this reason likewise that I keep my complexion and dress as very great secrets; though it is not impossible but I may make discoveries of both in the progress of the work I have undertaken.

After having been thus particular upon myself, I shall in to-morrow's paper give an account of those gentlemen who are concerned with me in this work; for, as I have before intimated, a plan of it is laid and concerted (as all other matters of importance are) in a club. However, as my friends have engaged me to stand in the front, those who have a mind to correspond with me may direct their letters to the SPECTATOR, at Mr. Buckley's in Little Britain.1 For I must further acquaint the reader, that though our club meets only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we have appointed a committee to sit every night, for the inspection of all such papers as may contribute to the advancement of the public weal.

II. THE CLUB.

Ast alii sex,

Et plures, uno conclamant ore.2

JUVENAL, Satire vii. 167.

THE first of our society is a gentleman of Worcestershire, of ancient descent, a baronet, his name Sir

1. In the Daily Courant of March 1, 1711, the first daily newspaper, published by Buckley, appeared this advertisement: "This day is published a Paper entitled THE SPECTATOR at the Dolphin, in Little Britain, and sold by A. Baldwin in Warwick Lane.'

2.

Six others at least,
And more, call out together with a single voice.

Roger de Coverley.1 His great-grandfather was inventor of that famous country-dance which is called after him. All who know that shire are very well acquainted with the parts and merits of Sir Roger. He is a gentleman that is very singular in his behavior, but his singularities proceed from his good sense, and are contradictions to the manners of the world only as he thinks the world is in the wrong. However, this humor creates him no enemies, for he does nothing with sourness or obstinacy; and his being unconfined to modes and forms makes him but the readier and more capable to please and oblige all who know him. When he is in town, he lives in Soho

1. It is an idle curiosity which seeks to identify the imaginary characters of these papers with actual persons. Even if it could be known to a certainty that this or that English knight or country gentleman sat for his portrait, the characters which bear the names given by Steele and Addison are more real to us than the obscure men who suggested them. But there is strong reason for believing that the authors of these characters took particular pains to avoid confounding them with known men. Steele had once got himself into trouble by too close copies of living men, and Addison in the last number of The Spectator for this year, when the popularity of the several figures had set the gossips discussing their origin, takes pains to say: "I have shown in a former paper, with how much care I have avoided all such thoughts as are loose, obscene, or immoral; and I believe my reader would still think the better of me, if he knew the pains I am at in qualifying what I write after such a manner, that nothing may be interpreted as aimed at private persons." In a word, these writers did what every self-respecting novelist today does; they studied human nature, but respected the individual person.

2. It was a clever turn to name the principal character after a popular dance of the day, and then gravely derive the dance from an ancestor of the hero. Steele says he was indebted to Swift for this.

Square.1 It is said he keeps himself a bachelor by ferva

2

widow of the next county to him. Before this disappointment, Sir Roger was what you call a fine gentleman, had often supped with my Lord Rochester and Sir George Etherege, fought a duel upon his first coming to town, and kicked Bully Dawson 3 in a public coffee-house for calling him "youngster." But being ill used by the above mentioned widow, he was very serious for a year and a half; and though, his temper being naturally jovial, he at last got over it, he grew careless of himself, and never dressed afterwards. He continues to wear a coat and doublet of the same cut that were in fashion at the time of his repulse, which, in his merry humors, he tells us, has been in and out 4 twelve times since he first wore it. He is now in his fifty-sixth year, cheerful, gay, and hearty; keeps a good house in both town and country; a great lover of mankind; but there is such a

1. The square had been built upon about forty years previous, but the district bearing the name had been so called as early as 1632. The origin of the name is referred conjecturally to the cry used by hunters when calling off the dogs from the hare; a conjecture which is partly supported by the name Dogfields applied to a neighboring spot. In the early part of the seventeenth century it was hunting-ground. It was still a fashionable quarter in 1711, though Sir Roger's residence is referred to an earlier period when its glory was less dimmed.

2. The Earl of Rochester and Sir George Etherege were wits and courtiers in the dissolute times of Charles II.

3. Bully Dawson was a swaggerer of the time who copied the morals but not the wit of the court, and belonged to a lower social grade. As Rochester died in 1680 and Etherege in 1689, it is allowable to guess that Sir Roger when resenting Bully Dawson's contemptuous epithet was under twenty-five.

4. That is, of the fashion..

mirthful cast in his behavior, that he is rather beloved than esteemed.1 His tenants grow rich, his servants look satisfied, all the young women profess love to him, and the young men are glad of his company: when he comes into a house he calls the servants by their names, and talks all the way up stairs to a visit. I must not omit that Sir Roger is a justice of the quorum; that he fills the chair at a quarter-session with great abilities; and, three months ago, gained universal applause by explaining a passage in the Game Act.2

3

The gentleman next in esteem and authority among us is another bachelor, who is a member of the Inner Temple; a man of great probity, wit, and understanding; but he has chosen his place of residence rather to obey the direction of an old humorsome father, than in pursuit of his own inclinations. He was placed there to study the laws of the land, and is the most learned of any of the house in those of the stage. Aristotle and Longinus are much better understood by him than Littleton or Coke. The

1. The notion of "esteemed " as here used supposes a cold approval.

2. The Game Act ably expounded by Sir Roger was probably that of Charles II. which defined what persons were privileged to keep guns and bows and have hunting-grounds; among these were landowners worth at least a hundred pounds a year, and the sons and heirs-apparent of esquires or of persons of higher degree.

3. There were four Inns of Court or societies of lawyers in London at this time, the Inner Temple, the Middle Temple, Lincoln's Inn, and Gray's Inn.

4. Aristotle, who lived three centuries before Christ, and Longinus, who lived three centuries after Christ, were the classic ancient authorities on the criticism of art; Littleton and Coke, the former in the fifteenth, and the latter who was a commen

father sends up every post questions relating to marriage-articles, leases, and tenures, in the neighborhood; all which questions he agrees with an attorney to answer and take care of in the lump. He is studying the passions themselves, when he should be inquiring into the debates among men which arise from them. He knows the argument of each of the orations of Demosthenes and Tully,1 but not one case in the reports of our own courts. No one ever took him for a fool, but none, except his intimate friends, know he has a great deal of wit.2 This turn makes him at once both disinterested and agreeable: as few of his thoughts are drawn from business, they are most of them fit for conversation. His taste of books

is a little too just for the age he lives in; he has read all, but approves of very few. His familiarity with the customs, manners, actions, and writings of the ancients makes him a very delicate observer of what occurs to him in the present world. He is an excellent critic, and the time of the play is his hour of business; exactly at five he passes through New Inn, crosses through Russell Court, and takes a turn tator on him, in the sixteenth, were the classic English authorities on law.

4

1. Tully was for a long time the familiar mode in which Marcus Tullius Cicero was spoken of in England.

2. It should be remembered that our limitation of the use of this word did not prevail in the time of The Spectator, when its more common significance as here was that of intellectual force.

3. In 1663 the theatrical performances began at three in the afternoon. In 1667 the hour was four, and the time was gradually made later. In 1711 the hour was six, dinner having been usually at three or four. The beau of the season after dinner was wont to spend an hour at a coffee-house before the play.

4. There were pleasant walks and gardens attached to New Inn, which was a precinct of Middle Temple.

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