Sir Roger

“ 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 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. ”

“ Something there was that Sir Roger would never consent to, but which she never ceased to insist on, and I often wondered how she could go on, to press a man of his dangerous temper, as she did, and at times she would do so to the very verge of a provocation. Do you know, sir,” said he, after a short silence,—“if I was to be on my oath to-morrow, I 'd not say that he was not seeking his death when he met it? I never saw a man so sick of life,—he was only puzzled how to lay it down without dishonor.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ It had reached the extremity of imbecility and contempt—it must soon reach its close.
Sir Roger used to make his regular annual visit to town; but of late, when there, he had wandered restlessly about the streets, peeping into the shop-windows; and if it rained, standing under entries for hours after, till it was gone over. The habit of lurking and peering about was upon him; and his feet bore him instinctively into those narrow and crowded alleys where swarm the poachers of the city—the trespassers and anglers in the game preserves and streams of humanity. He had lost all pleasure in his club ”

“ 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. ”

“ Sir Roger, who figures in thirty papers of the Spectator, is the very beau-ideal of an amiable country gentleman of Queen Anne's time.
What would Sir Roger de Coverley be without
his follies and his charming little brain-cracks? If
the good knight did not call out to the people
sleeping in church, and say "Amen" with such
delightful pomposity; if he did not mistake Mde.
Doll Tearsheet for a lady of quality in Temple
Garden; if he were wiser than he is ... of
what worth were he to us? We love him for his
vanities as much as for his virtues.—Thackeray. ”

“ I do not remember I have any where mentioned in Sir Roger's character, his custom of saluting every body that passes by him with a good-morrow or a good-night. This the old man does out of the overflowings of his humanity, 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 town, when he meets with any one in his morning or evening walk. ”

“ It came, and Sir Roger faced the ordeal alone in his cell, when, lo! in the dead hour of the night, his tormentor appeared, but no longer armed with his terrors. His face was changed, his features resigned and peaceful.
“I come but to bid thee farewell, for so long as thou art in the flesh. Thy son has fulfilled thy vow. He has placed my sword on the altar of the Holy Sepulchre, and I am released. Thou hast thy reward and my forgiveness. May we meet where strife is no more! Him thou shalt yet see in the flesh, as thy reward.” ”

“ It was to him the most irritating sight in the world; for what were all those swarming weavers and spinners but arrant radicals, upstarts, sworn foes of ancient institutions and the landed interests of England? Sir Roger had passed through many a desperate conflict with them for the return of members to parliament. They brought forward men that were utter wormwood to all his feelings, and they paid no more respect to him and his friends on such occasions than they did to the meanest creature living. Reverence for ancient blood did not exist in that plebeian and rapidly multiplying tribe. ”

“ It seemed strange that he could do so; for Roger had always been a hot-blooded, virile, inconsiderate man who rode life as he rode a horse, with a loose rein, a straight bit, and rowel-spurs. He had always had a headstrong tendency to hurdle with tense, savage joy across the obstacles he encountered—which were of his own making as often as not. ”

“ Good Roger, where are your wits? I am sped. So are we all. Never a king was done to death but a thousand die for his killing. The wolf hath the sheep and the hounds are upon the wolf."
"Angevin!" Roger cried, for at last he saw his men's faces. "Your craft serves you not now. Out, fellows, out. Leave me alone with them."
"The brave Roger!" the king laughed. "Alone with a bound man and a woman bound. O gallant knight."
"Aye, fool it to the last, Henry. There is nothing left you but your tongue. Now hear you me. Not at my will only you lie bound, but for the lady your queen. ”

“ While Roger spoke, he was hastily throwing aside his English dress, and arraying himself in the Irish national costume—the tunic and braccæ which dated from Roman days, the loose hood, the plaid, the bare foot in the stirrup, and the spear in the hand. Thus accoutred, and commanding his men to stand still until after the parley, he dashed up the slope to meet the Irish leaders.
For an instant Roger's handsome face and lithe figure were seen at the summit of the knoll, as he cried in Irish to the advancing host.
"God speed you, my brethren! What are your demands?" ”

“ Sir Roger rates his tenants, passes them in review in church, knows their affairs, gives them advice, assistance, commands; he is respected, obeyed, loved, because he lives with them, because the simplicity of his tastes and education puts him almost on a level with them; because as a magistrate, a landed proprietor of many years' standing, a wealthy man, a benefactor and neighbor, he exercises a moral and legal, a useful and respected authority. ”

