ས. SIR ROGER'S CLIENT. [Spectator No. 37. Thursday, April 12, 1711. Addison.] -Non illa colo calathisve Minervæ Femineas assueta manus VIRGIL. SOME months ago, my friend Sir Roger, being in the country, enclosed a letter to me, directed to a certain lady whom I shall here call by the name of Leonora, and as it contained matters of consequence, desired me to deliver it to her with my own hand. Accordingly I waited upon her ladyship pretty early in the morning, and was desired by her woman to walk into her lady's library, till such time as she was in a readiness to receive me. The very sound of a lady's library1 gave me a great curiosity to see it; and as it was some time before the lady came to me, I had an opportunity of turning over a great many of her books, which were ranged together in a very beautiful order. At the end of the folios (which were finely bound and gilt) were great jars of china 2 placed one above another in a very noble piece of architecture.3 The quartos were separated from the octavos by a pile of smaller vessels, which rose in a delightful pyramid. The octavos were bounded by tea-dishes of all shapes, colors, and sizes, which were so disposed on a wooden frame that they looked like one continued pillar indented with the finest strokes of sculpture and stained with the greatest variety of dyes. 'See Tatler No. 248. In 1714 Steele published three volumes called The Ladies' Library. 2 Shortly before this time a fashion of collecting useless pieces of china had begun to be very prevalent. It was indulged for some years at great expense and to an astonishing degree. See Tatler No. 23. Is this real praise? 3 That part of the library which was designed for the reception of plays and pamphlets, and other loose papers, was enclosed in a kind of square, consisting of one of the prettiest grotesque1 works that ever I saw, and made up of scaramouches, lions, monkeys, mandarins, trees, shells, and a thousand other odd figures in china ware. In the midst of the room was a little japan table, with a quire of gilt paper upon it, and on the paper a silver snuff box made in the shape of a little book. I found there were several other counterfeit books upon the upper shelves, which were carved in wood, and served only to fill up the number, like fagots in the muster of a regiment. I was wonderfully pleased with such a mixed kind of furniture. as seemed very suitable both to the lady and the scholar,1 and did not know, at first, whether I should fancy myself in a grotto or in a library. Upon my looking into the books, I found there were some few which the lady had bought for her own use; but that most of them had been got together, either because she had heard them praised, or because she had seen the authors of them.5 Among several that I examined, I very well remember these that follow: Ogilby's Virgil." Cleopatra. Astræa." Sir Isaac Newton's Works. 'How would this term apply to the whole library? 2 What does this imply as to the lady's literary accomplishments? 3 An uncommon word in this sense. See dictionary. Note the concealed satire. A famous college president once gave the following testimonial to a graceless fellow who had the effrontery to request a recommendation: is about to graduate with equal credit to himself and honor to the institution." 5 She valued them as relics. "Mr. "Of course the reader will readily infer that the collection is a veritable miscellany, showing no evidence of literary taste. There are, however, some literary weaknesses. Full notes may be found in Morley's Spectator. 'Translations of French romances. The Grand Cyrus;1 with a pin stuck in one of the middle leaves. Pembroke's Arcadia.2 3 4 4 Locke of Human Understanding; with a paper of patches in it. A spelling book. A dictionary for the explanation of hard words. Sherlock 5 upon Death. The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony. 6 Sir William Temple's Essays. Father Malebranche's' Search after Truth; translated into English. A book of novels. The Academy of Compliments. The Ladies' Calling. Tales in Verse, by Mr. D'Urfey; bound in red leather, gilt on the back, and doubled down in several places. All the classic authors in wood.9 A set of Elzevirs by the same hand. 10 Clelia 11; which opened of itself in the place that describes two lovers in a bower.) The most famous French romance of the time, in ten volumes, by Mlle. de Scudéry. 2 By Sir Philip Sydney, but published by his sister, the Countess of Pembroke. 