Roger de Coverley

“ Sir Roger went on with his account of the gallery in the following manner: "This man (pointing to him I looked at) I take to be the honour of our house, Sir Humphrey de Coverley; he was in his dealings as punctual as a tradesman, and as generous as a gentleman. He would have thought himself as much undone by breaking his word, as if it were to be followed by bankruptcy. He served his country as knight of this shire to his dying day. ”

“ For all lovers of pure literature the continuation of Sir Roger de Coverley will provide lasting delight, and the sympathetic account of the sad life of William Cowper is equally acceptable. Students of ethnography will specially value his account of the life and work of William Robertson Smith, and the discussion on Australian problems in his paper on Fison and Howitt reprinted from the Twentieth Volume of Folk-Lore. ”

“ Yet there are no real inconsistencies in the character of Sir Roger. His whimsical humor, his sentiment, his credulity, his benevolence, his amiable though obstinate temper, are all combined in a personality so convincing that we must always think of him as an actual contemporary of the men who created him. He is the typical conservative English country gentleman of the Queen Anne time, not taking kindly to new ideas, but sturdy, honest, order-loving, of large heart and simple manners. ”

“ If, indeed, we try in any way to bring back to imagination the life of that bygone age, Sir Roger is sure to come to mind at once, at the assizes, at Vauxhall, or, best of all, at home in the country. He is part of that life; as real to our thought as Swift or Marlborough, or as Steele or Addison themselves. ”

“ And yet this is done with so much art and humour that Sir Roger is one of the most living persons in our literature. He is as immortal as Hamlet or Julius Cæsar. We know him as well as we know our nearest neighbour; and we like him quite as well as we like most of our neighbours. ”

“ My worthy friend Sir Roger is one of those who is not only at peace within himself, but beloved and esteemed by all about him. He receives a suitable tribute for his universal benevolence to mankind, in the returns of affection and good-will, which are paid him by every one that lives within his neighbourhood. I lately met with two or three odd instances of that general respect which is shewn to the good old Knight. He would needs carry Will Wimble and myself with him to the county-assizes. ”

“ Captain Sentry observed Sir Andrew very diligent in {20} hearing Sir Roger, and had a mind to turn the discourse, by taking notice, in general, from the highest to the lowest parts of human society, there was "a secret though unjust way among men of indulging the seeds of ill-nature and envy by comparing their own state of life to that of {25} another, and grudging the approach of their neighbour to their own happiness: and on the other side, he who is the less at his ease, repines at the other who, he thinks, has unjustly the advantage over him. ”

“ 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, so that he lives in the family rather as a relation than a dependent. ”

“ As we were upon the road, Will Wimble joined a couple of {10} plain men who rid before us, and conversed with them for some time; during which my friend Sir Roger acquainted me with their characters.
"The first of them," says he, "that has a spaniel by his side, is a yeoman of about an hundred pounds a year, {15} an honest man. He is just within the Game Act and qualified to kill an hare or a pheasant. He knocks down a dinner with his gun twice or thrice a week; and by that means lives much cheaper than those who have not so good an estate as himself. ”

“ There is one particular which I have seldom seen but at Sir Roger's: it is usual in all other places that servants fly from the parts of the house through which {10} their master is passing; on the contrary, here, they industriously place themselves in his way; and it is on both sides, as it were, understood as a visit, when the servants appear without calling. This proceeds from the humane and equal temper of the man of the house, who also perfectly {15} well knows how to enjoy a great estate with such economy as ever to be much beforehand. ”

“ I shall not," continued he, "at this time remind Sir Roger of the great and noble monuments of charity and public spirit which have been erected by {15} merchants since the Reformation, but at present content myself with what he allows us,—parsimony and frugality. If it were consistent with the quality of so ancient a baronet as Sir Roger to keep an account, or measure things by the most infallible way, that of numbers, he would {20} prefer our parsimony to his hospitality. If to drink so many hogsheads is to be hospitable, we do not contend for the fame of that virtue ”

“ By this means he has rendered his friend as amiable as famous. That state of life which bears the face of poverty with Mr. Cowley's "great vulgar," is admirably described, [75] and {5} it is no small satisfaction to those of the same turn of desire, that he produces the authority of the wisest men of the best age of the world, to strengthen his opinion of the ordinary pursuits of mankind.
It would, methinks, be no ill maxim of life, if, {10} according to that ancestor of Sir Roger whom I lately mentioned, every man would point to himself what sum he would resolve not to exceed. ”

“ The fair understanding between Sir Roger and his {15} chaplain and their mutual concurrence in doing good, is the more remarkable because the very next village is famous for the differences and contentions that rise between the parson and the squire, who live in a perpetual state of war. The parson is always preaching at the {20} squire, and the squire, to be revenged on the parson, never comes to church. The squire has made all his tenants atheists and tithe stealers ”

“ I do not remember I have anywhere mentioned, in Sir Roger's character, his custom of saluting everybody that passes by him with a good-morrow or a good-night. This the old man does out of the overflowings of his humanity, {10} though at the same time it renders him so popular among all his country neighbours that it is thought to have gone a good way in making him once or twice knight of the shire.
He cannot forbear this exercise of benevolence even in {15} town, when he meets with any one in his morning or evening walk. ”

“ He was some years a captain, and behaved himself with great gallantry in several engagements and at {10} several sieges; but having a small estate of his own, and being next heir to Sir Roger, he has quitted a way of life in which no man can rise suitably to his merit who is not something of a courtier as well as a soldier. I have heard him often lament that in a profession {15} where merit is placed in so conspicuous a view, impudence should get the better of modesty. ”