“ Sir Roger added, that if these Gentlemen had any such Intention, they did not succeed very well in it; for I threw them out, says he, at the End of Norfolk-street, where I doubled the Corner, and got Shelter in my Lodgings before they could imagine what was become of me. However, says the Knight, if Captain SENTRY will make one with us to Morrow Night, and if you will both of you call upon me about Four a-Clock, that we may be at the House before it is full, I will have my own Coach in Readiness to attend you, for John tells me he has got the Fore-Wheels mended. ”

“ That night Sir Roger lodged at the Tower, and the next morning he went to Barking Church, on the confines of the city,262 where he was met by the mayor and a "countless multitude" of the citizens. The advice he had to give the citizens was that if they wished to be reconciled to the king, they would have to submit their lives and property unreservedly to his will. Letters patent were drawn up to that effect under the common seal, and taken by Sir Roger himself to Windsor. The citizens had not long to wait for an answer. ”

“ 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 Square. ”

“ When he was ancient in inn of court, certain young gentlemen were brought before him to be conrected for certain misorders; and one of the lustiest said, “Sir, we be young gentlemen; and wise men before us have proved all fashions, aud yet those have done full well” This theysaid, because it was well known that Sir Roger had been a good fellow in his youth. ”

“ That night the doctor came, and when morning dawned fair and rosy, Roger was told what to him seemed his death-warrant. Out under the nodding trees, arm and arm, the great oculist and Roger paced, while gently as a mother could have done, the man of science old in years, explained to the young man just on the threshold of a long life, why he could never again look upon the faces of those he loved, or study nature in all its varied forms. ”

“ In this glimpse we miss the genial face of Sir Roger, but there is nothing in it inconsistent with the village squire of the Spectator, Indeed, Mr. Trollope says of the old squire, "He was a good man too, was old Adolphus Meetkerke; a good landlord, a kindly natured man, a good sportsman, an active magistrate, and a good husband."
He was evidently a regular attendant to his magisterial duties on the Royston Bench, for his clean, linear, and well-written signature turns up frequently in the Royston parish books. ”

“ To such men as he England owes the permanence of much that is best in her institutions and her national life. As one walks through Westminster Abbey to-day, listening to the same chattering verger that conducted Sir Roger—he has been going his rounds ever since—one almost expects to see again the knight sitting down in the coronation chair, or leaning on Edward Third's sword while he tells the discomfited guide the whole story of the Black Prince out of Baker's Chronicle. ”

“ With ten thousand a-year, and his rental rising, he was still, however, a man of overwhelming cares. What mattered a fine estate if all the world was against him? And Sir Roger firmly believed that he stood in that predicament. He had grown up to regard the world as full of little besides upstarts, radicals, manufacturers, and poachers. All were banded, in his belief, against the landed interest. It demanded all the energy of his very small faculties to defend himself and the world against them. ”

“ 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 gain'd universal Applause by explaining a Passage in the Game-Act.
The Gentleman next in Esteem and Authority among us, is another Batchelor, who is a Member of the Inner Temple; a man of great Probity, Wit, and Understanding ”

“ As I was yesterday taking the air with my friend Sir Roger, we were met by a fresh-coloured, ruddy young man, who rid by us full speed, with a couple of servants behind him. Upon my inquiry who he was, Sir Roger told me {15} that he was a young gentleman of a considerable estate, who had been educated by a tender mother, that lives not [Pg 149] many miles from the place where we were. She is a very good lady, says my friend, but took so much care of her son's health, that she has made him good for nothing. ”

“ He was an excellent husbandman, but had resolved not to exceed such a degree of wealth; all above it he bestowed in secret bounties many years after the sum he aimed at for his own use was attained. Yet he did not slacken his industry, but to a decent old age spent the life and fortune which was superfluous to himself, in the service of his friends and neighbours."
Here we were called to dinner, and Sir Roger ended the discourse of this gentleman, by telling me, as we followed the servant, that this his ancestor was a brave man, and narrowly escaped being killed in the Civil Wars. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Sir Roger was but ill-rewarded by the Tories, for having been their champion; the latter part of his life was clouded with poverty, and though he descended in peace to the grave, free from political turmoils, yet as he was bowed down with age and distress, he cannot be said to have died in comfort. He had seen much of the world, examined many characters, experienced the vicissitudes of fortune, and was as well instructed as any man that ever lived, in the important lesson of human life, viz. ”

“ 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. ”