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The English Comédie humaine

SIR ROGER
DE COVERLEY

PAPERS FROM

THE SPECTATOR

NEW YORK
The Century Co.
1904

B

HARVARD
COLLEGE
LIBRARY

Copyright, 1902, by
THE CENTURY CO.

Published November, 1902.

PUBLISHERS' NOTE

JOSEPH ADDISON (1672–1719) was the father of modern English fiction; for the papers in the "Spectator" in which the character and opinions of Sir Roger de Coverley are described form the first sketch of the novel of character as distinguished from the romance or novel of incident and adventure. It is, indeed, only a sketch; but it was destined to be filled out a generation later by the mighty pens of Richardson and Fielding, and it has retained undiminished its charm as a sympathetic study of the best type of the English country gentleman at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The character of Sir Roger was outlined by Sir Richard Steele (1672-1729), but the portrait was completed by Addison, and it is with his name that it is properly associated. The Coverley papers appeared during the years 1711-12.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH (1728-1774) belongs in a much later period, the "Vicar of Wakefield" having been published in 1766, twentyfive years after the appearance of "Pamela" and twenty-four after that of "Joseph Andrews" (both of which are included in this series). This famous little classic, however, from the purity of its style and the exquisite simplicity of its delineation of a single type of rural character,-the country parson,-forms a fitting companion to "Sir Roger de Coverley." Its place in the history of English fiction is assured. It is, to-day, the only novel of the later part of the eighteenth century which holds its rank with the masterpieces of the first great novelists, Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett.

To a still later time belongs HENRY MACKENZIE (1745-1831), whose most famous work, "The Man of Feeling," was published in 1771. It is written in the manner—or at least under the inspiration of Sterne, and is marked by an exaggerated sentimentality. Upon its own time, however, it produced an impression which has been compared with that made by Rousseau's "Nouvelle Héloise"; and it is a reflection of an important phase of eighteenth-century life and feeling.

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