No character in our literature, not even Mr. Pickwick, has more endeared
himself to successive generations of readers than Addison's Sir Roger de
Coverley: there are many figures in drama and fiction of whom we feel
that they are in a way personal friends of our own, that once introduced
to us they remain a permanent part of our little world. It is the abiding
glory of Dickens, it is one of Shakespeare's abiding glories, to have
created many such: but we look to find these characters in the novel or
the play: the essay by virtue of its limitations of space is unsuited for
character-studies, and even in the subject of our present reading the
difficulty of hunting the various Coverley Essays down in the great
number of _Spectator_ Papers is some small drawback. But here before the
birth of the modern English novel we have a full-length portrait of such
a character as we have described, in addition to a number of other more
sketchy but still convincing delineations of English types. We are
brought into the society of a fine old-fashioned country gentleman,
simple, generous, and upright, with just those touches of whimsicality
and those lovable faults which go straight to our hearts: and all so
charmingly described that these Essays have delighted all who have read
them since they first began to appear on the breakfast-tables of the
polite world in Queen Anne's day.
"Addison's" Sir Roger we have called him, and be sure that honest Dick
Steele, even if he drew the first outlines of the figure, would not bear
us a grudge for so doing. Whoever first thought of Sir Roger, and however
many little touches may have been added by other hands, he remains
Addison's creation: and furthermore it does not matter a snap of the
fingers whether any actual person served as the model from which the
picture was taken. Of all the bootless quests that literary criticism can
undertake, this search for "the original" is the least valuable. The
artist's mind is a crucible which transmutes and re-creates: to vary the
metaphor, the marble springs to life under the workman's hands: we can
almost see it happening in these Essays: and we know how often enough a
writer finds his own creation kicking over the traces, as it were, and
becoming almost independent of his volition. There is no original for Sir
Roger or Falstaff or Mr. Micawber: they may not have sprung Athena-like
fully armed out of the author's head, and they may have been suggested by
some one he had in mind. But once created they came into a full-blooded
life with personalities entirely of their own.
A vastly more useful quest, one in fact of absorbing interest, is the
attempt to follow the artist's method, to trace the devices which he
adopts to bring to our notice all those various traits by which we judge
of character. The prose writer has this much advantage over the
playwright, that he can represent his _dramatis personæ_ in a greater
number of different situations, and furthermore can criticise them and
draw our special attention to what he wishes to have stressed: he can
even say that such and such thoughts and motives are in their minds. Not
so the dramatist: his space is limited and he is cribbed, cabined, and
confined by having to give a convincing imitation of real life, where we
cannot tell what is going on in the minds of even our most intimate
friends. Thus the audience is often left uncertain of the purport of what
it sees and hears: the ugly and inartistic convention of the aside must
be used very sparingly if the play is to ring true; and so it is that we
shall find voluminous discussions on the subject, for instance, of how
Shakespeare meant such and such a character to be interpreted. It stands
to reason that the character in fiction can to this same extent be more
artificial. It is a test of the self-control and artistic restraint of
the novelist if he can refrain from diving too deep into the unknown and
arrogating to himself an impossibly full knowledge of the mental
processes of other people. And now notice how Addison gives us just such
revelations of the old Knight's character as the observant spectator
would gather from friendly intercourse with him. We see Sir Roger at
home, ruling his household and the village with a genial if somewhat
autocratic sway: we see him in London, taking the cicerone who pilots him
round Westminster Abbey for a monument of wit and learning: and so on and
so forth. There is no need to catalogue these occasions: what we have
said should suffice to point out a very fruitful line of study which may
help the reader to a full appreciation of Addison's work. "Good wine
needs no bush," and the Coverley Essays are good wine if ever there was
such.
The study of the style is also of the greatest value. Addison lived at a
time when our modern English prose had recently found itself. We admire
the splendour of the Miltonic style, and lose ourselves in the rich
harmonies of Sir Thomas Browne's work; but after all prose is needed for
ordinary every-day jog-trot purposes and must be clear and
straightforward. It can still remain a very attractive instrument of
speech or writing, and in Addison's hands it fulfilled to perfection the
needs of the essay style. He avoids verbiage and excessive adornment, he
is content to tell what he sees or knows or thinks as simply as possible
(and even with a tendency towards the conversational), and he has an
inimitable feeling for just the right word, just the most elegantly
turned phrase and period. Do not imagine this sort of thing is the result
of a mere gift for style: true, it could not happen without that, but
neither can it happen without a great deal of careful thought, a
scrupulous choice, and balancing of word against word, phrase against
phrase. Because all this is done and because the result is so clear and
runs so smoothly, it requires an effort on our part to realise the great
amount of work involved: _Ars est celare artem_: and in such an essay as
that describing the picture gallery in Sir Roger's house we can see the
pictures in front of our eyes precisely because the description is so
clear-cut, so free from unnecessary decoration, and yet so picturesque
and attractive.
A very short acquaintance will enable the reader to appreciate Addison's
charming humour and sane grasp of character. The high moral tone of his
work, the common-sense and broad culture and literary insight which
caused the _Spectator_ to exert a profound influence over a dissolute
age, these can only be seen by a more extended reading of the Essays, and
those who are interested cannot do better than obtain some general
selection such as that of Arnold.
Biographical and historical details are somewhat outside the scope of the
present Essay. A short Chronological Table is appended, and the reader
cannot be too strongly recommended to study Johnson's Life of Addison,
which is one of the best of the Lives of the Poets, and in which the
literary criticism is in Johnson's best vein. And Thackeray's _Esmond_
contains some delightful passages introducing Richard Steele and his
entourage, with an interesting scene in Addison's lodgings. It is perhaps
as well to mention that the _Spectator_ grew out of Addison's
collaboration with Steele in a similar periodical entitled the _Tatler_.
There were several writers besides these two concerned in the
_Spectator_, notably Budgell. (The letters at the end of most of the
papers are signatures: C., L., I. and O. are the marks of Addison's work,
R. and T. of Steele's, and X. of Budgell's.) We have stories of Addison's
resentment of their tampering with his favourite character; it is even
said that he killed the Knight off in his annoyance at one paper which
represented him in an unfitting situation. We cannot judge of the truth
of such stories. In any case it was Addison who controlled the whole
tenor and policy of the paper, wisely steering as clear as possible of
politics, and thereby broadening his appeal and reaching a wider public,
and it was Addison's kindly and mellow criticism of life that informed
the whole work. His remaining literary productions, popular at the time,
have receded into the background: but the _Spectator_ will keep his name
alive as long as English literature survives.
* * * * *
(In this selection only those essays have been chosen which bear directly
on Sir Roger or the _Spectator_ Club: several have been omitted which
refer to him only _en passant_ or as a peg on which to hang some
disquisition, and also one other which is wholly out of keeping with Sir
Roger's character.)