them, and discontinued the Tatler that he might begin another work without his aid.

We have already seen that Steele assigns as a reason for giving up the Tatler, that he became known as the author: this, however, savours a little of the cant of authorship. He was known long before the Tatler had reached half its progress, as appears from the personal attacks made upon him by his contemporaries; but the length of the work affords one reason why it should not be protracted until it became too bulky, and a still better reason was, the design evidently formed of beginning a new paper. The event proves that Steele and Addison immediately formed the plan of the Spectator, probably communicated to each other the first sketch of the club, and determined that the work should be free from political intelligence at least, if not from political discussion; and that each paper should consist of one entire Essay, unless when the subject required to be treated in the form of correspondence by themselves, or when real correspondence should be thought worthy of insertion.

Addison was prepared with ample resources, which Steele must have known before he could consent to adventure on a daily paper, a task far beyond the abilities of any one man who had not secured the most copious supplies, or such assistants as might enable him to answer a demand to which temporary leisure and casual opportunity or aid never could have been adequate.

* Pref, Hist. and Biog. to the Tatler.

Dr. Beattie was once informed, but had forgot on what authority, that Addison had collected three manuscript volumes of materials. Tickell says, perhaps with truth, "that it would have been impossible for Mr. Addison, who made little or no use of letters sent in by the numerous correspondents of the Spectator, to have executed his large share of this task in so exquisite a manner, if he had not ingrafted into it many pieces that had lain by him in little hints and minutes, which he from time to time collected, and ranged in order, and moulded into the form in which they now appear. Such are the Essays upon Wit, the Pleasures of the Imagination, and the Critique upon Milton+."

The first paper appeared on Thursday, March 1, 1710-11; in it Addison gives an account of the birth, education, &c. of the Spectator, and sketches the silent character he was to preserve, with great felicity of humour. The second, by Steele, delineates the characters of the Club, or the dramatis persona of the work, the principal of whom is Sir Roger de Coverley. Dr. Johnson's remarks on this character demand our attention on many accounts.

"It is recorded by Budgell, that of the characters feigned or exhibited in the Spectator, the favourite of Addison was Sir Roger de Coverley, of whom he had formed a very delicate and discriminated idea, which he would not suffer to be violated; and therefore when Steele had shown

*Notes on the Life of Addison, prefixed to an edition of his works, by Dr. Beattie, 4 vols. 8vo. 1790, Edinburgh. + Tickell's Life of Addison.

him innocently picking up a girl in the Temple, and taking her to a tavern, he drew upon himself so much of his friend's indignation, that he was forced to appease him by a promise of forbearing Sir Roger for the time to come.

"The reason which induced Cervantes to bring his hero to the grave, para mi sola naceo Don Quixote, y yo para el, made Addison declare, with an undue vehemence of expression, that he would kill Sir Roger, being of opinion that they were born for one another, and that any other hand would do him wrong.

"It may be doubted whether Addison ever filled up his original delineation. He describes the knight as having his imagination somewhat warped, but of this perversion he has made very little use. The irregularities in Sir Roger's conduct seem not so much the effects of a mind deviating from the beaten track of life, by the perpetual pressure of some overwhelming idea, as of habitual rusticity, and that negligence which solitary grandeur naturally generates.

"The variable weather of the mind, the flying vapours of incipient madness, which from time to time cloud reason without eclipsing it, it requires so much nicety to exhibit, that Addison seems to have been deterred from prosecuting his own design."*

To this opinion the following judicious remarks may be opposed.

"With Johnson's masterly delineation of the peculiarity of Addison's humour," says Dr. Beat

Johnson's Life of Addison.

tie, "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 gentleman.

"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.

"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