ble in the Addisonian style, the disparity in the outline still remains, and violates in some degree its unity and simplicity. Budgell, who had the advantage of comparing the two designs, adopted that of Addison, and exerted every effort to give it the colouring of his model. As for Tickell, totally mistaking the tendency and keeping of the character, he presented the public with a slight sketch, which so far from aiding the idea his predecessors had endeavoured to embody, offered violence to its most prominent and captivating features. The picture of Addison, in short, was rich, glowing, and complete, full of life, character, and unity; Steele's had to a certain degree the claim of originality, but was discordant in its style and parts. Budgell exhibited a pleasing and pretty accurate copy of Addison's manner; while Tickell vainly strove to share their fame by an ill-imagined caricature.

To be more explicit, however, we may remark, that of the seven papers which Steele wrote as illustrative of the character of Sir Roger, Numbers 2, and 6, were composed before Addison took up the subject. In the first of these he has represented the knight to have been in his youth, and before he was thwarted in the object of his passion, a perfect fine gentleman, and the companion of the first rakes in town; an idea

which Addison, so far from adopting, has directly contradicted, by asserting in N° 115, that Sir Roger was, in the early period of his life, altogether a country gentleman, and the greatest fox-hunter and shooter in the neighbourhood. This trait Budgell has copied in the succeeding number, declaring that the knight in his youth had gone through the whole course of those rural diversions which the country abounds in ;-he has, in his youthful days, taken forty coveys of partridges in a season, and tired many a salmon with a line consisting but of a single hair. The constant thanks and good wishes of the neighbourhood always attended him, on account of his remarkable enmity towards foxes: having destroyed more of those vermin in one year, than it was thought the whole country could have produced.

Another circumstance which Steele has introduced into his delineation of Sir Roger, and which Addison has not followed, is, that his rejection by the widow so affected his intellects as to produce a peculiar obliquity or derangement of mind. This he has made the knight himself confess in N° 118. "I am pretty well satisfied," says he, "such a passion as I have had is never well cured; and between you and me, I am often apt to imagine it has had some whimsical effect upon

my brain: for I frequently find, that in my most serious discourse I let fall some comical familiarity of speech or odd phrase that makes the company laugh." Now this is a feature not only very humiliating in itself, but in direct contradiction to a former assertion of Steele, who in N° 2 had expressly declared, that the Knight's "singularities proceed from his good sense," a position perfectly irreconcilable with the representation just given.

If we turn to Addison's first paper on the character of Sir Roger, we shall find him neither attributing his singularities to derangement, which would be degrading, nor to good sense, which would be absurd, but pourtraying a combination of natural qualities of very possible occurrence, and which he has so employed as at once to render their possessor an object of esteem and love. "My friend Sir Roger," he remarks," amidst all his good qualities, is something of a humourist; his virtues, as well as imperfections, are as it were tinged by a certain extravagance, which makes them particularly his, and distinguishes them from those of other men. This cast of mind, as it is generally very innocent in itself, so it renders his conversation highly agreeable, and more delightful than the same degree of

sense and virtue would appear in their common and ordinary colours."

A third feature in Steele's portrait, which Addison did not approve of, and therefore refused to copy, was the supposed incontinence of the knight, who, it is said, "grew humble in his desires after he had forgot his cruel beauty, insomuch that it is reported he has frequently offended in point of chastity with beggars and gipsies," an insinuation which probably led the author of N° 410 to invent the offensive incident complained of by Addison.

It is obvious, therefore, that Sir Richard's delineation of the knight's character was in many parts of its outline essentially different from the subsequent picture of Addison, whose superior taste and execution enabled him to bring forth a more chaste and perfect production. That Steele, however, as observed in my former volume, not only acknowledged the happier conception of Addison, but imitated it with success, may be fully proved from two or three of his papers, which have imbibed no small portion of his friend's most finished manner. N° 107, for instance, on the benevolence of Sir Roger to his servants, and N° 109, descriptive of his picture gallery, with the knight's account of his ancestors, are full of

humour, and carry on the costume and design of Addison with undeviating felicity.

Steele's seven papers are Nos. 2, 6, 107, 109, 113, 118, and 174; and of these four contain circumstances and opinions not adopted by, and dissimilar to the draught of, Addison.

Addison has included nearly all his incidents relative to Sir Roger in sixteen essays. These, with their respective subjects, I shall enumerate, as they will immediately recal to the reader, and place in one view, the principal features of the character. N° 106, Addison's first paper of this series, contains Sir Roger de Coverley's choice of a chaplain; N° 110, his house haunted and exorcised; N° 112, his behaviour at church; N° 115, his exercises and sports in the country; N° 117, his opinion of Moll White, the supposed witch; N° 122, his conduct and speech at the assizes; N° 125, his adventure when a schoolboy; N° 126, his Tory principles; N° 130, his adventure with the gipsies; N° 131, a preserver of his game; N° 269, his conversation with the Spectator in Gray's Inn Walks; N° 295, his intended generosity to the widow; N° 329, his reflections on the tombs in Westminster Abbey; N° 335, his visit to the theatre and observations on the Distressed Mother; N° 383, his passage to, and opinion of, Spring Gardens;

VOL. II.