The De Coverley Papers | Page 3

English literature survives.
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(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.)
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
1672. Birth of Addison and Steele. 1697. Addison elected Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. 1701, 3, 5, 22. Steele's Plays. 1702. Accession of Queen Anne. 1704. Addison's Campaign (poem celebrating Blenheim). 1706. Addison's Rosamond (opera). 1709-11. Steele's Tatler. 1711-12-14. The Spectator. 1713. Addison's Cato (play). 1714. Accession of George I. 1717. Addison appointed Secretary of State. 1719. Death of Addison. 1729. Death of Steele.

THE DE COVERLEY PAPERS

NO. 1. THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 1710-11
Non fumum ex fulgore, sed ex fumo dart lucem Cogitat, ut speciosa dehinc miracula promat.
HOR. Ars Poet. ver. 143.
One with a flash begins, and ends in smoke; The other out of smoke brings glorious light, And (without raising expectation high) Surprises us with dazzling miracles.
ROSCOMMON.
I have observed, that a reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure, until he knows whether the writer of it be a black[1] or a fair man, of a mild or choleric[2] disposition, married or a bachelor, with other particulars of the like nature, that conduce very much to the right understanding of an author. To gratify this curiosity, which is so natural to a reader, I design this paper and my next as prefatory discourses to my following writings, and shall give some account in them of the several persons that are engaged in this work. As the chief trouble of compiling, digesting[3], and correcting will fall to my share, I must do myself the justice to open the work with my own history.
I was born to a small hereditary estate, which, according to the tradition of the village where it lies, was bounded by the same hedges and ditches in William the Conqueror's time that it is at present, and has been delivered down from father to son whole and entire, without the loss or acquisition of a single field or meadow, during the space of six hundred years. There runs a story in the family, that before my birth my mother dreamt that she was brought to bed of a judge: whether this might proceed from a lawsuit which was then depending[4] in the family, or my father's being a justice of the peace, I cannot determine; for I am not so vain as to think it presaged any dignity that I should arrive at in my future life, though that was the interpretation which the neighbourhood put upon it. The gravity of my behaviour at my very first appearance in the world, and all the time that I sucked, seemed to favour my mother's dream: for, as she has often told me, I threw away my rattle before I was two months old, and would not make use of my coral until they had taken away the bells from it.
As for the rest of my infancy, there being nothing in it remarkable, I shall pass it over in silence. I find, that, during my nonage[5], I had the reputation of a very sullen youth, but was always a favourite of my schoolmaster, who used to say, that my parts[6] were solid, and would wear well. I had not been long at the University, before I distinguished myself by a most profound silence; for during the space of eight years, excepting in the public exercises[7] of the college, I scarce uttered the quantity of an hundred words; and indeed do not remember that I ever spoke three sentences together in my whole life. Whilst I was in this learned body, I applied myself with so much diligence to my studies, that there are very few celebrated books, either in the learned or the modern tongues, which I am not acquainted with.
Upon the death of my father, I was resolved to travel into foreign countries, and therefore left the University, with the character of an odd unaccountable fellow, that had a great deal of learning, if I would but show it. An insatiable thirst after knowledge carried me into all the countries of Europe, in which there was anything new or strange to be seen; nay, to such a degree was my curiosity raised, that having read the controversies of some great men concerning the antiquities of Egypt, I made a voyage to Grand Cairo, on purpose to take the measure of a pyramid: and, as soon as I had set myself right in that particular, returned to my native country with great satisfaction.
I have passed my latter years in this city, where I am frequently seen in most public places, though there