3 In Tickell's (1721) edition this reads: "Lock of human understanding." Rather heavy for Leonora, but a good portfolio for patches (bits of black silk stuck upon the faces of fashionable ladies, and used as foils to heighten the whiteness of their complexions). " Dean of St. Paul's. 6 9 English statesman, diplomat, and author. Died 1690. A French philosopher, then at the height of his fame. A Restoration writer of dissolute songs and plays. If there was anything which Addison admired in literature it was the classic authors. This line, then, is most keenly satirical. See note 2, p. 26. 10 I. e., the carpenter's. "By the same hand " was a common phrase in Addison's time to denote by the same author. Notwithstanding his strictures against puns (Spectators Nos. 61 ff., 396, 454, 504) he could not resist the temptation here. "Another French romance in ten volumes by Mile. de Scudéry. Baker's Chronicle.1 Advice to a Daughter. The New Atalantis,2 with a key to it. Mr. Steele's Christian Hero.3 4 A prayer-book; with a bottle of Hungary water by the side of it. Dr. Sacheverell's 5 speech. Fielding's Trial. Seneca's Morals. Taylor's Holy Living and Dying. La Ferte's Instructions for Country Dances. I was taking a catalogue in my pocket-book of these and several other authors, when Leonora entered, and, upon my presenting her with the letter from the knight, told me, with an unspeakable grace, that she hoped Sir Roger was in good health; I answered "Yes," for I hate long speeches, and after a bow or two retired. 7 Leonora was formerly a celebrated beauty, and is still a very lovely woman. She has been a widow for two or three years, and being unfortunate in her first marriage, has taken a resolution never to venture upon a second. She has no children to take care of, and leaves the management of her estate to my good friend Sir Roger. But as the mind naturally sinks into a kind of lethargy, and falls asleep, that is not agitated by some favorite pleasures 1A Chronicle of the Kings of England, by Sir Richard Baker. A favorite book of Sir Roger's, as will be seen, but "a dry and jejune performance. 1 2A somewhat scandalous book by Mrs. Manley, attacking prominent Whigs under concealed names; hence the need of a key. 3A treatise published by Steele in 1701 " as a check on his own irregularites-a self monitor." Aqua regina Hungariæ, a favorite perfume of the time, in which lavender and rosemary were the principal ingredients. 5 A famous Tory divine who had been impeached for preaching two political sermons ridiculing the Whigs. Has the Spectator spoken before? See p. 3 and note 1. Also read p. 4. She was a Mrs. Perry, formerly Miss Shepheard. and pursuits, Leonora has turned all the passions of her sex into a love of books and retirement. She converses chiefly with men (as she has often said herself), but it is only in their writings; and admits of very few male visitants except my friend Sir Roger, whom she hears with great pleasure and without scandal. As her reading has lain very much among romances, it has given her a very particular turn of thinking, and discovers itself even in her house, her gardens, and her furniture. Sir Roger has entertained me an hour together with a description of her country seat, which is situated in a kind of wilderness, about an hundred miles distant from London, and looks like a little enchanted palace. The rocks about her are shaped into artificial grottoes covered with woodbines and jessamines. The woods are cut into shady walks, twisted into bowers, and filled with cages of turtles.1 The springs are made to run among pebbles, and by that means taught to murmur very agreeably. They are likewise collected into a beautiful lake that is inhabited by a couple of swans, and empties itself by a little rivulet which runs through a green meadow, and is known in the family by the name of The Purling Stream.3 2 The knight likewise tells me that this lady preserves her game better than any of the gentlemen in the country. "Not," says Sir Roger, "that she sets so great a value upon her partridges and pheasants, as upon her larks and nightingales; for she says that every bird which is killed in her ground will spoil a concert, and that she shall certainly miss him the next year. 994 With wings, not with shells. Cf. Song of Songs, ii. 12, and a ludicrous incident which happened in Palestine (as related by Mark Twain in Innocents Abroad), when one of the "innocents waited by a frog-pond to hear a tortoise sing. 2 A delicious sarcasm. The romantic Leonora " teaches" brooks how to murmur in genteel fashion, instead of running wild and brawling. This is worthy of Mlle. Scudéry herself, or of Molière's satire, Les Précieuses ridicules. Note the comical effect produced by the contrast of the old |