who would never marry beneath herself, and is supposed to have died a
maid in fourscorth year of her age. She was the chronicle of our
family, and passed away the greatest part of the last forty years of
her life in recounting the antiquity, marriages, exploits, and
alliances of the Ironsides. Mrs. Martha conversed generally with a
knot of old virgins, who were likewise of good families, and had been
very cruel all the beginning of the last century. They were every one
of them as proud as Lucifer, but said their prayers twice a day, and
in all other respects were the best women in the world. If they saw a
fine petticoat at church, they immediately took to pieces the pedigree
of her that wore it, and would lift up their eyes to heaven at the
confidence of the saucy minx, when they found she was an honest
tradesman's daughter. It is impossible to describe the pious
indignation that would rise in them at the sight of a man who lived
plentifully on an estate of his own getting. They were transported
with zeal beyond measure, if they heard of a young woman's matching
into a great family upon account only of her beauty, her merit, or
her money. In short, there was not a female within ten miles of them
that was in possession of a gold watch, a pearl necklace, or a piece
of Mechlin lace, but they examined her title to it.
My aunt Martha used to chide me very frequently for not sufficiently
valuing myself. She would not eat a bit all dinner-time, if at an
invitation she found she had been seated below herself; and would
frown upon me for an hour together, if she saw me give place to any
man under a baronet. As I was once talking to her of a wealthy citizen
whom she had refused in her youth, she declared to me with great
warmth, that she preferred a man of quality in his shirt to the
richest man upon the change in a coach and six. She pretended that our
family was nearly related by the mother's side to half a dozen peers;
but as none of them knew anything of the matter, we always kept it as
a secret among ourselves. A little before her death, she was reciting
to me the history of my forefathers; but dwelling a little longer than
ordinary upon the actions of Sir Gilbert Ironside, who had a horse
shot under him at Edgehill fight, I gave an unfortunate _pish_! and
asked, "What was all this to me?" upon which she retired to her closet
and fell a-scribbling for three hours together; in which time, as I
afterwards found, she struck me out of her will, and left all that she
had to my sister Margaret, a wheedling baggage, that used to be asking
questions about her great-grandfather from morning to night. She now
lies buried among the family of the Ironsides, with a stone over her,
acquainting the reader that she died at the age of eighty years, a
spinster, and that she was descended of the ancient family of the
Ironsides; after which follows the genealogy drawn up by her own hand.
IV
SIR ROGER AND HIS HOME[118]
The first of our society is a gentleman of Worcestershire, of ancient
descent, a baronet, his name Sir Roger de Coverley. His
great-grandfather was inventor of that famous country-dance which is
called after him. All who know that shire are very well acquainted
with the parts and merits of Sir Roger. He is a gentleman that is very
singular in his behavior; but his singularities proceed from his good
sense, and are contradictions to the manners of the world only as he
thinks the world is in the wrong. However, this humor creates him no
enemies, for he does nothing with sourness or obstinacy; and his being
unconfined to modes and forms makes him but the readier and more
capable to please and oblige all who know him. When he is in town he
lives in Soho Square. It is said, he keeps himself a bachelor, by
reason he was crossed in love by a perverse beautiful widow of the
next county to him. Before this disappointment, Sir Roger was what you
call a fine gentleman; had often supped with my Lord Rochester and Sir
George Etherege, fought a duel upon his first coming to town, and
kicked Bully Dawson in a public coffee-house, for calling him
youngster. But, being ill used by the above-mentioned widow, he was
very serious for a year and a half; and tho, his temper being
naturally jovial, he at last got over it, he grew careless of himself
and never drest afterward. He continues to wear a coat and doublet of
the same cut that were in fashion at the time of his repulse, which,
in his merry humors he tells us, has been in and out twelve times
since he first wore it. He is now in his fifty-sixth year, cheerful,
gay, and hearty; keeps a good house both in town and country; a great
lover of mankind; but there is such a mirthful east in his behavior
that he is rather beloved than esteemed. His tenants grow rich, his
servants look satisfied, all the young women profess love to him, and
the young men are glad of his company; when he comes into a house, he
calls the servants by their names, and talks all the way up-stairs to
a visit. I must not omit that Sir Roger is a justice of the _quorum_;
that he fills the chair at a quarter-session with great abilities, and
three months ago gained universal applause by explaining a passage in
the Game Act.
