Baker's Chronicle.1 Advice to a Daughter. The New Atalantis,2 with a key to it. Mr. Steele's Christian Hero.3 A prayer-book; with a bottle of Hungary water by the side of it. Dr. Sacheverell's speech. Fielding's Trial. Seneca's Morals. Taylor's Holy Living and Dying. La Ferte's Instructions for Country Dances. 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 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 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 A Chronicle of the Kings of England, by Sir Richard Baker. A favorite book of Sir Roger's, as will be seen, but a dry and jejune performance.' 66 2A somewhat scandalous book by Mrs. Manley, attacking prominent Whigs under concealed names; hence the need of a key. A treatise published by Steele in 1701 "as a check on his own irregularites-a self monitor." Aqua regina Hungariæ, a favorite perfume of the time, in which lavender and rosemary were the principal ingredients. A famous Tory divine who had been impeached for preaching two political sermons ridiculing the Whigs. Has the Spectator spoken before? See p. 3 and note 1. Also read p. 4. She was a Mrs. Perry, formerly Miss Shepheard. * Is a better arrangement possible ? and pursuits, Leonora has 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 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 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 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 taught2 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 name of The Purling Stream.3 66 The knight likewise tells me 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 which is killed in her ground will spoil a concert, and that she shall certainly miss him the next year." 4 With wings, not with shells. Cf. Song of Songs, ii. 12, and a ludicrous incident which happened in Palestine (as related by Mark Twain in Innocents Abroad), when one of the innocents waited by a frog-pond to hear a tortoise sing. 66 A delicious sarcasm. The romantic Leonora "teaches" brooks how to murmur in genteel fashion, instead of running wild and brawling. This is worthy of Mlle. Scudéry herself, or of Molière's satire, Les Précieuses ridicules. Note the comical effect produced by the contrast of the old When I think how oddly this lady is improved by learning, I look upon her with a mixture of admiration and pity.1 Amidst these innocent entertainments which she has formed 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 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. But the manner of a lady's employing herself usefully in reading shall be the subject of another paper, in which I design 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.2 C. knight's views with those of his fair client; one is densely practical, the other absurdly romantic: yet from opposite motives each preserves the game. 1 Here Addison drops humor and satire, and talks plain sense. They did. See Nos. 92, 140. VI. COVERLEY HALL. [Spectator No. 106. Monday, July 2, 1711. Addison.] -Hinc tibi copia Manabit ad plenum, benigno Ruris honorum opulenta cornu. HORACE. 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 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 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 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 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 is one of the gravest men that I have ever seen, and his 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 pad1 that is kept in the stable with great care and tenderness, 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 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 inquiries after his own affairs with several kind questions relating to themselves.2 This humanity and good-nature engages everybody to him, so that when he 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 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 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 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,1 so An easy-going horse. "An abbot on an ambling pad.”—Lady of Shalott. |