To this opinion the following judicious remarks may be opposed.

"With JOHNSON's mafterly delineation of the peculiarity of ADDISON's humour," fays Dr. BEATTIE, "I know not how to reconcile fome remarks he has made on the character of Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY; I am inclined to suppose, that the learned biographer had forgotten fome things relating to that gentleman.

"He feems to think that ADDISON had formed an idea of Sir ROGER which he never exhibited complete; that he has given a fmall degree of difcompofure to the knight's mind, but made very little use of it; that Sir ROGER's irregularities are the effects of habitual rufticity, and of negligence created by folitary grandeur; and, in fhort, that ADDISON was deterred from profecuting his own defign with respect to Sir ROGER.

"Now I beg leave to observe, in the first place, that it never was, or could be, ADDISON's purpose to represent Sir ROGER as a perfon of difordered understanding. This would have made his ftory either not humorous at all, or humorous in that degree of extravagance, which ADDISON always avoided, and for avoiding which Dr. JOHNSON juftly commends him. Sir ROGER has peculiarities; that was neceffary to make him a comic character; but they are all amiable, and tend to good: and there is not one of them that would give offence, or raise contempt or concern, in any rational fociety. At Sir ROGER we never laugh, though we generally fmile; but it is a smile, always of affection, and frequently of esteem.

"Secondly, I cannot admit that there is in this character any thing of rufticity (as that word is generally understood) or any of those habits or ways of thinking that folitary grandeur creates. No man on earth affects grandeur lefs, or thinks lefs of it,

than Sir ROGER; and no man is lefs folitary. His affability, good-humour, benevolence, and love of fociety, his affection to his friends, respect to his fuperiors, and gentlenefs and attention to his dependents, make him a very different being from a ruftic, as well as from an imperious landlord, who lives retired among flatterers and vaffals. Solitary grandeur is apt to engender pride, a paffion from which our worthy Baronet is entirely free; and rufticity, as far as it is connected with the mind, implies awkwardness and ignorance, which, if one does not despise, one may pity and pardon, but cannot love with that fondness with which every heart is attached to Sir ROGER.

"How could our author be deterred from profecuting his defign with respect to this perfonage? What could deter him? It could only be the consciousness of his own inability; and that this was not the cafe he had given fufficient proof, by exemplifying the character so fully, that every reader finds himself intimately acquainted with it. Confidering what is done, one cannot doubt the author's ability to have fupported the character through a much greater variety of converfations and adventures. But the SPECTATOR, according to the first plan of it, was now drawing to a conclufion; the feventh volume being finished about fix weeks after the Knight's death; and perhaps the tradition may be true, that ADDISON, diffatisfied with STEELE's idle ftory of Sir ROGER at a tavern (Spect. No. 410.) fwore (which he is faid never to have done but on this one occafion) that he would himself kill Sir ROGER, left fomebody else should murder him *.

* BEATTIE'S Notes, ubl fupra. BUDGELL relates this last ftory in one of the numbers of the BEE, at a time when the public was very little difpofed to give him credit."

No addition is neceffary to this vindication of the character of Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY in the general; but it has not been attended to by either of these critics, that Sir ROGER was not the crea ture of ADDISON's, but of STEELE'S fancy; and it is not easy to discover why all writers on this fubject fhould appear ignorant of a fact so neceffary to be known, and so easily ascertained *. In TICKELL'S edition of ADDISON's works, and in every fubfequent edition, (Dr. BEATTIE's not excepted) No. 2. is reprinted, but afcribed to STEELE, with an apology for joining it with ADDISON's papers, on account of its connection with what follows. STEELE, in truth, sketched the character of every member of the club, except that of the SPECTATOR. The merit, therefore, of what Dr. JOHNSON calls "the delicate and difcriminated idea," or "the original delineation" of Sir ROGER, beyond all controverfy belongs to him, and the character of the Baronet, it must be obferved, is in that paper very different from what Dr. JOHNSON reprefents. His " fingularities proceed from his good fenfe," not, I allow, a very common fource of fingularities, in the usual acceptation of that word; and before he was "croffed in love by the perverse widow, he was a gay man of the town." And with respect to the care ADDISON took of the Knight's chastity, and his refentment of the story told in No. 410, which is certainly a deviation from the character as he completed it, we may observe, that the original limner represents him as "humble in his defires after he had forgot his cruel beauty, infomuch that it is reported he has frequently offended in point of chaf

