there was a large portion of ground set aside for every part of her majesty's dress. These lands might not be improperly called the Queen of Persia's pin-money.

I remember my friend Sir Roger, who, I dare say, 5 never read this passage in Plato, told me some time since, that upon his courting the perverse widow (of whom I have given an account in former papers) he had disposed of an hundred acres in a diamond ring, which he would have presented her with, had 10 she thought fit to accept it: and that upon her wedding-day, she should have carried on her head fifty of the tallest oaks upon his estate. He further informed me, that he would have given her a coal-pit to keep her in clean linen, that he would have 15 allowed her the profits of a wind-mill for her fans, and have presented her once in three years, with the shearing of his sheep for her under-petticoats. To which the knight always adds, that though he did not care for fine clothes himself, there should 20 not have been a woman in the country better dressed than my lady Coverley. Sir Roger, perhaps, may in this, as well as in many other of his devices, appear something odd and singular; but if the humor of pin-money prevails, I think it would be 25 very proper for every gentleman of an estate, to mark out so many acres of it under the title of "The Pins."

No. 32. Sir Roger in Westminster Abbey

SPECTATOR NO. 329. Tuesday, March 18, 1711-12

Ire tamen restat, Numo qua devenit et Ancus.1
Hor. Ep. vi. Lib. 1. 27.

My friend Sir Roger de Coverley told me t'other night, that he had been reading my paper upon Westminster Abbey, in which, says he, there are a great many ingenious fancies. He told me at the 5 same time, that he observed I had promised another paper upon the tombs, and that he should be glad to go and see them with me, not having visited them since he had read history. I could not imagine how this came into the knight's head, till I recol10 lected that he had been very busy all last summer upon Baker's Chronicle, which he has quoted several times in his disputes with Sir Andrew Freeport since his last coming to town. Accordingly I promised to call upon him the next morning, that 15 we might go together to the abbey.

I found the knight under his butler's hands, who always shaves him. He was no sooner dressed, than he called for a glass of the widow Truby's water, which he told me he always drank before 20 he went abroad. He recommended to me a dram of it at the same time, with so much heartiness, that I could not forbear drinking it. As soon as I had got it down, I found it very unpalatable; upon which

the knight, observing that I had made several wry faces, told me that he knew I should not like it at first, but that it was the best thing in the world against the stone or gravel.

I could have wished indeed that he had acquainted 5 me with the virtues of it sooner; but it was too late to complain, and I knew what he had done was out of good will. Sir Roger told me further, that he looked upon it to be very good for a man whilst he staid in town, to keep off infection, and that he got 10 together a quantity of it upon the first news of the sickness being at Dantzig: 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.

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He then resumed his discourse upon Mrs. Truby's water, telling me that the widow Truby was one who did more good than all the doctors and apothecaries in the country; that she distilled every poppy that grew within five miles of her; that she distrib- 20 uted her water gratis among all sorts of people: to which the knight added that she had a very great jointure, and that the whole country would fain have it a match between him and her; "and truly," says Sir Roger, "If I had not been engaged, perhaps 25 I could not have done better."

His discourse was broken off by his man's telling him he had called a coach. Upon our going to it, after having cast his eye upon the wheels, he asked

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the coachman if his axle-tree was good: upon the fellow's telling him he would warrant it, the knight turned to me, told me he looked like an honest man, and went in without further ceremony.

We had not gone far, when Sir Roger, popping out his head, called the coachman down from his box, and, upon presenting himself at the window, asked him if he smoked. As I was considering what this would end in, he bid him stop by the way at 10 any good tobacconist's, and take in a roll of their best Virginia. Nothing material happened in the remaining part of our journey, till we were set down at the west end of the abbey.

As we went up the body of the church, the knight 15 pointed at the trophies upon one of the new monuments, and cry'd out, "A brave man, I warrant him!" Passing afterwards by Sir Cloudesley Shovel, he flung his hand that way, and cried "Sir Cloudesley Shovel! a very gallant man." As we stood before 20 Busby's tomb, the knight uttered himself again after the same manner: “Dr. Busby! 5 a great man: he whipped my grandfather; a very great man! I should have gone to him myself, if I had not been a blockhead: a very great man!"

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We were immediately conducted into the little chapel on the right hand. Sir Roger, planting himself at our historian's elbow, was very attentive to everything he said, particularly to the account he gave us of the lord who had cut off the king of

Morocco's head. Among several other figures, he was very well pleased to see the statesman Cecil upon his knees; and concluding them all to be great men, was conducted to the figure which represents that martyr to good housewifery who died by the 5 prick of a needle. Upon our interpreter's telling us that she was a maid of honor to Queen Elizabeth, the knight was very inquisitive into her name and family; and, after having regarded her finger for some time, "I wonder," says he, “that 10 Sir Richard Baker has said nothing of her in his Chronicle."

We were then conveyed to the two coronation chairs, where my old friend, after having heard that the stone underneath the most ancient of them, 15 which was brought from Scotland, was called Jacob's pillar, sat himself down in the chair, and, looking like the figure of an old Gothic king, asked our interpreter, what authority they had to say that Jacob had ever been in Scotland? The fellow, in- 20 stead of returning him an answer, told him, that he hoped his honor would pay his forfeit. I could observe Sir Roger a little ruffled upon being thus trepanned; but our guide not insisting upon his demand, the knight soon recovered his good humor, 25 and whispered in my ear, that if Will Wimble were with us, and saw those two chairs, it would go hard but he would get a tobacco stopper out of one or t'other of them.