned dissertation on the souls of brutes, delivers 5 the same opinion, though in a bolder form of words, where he says, Devs est anima hrutorum : ' God himself is the soul of brutes.' Who can tell what to call that seeming sagacity in animals, which directs them to such food as is proper for 10 tliem, and makes them naturally avoid whatever is noxious or unwholesome? Dampier in his Travels tells us that when seamen are thrown upon any of tlie unknown coasts of America, they never ven- ture upon the fruit of any tree, how tempting so- 15 ever it may appear, unless they observe that it is marked with the pecking of birds; but fall on without any fear or apprehension where the birds liave been before them. But notwithstanding animals have nothing like 20 the use of reason, we find in them all the lower parts of our nature, the passions and senses in their greatest strength and perfection. And liere it is worth our observation, that all beasts and 140 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS. birds of prey are wonderfully subject to anger, malice, revenge, and all other violent passions that may animate them in search of their proper food ; as those that are incapable of defending them- 5 selves, or annoying others, or whose safety lies chiefly in their flight, are suspicious, fearful, and apprehensive of everything they see or hear : whilst others, that are of assistance and use to man, have their natures softened with something mild and 10 tractable, and by that means are qualified for a domestic life. In this case the passions generally correspond Avith the make of the body. ^ We do not find the fury of a lion in so weak and de- fenceless an animal as a lamb, nor the meek- 15 ness of a lamb in a creature so armed for battle and assault as the lion. In the same manner, we find that particular animals have a more or less exquisite sharpness and sagacity in those particular senses which most turn to their advan- 20 tage, and in which their safety and welfare is the most concerned. Nor must we here omit that great variety of arms with which nature has differently fortified the bodies of several kinds of animals, such as THE COVERLET POULTRY. 141 claws, hoofs and horns, teeth and tusks, a tail, a sting, a trunk, or a proboscis. It is likewise observed by naturalists, that it must be some hid- den principle, distinct from what we call reason, which instructs animals in the use of these their 5 arms, and teaches them to manage them to the best advantage ; because they naturally defend themselves with that part in whicli their strength lies, before the weapon be formed in it ; as is re- markable in lambs, which, though they are bred lo within doors, and never saw the actions of their own species, push at those who approach them, with their foreheads, before the first budding of a — 4iorn appears. I shall add to these general observations, an 15 instance which Mr. Locke has given us of Provi- dence, even in the imperfections of a creature which seems the meanest and most despicable in the whole animal world. " We may," says he, "■ from the make of an oyster or cockle, conclude 20 that it has not so many nor so quick senses as a man, or several other animals : nor, if it had, would it in that state and incapacity of trans- ferring itself from one place to another, be bettered 142 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS. by them. What good would sight and hearing do to a creature that cannot move itself to or from the object, wherein at a distance it perceives good or evil ? And would not quickness of sensation 5 be an inconvenience to an animal that must be still where chance has once placed it; and there receive the afflux of colder or warmer, clean or foul water, as it happens to come to it ? " I shall add to this instance out of Mr. Locke, 10 another out of the learned Dr. More, who cites it from Cardan, in relation to another animal which Providence has left defective, but at the same time has shown its wisdom in the formation of that organ in which it seems chiefly to have 15 failed. " What is more obvious and ordinary than a mole ; and yet what more palpable argument of Providence than she? The members of her body are so exactly fitted to her nature and manner of life ; for her dwelling being under ground, where 20 nothing is to be seen, nature has so obscurely fitted her with eyes that naturalists can scarce agree whether she have au}^ sight at all or no. But, for amends, what she is capable of for her defence and warning of danger, she has very eminently THE COVERLET POULTRY. 143 conferred upon her ; for she is exceedingly quick of hearing. And then her short tail and short legs, but broad fore-feet, armed with sharp claws, we see by the event to what purpose they are, she so swiftly working herself under ground, and mak- 5 ing her way so fast in the earth, as they that be- hold it cannot but admire it. Her legs therefore are short, that she need dig no more than will serve the mere thickness of her body ; and her fore-feet are broad, that she may scoop away much 10 earth at a time ; and little or no tail she has, because she courses it not on the ground, like the rat or mouse, of whose kindred she is, but lives under the earth, and is fain to dig herself a dwell- ing there. And she making her way through so 15 thick an element, which will not yield easily, as the air or the water, it had been dangerous to have drawn so long a train behind her ; for her enemy might fall upon her rear, and fetch her out before she had completed or got full possession of 20 her works." I cannot forbear mentioning Mr. Boyle's remark upon this last creature, who, I remember, some- where in his works observes, that though the mole 144 SIR ROGER I)E COYERLEY PAPERS. be not totally blind (as it is commonly thought) she has not sight enough to distinguish particular objects. Her eye is said to have but one humor in it, which is supposed to give her the idea of 5 light, but of nothing else, and is so formed that this idea is probably painful to the animal. When- ever she comes up into broad day she might be in danger of being taken, unless she were thus affected by a light striking upon her eye, and 10 immediately warning her to bury herself in her proper element. More sight would be useless to her, as none at all might be fatal. 1 have only instanced such animals as seem the most imperfect works of nature ; and if Providence 15 shows itself even in the blemishes of these crea- tures, how much more does it discover itself in the several endowments which it has variously bestowed upon such creatures as are more or less finished and completed in their several faculties, 20 according to the condition of life in which they are posted ! I could wish our Royal Society would compile a body of natural history, the best that could be gathered together from books and observations. THE COYERLEY POULTRY. 145 If the several Avriters among them took each his particular species, and gave us a distinct account of its original birth and education ; its policies, hostilities and alliances, with the frame and tex- ture of its inward and outward parts, and particu- 5 larly those that distinguish it from all other ani- mals, with their peculiar aptitude for the state of being in which Providence has placed them, it would be one of the best services their studies could do mankind, and not a little redound to the 10 glory of the all- wise Contriver. It is true, such a natural history, after all the disquisitions of the learned, would be infinitely short and defective. Seas and deserts hide mil- lions of animals from our observation. Innumer- 15 able artifices and stratagems are acted in the lioivlinif tvilderness and in the great deep, that can never come to our knowledge. Besides that there are infinitely more species of creatures which are not to be seen without, nor indeed with the help 20 of the finest glasses, than of such as are bulky enough for the naked eye to take hold of. How- ever, from the consideration of such animals as lie within the compass of our knowledge, we might 146 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS. easily form a conclusion of the rest, that the same variety of wisdom and goodness runs through the whole creation, and puts every creature in a con- dition to provide for its safety and subsistence in its proper station. L. SIR ROGER JUDICIAL. 147 SIR ROGER JUDICIAL. No. 122. Friday, Juhj 20, 1711. Comes juciindus in via pro vehiculo est. Pub. Syr. Frag. A man's first care should be to avoid the re- proaches of his own heart ; his next, to escape the censures of the world : if the last interferes with the former, it ought to be entirely neglected ; but otherwise there cannot be a greater satisfaction to 5 an honest mind, than to see those approbations which it gives itself seconded by the applauses of the public: a man is more sure of his conduct, when the verdict which he passes upon his own behavior is thus warranted and confirmed by the opinion of all that know him. 10 My worthy friend Sir Roger is one of those who is not only at peace within himself, but beloved and esteemed by all about him. He 148 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS. receives a suitable tribute for his uuiversal benev- olence to mankind, in the returns of affection and good-will which are paid him by every one that lives within his neighborhood. I lately met 5 with two or three odd instances of that general respect which is shown to the good old knight. He would needs carry Will Wimble and myself with him to the county-assizes: as we were upon the road, Will Wimble joined a couple of plain 10 men who rid before us, and conversed with them for some time ; during which my friend Sir Roger acquainted me with their characters. " The first of them," says he, " that has a spaniel by his side, is a yeoman of about an hundred pounds 15 a year, an honest man : he is just within the game act, and qualified to kill an hare or a pheasant: he knocks down a dinner with his gun twice or thrice a week ; and by that means lives much cheaper than those who have not so good an estate 20 as himself. He would be a good neighbor if he did not destroy so many partridges : in short, he is a very sensible man ; shoots flying ; and has been several times foreman of the petty-jury. " The other that rides along with him is Tom SIR ROGER JUDICIAL. 149 Touchy, a fellow famous for taking the law of every body. There is not one in the town where he lives that he has not sued at a quarter-sessions. The rogue had once the impudence to go to law with the widow. His head is full of costs, -5 damages, and ejectments : he plagued a couple of honest gentlemen so long for a trespass in break- ing one of his hedges, till he was forced to sell the ground it enclosed to defray the charges of the prosecution: his father left him foui'-score 10 pounds a year : but he has cast and been cast so often, that he is not now worth thirty. I suppose he is going upon the old business of the willow- tree." As Sir Roger was giving me this account of 15 Tom Touchy, Will Wimble and his two com- panions stopped short till we came up to them. After having paid their respects to Sir Roger, Will told him that Mr. Touchy and he must appeal to him upon a dispute that arose between 20 them. Will, it seems, had been giving his fellow- travellers an account of his angling one day in such a hole ; when Tom Touchy, instead of hear- ing out his story, told him that Mr. Such-an-one, 150 SIR ROGER DE COVERLET PAPERS. if he pleased, niiglit take the law of him for fishing ill that part of the river. My friend Sir Roger heard them both, upon a round trot, and after having paused some time told them, with an air of 5 a man who would not give liis judgment rashly, that 7nueh might be said on both sides. They were neither of them dissatisfied with the knight's determination, because neither of them found him- self in the wrong by it : upon which we made the 10 best of our way to the assizes. The court was sat before Sir Roger came, but notwithstanding all the justices had taken their places upon the bench, they made room for the old knight at the head of them; who, for his 15 reputation in the country, took occasion to whisper in the judge's "ear, that he was glad his lordship had met with so much good weather in his circuit. I was listening to the proceeding of the court with much attention, and infinitely pleased with 20 that great appearance and solemnity which so properly accompanies such a public administration of our laws ; when, after about an hour's sitting, I observed, to my great surprise, in the midst of a trial, that my friend Sir Roger was getting up to SIR ROGER JUDICIAL. 151 speak. I was in some pain for him, till I found he had acquitted himself of two or three sen- tences, with a look of much business and great intrepidity. Upon his first rising the court was hushed, and 6 a general whisper ran among the country people that Sir Roger was up. The speech he made was so little to the purpose that I shall not trouble my readers with an account of it ; and I believe was not so much designed by the knight himself lo to inform the court, as to give him a figure in my eye, and keep up his credit in the country. I was highly delighted, when the court rose, to see the gentlemen of the country gathering about my old friend, and striving who should compli- 15 ment him most ; at the same time that the ordinary people gazed upon him at a distance, not a little admiring his courage, that was not afraid to speak to the judge. In our return home we met with a very odd 20 accident ; which I cannot forbear relating, because it shows how desirous all who know Sir Roger are of giving him marks of their esteem. When we were arrived upon the verge of his estate, we 152 SIR ROGER DE COVERLET PAPERS. stopped at a little inn to rest ourselves and our horses. The man of the house had, it seems, been formerly a servant in the knight's family ; and to do honor to his old master, had some time 5 since, unknown to Sir Roger, put him up in a sign- post before the door; so that The KnigMs Head had hung out upon the road about a week before he himself knew any thing of the matter. As soon as Sir Roger was acquainted with it, finding 10 that his servant's indiscretion proceeded wholly from affection and good will, he only told him that he had made him too high a compliment; and when the fellow seemed to think that could hardly be, added with a more decisive look, that 15 it was too great an honor for any man under a duke ; but told him at the same time, that it might be altered with a very few touches, and that he himself would be at the charge of it. Accordingly they got a painter by the knight's 20 direction to add a pair of whiskers to the face, and by a little aggravation to the features to change it into Tlie Saracen's Head. I should not have known this story, had not the inn-keeper, upon Sir Roger's alighting, told him in my hear- SIR ROGER JUDICIAL. 15B ing that his honor's head was brought back last night, with the alterations that he had ordered to be made in it. Upon this, my friend, with his usual cheerfulness, related the particulars above- mentioned, and ordered the iiead to be brought 5 into the room. I could not forbear discovering greater expressions of mirth than ordinary upon the appearance of this monstrous face, under which, notwithstanding it was made to frown and stare in the most extraordinary manner, I could 10 still discover a distant resemblance of m}^ old friend. Sir Roger, upon seeing me laugh, desired me to tell him truly if I thought it possible for people to know him in that disguise. I at first kept my usual silence ; but upon the knight's con- 15 juring me to tell him whether it was not still more like himself than a Saracen, I composed my countenance in the best manner I could, and replied that much might be said on both sides. These several adventures, w^ith the knight's '20 behavior in them, gave me as pleasant a day as ever 1 met with in any of my travels. L. 154 SIE ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS. THE TRAINING OF AN HEIR. No. 123 Saturday, July 21, 1711. Doctrina sed vim promovet insitam, Rectique cultus pectora roborant; Utcunque defecere mores, Dedecorant bene nata culpae. HOR. iv. Od. 4. 