"I know not how to reconcile some remarks he has made on the character of Sir Roger de Coverley; I am inclined to suppose, that the learned biographer had forgotten some things relating to that gentle

man.

"He seems to think that Addison had formed an idea of Sir Roger which he never exhibited complete; that he has given a small degree of discomposure to the Knight's mind, but made very little use of it; that Sir Roger's irregularities are the effects of habitual rusticity, and of negligence created by solitary grandeur; and, in short, that Addison was deterred from prosecuting his own design with respect to Sir Roger.

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'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 person of disordered understanding. This would have made his story either not humorous at all, or humorous in that degree of extravagance, which Addison always avoided, and for avoiding which Dr. Johnson justly commends him. Sir Roger has peculiarities; that was necessary 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 society. At Sir Roger we never laugh, though we generally smile; 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 rusticity (as that word is

generally understood), or any of those habits or ways of thinking that solitary grandeur creates. No man on earth affects grandeur less, or thinks less of it, than Sir Roger; and no man is less solitary. His affability, good-humour, benevolence, and love of society, his affection to his friends, respect to his superiors, and gentleness and attention to his dependents, make him a very different being from a rustic, as well as from an imperious landlord, who lives retired among flatterers and vassals. Solitary grandeur is apt to engender pride, a passion from which our worthy Baronet is entirely free; and rusticity, 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 prosecuting his design with respect to this personage? What could deter him? It could only be the consciousness of his own inability; and that this was not the case he had given sufficient proof, by exemplifying the character so fully, that every reader finds himself intimately acquainted with it. Considering what is done, one cannot doubt the author's ability to have supported the character through a much greater variety of conversations and adventures. But the Spectator, according to the first plan of it, was now drawing to a conclusion; the seventh volume being finished about six weeks after the Knight's death; and perhaps the

tradition may be true, that Addison, dissatisfied with Steele's idle story of Sir Roger at a tavern (Spect. No. 410), swore (which he is said never to have done but on this one occasion) that he would himself kill Sir Roger, lest somebody else should murder him."*

No addition is necessary 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 creature of Addison's, but of Steele's fancy; and it is not easy to discover why all writers on this subject should appear ignorant of a fact so necessary to be known, and so easily ascertained.+ In Tickell's edition of Addison's works, and in every subsequent edition (Dr. Beattie's not excepted), No. 2 is reprinted, but ascribed 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 in the club, except that of the Spectator. The merit, therefore, of what Dr. Johnson calls "the delicate and discriminated idea," or "the original delineation" of Sir Roger, beyond all controversy belongs to him, and the character of the Baronet, it must

*Beattie's Notes, ubi supra. Budgell relates this last story in one of the numbers of the Bee, at a time when the public was very little disposed to give him credit.

"Natural humour was the primary talent of Addison His charac ter of Sir Roger de Coverley, though far inferior, is only inferior to Shak. speare's Falstaff." Royal and Noble Authors. Lord Orford's Works, vol i. p. 530, art. Nugent, note.

be observed, is in that paper very different from what Dr. Johnson represents. His "singularities proceed from his good sense," not, I allow, a very common source of singularities, in the usual acceptation of that word; and before he was "crossed 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 resentment 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 desires after he had forgot his cruel beauty, insomuch that it is reported he has frequently offended in point of chastity with beggars and gypsies; " though he qualifies this by adding, that "this is looked upon by his friends rather as matter of raillery than truth." He is represented now in his fifty-sixth year, and the story therefore of his endeavouring to persuade a strumpet to retire with him into the country, as related in No. 410, some think by Tickell, was certainly not very probable.

The truth appears to have been, that Addison was charmed with his colleague's outline of Sir Roger, thought it capable of extension and improvement, and might probably determine to make it in some 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 considered as Steele's pro.

;

perty, 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 illustration of this curious position in No. 6, were written by Steele. The first paper relating to the visit to Sir Roger's country seat is Addison's, the second Steele's, the third Addison's, and the fourth Steele's ; and this last has so much of the Addisonian humour, that nothing but positive evidence could have deprived him of the honour of being supposed the author of it: the same praise may be given to No. 113, also by Steele. The sum of the account, however, is this: Sir Roger's adventures, opinions, and conversation, occur in twenty-six papers of these Addison wrote fifteen, Steele seven, Budgell three, and Tickell one; if, as is supposed, he was the author of the obnoxious No. 410. It must be observed too, that the widow-part of Sir Roger's history was of Steele's providing, in Nos. 113 and 118. Addison, no doubt, attended to the keep of Sir Roger's character, and Steele, with his usual candour, might follow a plan which he reckoned superior to his own; but it cannot be just to attribute the totality of the character either to one or the other.

The "killing of Sir Roger" has been sufficiently accounted for, without supposing that Addison despatched him in a fit of anger, for the work was about to close, and it appeared necessary to disperse the club; but whatever difference of opinion there may be concerning this circumstance, it is