To
do this he exposed the folly and ugliness of vice. But he did more. He
held up to the public view characters who exemplified his teachings,
and were calculated to attract imitation. In the creation and
delineation of these characters he unconsciously began the English
novel.
We should look in vain in the pages of Fielding, of Scott, or of George
Eliot, for a more perfect sketch of character than that of Sir Roger
de Coverley. And the minor personages are little less delicately and
naturally drawn. There is the Bachelor of the Inner-Temple, "an
excellent critick," to whom "the time of the play is his hour of
business"; Sir Andrew Freeport, the typical merchant; Captain Sentry,
"a gentleman of great courage, good understanding, but invincible
modesty"; Will Honeycomb, "an honest, worthy man where women are not
concerned"; the clergyman, who has ceased to have "interests in this
world, as one who is hastening to the object of all his wishes, and
conceives hope from his decays and infirmities." "These are my ordinary
companions," says the _Spectator_, whom we soon learn to know very well
too.
Addison's knowledge of human nature, and his skill in delineating it in
single touches, place him in the front rank of writers of fiction,
notwithstanding the limit of his contributions to this department of
literature.
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