33. As I was yesterday taking the air with my friend Sir Roger, we were met by a fresh-colored, ruddy young man, who rid by us full speed, with a couple of servants behind liim. Upon my in- ;") quiry who he was. Sir Roger told me that he was a young gentleman of a considerable estate, who had been educated by a tender mother that lives not many miles from the place where we w^ere. She is a very good lady, says my friend, but took 10 so much care of her son's health, that she has made him good for nothing. She quickly found that reading was bad for his eyes, and that writ- THE TRAINING OF AN HEIR. 155 ing made his head ache. He was let loose among the woods as soon as he was able to ride on horse- back, or to carry a gun upon his shoulder. To be brief, I found, by my friend's account of him, that he had got a great stock of health, but nothing 5 else ; and that if it were a man's business only to live, there would not be a more accomplished young fellow in the whole country. The truth of it is, since my residing in these parts, I have seen and heard innumerable instances 10 of young heirs and elder brothers, who either from their own reflecting upon the estates they are born to, and therefore thinking all other ac- complishments unnecessary, or from hearing these notions frequently inculcated to them by the flat- 15 tery of their servants and domestics, or from the same foolish thoughts prevailing in those who have the care of their education, are of no manner of use but to keep up their families, and transmit their lands and houses in a line to posterity. 20 This makes me often think on a story I have heard of two friends, which I shall give my reader at large, under feigned names. The moral of it may, I hope, be useful, though there are some 156 SIR ROGER 1)E COVE RLE Y PAPERS. circumstances which make it rather appear like a novel than a true story. Eudoxus and Leontine began the world with small estates. Tiiey were both of them men of 5 good sense and great virtue. They prosecuted their studies together in their earlier years, and en- tered into such a friendship as lasted to the end of their lives. Eudoxus, at his first setting out in the world, threw himself into a court, where by 10 his natural endowments and his acquired abilities he made his way from one post to another, till at length he had raised a very considerable fortune. Leontine, on the contrary, sought all opportu- nities of improving his mind by study, conversa- 15 tion, and travel. He was not only acquainted with all the sciences, but with the most eminent professors of them throughout Europe. He knew perfectly well the interests of its princes, with tlie customs and fashions of their courts, 20 and could scarce meet with the name of an ex- traordinary person in the gazette whom he had not either talked to or seen. In short, he had so well mixed and digested his knowledge of men and books, that he made one of the most accomplished THE TRAINING OF AN HEIR. 157 persons of his age. During the whole course of his studies and travels he kept up a punctual cor- respondence with Eudoxus, who often made him- self acceptable to the principal men about court by the intelligence which he received from Leon- 5 tine. When they were both turned of forty (an age in which, according to Mr. Cowley, there is no dallying with life) they determined, pursuant to the resolution they had taken in the beginning of their lives, to retire and pass the remainder 10 of their days in the country. In order to this, they both of them married much about the same time. Leontine, with his own and his wife's for- tune, bought a farm of three hundred a year, which lay within the neighborhood of his friend 15 Eudoxus, who had purchased an estate of as many thousands. They were both of them fathers about the same time, Eudoxus having a son born to him, and Leontine a daughter ; but, to the unspeakable grief of the latter, his young 20 wife (in whom all his happiness was wrapped up) died in a few days after the birth of her daugh- ter. His affliction would have been insupport- able, had not he been comforted by the daily visits 158 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS. and conversations of his friend. As they were one day talking together witli their usual inti- macy, Leontine, considering how incapable he was of giving his daughter a proper education in his 5 own house, and Eudoxus reflecting on the ordi- nary behavior of a son who knows himself to be the heir of a great estate, they both agreed upon an exchange of children, namely, that the boy should be bred up with Leontine as his son, and 10 that the girl should live with Eudoxus as his daughter, till they were each of them arrived at years of discretion. The wife of Eudoxus, know- ing that her son could not be so advantageously brought up as under the care of Leontine, and 15 considering at the same time that he would be perpetually under her own eye, was by degrees prevailed upon to fall in with the project. She therefore took Leonilla, for that was the name of the girl, and educated her as her own daughter. 20 The two friends on each side had wrought them- selves to such an habitual tenderness for the chil- dren who were under their direction, that each of them had the real passion of a fatlier, where the title was but imaginary. Florio, the name of the THE TRAINING OF AN HEIR. 159 young heir that lived with Leontine, though he had all the duty and affection imaginable for his supposed parent, was taught to rejoice at the sight of Eudoxus, who visited his friend very fre- quently, and was dictated by his natural affection, 5 as well as by the rules of prudence, to make him- self esteemed and beloved by Florio. The boy was now old enough to know his supposed father's circumstances, and that therefore he was to make his way in the world by his own industry. This lO consideration grew stronger in him every day, and produced so good an effect that he applied him- self with more than ordinary attention to the pur- suit of everything which Leontine recommended to him. His natural abilities, which were very 15 good, assisted by the directions of so excellent a counsellor, enabled him to make a quicker prog- ress than ordinary through all the parts of his education. Before he was twenty years of age, having finished his studies and exercises with 20 great applause, he was removed from the univer- sity to the inns of court, where there are very few that make themselves considerable proficients in the studies of the place, who know they shall ar- 160 SIR ROGER BE COVERLET PAPERS. rive at great estates without them. This was not Florio's case ; he found that three hundred a year was but a poor estate for Leontine and himself to live upon, so that he studied without intermission 5 till he gained a very good insight into the constitu- tion and laws of his country. I should have told my reader that whilst Florio lived at the house of his foster-father, he was always an acceptable guest in the family of Eu- 10 doxus, where he became acquainted with Leonilla from her infancy. His acquaintance with her by degrees grew into love, which in a mind trained up in all the sentiments of honor and virtue be- came a very uneasy passion. He despaired of 15 gaining an heiress of so great a fortune, and would rather have died than attempted it by any indirect methods. Leonilla, who was a woman of the greatest beauty, joined with the greatest mod- esty, entertained at the same time a secret passion 20 for Florio, but conducted herself with so much prudence that she never gave him the least inti- mation of it. Florio was now engaged in all those arts and improvements that are proper to raise a man's private fortune, and give him a fig- TEE TRAINING OF AN HEIR. 161 ure in his country, but secretly tormented with that passion which burns with the greatest fury in a virtuous and noble heart, when he received a sudden summons from Leontine to repair to him into the country the next day. For it seems Eu- 5 doxus was so filled with the report of his son's reputation that he could no longer withhold mak- ing himself known to him. The morning after his arrival at the house of his supposed father, Leontine told him that Eudoxus had something of 10 great importance to communicate to him : upon which the good man embraced him and wept. Florio was no sooner arrived at the great house that stood in his neighborhood, but Eudoxus took him by the hand, after the first salutes were over, 15 and conducted him into his closet. He there opened to him the whole secret of his parentage and education, concluding after this manner, " I have no other way left of acknowledging my grati- tude to Leontine, than by marrying you to his 20 daughter. He shall not lose the pleasure of being your father by the discovery I have made to you. Leonilla too shall be still my daughter ; her filial piety, though misplaced, has been so exemplary 162 SIR ROGER BE COVERLEY PAPERS. that it deserves the greatest reward I can confer upon it. You shall have the pleasure of seeing a great estate fall to you, which you would have lost the relish of, had you known yourself born to 5 it. Continue only to deserve it in the same man- ner you did before you were possessed of it. I have left your mother in the next room. Her heart yearns towards you. She is making the same discoveries to Leonilla which I have made to 10 yourself." Florio was so overwhelmed with this profusion of happiness that he was not able to make a reply, but threw himself down at his father's feet, and amidst a flood of tears, kissed and embraced his knees, asking his blessing, and 15 expressing in dumb show those sentiments of love, duty, and gratitude, that were too big for utter- ance. To conclude, the happy pair were married and half Eudoxus's estate settled upon them. Leon tine and Eudoxus passed the remainder of 20 their lives together; and received in the dutiful and affectionate behavior of Florio and Leonilla the just recompense, as well as the natural effects of that care wliich they had bestowed upon them in their education. L. PARTISAN PREJUDICE. 163 PARTISAN PREJUDICE. No. 125. Tuesday, July 24, 1711. Ne pueri, ne tanta animis adsuescite bella Neu patriae validas in viscera vertite vires. ViRG. JEn. vi. 832. My worthy friend Sir Roger, when we are talking of the malice of parties, very frequently tells us an accident that happened to him when he was a school-boy, which was at a time when the feuds ran high between the Roundheads and 5 Cavaliers. This worthy knight, being then but a stripling, had occasion to inquire which was the way to St. Anne's Lane, upon whicli the person whom he spoke to, instead of answering his ques- tion, called him a young popish cur, and asked lo him who had made Anne a saint ! The boy, being in some confusion, inquired of the next he met, which was the way to Anne's Lane ; but was 164 SIR ROGER DE COVERLET PAPERS. called a prick-eared cur for his pains, and instead of being shown the way, was told that she had been a saint before he was born, and would be one after he was hanged. " Upon this," says Sir Roger, 5 "I did not think fit. to repeat the former question, but going into every lane of the neighborhood, asked what they called the name of that lane." By which ingenious artifice he found out the place he inquired after, without giving offence to any 10 party. Sir Roger generally closes this narrative Avith reflections on the mischief that parties do in the country ; how they spoil good neighborhood and make honest gentlemen hate one another ; be- sides that they manifestly tend to the prejudice of 15 the land-tax and the destruction of the game. There cannot a greater judgment befall a coun- try than such a dreadful spirit of division as rends a government into two distinct people, and makes them greater strangers and more averse to 20 one another than if they were actually two differ- ent nations. The effects of such a division are pernicious to the last degree, not only with regard to those advantages which they give the common enemy, but to those private evils which they pro- PARTISAN PREJUDICE. 165 duce in the heart of ahiiost every particular per- son. This influence is very fatal both to men's morals and their understandings ; it sinks the virtue of a nation, and not only so, but destroys even common sense. 5 A furious party-spirit, when it rages in its full violence, exerts itself in civil war and bloodshed ; and when it is under its greatest restraints, nat- urally breaks out in falsehood, detraction, calumny, and a partial administration of justice. In a word, 10 it fills a nation with spleen and rancor, and ex- tinguishes all the seeds of good-nature, compassion, and humanity. Plutarch says very finely that a man should not allow himself to hate even his enemies, be- 15 cause, says he, if you indulge this passion in some occasions, it will rise of itself in others; if you hate your enemies, you will contract such a vicious habit of mind as by degrees will break out upon those who are your friends or those who are in- 20 different to you. I might here observe how ad- mirably this precept of morality (which derives the malignity of hatred from the passion itself, and not from its object) answers to that great 166 SIR ROGER I)E COVERLET PAPERS. rule which Avas dictated to the world about an hundred years before this philosopher wrote ; but instead of that, I shall only take notice, with a real grief of heart, that the minds of many good 5 men among us appear soured with party prin- ciples, and alienated from one another in such a manner as seems to me altogether inconsistent with the dictates either of reason or religion. Zeal for a public cause is apt to breed passions in 10 the hearts of virtuous persons, to which the re- gard of their own private interest would never have betrayed them. If this party spirit has so ill an effect on our morals, it has likewise a very great one upon 15 our judgments. We often hear a poor insipid paper or pamphlet cried up, and sometimes a noble piece depreciated by those who are of a different principle from the author. One who is actuated by this spirit is almost under an inca- 20 pacity of discerning either real blemishes or beau- ties. A man of merit in a different principle is like an object seen in two different mediums, that appears crooked or broken, however straight and entire it may be iu itself. For this reason there PARTISAN PREJUDICE. 167 is scarce a person of any figure in England, who does not go by two contrary characters, as opposite to one another as light and darkness. Knowledge and learning suffer in a particular manner from this strange prejudice, which at present prevails 5 amongst all ranks and degrees in the British na- tion. As men formerly became eminent in learned societies by their parts and acquisitions, they now distinguish themselves by the warmth and violence with which they espouse their respective parties. 10 Books are valued upon the like considerations : an abusive, scurrilous style passes for satire, and a dull scheme of party notions is called fine writing. There is one piece of sophistry practised by both sides, and that is the taking any scandalous story 15 that has been ever whispered or invented of a private man, for a known undoubted truth, and raising suitable speculations upon it. Calumnies that have been never proved, or have been often refuted, are the ordinary postulatums of these in- 20 famous scribblers, upon which they proceed as upon first principles granted by all men, though in their hearts they know they are false, or at best very doubtful. When they have laid these 168 SIR ROGER DE COVERLET PAPERS. foundations of scurrility, it is no wonder that their superstructure is every way answerable to them. If this shameless practice of the present age en- dures much longer, praise and reproach will cease 6 to be motives of action in good men. There are certain periods of time in all govern- ments when this inhuman spirit prevails. Italy was long torn in pieces by the Guelfs and Ghibe- lines, and France by those who were for and 10 against the League ; but it is very unhappy for a man to be born in such a stormy and tempestu- ous season. It is the restless ambition of artful men that thus breaks a people into factions, and draws several well-meaning persons to their inter- 15 est by a specious concern for their country. How many honest minds are filled with uncharitable and barbarous notions, out of their zeal for the public good? What cruelties and outrages would they not commit against men of an adverse party, 20 whom they would honor and esteem, if instead of considering them as they are represented, they knew them as they are? Thus are persons of the greatest probity seduced into shameful errors and prejudices, and made bad men even by that PARTISAN PREJUDICE. 