INTRODUCTION.

THE character of Sir Roger de Coverley is portrayed in less than forty papers of the Spectator, occupying in this volume barely a hundred and fifty pages of type, which may be read in an evening of pleasurable leisure. It is impossible to make a painful task of this reading. Written by Steele and Addison for the delectation of their contemporaries, the Spectator continues, after the lapse of nearly two hundred years, to delight all people of taste; and the most pleasing portion of these 635 very miscellaneous papers is that small group devoted to Sir Roger. Excepting the critical papers on Paradise Lost, no considerable number of others can be found having sufficient unity of theme to justify a grouping under a common rubric.

Nor do the Sir Roger papers from the Spectator have much internal organic unity of development. They give us but little story; there is absolutely no plot; they stand in no necessary sequence, and except that allusions would here and there become thereby unintelligible, even their order might be changed with impunity.

These papers make, however, a very distinct impression, and leave us in no confusion as to the characteristics of the man whom the writers had in their imagination conceived. This distinctness of outline depends on an inner unity of

fidelity to an ideal consistently thought out and nobly planned. The writers did not add piece after piece to their work at random. When they came to Sir Roger, they knew the man they had to describe. In short, we have in this selection a very happy, though slight, attempt at character painting. Were there only a plot, and complicated relations with other characters equally well drawn Addison and Steele would have given us a novel before the days of Fielding.

We have, however, only the picture of Sir Roger. All other draughts of character are inchoate, sometimes suggesting possibilities, but never carrying possibilities to realization.

The Spectator remains a miscellany of bright, humorous writing on subjects oftenest commonplace, though sometimes rising to a noble religious fervor. The authors announced it as their endeavor "to cultivate and polish human life, by promoting virtue and knowledge, and by recommending whatever may be either useful or ornamental to society." In this announcement of purpose there is no cant. Both the writers of the Spectator were sincere men, and in their work they make good all their professions.

Neither Addison nor Steele was still to learn what the public would take with avidity; nor was either of them still to learn where his own strength lay. Only two months before the first number of the Spectator appeared, Steele had brought to an end his Tatler, after a career of 271 numbers. In this enterprise, from the twentieth number on, Steele had had the occasional assistance of Addison

In his Tatler Steele had felt his way to the form of writ ing which he could best manage, and which the conditions of the time most clearly solicited. The essay on a moral or social theme, as we know it in the Spectator, was only

one of several features which were embraced in his original conception. For one thing, he included in his scheme, at the outset, a department of news. For telling the political news he had special facilities, for he held the office of "gazetteer," or editor of the London Gazette, then, as now, the official organ of the government for the publication of important state transactions. The gazetteership was a public office, depending for its retention on the continued favor of the party in power. The English civil service was at that time as corrupt as was that of the United States before the reformers began their work. Politics changed, Steele's enemies came into power, and Steele lost his office. Henceforward he could give the Tatler no special distinction by publishing news. But in the light, witty, satirical essay, touching upon social foibles, Steele had, during his editorship of the Tatler, found himself very much at home. In this field he was unrivalled, except by the man who, joining the enterprise as a loyal coadjutor, helped him to the achievement of a fame far greater than he could have attained alone. The Tatler, therefore, before Steele brought it to an end in the beginning of 1711, had become such a paper that the Spectator followed it naturally, and without essential change of plan.

Not only had Steele sounded the public taste and found the bent of his own genius; he had secured a partner of greater literary skill than himself. Very generously he recognizes the primacy of Addison in their joint enterprise. "I have," says he, "only one gentleman, who will be nameless, to thank for any frequent assistance to me, which in deed it would have been barbarous in him to have denied to one with whom he has lived in an intimacy from childhood, considering the great ease with which he is able to dispatch the most entertaining pieces of this nature. This good office

he performed with such force of genius, humor, wit, and learning, that I fared like a distressed prince, who calls in a powerful neighbor to his aid; I was undone by my auxiliary; when I had once called him in, I could not subsist without dependence on him." Thus does Steele speak in closing the Tatler.

How the two writers apportioned their work cannot now be known. No system or plan of dividing the responsibility is perceptible. Probably there was none. The truth would seem to be that Steele was known as the responsible editor, on whom devolved the ultimate care of providing copy, while the position of Addison was that of a generous contributor, whose aid was so abundant that the editorial func tion, though by no means a sinecure or a secondary affair, was always relieved from anxiety. We can hardly conceive Steele as rejecting or correcting anything from Addison. Almost as little likely is it that Addison ever complained of Steele. If the men worked in unbroken harmony, this happy union will have to be ascribed chiefly to the large heart and good nature of Steele, and in an inferior degree to the courtesy and high breeding of Addison. Both were lovable men; but Steele was the more capable of forbearance, the readier to pardon, the less liable to give offence.

The methods employed by Addison and Steele to render their essays an effective agency for the moral improvement of society should be carefully noted. It was plainly an absolute necessity, if the essays were to be widely read, that they should be interesting. The public of that day had its own peculiar tastes, largely inherited from the time of the Restoration. These tastes were vicious, and were in fact precisely the thing that was to be corrected. To sermons and pamphlets the public was quite too thoroughly used.

These instrumentalities had exhausted their efficacy as means of reaching the polite, pleasure-loving classes. Something very unlike a sermon, very unlike a partisan pamphlet, was evidently called for by the situation. Here were possible readers in plenty, ready to laugh with a humorist or a wit, — prepared to relish satire directed against even their own foibles and extravagances, provided only the satire was amusing. The writer who purposed to get a hearing in this class must obviously meet it half way. He must not seem too serious, too lofty in his professions. Only in dealing directly with religion and religious institutions could he be pardoned for assuming the solemn tone. He must be perpetually in good humor, always urbane, never above the level of his readers. Hence he must avoid squeamishness in language, speak in the usual manner of his time, and use the freedom and breadth of illustration that everybody expected. In short, he must make his essays light, joyous, provoking; and while the moral was always present, and plainly deducible, its reception must be provided for by bringing readers into a pleased and receptive mood.

Earnest whigs as Addison and Steele notably were, they saw that their paper would utterly miss its aim if it became known as a partisan enterprise. Its attitude towards politics is the attitude of a censor, not of any political doctrine, but of all political bitterness of feeling. Even the most splenetic tories loved Addison, and welcomed the Spectator without misgiving.

Then the writers of the Spectator understood perfectly that their paper could not dispense with the favor of women. They meant it should go into homes, there be read aloud and laughed over, assured that what was talked about at the tea-table would make an impression on minds and win regard.