Sir
Roger de Coverley,
'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 an intimate friend, with a certain warmth in his expression which he was not often guilty of, By God, I'll kill Sir Roger, that nobody else may murder him.'
Accordingly the whole
Spectator
No. 517 consists of nothing but an account of the old knight's death, and some moving circumstances which attended it. Steele had by this date resolved on bringing his
Spectator
to a close, and Addison's paper on the death of
Sir
Roger, the first of several which are to dispose of all members of the