01 - Days With Sir Roger de Coverley by Joseph Addison, Richard Steele

Journey into the world of acclaimed writer Sir Richard Steele, as he recounts his intimate experiences living in the household of the intriguing Sir Roger de Coverley for an entire month. This podcast is narrated by Elijah Fisher.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter one of Days with Sir Roger DeCoverley. This is
a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, please visit liverbox dot org.
Recorded by Elijah Fisher. Days with Sir Roger DeCoverley by

(00:26):
Joseph Addison and Richard Steele. Chapter one, Sir Roger's family.
Having often received an invitation from my friend Sir Roger
de Coverley to pass away a month with him in
the country, I last week accompanied him thither and am

(00:46):
settled with him for some time at his country house,
where I intend to form several ensuing speculations. Sir Roger,
who's very well acquainted with my humor, lets me rise
and go to bed when I please, dine at his
own table or in my chamber, as I think fit,

(01:07):
sit still and say nothing without bidding me be merry.
When the gentlemen of the country come to see him,
he only shows me at a distance. As I have
been walking in the fields, I have observed them stealing
a sight of me over an edge, and have heard
the Knight desiring them not to let me see them.

(01:31):
For that I hated to be stared at. I am
the more as in Sir Roger's family, because it consists
of sober and staid persons. For as the Knight is
the best master in the world, he seldom changes his servants,
and as he is beloved by all about him, his

(01:53):
servants never care leaving him. By this means, his domesticks
are all in years and grown old. With their master.
You would take his valet de Champs for his brother.
His butler is gray headed, his groom is one of
the gravest men that I have ever seen, and his

(02:16):
coachman has the looks of a privy councilor. You see
the goodness of the master even in the old house dog,
and in a gray pad that is kept in the
stable with great care and tenderness out of regard to
his past services, though he has been useless for subles.

(02:40):
I could not but observe with a great deal of
pleasure the joy that appeared in the countenance of these
ancient domesticks upon my friend's arrival at his country seat.
Some of them could not refrain from tears at the
sight of their old life. Every one of them pressed

(03:02):
forward to do something for him, and seemed discouraged if
they were not employed. At the first time, the good
old Knight, with the mixture of the father and the
master of the family, tempered the inquiries after his own

(03:23):
affairs with several kind questions relating to themselves. This humanity
and good nature engages everybody to him, so that when
he is pleasant upon any of them, all his family
are in good humor, and none so much as the

(03:43):
person diverts himself with. On the contrary, if he coughs
or betrays an infirmity of old age, it is easy
for a standardby to observe a secret concern in the
looks of all his servants. My worthy friend has put
me under the particular care butler, who is a very

(04:08):
prudent man, and as well as the rest of his
fellow servants, wonderfully desires of pleasing me, because they have
often heard their master talk of me as of his
particular friend. My chief companion, when Sir Roger is diverting

(04:29):
himself in the woods for the fields, is a very
vulnerable man who is ever with Sir Roger, and has
lived at his house in the nature of the chaplain
of thirty years. This gentleman is a person of good
sense and some learning, of a very regular life and

(04:52):
obliging conversation. He heartily loves Sir Roger, and knows that
he is very much in the old Knight esteem, so
that he lives in the family rather as a relation
than dependent. I have observed in several papers that my

(05:12):
friend Sir Roger, amidst all of his good qualities, is
something of an humorist, and that his virtues, as well
as imperfections, are, as it were, tinged by a certain
extravagance which makes them particularly his and distinguishes them from

(05:34):
those of other men. This cast of mind, as it
is generally, very innocent in itself, so it renders a
conversation highly agreeable and more delightful than the same degree
of sense and virtue would appear in their common ordinary colors.

(05:57):
As I was walking with him last night, he asked
me how I liked the good old man whom I
have just now mentioned, and, without staying for my answer,
told me that he was afraid of being insulted with
Latin and Greek at his own table, for which reason

(06:18):
he desired a particular friend of his at the university
to find him out a clergy rather of plain sense,
that much learning of a good aspect, a clear voice,
a sociable temper, and if possible, a man that understood
a little of back gammon. My friend says, Sir Roger,

(06:43):
found me out this gentleman, who, besides the endowments required
of him, is, they tell me, a good scholar, though
he does not show it. I have given him the
parsonage of the parish, and because I know his vowe,
have settled upon him a good annuity for life. If

(07:04):
he outlives me, he shall find that he was higher
in my esteem than perhaps he thinks. So. He has
now been with me thirty years, and though he does
not know I've taken notice of it, has never in
all that time asked anything of me for himself, though

(07:25):
he is averreed soliciting me for some thing in behalf
of one or other of my tenants. His parishioners. There
has not been a lawsuit in the parish since he
has lived among them. If any dispute arises, they apply

(07:46):
themselves to him for the decision, and if they do
not acquiesce in his judgment, which I think never happened
above once or twice at most, they appeal to me.
At his first settling with me, I made him a
present of all the good sermons which have been printed

(08:08):
in English, and only begged him that every Sunday he
would pronounce one of them in the pulpit. Accordingly, he
has digested them into such a series that they follow
one another naturally and make a continued system of practical divinity.

(08:28):
As Sir Roger was going on in his story, the
gentlemen we were talking of came up to us and
upon the knights, asking him who preached to tomorrow, for
it was Saturday night. Told us the Bishop of Saint
Asap in the morning, and Doctor South in the afternoon.

(08:48):
He then showed us his list of preachers for the year,
where I saw, with a great deal of pleasure, Archbishop Tillotson,
Bishop Saunderson, Doctor Barrow, Doctor Callumy, with several living authors
who have published discourses of practical divinity. I knew sooner

(09:12):
saw this vulnerable man in the pulpit, But I very
much approved of my friends insisting upon the qualifications of
a good aspect and a clear voice, For I was
so charmed with the gracefulness of his figure of delivery,
as well as with the discourses. He pronounced that I

(09:35):
think never passed any time more to my satisfaction. A
sermon repeated after this manner is like the composition of
a poet and the mouth of a graceful actor. I
could hardly wish that more of our country clergy would
follow this example, and, instead of wasting their spirits in

(09:59):
laborious compositions of their own, would endeavor after a handsome
elocution and all those other talents that are proper to
enforce what has been penned by greater masters. This would
not only be more easy to themselves, but more edifying

(10:19):
to the people. End of Chapter one read by Elijah
Fisher