* "Natural humour was the primary talent of ADDISON, His character of Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY, though far inferior, is only inferior to SHAKSPEARE's Falstaff." Royal and noble Authors. LORD ORFORD's Works, vol. i. p. 530, art, NUGENT, Note.

tity with beggars and gypfies," though he qualifies this by adding, that "this is looked upon, by his friends, rather as matter of raillery than truth." He is represented as now in his fifty-fixth year, and the story therefore of his endeavouring to perfuade a ftrumpet to retire with him into the country, as related in No. 410, fome think by TICKELL, was certainly not very probable.

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The truth appears to have been, that ADDISON was charmed with his colleague's outline of Sir ROGER, thought it capable of extenfion and improvement, and might probably determine to make it in fome measure his own, by guarding, with a father's fondness, against any violation that might be offered. How well he has accomplished this needs not to be told. Yet he neither immediately laid hold on what he confidered as STEELE's property, nor did he wish to monopolize the worthy Knight. Sir ROGER's notion, that " none but men of fine parts deserve to be hanged," and his illuftration of this curious pofition in No. 6, were written by STEELE, The firft paper, relating to the vifit to Sir ROGER'S country feat, is ADDISON'S, the second STEELE'S, the third ADDISON's, and the fourth STEELE's; and this laft has fo much of the Addifonian humour, that nothing but pofitive evidence could have deprived him of the honour of being fuppofed the author of it: the fame praise may be given to No. 113, alfo by STEELE, `The fum of the account, however, is this: Sir ROGER'S adventures, opinions, and converfation, occur in twenty fix papers: of thefe ADDISON wrote fifteen, STEELE feven, BUDGELL three, and TICKELL one; if, as is fuppofed, he was the author of the obnoxious No. 410. It must be observed too, that the widow-part of Sir ROGER'S hiftory was of STEELE'S providing, in No.113, and 118. ADDISON,

no doubt, attended to the keep of Sir ROGER's character, and STEELE, with his ufual candour, might follow a plan which he reckoned fuperior to his own; but it cannot be just to attribute the totality of the character either to the one or the other.

The "killing of Sir ROGER" has been fufficiently accounted for, without fuppofing that ADDISON dispatched him in a fit of anger, for the work was about to close, and it appeared neceffary to difperfe the club; but whatever difference of opinion there may be concerning this circumftance, it is univerfally agreed that it produced a paper of tranfcendent excellence in all the graces of fimplicity and pathos. There is not in our language any asfumption of character more faithful than that of the honeft butler, nor a more irresistible stroke of nature than the circumstance of the book received by Sir ANDREW FREEPORT.

"To Sir ROGER," continues Dr.JOHNSON, "who as a country gentleman, appears to be a Tory, or, as it is gently expreffed, an adherent to the landed intereft, is oppofed Sir ANDREW FREEPORT, a new man, a wealthy merchant, zealous for the moneyed intereft, and a Whig. Of this contrariety of opinions it is probable more confequences were at first intended than could be produced when the refolution was taken to exclude party from the paper. Sir ANDREW does but little, and that little seems not to have pleased ADDISON, who, when he difmiffed him from his club, changed his opinions. STEELE had made him, in the true fpirit of unfeeling commerce, declare that he would not build an hofpital for idle people; but at last he buys land; fettles in the country, and builds, not a manufactory, but an hofpital for twelve old husbandmen, for men with whom a merchant has little acquaint