04 - 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 four of Days with Sir Roger Decoverily. This LibriVox
recording is in the public domain. Days with Sir Roger
Decovery by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele. Chapter four, A
country Sunday. I am always very well pleased with a

(00:22):
country Sunday, and think if keeping wholly the seventh Day
were only a human institution, it would be the best
method that could have been thought of for the polishing
and civilizing of mankind. It is certain the country people
would soon degenerate into a kind of savages and barbarians,

(00:45):
were there not such frequent returns of a stated time
in which a whole village meet together with their best
faces and in their cleanest habits, to converse with one
another of indifferent subjects. Here their duties explain to them,
and joined together in adoration of the Supreme Being. Sunday

(01:09):
clears away the rust of the whole week, not only
as it refreshes in their minds the notions of religion,
but it puts both the sexes upon appearing in their
most agreeable forms, and exerting all such qualities as are
apt to give them a figure in the eye of
the village. A country fellow distinguishes himself as much in

(01:33):
the churchyard as a citizen does upon the change the
whole parish politics being generally discussed in that place after
the German or before the bell rings. My friend, Sir Roger,
being a good churchman, has beautified the inside of his
church with several texts of his own choosing. He has

(01:56):
likewise given a handsome pulpit cloth and in the communion
table at his own expense. He has often told me
that at his coming to his estate, he found his
parishioners very irregular, and that in order to make them
kneel and join in their responses, he gave every one

(02:17):
of them a hassock and a common prayer book, and
at the same time employed an itinerant singing master, who
goes about the country for that purpose, to instruct them
rightly in the tunes of the psalms, upon which they
now very much value themselves, and indeed outdo most of

(02:39):
the country churches that I have ever heard. As Sir
Roger is landlord to the whole congregation, he keeps them
in very good order, and will suffer nobody to sleep
in it besides himself, or if by chance he has
been surprised in a short nap at sermon. Upon recover

(03:00):
bring out of it, he stands up and looks about him,
and if he sees anybody else nodding, either wakes them
himself or sends his servants to them. Several other of
the Old Knight's particularities break out upon these occasions. Sometimes
he will be lengthening out a verse in the singing

(03:22):
Psalms half a minute after the rest of the congregation
have done with it. Sometimes, when he is pleased with
the matter of his devotion, he pronounces Amen three or
four times to the same prayer, and sometimes stands up
when everybody else is upon their knees, to count the
congregation or see if any of his tenants are missing.

(03:46):
I was yesterday very much surprised to hear my old
fellow in the midst of the service calling out to
one John Matthews to mind what he was about and
not disturb the congregation. This John Matthews, it seems, is
remarkable for being an idle fellow, and at the time

(04:09):
was kicking his heels for his diversions. This authority of
the night, though exerted in that odd manner which accompanies
him in all circumstances of life, has a very good
effect upon the parish, who are not polite enough to
see anything ridiculous in his behavior. Besides that, the general

(04:30):
good sense and worthiness of his character makes his friends
observe these little singularities as followils that rather set off
them blennish his good qualities. As soon as the sermon
is finished, nobody presumes to stir till Sir Roger is
gone out of the church. The knight walks down from

(04:53):
his seat and the chancel between a double row of
his tenants that stand bowing to him on each side,
and every now and then inquires how such an oar's
wife or mother, or son or father do whom he
does not see at church, which is understood as a

(05:13):
secret reprimend to the person that is absent. The chaplain
has often told me that upon a chattisizing day, when
Sir Roger has been pleased with a boy that answers well,
he has ordered a Bible to be given him next
day for his encouragement, and sometimes accompanies it with a

(05:36):
flitch of bacon to his mother. Sir Roger has likewise
added five pounds a year to the clerk's price, and
that he may encourage the young fellows to make themselves
perfect in the church. Service has promised upon the death
of the present incumbent, who is very old, to bestow it.

(05:57):
According to merit. The fair understanding between Sir Roger and
his chaplain, and their mutual concurrence is doing good. Is
the more remarkable because the very next village is famous
for the differences and contentions that arise between the parson

(06:18):
and the squire, who live in a perpetual state of war.
The parson is always preaching at the squire, and the
squire to be revenged on. The parson never comes to church.
The squire has made all his tenants atheists and tithey stealers,

(06:38):
while the parson instructs them every Sunday in the dignity
of his order and insinuates them in almost every sermon
that he is a better man than his patron. In short,
matters are come to such an extremity that the Squire
has not said his prayers, either in public or private,

(07:01):
this half year, and that the person threatens him if
he does not mend his manners to pray for him
in the face of the whole congregation. Feoids of this nature,
though too frequent in the country, are very fatal to
the ordinary people, who are so used to be dazzled
with riches that they pay as much difference to the

(07:24):
understanding of a man of an estate as a man
of learning, and are very hardly brought to regard the truth,
how important soever it may be, that is preach to them,
when they know there are several men of five hundred
a year who do not believe it. End of Chapter

(07:45):
four read by Elijah Fisher,