The first number of _The Bee_, a weekly paper set up in 1733, by
Addison's friend, Budgell, contains the following statement: "Mr.
Addison was so fond of this character [Sir Roger de Coverley] that a
little while before he laid down _The Spectator_ (foreseeing that some
nimble gentleman would catch up his pen the moment he quitted it), he
said to an intimate friend, with a certain warmth in his expression
which he was not often guilty of, 'By G----, I'll kill Sir Roger, that
nobody else may murder him.' Accordingly the whole _Spectator_, No.
517, consists of nothing else but an account of the old knight's death,
and some moving circumstances which attended it."
It seems probable that about this time both Steele and Addison were
thinking of bringing _The Spectator_ to a close, and this was the first
of a series of papers which should dismiss all the members of the
Spectator Club. In No. 544--the last of this volume--Captain Sentry
succeeds to Sir Roger's estate, and passes from notice; in No. 549 the
old clergyman is reported dead, and Sir Andrew Freeport gives up his
business and retires into the country to make ready for the end; in No.
555 the Spectator makes his parting bow, and the volume closes.
=Motto.= "Alas for piety and ancient faith."
--Virgil, _Æneid_, vi. 878.
=211=: 16. =The quorum.= The justices of the peace for the county.
=212=: 9. =The Act of Uniformity=, passed in 1662, provided that all
ministers should declare their unfeigned assent to everything in
the Book of Common Prayer, and should use it at morning and evening
service. The Act threw more than two thousand ministers out of their
livings, and united all Dissenters against the Church. Of course
Tories, like Sir Roger, held it to be a wise and necessary measure, of
utmost importance to the security and stability of the Church.
=212=: 17. =Rings and mourning.= It was customary to give by will
mourning rings and mourning gloves and hat bands to a large number of
friends. They would be worn, of course, by such of the friends as
attended the funeral services; but not afterward. See Ashton's _Social
Life in the Reign of Queen Anne_, Chap. iv.