169 noblest of principles, the love of their country. I cannot here forbear mentioning the famous Spanish proverb, " If there were neither fools nor knaves in the world, all people would be of one mind." For my own part, I could heartily wish that all 5 honest men would enter into an association for the support of one another against the endeavors of those whom they ought to look upon as their common enemies, whatsoever side they may belong to. Were there such an honest body of neutral 10 forces, we should never see the worst of men in great figures of life, because they are useful to a party ; nor the best unregarded, because they are above practising those methods which would be grateful to their faction. We should then single 15 every criminal out of the herd, and hunt him down, however formidable and overgrown he might appear : on the contrary, we should shelter distressed innocence, and defend virtue, however beset with contempt or ridicule, envy or defama- 20 tion. In short, we should not any longer regard our fellow-subjects as Whigs and Tories, but should make the man of merit our friend, and the villain our enemy. q 170 ^IJti tiOQEU BE COVERLET FAFEJtiS. SIR ROGER'S PARTY SPIRIT. No. 126. Wednesday, July 25, 1711. Tros Rutulusve fiiat, uullo discrimine habebo. ViRG. ^n. X. 108. In niy yesterday's paper I proposed that the honest men of all parties should enter into a kind of association for the defence of one another, and the confusion of their common enemies. As it is 5 designed this neutral body should act with a re- gard to nothing but truth and equity, and divest themselves of the little heats and prepossessions that cleave to parties of all kinds, I have prepared for them the following form of an association, 10 which may express their intentions in the most plain and simple manner. "We whose names are hereunto subscribed, do solemnly declare that we do in our consciences believe two and two make four; and that we shall adjudge any man whatso- SIR nOGEWS PARTY SPIRIT. 171 ever to be our enemy, wlio endeavors to jjersuade lis to the contrary. We are likewise ready to maintain, with the hazard of all that is near and dear to us, that six is less than seven in all times and all places ; and that ten will not be more three years hence than it is at present. We 5 do also firmly declare that it is our resolution as long as we live to call black black, and white wdiite. And we shall upon all occasions oppose such persons that upon any day of the year shall call black white, or white black, with the utmost peril of our lives and fortunes.'"' 10 Were there such a combination of honest men, who, without any regard to places, would endeavor to extirpate all such furious zealots as would sac- rifice one half of their country to the passion and interest of the other; as also such infamous hypo- 15 crites that are for promoting their own advantage under color of the public good ; with all the prof- ligate immoral retainers to each side, that have nothing to recommend them but an implicit sub- mission to their leaders ; we should soon see that 20 furious party spirit extinguished which may in time expose us to the derision and contempt of all the nations about us. A member of this society that would thus care- fully employ himself in making room for merit, 25 172 SIR ROGER BE COVERLEY PAPERS. by throwing down the worthless and depraved part of mankind from those conspicuous stations of Ufe to which they have been sometimes ad- vanced, and all this without any regard to his 5 private interest, would be no small benefactor to his country. T remember to have read in Diodorus Siculus an account of a very active little animal, which I think he calls the ichneumon, that makes it the 10 whole business of his life to break the eggs of the crocodile, which he is always in search after. This instinct is the more remarkable, because the ich- neumon never feeds upon the eggs he has broken, nor in any other way finds his account in them. 15 Were it not for the incessant labors of this indus- trious animal, Egypt (says the historian) would be overrun with crocodiles ; for the Egyptians are so far from destroying those pernicious creatures, that they worship them as gods. 20 If we look into the behavior of ordinary parti- sans, we shall find them far from resembling this disinterested animal ; and rather acting after the example of the wild Tartars, who are ambitious of destroying a man of the most extraordinary parts ^7A' ROGER'S PARTY SPIRIT. 173 and accomplishments, as thinking that, upon his decease, the same talents, whatever post they quali- fied him for, enter of course into his destroyer. As in the whole train of my speculations, I have endeavored, as much as I am able, to extin- 5 guish that pernicious spirit of passion and preju- dice which rages with the same violence in all parties, I am still the more desirous of doing some good in this particular, because I observe that the spirit of party reigns more in the country than in 10 the town. It here contracts a kind of brutality and rustic fierceness, to which men of a politer conversation are wholly strangers. It extends itself even to the return of the bow and the hat ; and at the same time that the heads of parties 15 preserve towards one another an outward show of good breeding, and keep up a perpetual inter- course of civilities, their tools that are dispersed in these outlying parts will not so much as mingle together at a cock-match. This humor fills the 20 country with several periodical meetings of Whig jockeys and Tory fox-hunters ; not to mention the innumerable curses, frowns, and whispers it pro- duces at a quarter-session. 174 SIR ROGER BE COVERLET PAPERS. I do not know whether I have observed in any of my former papers that my friends, Sir Roger de Coverley and Sir Andrew Freeport, are of different principles ; the first of them inclined to 5 the landed, and the other to the moneyed interest. This humor is so moderate in each of them that it proceeds no farther than to an agreeable rail- lery, which very often diverts the rest of the club. I find, however, that the knight is a much stronger 10 Tory in the country than in town, which, as he has told me in my ear, is absolutely necessary for the keeping up his interest. In all our journey from London to his house, we did not so much as bait at a Whig inn ; or if by chance the coachman 15 stopped at a wrong place, one of Sir Roger's ser- vants would ride up to his master full speed, and whisper to him that the master of the house was against such an one in the last election. This often betrayed us into hard beds and bad cheer ; 20 for we were not so inquisitive about the inn as the inn-keeper ; and provided our landlord's principles were sound, did not take any notice of the stale- ness of his provisions. This I found still the more inconvenient, because the better the host was, the SIB ROGER'S PARTY SPIRIT. 175 worse generally were his accommodations ; the fellow knowing very well that those who were his friends would take up with coarse diet and an hard lodging. For these reasons, all the while I was upon the road, I dreaded entering into an house 5 of any one that Sir Roger had applauded for an honest man. Since my stay at Sir Roger's in the country, I daily find more instances of this narrow party humor. Being upon the bowling-green at a neigh- 10 boring market-town the other day, (for that is the place where the gentlemen of one side meet once a week) I observed a stranger among them of a better presence and genteeler behavior than ordi- nary ; but was much surprised, that notwithstand- 15 ing he was a very fair bettor, nobody would take him up. But upon inquiry I found that he was one who had given a disagreeable vote in a former Parliament, for which reason there was not a man upon that bowling-green who would have so much 20 correspondence with him as to win his money of him. Among other instances of this nature, I must not omit one which concerns myself. Will Wim- 176 SIR ROGER BE COVERLET PAPERS. ble was the other day relating several strange stories that he had picked up, nobody knows where, of a certain great man ; and upon my star- ing at him, as one that was surprised to hear such 5 things in the country, which had never been so much as whispered in the town. Will stopped short in the thread of his discourse, and after dinner asked my friend Sir Roger in liis ear, if he was sure that I was not a fiuiatic. 10 ^It gives me a serious concern to see such a spirit of dissension in the country ; not only as it destroys virtue and common sense, and renders us in a manner barbarians towards one another, but as it perpetuates our animosities, widens our 15 breaches, and transmits our present passions and prejudices to our posterity. For my own part, I am sometimes afraid that I discover the seeds of a civil war in these our divisions : and therefore cannot but bewail, as in their first principles, the 20 miseries and calamities of our children. C. SIR ROGER AND THE GIPSIES. 177 SIR ROGER AND THE GYPSIES. No. 130. Monday, July 30, 1711, ■Semperque recentes , Coiivectare juvat prjcdas, et vivere rapto. ViRcj. .En. vii. 748. As I was yesterday riding out in the fields with my friend Sir Roger, we saw at a little distance from us a troop of gypsies. Upon tlie first dis- covery of them, my friend was in some doubt whether he should not exert the Justice of the 5 Peace upon such a band of lawless vagrants : but not having his clerk with him, who is a necessary counsellor on these occasions, and fearing that his poultry might fare the worse for it, he let the thought drop. But at the same time gave me a 10 particular account of the mischiefs they do in the country, in stealing peoples' goods, and spoiling their servants. " If a stray piece of linen hangs upon an hedge,*' says Sir Roger, " they are sure to 178 ISIR ROGER BE COVERLET PAPERS. have it; if the hog loses his way in the fields, it is ten to one but he becomes their prey: our geese cannot live in peace for them. If a man prosecutes them with severity, his hen-roost is 5 sure to pay for it. They generally straggle into these parts about this time of the year; and set the heads of our servant-maids so agog for hus- bands, that we do not expect to have any business done, as it should be, whilst they are in the 10 country. I have an honest dairy-maid who crosses their hands with a piece of silver every summer ; and never fails being promised the handsomest young fellow in the parish for her pains. Your friend the butler has been fool enough to be 15 seduced by them ; and though he is sure to lose a knife, a fork, or a spoon, every time his fortune is told him, generally shuts himself up in the pantry with an old gypsy for above half an hour once in a twelvemonth. Sweethearts are the 20 things they live upon, which they bestow very plentifully upon all those that apply themselves to them." Sir Roger, observing that I listened with great attention to his account of a people who were so SIR ROGER AND THE GYPSIES. 179 entirely new to me, told me that if I would, they should tell us our fortunes. As I was very well pleased with the knight's proposal, we rid up and communicated our hands to them. A Cassandra of the crew, after having examined my hues very 5 diligently, told me that 1 loved a pretty maid in a corner, that I was a good woman's man. My friend Sir Roger alighted from his horse, and ex- posing his palm to two or three that stood by him, they crumpled it into all shapes, and diligently 10 scanned every wrinkle that could be made in it ; when one of them, who was older, and more sun- burnt, than the rest, told him that he had a widow in his line of life : upon which the knight cried, " Go, go, you are an idle baggage ; " and at the 15 same time smiled upon me. The gypsy, finding he was not displeased in his heart, told him, after a further inquiry into his hand, that his true-love was constant, and that she should dream of him to-night. My old friend cried pish, and bid her 20 go on. The gypsy told him that he was a bach- elor, but would not be so long ; and that he was dearer to somebody than he thought. The knight still repeated, she was an idle baggage, and bid 180 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS. her go on. " Ah, master," says the gypsy, " that roguish leer of yours makes a pretty woman's heart ache ; you ha'n't that simper about the mouth for nothing." The uncouth gibberish with 5 which all this was uttered, like the darkness of an oracle, made us the more attentive to it. To be short, the knight left the money with her that he had crossed her hand with, and got up again on his horse. 10 As we were riding away. Sir Roger told me that he knew several sensible people who believed these gypsies now and then foretold very strange things ; and for half an hour together appeared more jocund than ordinary. In the height of this 15 good humor, meeting a common beggar upon the road who was no conjurer, as he went to relieve him, he found his pocket was picked ; that being a kind of palmistry at which this race of vermin are very dexterous. 20 I might here entertain my reader with historical remarks on this idle, profligate people, who infest all the countries of Europe, and live in the midst of governments in a kind of commonwealth by themselves. But, instead of entering into observa- SIR UOJELl AND THE GYPSIES. 181 tions of this nature, I shall fill the remaining part of my paper with a story which is still fresh in Holland, and was printed in one of our monthly accounts about twenty years ago. " As the Trekschuyt, or Hackney-boat, which carries pas- 5 sengers from Leyden to Amsterdam, was putting off, a boy running along the side of the canal, desired to be taken in ; which the master of the boat refused, because the lad had not quite money enough to pay the usual fare. An eminent mer- lo chant, being pleased with the looks of the boy, and secretly touched with compassion towards him, paid the money for him, and ordered him to be taken on board. Upon talking with him after- wards, he found that he could speak readily in 15 three or four languages, and learned upon further examination that he had been stolen away when he was a child by a gypsy, and had rambled ever since with a gang of those strollers up and down several parts of Europe. It happened that the 20 merchant, whose heart seems to have inclined towards the boy by a secret kind of instinct, had himself lost a child some years before. The parents, after a long search for him, gave him for. 182 SIR ROGER BE COVERLEY PAPERS. drowned in one of the canals with which that country abounds ; and the mother was so afflicted at the loss of a fine boy, who was her only son, that she died for grief of it. Upon laying together 5 all particulars, and examining the several moles and marks by which the mother used to describe the child when he was first missing, the boy proved to be the son of the merchant, whose heart had so unaccountably melted at the sight of him. 10 The lad was very well pleased to find a father who was so rich, and likely to leave him a good estate : the father, on the other hand, was not a little delighted to see a son return to him, whom he had given for lost, with such a strength of con- 15 stitution, sharpness of understanding, and skill in languages." Here the printed story leaves off; but if I may give credit to reports, our linguist, having received such extraoidinary rudiments towards a good education, was afterwards trained 20 up in every thing that becomes a gentleman ; wearing off, by little and little, all the vicious habits and practices that he had been used to in the course of his peregrinations : nay, it is said, that he has since been employed in foreign courts SIR ROGER AND THE GYPSIES. 