hearfal, and perhaps by others; but hitherto nothing had been conveyed to the people, in this commodious manner, but controverfy relating to the Church or State; of which they taught many to talk, whom they could not teach to judge.

It has been fuggested that the Royal Society was instituted foon after the Restoration, to divert the attention of the people from publick discontent. The Tatler and Spectator had the same tendency: they were pub lished at a time when two parties, loud, reftlefs, and violent, each with plaufible declarations, and each perhaps without any distinct termination of its views, were agitating the nation; to minds heated with political conteft, they fupplied cooler and more inoffenfive reflections; and it is faid by Addison, in a subsequent work, that they had a perceptible influence upon the converfation of that time, and taught the frolick and the gay to unite merriment with decency; an effect which they can never wholly lose, while they continue to be among the first books by which both sexes are initiated in the elegances of knowledge.

The

The Tatler and Spectator adjusted, like Cafa, the unfettled practice of daily intercourfe by propriety and politeness; and, like La Bruyere, exhibited the Characters and Manners of the Age. The perfonages introduced in these papers were not merely ideal; they were then known, and confpicuous in various ftations. Of the Tatler this is told by Steele in his laft paper, and of the Spectator by Budgell in the Preface to Theophraftus; a book which Addison has recommended, and which he was fufpected to have revised, if he did not write it. Of thofe portraits, which may be fuppofed to be fometimes embellished, and fometimes aggravated, the originals are now partly known, and partly forgotten,

But to say that they united the plans of two or three eminent writers, is to give them but a small part of their due praise; they fuperadded literature and criticism, and fometimes towered far above their predeceffors; and taught, with great justness of argument and dignity of language, the most important duties and fublime truths.

All these topicks were happily varied with elegant fictions and refined allegories, and illuminated with different changes of style and felicities of invention.

It is recorded by Budgell, that of the characters feigned or exhibited in the Spectator, the favourite of Addison was Sir Roger de Coverley, of whom he had formed a very delicate and difcriminated idea, which he would not fuffer to be violated; and therefore when Steele had fhewn him innocently picking up a girl in the Temple, and taking her to a tavern, he drew upon himfelf fo much of his friend's indignation, that he was forced to appeafe him by a promise of forbearing Sir Roger for the time to come.

The reafon which induced Cervantes to bring his hero to the grave, para mi fola nacio Don Quixote, y yo para el, made Addifon declare, with an undue vehemence of expreffion, that he would kill Sir Roger; being of opinion that they were born for one another, and that any other hand would do him wrong.

It

It may be doubted whether Addifon ever filled up his original delineation. He defcribes his Knight as having his imagination somewhat warped; but of this perversion he has made very little ufe. The irregularities in Sir Roger's conduct, seem not so much the effects of a mind deviating from the beaten track of life, by the perpetual preffure of fome overwhelming idea, as of habitual rufticity, and that negligence which folitary grandeur naturally generates.

The variable weather of the mind, the flying vapours of incipient madnefs, which from time to time cloud reafon, without eclipfing it, it requires fo much nicety to exhibit, that Addison feems to have been deterred from profecuting his own defign.

To Sir Roger, who, as a country gentleman, appears to be a Tory, or, as it is gently expressed, an adherent to the landed interest, is oppofed Sir Andrew Freeport, a new man, a wealthy merchant, zealous for the moneyed intereft, and a Whig. Of this contrariety of opinions, it is probable more confequences

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were at first intended, than could be produced when the refolution was taken to exclude party from the paper. Sir Andrew does but little, and that little feems not to have pleased Addifon, who, when he dif miffed him from the club, changed his opinions. Steele had made him, in the true fpirit of unfeeling commerce, declare that he would not build an hofpital for idle people; but at last he buys land, fettles in the country, and builds not a manufactory, but an hofpital for twelve old husbandmen, for men with whom a merchant has little acquaintance, and whom he commonly confiders with little kindness.

Of effays thus elegant, thus inftructive, and thus commodiously diftributed, it is natural to fuppofe the approbation general and the fale numerous. I once heard it obferved, that the fale may be calculated by the product of the tax, related in the last number to produce more than twenty pounds a week, and therefore stated at one and twenty pounds, or three pounds ten fhillings a day: this, at a half-penny a paper, will give fixteen hundred and eighty for the daily number.