y propriety and politeness; and, like La Bruyere,
exhibited the "Characters and Manners of the Age." The personages
introduced in these papers were not merely ideal; they were then known,
and conspicuous in various stations. Of the Tatler this is told by
Steele in his last paper; and of the Spectator by Budgell in the preface
to "Theophrastus," a book which Addison has recommended, and which
he was suspected to have revised, if he did not write it. Of those
portraits which may be supposed to be sometimes embellished, and
sometimes aggravated, the originals are now partly known, and partly
forgotten. But to say that they united the plans of two or three eminent
writers, is to give them but a small part of their due praise; they
superadded literature and criticism, and sometimes towered far above
their predecessors; and taught, with great justness of argument and
dignity of language, the most important duties and sublime truths.
All these topics were happily varied with elegant fictions and refined
allegories, and illuminated with different changes of style and
felicities of invention.

It is recorded by Budgell, that of the characters feigned or exhibited
in the Spectator, the favourite of Addison was Sir Roger de Coverley, of
whom he had formed a very delicate and discriminate idea, which he
would not suffer to be violated; and therefore when Steele had shown him
innocently picking up a girl in the Temple, and taking her to a tavern,
he drew upon himself so much of his friend's indignation that he was
forced to appease him by a promise of forbearing Sir Roger for the time
to come.

The reason which induced Cervantes to bring his hero to the grave, para
mi sola nacio Don Quixote, y yo para el, made Addison declare, with
undue vehemence of expression, that he would kill Sir Roger; being of
opinion that they were born for one another, and that any other hand
would do him wrong.

It may be doubted whether Addison ever filled up his original
delineation. He describes his knight as having his imagination somewhat
warped; but of this perversion he has made very little use. The
irregularities in Sir Roger's conduct seem not so much the effects of a
mind deviating from the beaten track of life, by the perpetual pressure
of some overwhelming idea, as of habitual rusticity, and that negligence
which solitary grandeur naturally generates. The variable weather of the
mind, the flying vapours of incipient madness, which from time