taken out, when curious fashions
are displayed, when Honoria and Flavia, Fidelia and Gloriana dress and
speak and ogle and flirt just as Addison saw and photographed them. We
have their subjects of interest, their forms of gossip, the existing
abuses of the day, their taste in letters, their opinions upon the works
of literature, in all their freshness.

The fullest and most systematic of these social delineations is found in
the sketch of _The Club_ and _Sir Roger de Coverley_. The creation of
character is excellent. Each member, individual and distinct, is also the
type of a class.

THE CLUB.--There is Will Honeycomb, the old beau, "a gentleman who,
according to his years, should be in the decline of his life, but having
ever been careful of his person, and always had an easy fortune, time has
made but very little impression, either by wrinkles on his forehead or
traces on his brain." He knew from what French woman this manner of
curling the hair came, who invented hoops, and whose vanity to show her
foot brought in short dresses. He is a woman-killer, sceptical about
marriage; and at length he gives the fair sex ample satisfaction for his
cruelty and egotism by marrying, unknown to his friends, a farmer's
daughter, whose face and virtues are her only fortune.

Captain Sentry, the nephew of Sir Roger, is, it may be supposed, the
essayist's ideal of what an English officer should be--a courageous
soldier and a modest gentleman.

Sir Andrew Freeport is the retired merchant, drawn to the life. He is
moderate in politics, as expediency in that age would suggest. Thoroughly
satisfied of the naval supremacy of England, he calls the sea, "the
British Common." He is the founder of his own fortune, and is satisfied to
transmit to posterity an unsullied name, a goodly store of wealth, and the
title he has so honorably won.

In _The Templar_, we have a satire upon a certain class of lawyers. It is
indicative of that classical age, that he understands Aristotle and
Longinus better than Littleton and Coke, and is happy in anything but
law--a briefless barrister, but a gentleman of consideration.

But the most charming, the most living portrait is that of Sir Roger de
Coverley, an English country gentleman, as he ought to be, and as not a
few really were. What a generous humanity for all wells forth from his
simple and loving heart! He has such a mirthful cast in his behavior that
he is rather loved than esteemed. Repulsed