183 upon national business, with great reputation to himself, and honor to those who sent him, and that he has visited several countries as a public minister, in which he formerly wandered as a gypsy- CJ. 18 J: SIM ROGER BE COVERLET PAPERS. THE END OF THE SPECTATOR'S VISIT. No. 131. Tuesday, July 31, 1711. Ipsae rursus concedite sylvae. ViRG. Eel. X. 63. It is usual for a man who loves country sports to preserve the game in his own grounds, and divert himself upon those that belong to his neighbor. My friend Sir Roger generally goes 5 two or three miles from his house, and gets into the frontiers of his estate, before he beats about in search of a hare or partridge, on purpose to spare his own fields, where he is always sure of finding diversion when the worst comes to the 10 worst. By this means the breed about his house has time to increase and multiply, besides that the sport is more agreeable where the game is harder to come at, and where it does not lie so thick as THE END OF THE SPECTATOR'S VISIT 185 to produce any perplexity or confusion in the pursuit. For these reasons the country gentle- man, like the fox, seldom preys near his own home. In the same manner I have made a month's 5 excursion out of the town, which is the great field of game for sportsmen of my species, to try my fortune in the country, where I have started several subjects, and hunted them down, with some pleasure to myself, and I hope to others. I 10 am here forced to use a great deal of diligence before I can spring any thing to my mind, whereas in town, whilst I am following one character, it is ten to one but I am crossed in my way by another, and put up such a variety of odd creatures in 15 both sexes, that they foil the scent of one another, and puzzle the chase. My greatest difficulty in the country is to find sport, and in town to choose it. In the meantime, as I have given a whole month's rest to the cities of London and West- 20 minster, I promise myself abundance of new game upon my return thither. It is indeed high time for me to leave the country, since I find the whole neighborhood begin 18G SIR ROGER BE COVERLET PAPERS. to grow very inquisitive after my name and character: my love of solitude, taciturnity, and particular way of life having raised a great curi- osity in all these parts. 5 The notions which have been framed of me are various ; some look upon me as very proud, some as very modest, and some as very melancholy. Will Wimble, as my friend the butler tells me, observing me very much alone, and extremely 10 silent when I am in company, is afraid I have killed a man. The country people seem to sus- pect me for a conjurer ; and some of them, hear- ing of the visit which I made to Moll White, will needs have it that Sir Roger has brought down a 15 cunning man with him, to cure the old woman and free the country from her charms. So that the character which I go under in part of the neighborhood is what they here call a ivhite witch. A justice of peace, who lives about five miles off, 20 and is not of Sir Roger's party, has, it seems, said twice or thrice at his table, that he wishes Sir Roger does not harbor a Jesuit in his house, and that he thinks the gentlemen of the country would do very well to make me give some account of myself. THE END OF THE SPECTATOR'S VISIT. 18T On the other side, some of Sir Roger's friends are afraid the old knight is imposed upon by a designing feUow, and as they have heard he con- verses very promiscuously when he is in toAvn, do not know but he has brought down with him 5 some discarded Whig, that is sullen and says nothing, because he is out of place. Such is the variety of opinions which are here entertained of me, so that I pass among some for a disaffected person, and among others for a 10 Popish priest ; among some for a wizard, and among others for a murderer ; and all this for no other reason that I can imagine, but because I do not hoot and halloo and make a noise. It is true, my friend Sir Roger tells them that it is my way, 15 and that I am only a philosopher ; but this will not satisfy them. They think there is more in me than he discovers, and that I do not hold my tongue for nothing. For these and other reasons I shall set out for 20 London to-morrow, having found by experience that the country is not a place for a person of my temper, who does not love jollity, and what they call good-neighborhood. A man that is out of 188 SIR ROGER I)E COVERLEY PAPERS. humor when an unexpected guest breaks in upon him, and does not care for sacrificing an afternoon to every chance comer ; that will be the master of his OAvn time, and the pursuer of his own inclina- 5 tions, makes but a very unsociable figure in this kind of life. I shall therefore retire into the town, if I may make use of that phrase, and get into the crowd again as fast as I can, in order to be alone. I can there raise what speculations I 10 please upon others, without being observed my- self, and at tlie same time enjoy all the advan- tages of company with all the privileges of soli- tude. In the meanwhile, to finish the month, and conclude these my rural speculations, I shall here 15 insert a letter from my friend Will Honeycomb, who has not lived a month for these forty years out of the smoke of liondon, and rallies me after his way upon my country life. " Dear Spec. 20 "I SUPPOSE this letter will find thee picking of daisies, or smelling to a lock of hay, or passing away thy time in some innocent country diversion of the like nature. I have, however, orders from the club to summon thee up to town, being all of us cursedly afraid thou wilt not be able THE END OF THE SPECTATOR'S VISIT. 189 to relish our company after thy conversations with Moll White and Will Wimble. Prythee don't send us up any more stories of a cock and bull, nor frighten the town with . spirits and witches. Thy speculations begin to smell con- foundedly of w^oods and meadows. If thou dost not come 5 up quickly we shall conclude thou art in love with one of Sir Roger's dairy maids. Service to the Knight. Sir An- drew is grown the cock of the club since he left us, and if he does not return quickly, will make every mother's son of us commonwealth's men. 10 " Dear Spec, thine eternally, '* Will Honeycomb." C. 190 SIR ROGELl 1)E COVEtiLEY PAPERS. THE SPECTATOR'S JOURNEY TO LONDON. No. 132. Wednesday, Aiig 1. 1711 Qui aiit tempus quid postulet nou videt, aut plura loquitur, aut se ostentat, aut eoruni quibuscum est rationem non habet, is ineptus esse dicitur. — Cicero, De Oratore, ii. 4, 17. Having notified to my good friend Sir Roger that I should set out for London the next day, his horses were ready at the appointed hour in the evening ; and attended by one of his grooms, I 5 arrived at the county town at twiHght, in order to be ready for the stage-coach the da}^ following. As soon as we arrived at the inn, the servant who waited upon me inquired of the chamberlain in my hearing what company he had for the coach. 10 The fellow answered, " Mrs. I>etty Arable, the great fortune, and the widow, her mother ; a re- cruiting officer (who took a place because tliey THE SFECTATOWS JOURNEY TO LONDON. 191 were to go) ; young Squire Quickset, her cousin (that lier mother wished her to be married to ) ; Ephraim, the Quaker, her guardian ; and a gentle- man that had studied himself dumb from Sir Roger de Coverley's." I observed by what he 5 said of myself that according to his office he dealt much in intelligence ; and doubted not but there was some foundation for his reports of the rest of the company, as well as for the whimsical account he gave of me. 10 The next morning at daybreak we were all called ; and I, who know my own natural shy- ness, and endeavor to be as little liable to be disputed with as possible, dressed immediately, that I might make no one wait. The first prepa- 15 ration for our setting out was, that the captain's halfpike was placed near the coachman, and a drum behind the coach. In the meantime the drummer, the captain's equipage, was very loud that none of the captain's things should be placed 20 so as to be spoiled ; upon which his cloak-bag was fixed in the seat of the coach ; and the captain himself, according to a frequent, though invidi- ous behavior of military men, ordered his man to 192 SIR ROGER BE COVE RLE Y PAPERS. look sharp that none but one of the ladies should have the place he had taken fronting to the coach-box. We were in some little time fixed in our seats, 5 and sat with that dislike which people not too good natured usually conceive of each other at first sight. The coach jumbled us insensibly into some sort of familiarity, and we had not moved above two miles when the widow asked the cap- 10 tain what success he had in his recruiting. The officer, with a frankness he believed very graceful, told her that indeed he had but very little luck, and had suffered much by desertion, therefore should be glad to end his warfare in the service 15 of her or lier fair daughter. " In a word," con- tinued he, " I am a soldier, and to be plain is my character ; you see me, madam, young, sound, and impudent ; take me yourself, widow, or give me to her ; I will be wholly at your disposal. I am a 20 soldier of fortune, ha I " This was followed by a vain laugh of his own, and a deep silence of all the rest of the company. I had nothing left for it but to fall fast asleep, which I did with all speed. " Come," said he, " resolve upon it, we THE SPECTATOR'S JOURNEY TO LONDON. 193 will make a wedding at the next town : we will wake this pleasant companion who has fallen asleep, to be the brideman, and," giving the Quaker a clap on the knee, he concluded, " this sly saint, who, I'll warrant, understands what's what as 5 well as you or I, widow, shall give the bride as father." The Quaker, who happened to be a man of smartness, answered, " Friend, I take it in good part that thou hast given me the authority of a 10 father over this comely and virtuous child ; and I must assure thee that, if I have the giving her, I shall not bestow her on thee. Thy mirth, friend, savoreth of folly ; thou art a person of a light mind ; thy drum is a type of thee — it soundeth 15 because it is empty. Verily, it is not from thy fulness but from thy emptiness that thou hast spoken this day. Friend, friend, we have hired this coach in partnership with thee, to carry us to the great city ; we cannot go any other way. 20 This worthy mother must hear thee if thou wilt needs utter thy follies : we cannot help it, friend, I say — if thou wilt, we must hear thee ; but, if thou wert a man of understanding, thou wouldst 194 SIR ROGER BE COVERLET PAPERS. not take advantage of thy courageous countenance to abash us children of peace. Thou art, thou sayest, a soldier ; give quarter to us who cannot resist thee. Why didst thou fleer at our friend, 5 who feigned himself asleep? He said nothing, but how dost thou know what he containeth? If thou speakest improper things in the hearing of this virtuous young virgin, consider it as an out- rage against a distressed person that cannot get 10 from thee : to speak indiscreetly what we are obliged to hear, by being hasped up with thee in this public vehicle, is in some degree assaulting on the high road." Here Ephraim paused, and the captain with an 15 happy and uncommon impudence, which can be convicted and support itself at the same time, cries, " Faith, friend, I thank thee ; I should have been a little impertinent if thou hadst not repri- manded me. Come, thou art, I see, a smoky old 20 fellow, and 111 be very orderly the ensuing part of the journey. I was going to give myself airs, but, ladies, I beg pardon." The captain was so little out of humor, and our company was so far from being soured by this THE ISFECTArOR'S JOURNEY TO LONDON. 195 little ruffle, that Ephraim and he took a particular delight in being agreeable to each other for the future ; and assumed their different provinces in the conduct of the company. Our reckonings, apartments, and accommodation fell under Eph- 5 raim ; and the captain looked to all disputes on the road, as the good behavior of our coachman, and the right he had of taking place as going to London of all vehicles coming from thence. The occurrences we met with were ordinary, 10 and very little happened which could entertain by the relation of them ; but when I considered the company we were in, I took it for no small good fortune that the whole journey was not spent in impertinences, which to one part of us might be 15 an entertainment, to the other a suffering. What, therefore, Ephraim said when we were almost arrived at London had to me an air not only of good understanding but good breeding. Upon the young lady's expressing her satisfaction 20 in the journey, and declaring how delightful it had been to her, Ephraim delivered himself as follows : " There is no ordinary part of human life which expresseth so much a good mind and a 196 iSIR ROGER BE COVERLEY PAPERS. right inward man as his behavior upon meeting with strangers, especially such as may seem the most unsuitable companions to him ; such a man, when he falleth in the way with persons of sim- 5 plicity and innocence, however knowing he may be in the ways of men, will not vaunt himself thereof : but will the- rather liide his superiority to them, that he may not be painful unto them. My good friend," continued he, turning to the officer, 10 " thee and I are to part by and by, and perad ven- ture we may never meet again ; but be advised by a plain man ; modes and apparel are but trifles to the real man, therefore do not think such a man as thyself terrible for thy garb, nor such a one as 15 me contemptible for mine. When two such as thee and I meet, with affections as we ought to have towards each other, thou shouldst rejoice to see my peaceable demeanor, and I should be glad to see thy strength and ability to protect 20 me in it." T. SIR ROGER'S ARRIVAL IN TOWN, 197 SIR ROGER'S ARRIVAL IN TOWN. No. 269. Tuesday, January 8, 1711-12. ^vo rarissima nostro Simplicitas Ovid, Ars Am. i. 241. I WAS this morning surprised with a great knocking at the door, when my landlady's daugh- ter came up to me and told me that there was a man below desired to speak with me. Upon my asking her who it was, she told me it was a very 5 grave elderly person, but that she did not know his name. I immediately went down to him, and found him to be the coachman of my worthy friend Sir Roger de Coverley. He told me that his master came to town last night, and would be 10 glad to take a turn with me in Gray's Inn walks. As I was wondering to myself what had brought Sir Roger to town, not having lately received any 198 SIR ROGER BE COVERLEY PAPERS. letter from liim, he told me that his master was come up to get a sight of Prince Eugene, and that he desired I would immediately meet him. 1 was not a little pleased with the curiosit}^ of 5 the old knight, though I did not much wonder at it, having heard him say more than once in pri- vate discourse that he looked upon Prince Euge- nio (for so the knight always calls him) to be a greater man than Scanderbeg. 10 I was no sooner come to Gray's Inn walks, but I heard my friend upon the terrace he77i7ning twice or thrice to himself with great vigor, for he loves to clear liis pipes in good air (to make use of his own phrase) and is not a little pleased with any 15 one who takes notice of the strength which he still exerts in his morning he7ns. I was touched with a secret joy at the sight of the good old man, who before he saw me was en- gaged in conversation with a beggar-man that had 20 asked an alms of him. I could hear my friend chide him for not finding out some work ; but at the same time saw him put his hand in his pocket and give him sixpence. Our salutations were very hearty on both sides. SIR ROGER'S ARRIVAL IN TOWN. 199 consisting of many kind shakes of the hand, and several affectionate looks which we cast upon one another. After which the knight told me m}^ good friend his chaplain was very well, and much at my service, and that the Sunday before he had 5 made a most incomparable sermon out of Doctor Barrow. " I have left," says he, " all my affairs in his hands, and being willing to lay an obliga- tion upon liim, have deposited with him thirty marks, to be distributed among his poor parish 10 ioners." He then proceeded to acquaint me with the welfare of Will Wimble. Upon which he put his hand into his fob, and presented me in his name with a tobacco stopper, telling me that Will had 15 been busy all the beginning of the winter in turn- ing great quantities of them ; and that he made a present of one to every gentleman of the country who has good principles and smokes. He added that poor Will was at present under great tribula- 20 tion, for that Tom Touchy had taken the law of him for cutting some hazel sticks out of one of his hedges. Among other pieces of news which the knight 200 SIR ROGER BE COVER LEY PAPERS. brought from his country seat, he informed me that Moll White was dead ; and that about a month after her death the wind was so very high, that it blew down the end of one of his barns. 