Having often received an invitation from my friend Sir Roger de
Coverley to pass away a month with him in the country, I last week
accompanied him thither, and am settled with him for some time at his
country-house, where I intend to form several of my ensuing
speculations. Sir Roger, who is very well acquainted with my humor,
lets me rise and go to bed when I please; dine at his own table or in
my chamber as I think fit; sit still and say nothing without bidding
me be merry. When the gentlemen of the country come to see him, he
only shows me at a distance: as I have been walking in his fields, I
have observed them stealing a sight of me over an hedge, and have
heard the knight desiring them not to let me see them, for that I
hated to be stared at.
I am the more at ease in Sir Roger's family, because it consists of
sober and staid persons: for, as the knight is the best master in the
world, he seldom changes his servants; and, as he is beloved by all
about him, his servants never care for leaving him; by this means his
domestics are all in years, and grown old with their master. You would
take his valet-de-chambre for his brother; his butler is gray-headed;
his groom is one of the gravest men that I have ever seen; and his
coachman has the looks of a privy-councillor. You see the goodness of
the master even in the old house-dog, and in a gray pad that is kept
in the stable with great care and tenderness, out of regard to his
past services, tho he has been useless for several years.
I could not but observe with a great deal of pleasure the joy that
appeared in the countenance of these ancient domestics upon my
friend's arrival at his country-seat. Some of them could not refrain
from tears at the sight of their old master; every one of them prest
forward to do something for him, and seemed discouraged if they were
not employed. At the same time the good old knight, with a mixture of
the father and the master of the family, tempered the inquiries after
his own affairs with several kind questions relating to themselves.
This humanity and good-nature engages everybody to him, so that, when
he is pleasant upon any of them, all his family are in good humor, and
none so much as the person whom he diverts himself with: on the
contrary, if he coughs, or betrays any infirmity of old age, it is
easy for a stander-by to observe a secret concern in the looks of all
his servants.
My worthy friend has put me under the particular care of his butler,
who is a very prudent man, and, as well as the rest of his fellow
servants, wonderfully desirous of pleasing me, because they have often
heard their master talk of me as of his particular friend.
My chief companion, when Sir Roger is diverting himself in the woods
or the fields, is a very venerable man who is ever with Sir Roger, and
has lived at his house in the nature of a chaplain above thirty years.
This gentleman is a person of good sense and some learning, of a very
regular life and obliging conversation: he heartily loves Sir Roger,
and knows that he is very much in the old knight's esteem, so that he
lives in the family rather as a relation than a dependent.
I have observed in several of my papers, that my friend Sir Roger,
amidst all his good qualities, is something of a humorist; and that
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 or ordinary colors. As I was
walking with him last night, he asked me how I liked the good man whom
I have just now mentioned; and, without staying for my answer, told me
that he was afraid of being insulted with Latin and Greek at his own
table; for which reason he desired a particular friend of his at the
university to find him out a clergyman rather of plain sense than much
learning, of a good aspect, a clear voice, a sociable temper, and if
possible a man that understood a little about backgammon. "My friend,"
says Sir Roger, "found me out this gentleman, who, besides the
endowments required of him, is, they tell me, a good scholar, tho he
does not show it. I have given him the parsonage of the parish; and,
because I know his value, have settled upon him a good annuity for
life. If he outlives me, he shall find that he was higher in my esteem
than perhaps he thinks he is. He has now been with me thirty years;
and, tho he does not know I have taken notice of it, has never in all
that time asked anything of me for himself, tho he is every day
soliciting me for something in behalf of one or other of my tenants,
his parishioners."
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 115: From "The Spectator," No. 26.]
[Footnote 116: From Nos. 105 and 530 of "The Spectator."]
[Footnote 117: From No. 137 of "The Guardian."]
[Footnote 118: From Nos. 2 and 106 of "The Spectator." It has been
conjectured that the world owes to Steele rather than to Addison the
original conception of the character of Sir Roger, altho its
development was due more largely to Addison.]
END OF VOLUME III