“ He is now in his fifty-sixth year, cheerful, gay, and hearty; keeps a good house both in town and country; a great lover of mankind; but there is such a mirthful cast in his behaviour that he is rather beloved than esteemed. His tenants grow rich, {15} 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 ”

“ XXIV. THE SPECTATOR DECIDES TO RETURN TO LONDON [No. 131. Tuesday, July 31, 1711. Addison.]
Ipsae rursum concedite silvae.
Virg.
It is usual for a man who loves country sports to preserve the game in his own grounds, and divert himself upon those that belong to his neighbour. My friend Sir Roger generally goes two or three miles from his house, and gets into the frontiers of his estate, before he beats {5} about in search of an hare or partridge, on purpose to spare his own fields, where he is always sure of finding diversion when the worst comes to the worst. ”

“ Sir Roger is so keen at this sport, that he has been out almost every day since I came down; and upon the chaplain's offering to lend me his easy pad, I was prevailed on yesterday morning to make one of the company. I was extremely pleased, as we rid along, to observe the general benevolence of all the neighbourhood towards my friend. The farmers' sons thought themselves happy if they could open a gate for the good old Knight as he passed by ”

“ After what has been said, I need not inform my readers that Sir Roger, with whose character I hope they are at present pretty well acquainted, had in his youth gone through the whole course of those rural diversions which the country abounds in; and which seem to be extremely well suited to that laborious industry a man may observe here in a far greater degree than in towns and cities. ”

“ In our return home we met with a very odd accident; which I cannot forbear relating, because it shews how desirous all who know Sir Roger are of giving him marks of their esteem. When we were arrived upon the verge of his estate, we stopped at a little inn to rest ourselves and our horses. The man of the house had it seems been formerly a servant in the Knight's family; and to do honour to his old master, had some time since, unknown to Sir Roger, put him up in a sign-post before the door ”

“ I have continued all {10} Sir Roger's servants, except such as it was a relief to dismiss into little beings [156] within my manor. Those who are in a list of the good knight's own hand to be taken care of by me, I have quartered upon such as have taken new leases of me, and added so many advantages during the lives of the persons so quartered, that {15} it is the interest of those whom they are joined with, to cherish and befriend them upon all occasions. ”

“ However, this humour creates him no enemies, for he does {10} nothing with sourness or obstinacy; and his being unconfined to modes and forms, makes him but the readier and more capable [9] to please and oblige all who know him. When he is in town, he lives in Soho Square. It is said he keeps himself a bachelor by reason he was {15} crossed in love by a perverse, beautiful widow of the next county to him. Before this disappointment, Sir Roger was what you call a fine gentleman ”

“ On the other side, some of Sir Roger's friends are afraid the old knight is imposed upon by a designing fellow, and as they have heard that he converses very promiscuously when he is in town, do not know but he has brought down with him some discarded Whig, that is {10} sullen and says nothing because he is out of place. ”

“ Seeing afterwards Orestes in his raving {25} fit, he grew more than ordinary serious, and took occasion to moralize, in his way, upon an evil conscience, adding that Orestes in his madness looked as if he saw something.
[Pg 200]
As we were the first that came into the house, so we were the last that went out of it; being resolved to have a clear passage for our old friend, whom we did not care to venture among the justling of the crowd. Sir Roger went out fully satisfied with his entertainment, and we {5} guarded him to his lodgings in the same manner that we brought him to the playhouse ”

“ Scarecrow, the beggar in Lincoln's Inn Fields, who disabled himself in his right leg, and asks alms all day to get himself a warm supper ... at night, is not half so despicable {10} a wretch as such a man of sense. The beggar has no relish above sensations; he finds rest more agreeable than motion, and while he has a warm fire ..., never reflects that he deserves to be whipped.
"Every man who terminates his satisfactions and enjoyments {15} within the supply of his own necessities and passions, is," says Sir Roger, "in my eye, as poor a rogue as Scarecrow. ”

“ His father left him fourscore pounds a year; but he has CAST and been cast so often, that he is not now worth thirty. I suppose he is going upon the old business of the willow-tree.
As Sir Roger was giving me this account of Tom Touchy, Will Wimble and his two companions stopped short till we came up to them. After having paid their respects to Sir Roger, Will told him that Mr. Touchy and he must appeal to him upon a dispute that arose between them. ”

“ Sir Roger told me further, that he looked upon it to be very good for a man whilst he stayed in town, to keep off infection, and that he got together a quantity of it upon the first news of the sickness being at Dantzick: when of a sudden, turning short to one of his servants who stood behind him, he bid him call a hackney-coach, and take care it was an elderly man that drove it. ”

“ 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 grey-headed, his groom is one of the gravest men that I have ever seen, and his coachman has the looks of a privy counsellor. ”

“ The landed and trading interest. See note, p. 242.
180: 3. Carthaginian faith. Punica fides, a phrase used by the Romans to characterize the treachery of the Carthaginians.
183: 21. Throws down no man's enclosure, and tramples upon no man's corn, as country gentlemen do when hunting over the grounds of their neighbours or their tenants.
184: 22. His family had never been sullied by a trade. It will be remembered that Sir Roger was sensitive on this point. See IX, p. 89.
XXVII. Sir Roger in London
Motto. ”