5 " But for my part," says Sir Roger, *' I do not think that the old woman had any hand in it." He afterwards fell into an account of the diver- sions which had passed in his house during the holidays, for Sir Roger, after the laudable custom 10 of his ancestors, always keeps open house at Christmas. I learned from him, that he had killed eight fat hogs for the season, that he had dealt about his chines very liberally amongst his neighbors, and that in particular he had sent a 15 string of hog's puddings with a pack of cards to every poor family in the parish. " I have often thought," says Sir Roger, " it happens very well that Christmas should fall out in the middle of the winter. It is the most dead uncomfortable time 20 of the year, when the poor people would suffer very much from their poverty and cold, if they had not good cheer, warm fires, and Christmas gambols to support them. I love to rejoice their poor hearts at this season, and to see the whole SIR ROGER'S ARRIVAL IN TOWN. 201 village merry in my great hall. I allow a double quantity of malt to my small beer, and set it a- running for twelve days to every one that calls for it. I have always a piece of cold beef and a mince-pie upon the table, and am wonderfully 5 pleased to see my tenants pass away a whole even- ing in playing their innocent tricks and smutting one another. Our friend Will Wimble is as merry as any of them, and shows a thousand roguish tricks upon these occasions." 10 1 was very much delighted with the reflection of my old friend, which carried so much goodness in it. He then launched out into the praise of the late act of Parliament for securing the Church of England, and told me with great satisfaction 15 that he believed it already began to take effect: for that a rigid dissenter, who chanced to dine at his house on Christmas day, had been observed to eat very plentifully of his plum-porridge. After having dispatched all our country mat- 20 ters. Sir Roger made several inquiries concerning the club, and particularly of his old antagonist. Sir Andrew Freeport. He asked me with a kind of smile, whether Sir Andrew had not taken the 202 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS. advantage of his absence, to vent among them some of his republican doctrines ; but soon after gathering up his countenance into a more than ordinary seriousness, " Tell me truly," says he, 5 " don't you think Sir Andrew had a hand in the Pope's Procession " but without giving me time to answer him, " Well, well," says he, " I know you are a wary man and do not care to talk of public matters." 10 The knight then asked me if I had seen Prince Eugenio ; and made me promise to get him a stand in some convenient place where he might have a full sight of that extraordinary man, whose presence does so much honor to the British nation. 15 He dwelt very long on the praises of this great general, and I found that since I was with him in the country, he had drawn many observations together out of his reading in Baker's Chronicle, and other authors, who always lie in his hall win- 20 dow, which very much redound to the honor of this prince. Having passed away the greatest part of the morning in hearing the knight's reflections, which w^ere partly private, and partly political, he asked me if I would smoke a pipe with him over a dish of coffee at Squire's. As I love the old man, 1 take a delight in complying with every thing that is agreeable to him, and accordingly waited on him to the coffee-house, where his venerable figure 5 drew upon us the eyes of the whole room. He had no sooner seated himself at the upper end of the high table, but he called for a clean pipe, a paper of tobacco, a dish of coffee, a wax candle, and the Supplement, with such an air of cheerful- 10 ness and good humor, that all the boys in the coffee-room (who seemed to take pleasure in serv- ing him) were at once employed on his several errands, insomuch that nobody else could come at a dish of tea, till the knight had got all his 15 conveniences about him. L. 204 ISIB ROGER I)E COVE RLE Y PAPERS. SIR ROGER'S VISIT TO WESTMINSTER ABBEY. No. 329. Tuesday, March 18, 1711-12. Ire tamen restat Numa quo devenit et Ancus. HOR. Ep. i. vi. 27. My friend Sir Roger de Coverley told me t'other night, that he had been reading my paper upon Westminster Abbey, in which, says he, there are a great many ingenious fancies. He told me at 5 the same time that he observed I had promised another paper upon the tombs, and that lie should be glad to go and see them with me, not having visited them since he had read history. I could not at first imagine how this came into the knight's 10 head, till I recollected that he had been very busy all last summer upon Baker's Chronicle, which he has quoted several times in his dispute Avitli Sir Andrew Freeport since his last coming to town. BIS VISIT TO WESTMINSTER ABBEY. ^05 Accordingly I promised to call upon him the next morning, tluit we might go together to the Abbey. I found the knight under his butler's hands, who always shaves him. He was no sooner dressed, than he called for a glass of the widow True by 's 5 water, which he told me he always drank before he went abroad. He recommended me to a dram of it at the same time, with so much heartiness that I could not forbear drinking it. As soon as I had got it down, I found it very unpalatable ; 10 upon which the knight, observing that I had made several wry faces, told me that he knew I should not like it at first, but that it was the best thing in the world against the stone or gravel. I could have wished, indeed, that he had ac- 15 quainted me with the virtues of it sooner ; but it was too late to complain, and I knew what he had done was out of good-will. Sir Roger told me further, that he looked upon it to be very good for a man whilst he staid in town, to keep off 20 infection, and that he got together a quantity of it upon the first news of the sickness being at Dantzic, w^hen of a sudden, turning short to one of his servants, who stood behind him, he bid him 206 SIR ROGER DE COVER LEY PAPERS call a hackney coach, and take care it was an elderly man that drove it. He then resumed his discourse upon Mrs. True- by's water, telling me that the widow Trueby was 5 one who did more good than all the doctors and apothecaries in the county : that she distilled every poppy that grew within five miles of lier, that she distributed her water gratis among all sorts of people ; to which the knight added that she had 10 a very great jointure, and that the whole country would fain have it a match between him and her ; " And truly," says Sir Roger, " if I had not been engaged, perhaps I could not have done better." His discourse was broken off by his man's tell- 15 ing him he had called a coach. Upon our going to it, after having cast his eye upon the wheels, he. asked the coachman if his axletree was good ; upon the fellow's telling him he would warrant it, the knight turned to me, told me he looked like 20 an honest man, and went in without further ceremony. We had not gone far, when Sir Roger, popping out his head, called the coachman down from his box, and upon his presenting himself at the win- HIS VISIT TO WESTMIXSTEH ABBEY. 207 dow, asked liim if he smoked ; as I was consider- ing what this would end in, he bid him stop by the way at any good tobacconist's, and take in a roll of their best Virginia. Nothing material hap- pened in the remaining part of our journey, till we 5 were set down at the west end of the Abbey. As we went up the body of the church the knight pointed at the trophies upon one of the new monuments, and cried out, " A brave man I war- rant him ! " Passing afterwards by Sir Cloudsley 10 Shovel, he flung his hand that way, and cried, " Sir Cloudsley Shovel ! a very gallant man ! " As we stood before Busby's tomb, the knight uttered himself again after the same manner, " Dr. Busby, a great man ! he whipped my grandfather ; a ver}^ 15 great man ! I should have gone to him myself, if I had not been a blockhead ; a very great man ! " We were immediately conducted into the little chapel on the right hand. Sir Roger, planting himself at our historian's elbow, was very atten- 20 tive to every thing he said, particularly to the account he gave us of the lord who had cut off the King of Morocco's head. Among several other figures, he was very well pleased to see the states- 208 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS. man Cecil upon his knees ; and, concluding them all to be great men, was conducted to the figure which represents that martyr to good housewifery, who died by the prick of a needle. Upon our in- 5 terpreter's telling us that she was a maid of honor to Queen Elizabeth, the knight was very inquisi- tive into her name and family ; and after having regarded her finger for some time, " I wonder," said he, " that Sir Richard Baker has said nothing 10 of her in his Chronicle." We were then conveyed to the two coronation- chairs, where my old friend, after having heard that the stone underneath the most ancient of them, which was brought from Scotland, was 15 called Jacob's Pillow, sat himself down in the chair : and looking like the figure of an old Gothic king, asked our interpreter what authority they had to say that Jacob had ever been in Scotland. The fellow, instead of returning him an answer, 20 told him, that he hoped his honor would pay his forfeit. I could observe Sir Roger a little ruffled upon being thus trepanned ; but our guide not insisting upon his demand, the knight soon recov- ered his good humor, and whispered in my ear ms VISIT TO WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 209 that if Will Wimble were with us, and saw those two chairs, it would go hard but he would get a tobacco-stopper out of one or t other of them. Sir Roger, in the next place, laid his hand upon Edward the Third's sword, and leaning upon the 5 pommel of it, gave us the whole history of the Black Prince; concluding, that in Sir Richard Baker's opinion, Edward the Third was one of the greatest princes that ever sat upon the English throne. .^ We were then shown Edward the Confessor's tomb ; upon which Sir Roger acquainted us that he was the first who touched for the Evil; and afterwards Henry the Fourth's, upon which he shook his head, and told us there was fine reading 15 in the casualties of that reign. Our conductor then pointed to that monument where there is the figure of one of our English kings without an head; and upon giving us to know that the head, which was of beaten silver, 20 had been stolen away several years since : '' Some Whig, 111 warrant you," says Sir Roger, "you ought to lock up your kings better ; they will carry off the body too, if you don't take care." 210 SIR ROGER BE COVERLEY PAPERS. The glorious names of Henry the Fifth and Queen Elizabeth gave the knight great opportuni- ties of shining, and of doing justice to Sir Richard Baker, who, as our knight observed with some 5 surprise, had a great many kings in him whose monuments he had not seen in the Abbey. For my own part, I could not but be pleased to see the knight show such an honest passion for the glory of his country, and such a respectful 10 gratitude to the memory of its princes. I must not omit that the benevolence of my good old friend, which flows out towards every one he converses with, made him very kind to our in- terpreter, whom he looked upon as an extraordi- 15 nary man ; for which reason he shook him by the hand at parting, telling him that he should be very glad to see him at his lodgings in Norfolk buildings, and talk over these matters with him more at leisure. L. SIR ROGER AT THE PLAY. 211 SIR ROGER AT THE PLAY. No. 335. Tuesday, March 25, 1712. Respicere exemplar vitae morumque jubebo Doctum imitatorem, et vivas hinc ducere voces. HOR. Ars Poet. 327. My friend Sir Roger de Coverley, when we last met together at the club, told me that he had a great mind to see the new tragedy with me, assur- ing me at the same time, that he had not been at a play these twenty years. " The last I saw," 5 said Sir Roger, " was The Committee, which I should not have gone to neither, had I not been told beforeiiand that it was a good Church of England comedy." He then proceeded to inquire of me who this Distressed Mother was ; and upon 10 hearing that she was Hector's widow, he told me that her husband was a brave man, and that when he was a school-boy he had read his life at the end 212 SIR ROGER I)E COVE RLE Y PAPERS. of the dictionary. My friend asked me, in the next place, if there would not be some danger in coming home late, in case the Mohocks should be abroad. " I assure you," says he, " I thought I 5 had fallen into their hands last night ; for I ob- served two or three lusty black men that followed me half way up Fleet street, and mended their pace behind me, in proportion as I put on to go away from them. You must know," continued 10 the knight with a smile, "I fancied they had a mind to hunt me : for I remember an honest gen- tleman in my neighborhood, who was served such a trick in King Charles the Second's time ; for which reason he has not ventured himself in town 15 ever since. I might have shown them very good sport, had this been their design ; for as I am an old fox-hunter, I should have turned and dodged, and have played them a thousand tricks they had never seen in their lives before." Sir Roger added that 20 if these gentlemen had any such intention, they did not succeed very well in it ; " for I threw them out," says he, "at the end of Norfolk street, where I doubled the corner, and got shelter in my lodgings befoi-e they could imagine what was be- SIB ROGER AT THE PLAY. 213 come of me. However," says the knight, " if Captain Sentry will make one witli us to-morrow night, and if you will both of you call upon me about four o'clock, that we may be at the house before it is full, 1 will have my own coach in read- 5 iness to attend you, for John tells me he has got the fore- wheels mended." The captain, who did not fail to meet me there at the appointed hour, bid Sir Roger fear nothing, for that he had put on the same sword which he 10 made use of at the battle of Steenkirk. Sir Roger's servants, and among the rest my old friend the butler, had, I found, provided themselves with good oaken plants, to attend their master upon this occasion. When he had placed him in his 15 coach, with myself at his left hand, the captain before him, and his butler at the head of his footmen in the rear, we convoyed him in safety to the play-house ; where, after having marched up the entry in good order, the captain and I went in 20 with him, and seated him betwixt us in the pit. As soon as the house was full and the candles lighted, my old friend stood up and looked about him with that pleasure which a mind seasoned 214 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS. with humanity naturally feels in itself, at the sight of a multitude of people who seem pleased with one another, and partake of the same common entertainment. I could not but fancy to myself, 5 as the old man stood up in the middle of the pit, that he made a very proper centre to a tragic audience. Upon the entering of Pyrrhus, the knight told me that he did not believe the King of France himself had a better strut. I was, in- 10 deed, very attentive to my old friend's remarks, because I looked upon them as a piece of natural criticism, and was well pleased to hear him at the conclusion of almost every scene, telling me that he could not imagine how the play would end. 15 One while he appeared mucli concerned for Andro- mache ; and a little while after as much for Her- mione : and was extremely puzzled to think what would become of Pyrrhus. When Sir Roger saw Andromache's obstinate 20 refusal to her lover's importunities, he whispered me in the ear that he was sure she would never have him ; to which he added, with a more than ordinary vehemence, " You cannot imagine, sir, what 'tis to have to do with a ^vidow." Upon SIR ROGER AT THE PLAY. 215 Pyrrhiis's threatening afterwards to leave her, the knight shook iiis head and muttered to himself, " Ay, do if you can." This part dwelt so much on my friend's imagination, that at the close of the third act, as I was thinking of something else, 5 he whispered in my ear, " These widows, sir, are the most perverse creatures in the world. But pray," says he, " you that are a critic, is this play according to your dramatic rules, as you call them ? Should your people in tragedy always talk to be lo understood ? Why, there is not a single sentence in this play that I do not know the