APPENDIX III
ON THE DEATH OF SIR ROGER
After Sir Roger's visit to town we hear no more of him until the club is startled by the receipt of his butler's letter announcing his death. Some of his admirers have devised a sentimental reason for his decease. In Budgell's Bee we read that "Mr. Addison was so fond of this character that a little before he laid down the Spectator (foreseeing that some nimble gentleman would catch up his pen the moment he quitted it) he said to our intimate friend with a certain warmth in his expression, which he was not often guilty of, 'I'll kill Sir Roger that nobody else may murder him'" Dr. Johnson follows Budgell, and assigns to Addison Cervantes' reason, who finds himself obliged to kill Don Quixote, 'being of opinion that they were born for one another, and that any other hand would do him wrong.'
But there was a more inevitable reason for the death of the knight. Six more weeks saw the end of the original Spectator, the joint production of Addison and Steele, and their creators were now engaged in disposing of their characters in various ways. Chalmers remarks that 'The killing of Sir Roger was sufficiently accounted for without supposing that Addison despatched him in a fit of anger; for the work was about to close, and it appeared necessary to close the club.'