“I have passed my latter years in this city, where I am frequently seen in most public places, though there are not more than half a dozen of my select friends that know me.... There is no place of general resort wherein I do not often make my appearance; sometimes I am seen thrusting my head into a round of politicians at Will's, and listening with great attention to the narratives that are made in these little circular audiences. Sometimes I smoke a pipe at Child's, and whilst I seem attentive to nothing but the Postman, overhear the conversation of every table in the room. I appear on Tuesday night at St. James's Coffee-house; and sometimes join the little committee of politics in the inner room, as one who comes to hear and improve. My face is likewise very well known at the Grecian, the ‘Cocoa-Tree’, and in the theatres both of Drury Lane and the Haymarket. I have been taken for a merchant upon the Exchange for above these two years; and sometimes pass for a Jew in the assembly of stock-jobbers at Jonathan's. In short, wherever I see a cluster of people, I mix with them, though I never open my lips but in my own club.
“Thus I live in the world rather as a ‘Spectator’ of mankind than as one of the species; by which means I have made myself a speculative statesman, soldier, merchant, and artizan, without ever meddling in any practical part in life. I am very well versed in the theory of a husband or a father, and can discern the errors in the economy, business, and diversions of others, better than those who are engaged in them—as standers-by discover blots which are apt to escape those who are in the game.... In short, I have acted, in all the parts of my life, as a looker-on, which is the character I intend to preserve in this paper.”—Spectator, No. 1.
“The Court was sat before Sir Roger came; but, notwithstanding all the justices had taken their places upon the bench, they made room for the old knight at the head of them; who for his reputation in the country took occasion to whisper in the judge's ear that he was glad his lordship had met with so much good weather in his circuit. I was listening to the proceedings of the Court with much attention, and infinitely pleased with that great appearance and solemnity which so properly accompanies such a public administration of our laws; when, after about an hour's sitting, I observed to my great surprise, in the midst of a trial, that my friend Sir Roger was getting up to speak. I was in some pain for him, till I found he had acquitted himself of two or three sentences, with a look of much business and great intrepidity.
“Upon his first rising; the Court was hushed, and a general whisper ran among the country people that Sir Roger was up. The speech he made was so little to the purpose, that I shall not trouble my readers with an account of it, and I believe was not so much designed by the knight himself to inform the Court, as to give him a figure in my eyes, and to keep up his credit in the country.”—Spectator, No. 122.
“Garth sent to Addison (of whom he had a very high opinion) on his death-bed, to ask him whether the Christian religion was true.”—Dr. Young (Spence's Anecdotes).
“I have always preferred cheerfulness to mirth. The latter I consider as an act, the former as an habit of the mind. Mirth is short and transient, cheerfulness fixed and permanent. Those are often raised into the greatest transports of mirth who are subject to the greatest depression of melancholy: on the contrary, cheerfulness, though it does not give the mind such an exquisite gladness, prevents it from falling into any depths of sorrow. Mirth is like a flash of lightning that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity.”—Addison, Spectator, p. 381.
“Steele had the greatest veneration for Addison, and used to show it, in all companies, in a particular manner. Addison, now and then, used to play a little upon them; but he always took it well.”—Pope (Spence's Anecdotes).
“Sir Richard Steele was the best-natured creature in the world: even in his worst state of health, he seemed to desire nothing but to please and be pleased.”—Dr. Young (Spence's Anecdotes).
The gaiety of his dramatic tone may be seen in this little scene between two brilliant sisters, from his comedy, The Funeral, or Grief à la Mode. Dick wrote this, he said, from “a necessity of enlivening his character”, which, it seemed, the Christian Hero had a tendency to make too decorous, grave, and respectable in the eyes of readers of that pious piece.
[Scene draws, and discovers Lady Charlotte, reading at a table,—Lady Harriet, playing at a glass, to and fro, and viewing herself.]