meaning of." The fourth act very luckily began before I had time to give the old gentleman an answer. "Well," says the knight, sitting down with great 15 satisfaction, " I suppose we are now to see Hec- tor's ghost." He then renewed his attention, and, from time to time, fell a-praising the widow. He made, indeed, a little mistake as to one of her pages, whom, at his first entering, he took for As- 20 tyanax ; but he quickly set himself right in that particular, though, at the same time, he owned he should have been very glad to have seen the little boy, " who," says he, " must needs be a very fine 216 SIR ROGER BE COVERLEY PAPERS. child by the account tliat is given of him." Upon Hermione's going off with a menace to Pyrrhus, the audience gave a loud clap ; to which Sir Roger added, " On my word, a notable young 5 baggage ! " As there was a very remarkable silence and stillness in the audience during the whole action, it was natural for them to take the o[)portunity of the intervals between the acts, to express their 10 opinion of the players, and of their respective parts. Sir Roger, hearing a cluster of them praise Orestes, struck in with them, and told them that he thought liis friend Pylades was a very sensible man ; as they were afterwards applauding Pyrrhus, 15 Sir Roger put in a second time, " And let me tell you," says he, " though he speaks but little, I like the old fellow in whiskers as well as any of them." Captain Sentry, seeing two or three wags who sat near us, lean with an attentive ear 20 towards Sir Roger, and fearing lest they should smoke the knight, plucked him by the elbow, and whispered some tiling in his ear, that lasted till the opening of the fifth act. The knight was wonder- fully attentive to the account which Orestes gives SIR Roger at the flay. 217 of Pyrrhus's death, and at the conclusion of it, told nie it was such a bloody piece of work that he was glad it was not done upon the stage. See- ing afterwards Orestes in his raving fit, he grew more than ordinary serious, and took occasion to 5 moralize (in his way) upon an evil conscience, adding that " Orestes in his madness looked as if he saw something." As we were the first that came into the house, so we were the last that went out of it ; being re- 10 solved to have a clear passage for our old friend, whom we did not care to venture among the jost- ling of the crowd. Sir Roger went out fully sat- isfied with his entertainment, and we guarded him to his lodgings in the same manner that we 15 brought him to the play-house ; being highly pleased, for my own part, not only with the per- formance of the excellent piece which had been presented, but with the satisfaction which it had given to the good old man. L. 20 218 SIE ROGER BE COVERLET PAPERS, SIR ROGER AT SPRING GARDEN. No. 383. Tuesday, Marj 20, 1712. Criminibus debent hortos — JiTv. Sat. i. 75. 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 in- 5 quiring whether the philosopher was at home. The child who went to the door answered very innocently that he did not lodge there. I immedi- ately recollected that it was my good friend Sir Roger's voice, and that I had promised to go with 10 him on the water to Spring Garden, in case it pi'oved a good evening. The knight put me in mind of my promise from the bottom of the stair- case, but told me that if I was speculating he would stay below till I had done. Upon my SIE ROGER AT SPRING GARDEN. ^19 coming doAvn, I found all the children of the family got about my old friend, and my land- lady herself, who is a notable prating gossip, engaged in a conference with him, being mightily pleased with his stroking her little boy upon the 5 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 by a crowd of watermen, offering us their respective services. Sir Roger, 10 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 1.5 that 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 has 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 20 in my livery that had not a wooden leg." My old friend, after having seated himself, and trimmed the boat with his coachman, Avho, being a very sober man, always serves as ballast on '220 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS. these occasions, we made the best of our way for Fox-hall. Sir Roger obliged the wateriiiaii to give us the history of his right leg, and hearing that he had left it at La Hogue, with many particulars 5 which passed in that glorious action, the knight, in the triumph of his heart, made several reflec- tions on the greatness of the British nation ; as, that one Englishman could beat three Frenchmen ; that we could never be in danger of popery so 10 long as we took care of our fleet; that the Thames was the noblest river in Europe ; that the 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 15 heart of a true Englishman. After some short pause, the old knight, turning about his head twice or thrice, to take a survey of this great metropolis, bid me observe how thick the city was set with churches, and that there was 20 scarce a single steeple on this side Temple Bar. "A most heathenish sight!" says Sir Roger; "there is no religion at this end of the town. The fifty new churches will very much mend the prospect ; but church work is slow, church work is slow ! " SIR ROGER AT SPRING GARDEN. 221 I do not remember I have anywhere mentioned in Sir Roger's character his custom of saluting everybody that passes by him with a good-morrow or a good-night. This the old man does out of the overflowings of his humanity, though at the 5 same time it renders iiim so popular among all his country neighbors that it is thought to have gone a good way in making him once or twice knight of the sliire. He cannot forbear this exercise of benevolence lo even in 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 15 before our landing, one of them, instead of return- ing the civility, asked us what queer old put we had in tlie 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 20 magistracy, told us that if he were a Middlesex justice, he would make such vagrants know that her Majesty's subjects were no more to be abused by water than by land. 222 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS. We were now arrived at Spring Garden, which is exquisitely pleasant at this time of the year. When I considered the fragrancy of the walks and bowers, with the choirs of birds that sung 5 upon the trees, and the loose tribe of people that walked under their shades, I could not but look upon the place as a kind of Mahometan paradise. Sir Roger told me it put him in mind of a little coppice by his house in the country, which his 10 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 15 myself and thought on the widow by the music of the nightingales ! " We concluded our walk with a glass of Burton ale and a slice of hung beef. When we had done eating, ourselves, the knight called a waiter to 20 him and bid him carry tlie remainder to the waterman that had but one leg. I perceived the fellow stared upon him at the oddness of the mes- sage, and was going to be saucy, upon which I rati- fied the knight's commands with a peremptory look. I. TEE DEATH OF SIR ROGER. 223 THE DEATH OF SIR ROGER. No. 517. Thursday, October 23, 1712. Heu pietas ! heu prisca fides ! ViKG. ^n. vi. 878. We last night received a piece of ill news at our club, which very sensibly afflicted every one of us. I question not but my readers themselves will be troubled at the hearing of it. To keep them no longer in suspense, Sir Roger de Coverley 5 is dead. He departed this life at his house in the country, after a few weeks' sickness. Sir Andrew Freeport has a letter from one of his correspond- ents in those parts, that informs him the old man caught a cold at the county sessions, as he was 10 very warmly promoting an address of his own penning, in which he succeeded according to his wishes. But this particular comes from a Whig justice of peace, who was always Sir Roger's enemy and antagonist. I have letters both from 15 224 SIR ROGER BE COVERLET PAPERS. the chaplain and Captain Sentry, which mention nothing of it, but are filled with many particulars to the honor of the good old man. I have like- wise a letter from the butler, who took so much 5 care of me last summer when I was at the knight's house. As my friend the butler men- tions, in the simplicity of his heart, several cir- cumstances the others have passed over in silence, I shall give my reader a copy of his letter, with- 10 out auy alteration or diminution. " Honoured Sir, " Knowing that yon was my old master's good friend, I could not forbear sendino; you the melancholy news of his death, which has afflicted the whole country, as well as 15 his poor servants, who loved him, I may say, better than we did our lives. I am afraid he caught his death the last county sessions, where he would go to see justice done to a poor widow woman and her fatherless children, that had been wronged by a neighbouring gentleman ; for 20 you know my good master was always the poor man's friend. Upon his coming home, the first complaint he made was that he had lost his roast-beef stomach, not being able to touch a sirloin, which was served up ac- cording to custom ; and you know he used to take great 25 delight in it. From that time forward he grew worse and worse, but still kept a good heart to the last. Indeed we THE DEATH OF SIR ROGER. 225 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 lightning before his death. He has be- queathed to this lady, as a token of his love, a great pearl 5 necklace and a couple of silver bracelets set with jewels, which belonged to my good old lad}^ 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 10 has, moreover, bequeatlied to the (diajjlain a very pretty tenement with good lands about it. It being a very cold day when he made his will, he left for mourning, to every man m the parish, a great frieze coat, and to every woman a black riding-hood. It was a most moving sight to see 15 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 grey-headed in our dear master's service, he has left us pensions and legacies, which we may live very comfortably upon the 20 remaining part of our days. He has bequeathed a great deal more in charity, which is not yet come to my knowl- edge, and it is peremptorily said in the parish that he has left money to build a steeple to the church ; for he was heard to say some time ago that if he lived two years 25 longer, Coverley church should have a steeple to it. The chaplain tells every body that he made a very good end, and never speaks of him without tears. He was buried, 226 SIR ROGER BE COVERLET PAPERS. according to his own directions, among the family of the Coverleys, on the left hand of his father Sir Arthur. The coffin was carried by six of his tenants, and the pall held up by six of the quorum : the whole parish followed the 5 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 little before his death, he shook him by the 10 hand, and wished him joy of the estate which was falling to him, desiring him only to make a good use of it, and to pay the several legacies, and the gifts of charity, which he told him he had left as quit-rents upon the estate. The captain truly seems a courteous man, though he says 15 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 20 never joyed himself since ; no more has any of us. It was the melancholiest day for the poor people that ever hap- pened in Worcestershire. This being all from ♦« Honoured Sir, ' ' Your most sorrowful servant, 25 "EovTARD Biscuit." " P.S. My master desired, some weeks before he died, that a book which comes up to you by the carrier, should be given to Sir Andrew Freeport in his name." THE DEATH OF SIR ROGER. 227 This letter, notwithstanding the poor butler's manner of writing it, gave us such an idea of our good old friend that upon the reading of it, there was not a dry eye in the club. Sir Andrew open- 5 ing 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 that they related to two or three points, which he had 10 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 into his pocket. Captain 15 Sentry informs me that the knight has left rings and mourning for every one in the club. O. From J. Rocque's Map of London in 1741-5. A. Buffon's Coffee House. . B. Will's Coffee House. D. St. James's Coffee House. E. The Grecian. F. The Cocoa Tree. G. Drury Lane Theater. H. Hay market Theater. K. Dick's Coffee House. L, Squire's Coffee House. M. Charter House. N. Gray's Inn. P. New Inn. S. Child's Coffee House. NOTES. No. 1. Motto ; '* One with a flash begins, and ends in smoke, The other out of smoke brings glorious light, And (without raising expectations high) Surprises us with dazzling miracles." Roscommon. Page 2, Line 20. depending. What do we say ? 4, 12. to take the measure of a pyramid. Addison ridi- cules the controversy begun in the preceding century by John Greaves over the exact measurements of one of tlie pyramids. 4, 23. Will's, Child's, etc. One cannot understand the age in which Addison and Steele wrote without taking into account the part which the coffee-houses played in the social, intellectual, and political life of the time. The history of the rise and growth of the institution forms an interesting chapter. The beginnings date back to a few years before the Restora- tion, when coffee is supposed to have been introduced into England by one Daniel Edwards, a Turkey merchant. So many people were eager to taste the new beverage that a coffee-room was opened in George Yard, Lombard Street, by 229 230 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS. Edwards's attendant. Soon others followed this example, and in spite of opposition, and even prohibitory legislation, popular feeling was so strongly in favor of them that they prospered and increased in number. Gradually, each coffee-house began to take on a character of Its own, according to the opinions or profession of those who gathered there. A man came to be known by the coffee-house he frequented. In Addison's time, the popularity of the insti- tution was at its height. The very name of Addison calls up the scene in Button's, where, surrounded by a circle of friends and admirers, he held his court. In the same way, before his reign, Dryden, and after it, Johnson held sway over their sub- jects in the world of letters. The coffee-houses were not, however, merely resorts where one could spend a pleasant hour among congenial companions ; they were a power. There, news from abroad and the gossip of the court were learned first-hand ; the rules of art and the laws of science were expounded by those who created the works of art and discovered the workings of natural law. Thus it was in the coffee-houses of London that opinions, tastes, manners, were formed, and the metropolis set the pace for the smaller cities and towns. In fact, the coffee-house of the eighteenth century wielded an influence similar to that of the modern newspaper, for, though there were newspapers so- called at that time, they neither furnished the most valuable and interesting news, nor exercised any considerable power. Steele informs us in The Tatter that the paper will comprise five departments : "All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment shall be under the article of White's Chocolate-house ; poetry under that of Will's Coffee-house ; learning under the title NOTES. 231 of Grecian ; foreign and domestic news you will have from St. ames's Coftee-liouse ; and what else I have to offer on any other subject shall be dated from my own apartment." In No. 1 of The Spectator Addison names the most noted of the coffee-houses of the day. 4, 23. Will's was the coffee-house made famous by Dryden's frequenting it. In Addison's time it continued to be the resort of wits. Addison's reference to it as a resort of politicians shows how closely literature and politics were allied in those days. The coffee-house was named after the proprietor, Will Urwin. It stood on the north side of Russell Street at the end of Bow Street, near Drnry Lane Theatre. 21 Russell Street is doubtless one of the old buildings. — (Hutton.) 5, 2. Child's. In St. Paul's Churchyard. Its proximity to the Cathedral, to the College of Physicians, and to the rooms of the Royal Society (Gresham College) made it the resort of clergymen, physicians, and philosophers. 5, 6. St. James's. On St. James Street near the palace ; was frequented by Whig statesmen. 