_The Spectator_ appeared, and this time the friends worked
in concert. It proved a brilliantly successful partnership. The second
number, in which the characters of the club are introduced, was written
by Steele, and to him we owe the first sketch of the immortal Sir Roger
de Coverley:

'When he is in town he lives in Soho Square. It is said he keeps himself
a bachelor by reason he was crossed in love by a perverse, beautiful
widow of the next county to him. Before his disappointment, Sir Roger
was what you call a fine gentleman, had often supped with my Lord
Rochester and Sir George Etheridge, fought a duel upon his first coming
to town, and kicked bully Dawson in a public coffee-house for calling
him youngster. But being ill-used by the above-mentioned widow, he was
very serious for a year and a half; and though, his temper being
naturally jovial, he at last got over it, he grew careless of himself,
and never dressed afterwards. He continues to wear a coat and doublet of
the same cut that were in fashion at the time of his repulse, which, in
his merry humours, he tells us has been in and out twelve times since he
first wore it.... He is now in his fifty-sixth year, cheerful, gay, and
hearty, keeps a good house both in town and country; a great lover of
mankind; but there is such a mirthful cast in his behaviour, that he is
rather beloved than esteemed. His tenants grow rich, his servants look
satisfied, all the young women profess love to him, and the young men
are glad of his company. When he comes into a house he calls the
servants by their names, and talks all the way upstairs to a visit. I
must not omit that Sir Roger is a justice of the quorum; that he fills
the chair at a quarter-session with great abilities; and three months
ago gained universal applause by explaining a passage in the Game Act.'

In their daily issue, as well as afterwards in volumes, the essays had
an extensive sale. They were to be found on every breakfast-table, and
so popular did they prove, that when the imposition of a halfpenny tax
destroyed a number of periodicals, Steele found it safe to double the
price of the _Spectator_. The vivacity and humour of the paper were
visible from the beginning. 'Mr. Steele,' Swift wrote, 'seems to have
gathered new life, and to have a new fund of wit.' Of 555 papers,
Addison wrote 274 and Steele 236, while the remaining forty-five were
the work of occasional contributors. In the full tide of its success