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Chapter 4: The Spectator Club: Addison & Steele

Critical Comments
The first of our society is a gentleman of Worcestershire, of an ancient descent, a baronet,
his name Sir Roger de Coverley
...
All who know that shire are very well acquainted
with the parts and merits of Sir Roger
...
However, this humour 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
...
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
...
(The Spectator Club, March
1st, 1711)
Basic Set Up:
Richard Steele introduces the character Sir Roger de Coverley, a member of the Spectator Club
...
Even though de Coverley's a fictional character, he represents a certain class of
English gentleman
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It's one example of how Augustan writers used fiction to make political and
social statements about what was going on around them
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That makes this straight up fiction, which means that even though The Spectator
was a journalistic publication, a lot of the writing published in it was fictional
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Novelists like Defoe
and Swift routinely framed their novels as journalistic works, stories that were being told, and
here we see Steele upping the ante by publishing a fictional work in an actual journalistic
periodical
...

Now we come to a satirist of quite another spirit whose wit, it has been said, “makes us
laugh and leaves us good and happy
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He was born in 1672 in the quaint little thatched
parsonage of Milston, a Wiltshire village, not far from that strange monument of ancient
days, Stonehenge
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Of his schooldays we
know little, but we can guess, for one story that has come down to us, that he was a shy,
nervous boy
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He hid in a wood, sleeping in a
hollow tree and feeding on wild berries until he was found and taken home to his parents
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For Dick was merry, noisy,
and fun-loving, and although Joseph loved fun too it was in a quiet, shy way
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He was born in
Ireland, but did not [466] remain there long
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From Charterhouse Joseph and Dick both went to Oxford, but to different Colleges
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Joseph Addison had gone to College with the idea of becoming a clergyman like his
father, but after a time he gave up that idea, and turned his thoughts to politics
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Already at college Addison had
become known by his Latin poetry, and three Whig statesmen thought so highly of it that
they offered him a pension of 300 pounds a year to allow him to travel on the Continent

and learn French and so add to his learning as to be able to help their side by his writing
...
For four years he wandered
about the Continent, adding to his store of knowledge of men and books, meeting many
of the foremost men of letters of his day
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So back in London we find him
cheerfully be taking himself to a poor lodging up three flights of stairs, hoping for
something to turn up
...
Blenheim had
been fought
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But the verse was poor, and it seemed to those in power that this great victory
ought to be celebrated more worthily, so the Lord Treasurer looked about him for [467]
some one who could sing of it in fitting fashion
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To help the Lord Treasurer out of
his difficulty one of the great men who had already befriended Addison suggested him as
a suitable writer
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A shy boy at school, Addison had grown into a shy, retiring man, and no doubt he was
not a little taken aback at a visit from so great a personage
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"In short, the Chancellor said so many obliging things, and in so graceful a
manner, as gave Mr
...
"
The poem was a great success, and besides being paid for the work, Addison received a
Government post, so once more life ran smoothly for him
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His Government duties left him time to write, and in the next few years he
published a delightful book of his travels, and an opera
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Everything went well with
him
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He,
however, only became a member of Parliament
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Swift and Addison already
knew each other, and Addison had sent a copy of his travels to Swift as & “to the most
agreeable companion, the truest friend, and the greatest genius of his age
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And even later, in those
days of bitter party feeling, when Swift left his own side and became a Tory, though their
friendship cooled, they never became enemies
...
Addison with all his humor and his satire never attacked any man
personally, so their relations continued friendly and courteous to the end

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