Seneca's Morals.

Taylor's Holy Living and Dying.

La Ferte's Instructions for Country Dances.

80

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 letter from the Knight, told me, with an unspeakable grace, that she hoped Sir Roger was in good health. I answered "Yes," for I hate long speeches, and 85 after a bow or two retired.

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 unfortunate in her first marriage, has taken a resolution never to venture upon a second. She has no 90 children to take care of, and leaves the management 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 turned all the passions of her sex into a love of books 95 and retirement. She converses chiefly with men (as she has often said herself), but it is only in their writings; and she admits of very few male visitants, except my friend Sir Roger, whom she hears with great pleasure, and without scandal. As her reading has lain very much among ro- 100 mances, 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 an hour together with a description of her country-seat, which is situated in a kind of wilderness, about an hundred miles distant from 105 London, and looks like a little enchanted palace. The rocks about her are shaped into artificial grottoes, covered with woodbines and jessamines. The woods are cut into shady walks, twisted into bowers, and filled with cages of turtles.1 The springs are made to run among pebbles, and by that 110

1 turtle doves. Half a century after this Dr. Johnson says that turtle is used for tortoise by sailors and gluttons.

means taught to murmur very agreeably. They are likewise collected 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 115 name of "The Purling Stream." The Knight likewise tells me, that this lady preserves her game better than any of the gentlemen in the country.1 "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 120 bird 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 by learning, I look upon her with a mixture of admiration and pity. Amidst these innocent entertainments which she has formed 125 to herself, how much more valuable does she appear than those of 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 130 books as have a tendency to enlighten the understanding and rectify the passions, as well as to those which are of little more use than to divert the imagination! 2

But the manner of a lady's employing herself usefully in reading shall be the subject of another paper, in which I de135 sign to recommend such particular books as may be proper for the improvement of the sex. And as this is a subject of a very nice nature, I shall desire my correspondents to give me their thoughts upon it.

3

1 Preserving game is one of the traditional duties of an English landlord.

2 evidently the Spectator had a slight opinion of novel-reading.

HAVING often received an invitation from my friend Sir Roger de Coverley to pass away a month with him in the country, I last week accompanied him thither, and am settled with him for some time at his country house, where I intend to form several of my ensuing speculations. Sir Roger, who is 5 very well acquainted with my humor, lets me rise and go to hed when I please, dine at his own table or in my chamber as I think fit, sit 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 have been walking 10 in his fields 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, because it consists of sober and staid persons; for, as the Knight is the 15 best master in the world, he seldom changes his servants; and as he is beloved by all about him, his servants never care for leaving him; by this means his domestics are all in years, and grown old with their master. You would take his valet de chambre for his brother, his butler is gray-headed, his groom 20 is one of the gravest men that I have ever seen, and his

1 The papers describing the Spectator's visit to Sir Roger make up the main part of the Sir Roger de Coverley Papers. Taken together they constitute a character sketch of the greatest interest in the development of English fiction, as noticed in the Introduction, p. xiii.

coachman has the looks of a privy counsellor. You see 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 ten25 derness, out of regard to his past services, though he has been useless for several years.

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 30 them could not refrain from tears at the sight of their old master; every one of them pressed forward to do something for him, and seemed discouraged if they were not employed. At the same time the good old Knight, with a mixture of the father and the master of the family, tempered the in35 quiries after his own affairs with several kind questions relating to themselves. This humanity and good-nature engages everybody to him, so that when he is pleasant1 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, 40 if he coughs, or betrays any infirmity of old age, it is easy for a stander-by to observe a secret concern in the looks of all his servants.

My worthy friend has put me under the particular care of his butler, who is a very prudent man, and, as well as the 45 rest of his fellow-servants, wonderfully desirous of pleasing me, because they have often heard their master talk of me as of his particular friend.

My chief companion, when Sir Roger is diverting himself in the woods or the fields, is a very venerable man who is ever 50 with Sir Roger, and has lived at his house in the nature of a chaplain above thirty years. This gentleman is a person 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 in the old Knight's esteem, so that he 55 lives in the family rather as a relation than a dependent. 1 makes his joke upon: Cf. 107, 45.

1

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 as well as imperfections are, as it were, tinged by a certain extravagance, which makes them particularly his, and distinguishes them from those of 60 other men. This cast of mind, as it is generally very innocent in itself, so it renders his conversation 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 65 the good man whom I have just now mentioned, and without staying for my answer told me, that he was afraid of being insulted with Latin and Greek at his own table,2 for which reason he desired a particular friend of his at the University to find him out a clergyman rather of plain sense than much 70 learning, of a good aspect, a clear voice, a sociable temper, and, if possible, a man that understood a little of backgammon. "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 75 him the parsonage of the parish; and, because I know his value, 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 80 of it, has never in all that time asked anything 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 dispute arises they apply themselves to 85 him for the decision; if they do not acquiesce in his judgment, which I think never happened above once or twice at most, they appeal to me. At his first settling with me I made

1 a somewhat eccentric fellow.

2 He himself had probably never studied either language, or had forgotten what he knew.