5, 9. The Grecian. In Devereux Court, Strand, near the Temple, consequently frequented by lawyers. Its proprietor was Constantine, a Greek. 5, 10. The Cocoa-Tree. A chocolate-house at 04 St. James's Street. The great Tory rendezvous and rival to St. James's. A Whig would not compromise himself by appearing there ; nor would a Tory show his face at St. James's. 5, 14. Jonathan's. In Change Alley between Cornhill and Lombard Street. The Stock Exchange originated from meet- ings of brokers held here. 5, 12. Exchange. The Royal Exchange, the heart of mer- cantile London ; first built in the reign of Elizabeth, rebuilt 232 SIR ROGER BE COVERLEY PAPERS. after the great fire of 1666 from designs by Sir Christopher Wren, and again rebuilt after a fire in 1838. 5, 11. Drury Lane Theatre. The first Drury Lane Theatre was built on the present site in 1663. The second theatre, opened in 1674, was the theatre in Addison's time. The pres- ent theatre, which dates from 1809, is still one of the leading theatres of London. I'he theatre is only a stone's throw from the site of Will's, which was diagonally across Russell Street, and only a block beyond in Russell Street was Button's Coffee-house, which was the leading resort of Addison and a coterie of his admirers during the greater part of his London career. 5, 11. The Haymarket. (Not the modern theatre of that name) was on the site of Iler Majesty's, corner of Haymarket and Pall Mall. It was opened in 1706, and came to be the home of Italian opera, which was just becoming popular ; Drury Lane was the home of the drama. 5, 3. The Postman. A penny weekly paper, probably the best of the day. Edited by M. Fonvive, a French Protestant. 6, 3. blots. A reference to the game of backgammon, in which exposed men are called blots. 6, 6. Whigs and Tories. The time in which Addison lived was characterized by violent party spirit. The Whig party was a descendant of the Roundheads ; the Tory, of the Royalists. Similarly, the Liberal party has succeeded the Whig, and the Conservative, the Tory. In a general way, the Whigs stood for the authority of Parliament; the Tories for the prerogatives of the crown. Queen Anne was Stuart enough to be strongly Tory in her sympathies, but circumstances forced her to give the administration of affairs into the hands of Whig leaders during the greater part of her reign. Addison was one NOTES. 233 of the chief Whig writers ; on the other side, the most power- ful opponent was Swift, 8, 3. discoveries. In the earlier sense of revelations. 8,14. Little Britain. "The Spectator in its first daily- issue was ' Printed for Sam. Buckley at the Dolphin, in Little Britain, and sold by A. Baldwin in Warwick Lane.' " Little Britain was at the tiuie of The Spectator the centre of the publishing business. (Read Irving's Little Britain in The Sketch Book.) It is a crowded street north of St. PauPs, leading from Aldersgate by St. Bartholomew's Hospital to Smithfield. (See map.) It is " now abandoned to city ware- housemen." Paternoster Row, not far off, is now the pub- lishing centre. Warwick Lane runs north from the west end of Paternoster Row to Newgate Street. It was named for the Earl of Warwick, "The King-maker," and hero of Bulwer's novel, The Last of the Barons, whose town house occupied this site. No. 2. Motto : " Six more at least join their consenting voice." 9, 2. Worcestershire. A county in the west of England. The county, of diversified and picturesque scenery, is one of the most fertile and beautiful farming, gardening, and orchard regions of England. 9, 3. Sir Roger de Coverley. Spelled Coverly on first ap- pearance of the paper, and also in the reprint. In No. 34 the original paper had Coverly and the reprint Coverley. In No. 10(i and in subsequent jinmbers the spelling Coverley appeared in the original paper. 234 SIR ROGER DE COYERLEY PAPERS. Sir Roger has been identified as Sir Jolm Parkington, of Westvvood, Worcestersliire. Tliere is no real foundation for the supposition that Sir John was the original of Sir Roger, or that Westwood was the place described by the Spectator as the home of the old baronet. See Nos. 34 and 262. Of course the origin of the dance given here is purely fanci- ful. The author adds interest to the character by connecting it with the name of a popular dance. It is stated on the authority of Steele that Swift suggested the use of the name. Baronet is the lowest order of hereditary title in Great Britain and Ireland. A baronet is not a peer and consequently has not a seat in the House of Lords. Baronets always have the title "Sir," which is also applied to knights. Knighthood is, however, not hereditary. 10, 4. Soho Square, near Oxford Street, was at the time of Sir Roger's residence there a fashionable neighborhood. It ' ' has now a French aspect from the number of French refugees who have settled there at different times. There are French schools, French names are over many of the shops, French restaurants with diners a la carte, and the organ-grinders of Soho find that the Marseillaise is the most lucrative tune to play." 10, 5. by reason. Turn into present idiomatic English. 10, 9-10. Rochester, Etherege. These were fashionable and dissipated wits during the Restoration period. Bully Dawson was a noted sharper and braggart. Acquaint- ance with these persons might constitute one's title to the rank of *' a fine gentleman." 11, 14. Inner Temple. One of the inns of court or legal societies of London having the right to call law-students to the bar. Others are Middle Temple, Lincoln's Inn, Gray's Inn. NOTES. 235 11, 22. Littleton and Coke. Authorities upon law before Blackstone's time. 12, 6. Tully. The name by which Marcus Tullius Cicero was spoken of in Addison's time. 12, 20. exactly at five. The dinner-hour and the hour for tlie play had been growing steadily later. Diu'ing the early Restoration period the play began early in the afternoon. At the time Steele writes, the hour was six. It was customary to spend an hour at the coffee-house before going to the play. 12, 21. New Inn. Connected with the Middle Temple. 12, 24. The Rose. A tavern in Covent Garden, adjoining Drury Lane Theatre. It was frequented by playwrights. 13, 4. Sir Andrew Freeport. As Sir Roger represents the landed interest (Tory), Sir Andrew stands for the moneyed or commercial interest (Whig). Notice the significance of the names applied to the members of the club. 14, 12. Captain Sentry. An original has been found for this character also, but there is 'even less reason to suppose that the author had any single person in mind than in the case of Sir Roger. 17, 1. French king. This allusion is significant as showing the ascendancy of French modes and customs through the political ascendancy of France. This position was won by Louis XIV., " the Grand Monarch," the most powerful ruler in Europe. Just at this time, however, his power was suffer- ing from the disastrous defeats inflicted upon his armies by Marlborough and Prince Eugene. 17, 10. Duke of Monmouth, favorite son of Charles II., and claimant to the throne in opposition to the Duke of York, afterwards James II. 236 SIR ROGER BE COVERLEY PAPERS. No. 6. Motto : " 'Twas impious then (so mucli was age rever'd) For youtli to keep their seats when an old man appear'd," 21, 18. Lincoln's Inn Fields. Lincoln's Inn was one of the inns of conrt (see note on Inner Temple, p. 234). It was named after Henry de Lacy, the Earl of Lincoln, who built a mansion here in the time of Edward I. The square is called the Fields, and is one of the largest in London. Oliver Crom- well, Sir Thomas More, and Lord Erskine are a few of the famous men who have lived in this locality. 23, 20. Sir Richard Blackmore. Physician and poet. His chief work is the Creation. No. 34. Motto : From spotted skins the leopard does refrain. Tate. 28,14. opera and puppet-show. Addison had "taken liberties" with these in Nos. 5, 13, 14, 18. 31, 18. Too fantastical, etc. In these lines we have the moral aim of The Spectator expressed in brief. 33, 6. Punch. The chief character in the puppet-show, a favorite amusement of the time. It may be familiar to some readers as the "Punch -and- Judy Show." 33,21. and with a love to mankind. As in a preceding paragi-aph in this paper we have the aim of The Spectator, so in this concluding passage we have the spirit in which the work was undertaken. NOTES. 237 No. 37. Motto : " Unbred to spinning, in the loom unskill'd." Dry den. 36, 14. Ogilby's Virgil. John Ogilby translated both Vir- gil and flomer into English verse. The Virgil appeared in 1649. 36, 15. Dryden's Juvenal. John Dryden was the chief poet and man of letters of the Restoration. His chief poems are satires, the best of which is Absalom and Achitophel. He was still living in Addison's time, and had taken some notice of Addison's early work. Dryden's Juvenal, which he trans- lated with several others, appeared in 1G93. 36, lG-18. Cassandra, Cleopatra, and Astraea were French romances, translated into English and very popular at this time. 36, 19. Sir Isaac Newton. The famous English scientist, whose chief fame rests upon his discovery of the law of gravi- tation. He died in 1727, so was living during the first part of Addison's life. 36, 20. The Grand Cyrus and Clelia, two very popular French romances of the time by Magdeleine de Scud^ri. 36, 21. Arcadia, pastoral romance by Sir Philip Sidney, the famous gentleman and scholar of Elizabeth's time. It is called the Pembroke Arcadia, because first published by his sister, the Countess of Pembroke. 36, 22. Locke, John. Celebrated English philosopher (1632-1704). He was evidently a favorite with Addison. Locke's chief work is the one contained in Leonard's library. 288 SIR ROGER BE COVERLET PAPERS. 37, 1. Sherlock, Dr. William. Dean of St. Paul's, whose works were very popular. 37, 3. Sir William Temple. Statesman and essayist (1628- 1699). Swift was distantly related to him, and spent his early life in Temple's household. 37, 4. Malebranche. Famous French philosopher of Addi- son's time. His most celebrated work is the one mentioned. Addison met Malebranche in France. 37, 9. D'Urfey, Thomas. A favorite of Charles II. and writer of plays and songs. His works were as licentious as most of the Restoration literature. 37, 15. Baker's Chronicle. Chronicle of the Kings of Eng- land, from the Time of the Romans^ Government unto the Death of King James, by Sir Richard Baker. This work and others were written in the Fleet prison. 37, 17. The New Atlantis, by Mary Manley, was a book which, under feigned names, related the scandal of the time, particularly that in connection with the prominent Whig families. 37, 18. Steele's Christian Hero. See p. xiv. of Introduc- tion. 37, 21. Sacheverell was an English clergyman who brought himself into prominence through two sermons in which he criticised the Whig ministry. He was prosecuted and sus- pended for three years, but was afterwards reinstated by the Tory ministry. The attack upon Sacheverell aroused so much feeling that a reaction set in against the Whig party, then in power. 37, 22. Fielding's Trial probably refers to the account of the trial for bigamy of Robert Fielding, called Beau Fielding, a notorious character of the time of Charles II. NOTES. 239 37, 23. Seneca's Morals. Seneca, a Roman Stoic philoso- pher and writer of plays (4 i3.c.-65 a.d.). He was the tutor of the young Nero. 37, 24. Taylor's Holy Living and Dying. One of the most powerful religious works of the centmy, written by Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667), an English bishop. 37, 25. La Ferte, a popular dancing-master of the time. Notice the arrangement of these works. 39, 8. turtles, turtledoves. No. 101. Motto : imitated. ' Edward and Henry, now the boast of fame, And virtuous Alfred, a more sacred name, After a life of geu'rous toil endur'd, The Gauls subdued, or property secur'd. Ambition humbled, mighty cities storm'd, Our laws establish'd and the world reform'd. Closed their long glories with a sigh, to find Th' unwilling gratitude of base mankind." Pope. 41, 1-3. The quotation is from Swift. 43, 22. recentibus odiis. This is best translated by the folio wiug phrase, " with the passions and prejudices of a con- temporary author." 46, 13. puppet-show, in No. 14 ; by their patches, in No. 81; in a language, etc., in No. 18; as actors upon the British stage, in Nos. 22 and 36. 240 SIR ROGER BE COVERLET PAPERS. No. 106. Motto : " Here plenty's liberal horn shall pour Of fruits for thee a copious shower, Rich honors of the quiet plain." 50, 10. is pleasant upon, jokes. The same meaning ap- pears in the noun jAeasantry. 51, 22. insulted with Greek and Latin. For the state of learning among country gentlemen in the seventeenth century, see Macaulay's England, Vol. I. chap, iii., from which we quote : " Many lords of manors had received an education differing little from that of their menial servants. The heir of an estate often passed his boyhood and youth at the seat of his family, with no better tutors than grooms and gamekeepers, and scarce attained learning enough to sign his name to a mittimus." 53, 11. Bishop of St. Asaph, etc. — Noted divines and theologians of the preceding century. Calamy, says Morley, "became chaplain to Charles II., but the Act of Uniformity again made him a seceder. His name, added to the other three, gives breadth to the suggestion of Sir Roger's orthodoxy." No. 107. Motto -. " The Athenians erected a large statue to ^sop and placed him, though a slave, on a lasting pedestal : to show the way to honor lies open indifferently to all." 58, 8. a large fine when a tenement falls. The fine paid when a tenant allows his rent to depreciate in value. NOTES. 241 No. 108. Motto : *• Out of breath to no purpose, and very busy about nothing." 62, 3. Will Wimble. A wimble is a tool for boring. 63, 5. Eton, in Buckinghamshire, one of the great pre- paratory schools of England, founded in 1441, by Henry VI. It has educated many eminent men, among them Lord Boling- broke, Chatham, Shelley, and the Duke of Wellington. 63, 25. officious, in the now obsolete sense of obliging. 64, 4. tulip root. The interest in tulips, which in the preceding century had been a mania, had not yet died out. Holland was the original home of the tulip mania. 66, G. quail-pipe. A call for alluring quail into a net. 67, 22. twenty-first speculation. In this paper, which it would be well to read, Addison speaks of the crowding in the professions. No. 109. Motto : " Of plain good sense, untutor'd in the schools." 69, 21. Whitehall. The site of this historic place is be- tween the Thames and St. James Park, just north of Westmin- ster. The palace which stood here was first known as York Place, and was the residence of Wolsey, Archbishop of York, afterwards Cardinal. When Wolsey fell, his palace came into the hands of his sovereign, Henry VIII., and was known from that time as Whitehall. (See Shakespeare's Henry VIII., Act IV., Sc. 1.) It was Henry who formed close to the palace the 2-J:2 SUi KOGEli DE COVEELEY PAPERS. Tilt-yard referred to in the text, as a place where noblemen might exercise themselves in joust and tourney. The coffee- house mentioned in p. 70, 1. 13 is Jenny Mann's Tilt-yard Coffee-house. From the time of Henry VIII. to that of James II., White- hall Palace continued to be a royal residence, and was the scene of the triumphs, the tragedy, and the shame of English monarchy. James I. rebuilt the Banquet House, which is the only part now remaining. In front of the Banquet House Charles I. met his death. Both Cromwell and Charles II. died in Whitehall. All but the Banquet House was destroyed by two lires, the last in 1698. 71, 8. White-pot, a kind of baked custard. No. 110. Motto ; '« All things are full of horror and affright, And dreadful ev'n the silence of the night." Dryden. 75, 10. language of the Psalms : Ps. cxlvii. 9. It might be interesting to read in this connection Addison's Paraphrase of the Twenty -third Psalm, No. 112. Motto : " First, in obedience to thy country's rites, Worship th' immortal gods." 81, 12. the church. It is thought that Addison had in mind, as he wrote this description, the little church at Milston, Wiltshire, which his father held at the lime Joseph was born. The parsonage adjoined the churchyard. NOTES. 243 No. 113. Motto : " Her looks were deep imprinted in his heart." 93, 22. tansy : a dish common in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, made of eggs, cream, sugar, rosewater, tansy, and other herbs. No. 114. Motto : " The dread of nothing more Than to be thought necessitous and poor." Pooly. 