X. THE COVERLEY GHOST........Addison....No. 110... 49 ✔ XII. SIR ROGER IN LOVE........ .Steele......No. 113... 58 (z. XV. SIR ROGER GOES A-HUNTING....Budgell....No. 116... 74 XXVI. A VILLAGE WITCH.... XX. SIR ROGER ON THE BENCH....Addison....No. 122... 99 XXVI. A JOURNEY TO LONDON.......Steele.. .No. 132... 128 XXVII. SIR ROGER IN AN ARGUMENT.. Steele...... .No. 174... 133 XXVIII. SIR ROGER IN LONDON....... Addison....No. 269... 138 INTRODUCTION. I. THE TATLER AND THE SPECTATOR. THE Sir Roger de Coverley Papers are selections from five hundred and fifty-five daily issues of a sheet called the Spectator. This was the natural successor of another periodical of similar character-the Tatler, founded in London, in 1709, by Richard Steele, and published three times a week over the signature of ISAAC BICKERSTAFF. The circumstances which led to the selection of the pen name are of curious interest. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, prophetic almanacs were extremely popular in England, under the title of "Prognostications." The Stationers' Company employed for several years as its principal "prophet” a fellow who was a shoemaker by trade, named John Partridge. He appropriated to himself the title of "Student in Astrology," and like other astrological impostors pretended to tell the course of events by consulting the stars. After Partridge's "Prognostications for 1708 " appeared, that mad wag Jonathan Swift-the author of “Gulliver's Travels," then an Irish vicar of rising fame visiting in London-published a satire entitled "Predictions for the year 1708, wherein the month, and the day of the month, are set down, the persons named, and the great actions and events of next year particularly related, as they will come to pass. Written to prevent the people of England from being further imposed on by the vulgar almanac There were 635 Spectators, but there was a break after 555 had been issued, and the last 80 were not daily issues, as will be seen farther on. makers. By ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, Esq." He begins very solemnly by deploring the fact that faith in astrology seems to be on the wane, and attributes it to the fact that so many “illiterate traders between us and the stars impart a yearly stock of nonsense, lies, folly, and impertinence, which they offer to the world as genuine from the planets, though they descend from no greater a height than their own brains." After showing up the frailties of pseudoastrologers, "Bickerstaff" vaunts his own ability as a stargazer and star-reader, with so much seeming seriousness and candor as to take in many good people and some bad ones; in fact, the Inquisition at Portugal actually burnt his tract because of its heresy, and thundered its anathemas against the author and his readers. Finally Bickerstaff begins his concrete prophecies: "My first prediction is but a trifle, it relates to Partridge the almanac-maker. I have consulted the star of his nativity by my own rules, and find he will infallibly die upon the 29th of March next, about eleven at night, of a raging fever: therefore I advise him to consider of it, and settle his affairs in time." On the day following the fateful twenty-ninth of March appeared another pamphlet, entitled "The accomplishment of the first of Mr. Bickerstaff's predictions, being an account of the death of Mr. Partridge, the almanacmaker, upon the 29th instant, in a letter to a person of In this it was stated that Partridge died at "about five minutes after seven; by which it is clear that Mr. Bickerstaff was mistaken almost four hours in his calculation." Partridge, however, was not only very much alive, but incomparably angry; and the fact that all the wits of the time aided in spreading the report of his demise, served to increase his wrath. He is said to have knocked down before his very door a vender of Swift's obituary pamphlet who was crying it about the streets. Finally there appeared a |