97, 8. dipped : mortgaged. 98, 19. Laertes : the father of Odysseus. 99, 2. Irus : the beggar whom Odysseus is forced to con- tend with at his own house on his return in the disguise of a beggar. 101, 17. Cowley, Abraham. English poet (1618-1667). His fame was much greater during his life and immediately after his death than it has been since. It was still high when Addison wrote. By some Cowley was considered a greater poet than Milton. The quotation is from the Essay on the Banger of Procrastination : "There's no fooling with life when it is once turned beyond forty." 244 SIR ROGER DE COVERLET PAPERS. No. 115. Motto : " Pray for a sound mind in a sound body." 104, 6. spleen. The spleen was formerly regarded as the seat of the emotions ; then it came to mean a particular state of mind, melancholy, the sense in which the word is used here. 107, 8. Dr. Sydenham. A noted English physician of the seventeenth century, who made many valuable contributions to medical science. In our own century a society of physi- cians, called the Sydenham Society, was formed for the purpose of republishing the works of Sydenham and others. 107, 12. Medicina Gymnastica. A treatise concerning the power of exercise, as the full title of the work states, written by Francis Fuller, M.A. No. 116. Motto : "The echoing hills and chiding hounds invite." 116, 10 Paschal, Blaise. French mathematician, philos- opher, and author of the seventeenth century. While he was yet a young man, a stroke of paralysis attacked him, and fi-om that time until his death he was a constant sufferer. The seriousness of mind caused by his suffering led to a corre- sponding seriousness in his life and studies. NOTES. 245 No. 117. Motto : " With voluntary dreams they cheat their minds." 121, 4. Otway. A seveuteenth century poet. Most of his works took the form of dramas. The quotation is from tlie drama, The Orphan. 124, 10. Scarce a village in England. See Morley's note in his edition of The Sj^ectator for tlie extent of superstition at this time. No. 119. Motto : •' The city men call Rome, unskilful clown, I thought resembled this our humble town." War ton. 130, 5. height of their headdresses. See No. 98. No. 120. Motto : — - " I deem their breasts inspired With a divine sagacity " — No. 121. Motto : ♦' — All things are full of Jove." 139, 4. Bayle. Seventeenth century French philosopher and critic. His chief work is the Dictionnaire hlstorique et 246 SIR ROGER DE COVERLET PAPERS. critique, which is quoted here. He has been called the "Shakespeare of Dictionary Makers." 139, 12. Dampier, William. An English explorer and author. (1652-1715.) Most of his life he spent upon the sea, part of the time upon piratical expeditions. The quota- tion is from A Voyage Round the World. He has given his name to an archipelago, a strait, an island, and a part of Australia. 142,11. Cardan. An Italian philosopher, physician, mathe- matician, and astrologer of the sixteenth century. 143, 22. Boyle, Robert. British philosopher and chemist, celebrated as the discoverer of the law of the elasticity of air (hence known as Boyle's Law) and as the founder of the lectm-es for the defence of Christianity, London. 144, 22. The Royal Society. This famous association for the advancement of science was founded about 1660. Its membership has included the names of the foremost scientists of Great Britain. No. 122. Motto : •' An agreeable compauion vipon the road is as good as a coach." 148, 15. Just within the Game Act. According to this act no one who had not an income of £40 per annum or £200 worth of goods and chattels could shoot game ; and any person having an income of £100 per annum could take from such malefactor his guns, bows, etc. This law was in force as late as 1827. 149, 11. cast and been cast. Won and lost in a law-suit. NOTES. 247 No. 123. Motto : *' Yet the best blood by learning is refined, And virtue arms the solid mind ; Whilst vice will stain the noblest race, And the paternal stamp efface." Oldistvorth. 156, 21. The Gazette. The official journal of the govern- ment. Steele was appointed Gazetteer in 1707 and held the office till 1710. According to Macaulay it was the fact that Steele in this position had access to foreign news earlier than most newswriters that led him to publish The Tatler (see Introduction). No. 125. Motto : *• This thirst of kindred blood, my sons, detest. Nor turn your force against your country's breast." Drijden. 163, 8. St. Anne's Lane. Probably the one turning out of Great Peter Street, Westminster. 168, 8. Guelphs and Ghibellines. The two rival parties in Italy during the Middle Ages. The Guelphs were the papal party; the Ghibelliues the imperial. Dante was first on the side of the former, then tried to reconcile the two, but failed. 248 SIR ROGER BE COVERLEY PAPERS. No. 126. Motto : •' Rutulians, Trojans are the same to me." Dry den. 172, 7. Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily, a Greek historian of second half of first century b.c. His work is called an Historical Library, and consists of forty books, only a portion, however, being complete. No 130. Motto : " A plundering race, still eager to invade, On spoil they live, and make of theft a trade." 177, 3. Gypsies, a corruption of the word Egyptians, for of such nationality were these strange people supposed to be. It would be interesting to read the account of this people in the Encyc. Brit. In Scott's Quentin Durward we get interesting glimpses of the life, character, and standing of these wanderers as they appeared in the fifteenth century in France. 179, 4. Cassandra. The daughter of Priam, king of Troy. She was a favorite of Apollo and was given the gift of prophecy, but having offended the god, was doomed never to be believed. She was carried to Mycense by Agamemnon on his return from the Trojan war, and prophesied the evil fate which was to overtake him ; but he, like the rest, put no faith in her forebodings, and rushed to his destiny. NOTES. 249 No. 131. Motto : •' Once more, ye woods, adieu." 185, 5. In the same manner. Cf. 05, 11. No. 108. 185, 20. Cities of London and Westminster. Old London consisted of what is now the eastern end of the city and was bounded by gates, the names of which survive in Ludgate, Aldersgate, Newgate, etc. Westminster Abbey being the cathedral of a diocese, the locality about it was called a city, according to English usage. Temple Bar marks the eastern boundary of Westminster. As Loudon and Westminster approached each other, London came to be known as " the city within the gates," and Westminster as "the city without the gates." In Addison's time the two parts of London were not so completely one as they are now. 186,18. White Witch. "According to popular belief, there were three classes of witches : white, black, and gray. The first helped, but could not hurt ; the second, the reverse ; and the third did both. White spirits caused stolen goods to be restored ; they charmed away diseases, and did other beneficent acts ; neither did a little harmless mischief lie wholly out of their way." — G. W. Greene's edition of The Spectator. 187, 3. Converses. In the now archaic sense of asso- ciates. 250 SIR EOGER BE COVERLET PAPERS. No. 132. Motto : " That man may be called impertinent wlio considers not the circum- stances of time, or engrosses the conversation, or makes hinjself the subject of his discourse, or pays no regard to the company he is vn." 191, 3. Ephraim. " The children of Ephraim being armed and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle." Ps. Ixxviii. 191, 17. Half-pike. A spearing-weapon with a staff about half as long as a pike. 193, 3. Brideman. We should say groomsman. 194, 19. Smoky, suspicious. No. 2G9. Motto : •' Most rare is now oiir old simplicity." Dryden. 197, 11. Gray's Inn Walks. A favorite promenade. Upon the upper walk, or terrace, was a sun-dial upon a stone pedes- tal. Round this were seats arranged in a semicircle. The gardens were a favorite resort of thieves and beggars, as well as more respectable folk. 198, 2. Prince Eugene. This visit took place only a few days after Marlborough, who had been associated with Prince Eugene in the victories of the War of the Spanish Succession, had been dismissed from office. One of the objects of the NOTES. 251 visit was Marlborough's restoration to favor, which, however, could not be accomplished. Prince Eugene was most enthusi- astically received, but before he left, the Tories, who feared the effect of his popularity upon the standing of Marlborough, heaped abuse upon him. This treatment is a notable illus- tration of the evils of party spirit to which Addison has referred, 198, 9. Scanderbeg. Iskander Bey (George Castriota), Albanian commander of the 15th century, who resisted suc- cessfully the encroachments of the Ottoman court. See Spanish Jew's second tale in Tales of a Waijside Inn, Part III. 201, 14. the Late Act of Parliament. The act against Occasional Conformity, that is, against the provision according to which dissenting clergymen received the sacrament of the Church once a year, in order to qualify for office. The Act was a Tory measure. 202, 6. Pope's Procession. The celebration which took place upon the anniversary of Elizabeth's accession (Nov. 17). This particular celebration which Sir Roger refers to is that of 1711. The Whigs had planned a pageant of unusual splendor. The Tories, animated by the malice of party spirit, circulated all sorts of wild rumors to the effect that violence and outbreak following upon the pageant were part of the Whigs' plans. In consequence, the gorgeous paraphernalia were seized by constables, and the procession never took place. 203, 2. Squire's. A coffee-house near Gray's Inn, and therefore frequented chiefly by la>w-students and barristers. 252 SIR ROGER BE COVERLET PAPERS. No. 329. Motto : " With Ancus and -witli Numa, kings of Rome, We must descend into tlie silent tomb." < 205, 22. Sickness at Dantzic. The plague of 17^9, 207, 10. Sir Cloudesley Shovel. One of England's great admirals. See No. 26 of The Spectator. 207, 13. Busby. Head master of Westminster School for fifty-five years. He was famous for the number of eminent scholars he sent out, and for his frequent and severe use of the rod. 208, 1. Cecil. William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, Elizabeth's Secretary of State. 208, 3. Martyr to good housewifery. Elizabeth, daughter of Lord John Russell. Stanley, in his Memorials of Westmin- ster Abbeij, says: " She died of consumption, a few days after the marriage of her sister Anne at Blackfriars, at which the queen attended, as represented in the celebrated Shelborne Castle picture. Such was her real end. But the form of her monument has bred one of the ' vulgar errors ' of Westminster mythology. Her finger pointing to the skull, the emblem of mortality at her feet, had already, within seventy years from her death, led to the legend that she had ' died of the prick of a needle,' sometimes magnified into a judgment on her for working on Sunday." 208, 13. the stone. The famous stone of Scone which plays such a prominent part in the legend and history of Scot- land. It was supposed to have been brought to Scotland by Fergus. While it was in the possession of the Scots, it was NOTES. 253 used in the coronation ceremony. Since Edward I. brought it to England, it has been used in tlie English coronation cere- mony. Why are there two coronation chairs ? 209, 5. Edward III.'s sword. This sword is seven feet long, and weighs eighteen pounds. 209, 13. king's evil. Scrofula ; called king''s evil because it was supposed that it could be cured by the touch of the royal hand. Queen Anne was the last sovereign who pretended to exercise the power. It is noteworthy that Dr. Samuel Johnson recalled that as a small boy he was taken before the queen to be cured. 209, 19. king without a head. Henry V. The head of the figure was of solid silver, the rest being plated. It might be interesting to read the description of the Abbey in Baedeker's Handbook of London, parts of Stanley's Memo- rials of Westminster Abbey ^ and No. 26 of The Spectator. No. 335. Motto : " Keep Nature's great original in view, And thence the living images pursue." Francis. 211, 3. The New Tragedy. Ambrose Phillips's The Dis- tressed Mother, a translation of Racine's Andromaque. 211, 6. The Committee. A comedy by Sir Robert Howard, which appeared early in the Restoration period. In it the Roundheads were held up to ridicule, and we can see, there- fore, why Sir Roger should call it a "good Church-of-England comedy." 254 SIR ROGER BE COVERLEY PAPERS. 212, 3. Mohocks. One of the numerous bands of wild young men which infested the streets of London at this time, terrifying and sometimes doing violence to unprotected passers- by. One of their favorite amusements was putting defenceless women into barrels and rolling them down hill. A royal proc- lamation was issued against them just a few days before the appearance of this paper. 213, 11. Steenkirk. One of the battles lost by the Allies to the French. The battle took place in Flanders. A fash- ionable neckcloth, which imitated the disordered dress of the French generals, who hastily prepared for battle, was named the Steenkirk, and, strangely enough, became the mode in England, as well as in France. 214, 7. Pyrrhus, Andromache, etc. Pyrrhus (Neoptole- mus), the son of Achilles, forced Andromache, the widow of Hector, the great Trojan prince, to become his wife at the end of the Trojan war. Andromache's feelings may be understood when we recall that Hector had fallen under Achilles' spear. Pyrrhus afterwards married Hermione, daughter of Menelaus and Helen. He loved Hermione before he married Androm- ache, but she had become the wife of Orestes, son of Aga- memnon. In order to make her his wife, Pyrrhus slew Orestes. Py lades is the friend of Orestes. The play which Sir Roger sees is based on these circumstances. No. 383. Motto : " A beauteous garden, but by vice maiutain'd." 218, 10. Spring Garden. Here, the New Spring Garden situated on the Thames just above the Lambeth Palace. It NOTES. 255 is distinguished from the Old Spring Garden in St. James's Park. Both were popular places of resort iu the eighteenth century. The former was also called Vauxhall, or Fox Hall, from Foukes de Brent, who, through his marriage with the Countess of Albemarle, came into possession of the property. The site of the gardens is now built over. 219, 8. The Temple. A collection of buildings containing the principal " Inns of Court." The buildings get their name from the Knights Templars, who had their residence here from 1184 to 1313. At the downfall of the order, the property passed to the Knights of John of Jerusalem, who leased the Inner and Middle Temples to law students. Later the buildings fell to the Crown, and then in turn were settled upon the legal societies, or "Inns of Court." Temple Bar is the site where formerly stood a bar, posts, and chains to mark the boundary between London and West- minster (see note on No. 131 ; p. 185, 20). This old gate was taken down after the fire (16G6), and in 1670 a modern gate erected. Both on the old and on the new gate the heads of traitors were displayed, this custom being practised as late as 1773. It was formerly the custom to close the gates of the city and not admit the sovereign until the mayor had given his permission. This ceremony was performed in 1844, when Queen Victoria passed through to open the Eoyal Exchange. 220, 4. La Hogue. English and Dutch victory over the French (1692). La Hogue is a fort in La Manche, France, on the English Channel. 220, 11. London Bridge. The first bridge built across the Thames. The original structure was destroyed in 1091 and was replaced by one of stone foundations. The present bridge called by this name was finished in 1831, and is a little above 256 SIR ROGER BE COVERLEY PAPERS. the site of the old bridge, which was left standing till 1832. It is a magnificent stone structure, 920 feet long, 56 feet wide, and 55 feet high. It is estimated that about 8000 pedestrians and 900 vehicles pass over it every hour. No. 517. Motto : " Mirror of ancient faith ! Undaunted worth ! Inviolable truth ! " Dry den. 223, 5. Sir Roger de Coverley is dead. Addison is reported as saying, " I'll kill Sir Roger, that nobody else may murder him." 227, C. Act of Uniformity. One of the severe laws passed during the reign of Charles II. against Dissenters. 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