Posted by Joy on December 20, 2005 at 17:56:57 from 195.157.57.17 user Joy.
In Reply to: Quotation on a Roger. posted by John on December 20, 2005 at 17:33:53:
Hooray. I can answer this one. Joseph Addison was a very distinguished man of letters, a writer and critic around the turn of the 18th century (1670s-no later than 1720 - remnants of a once-fine mind operating here, can't be bothered to look up the facts!). At Charterhouse School he became a friend of Richard Steele, who was also to become a leading essayist. He frequented the coffee-houses of Queen Anne's London (think Starbucks with class!) and wrote for the Tatler and founded the Spectator (with Steele, I think) and was a member of the Kit-cat Club. "Sir Roger" is Sir Roger de Coverly, a comic figure invented by Steele and Addison, who featured frequently in the pages of the Spectator as a bluff and honest Old Tory sort of squire, up from the country to enjoy social life in London. I like his quotation: "An argument out of a pretty mouth is unanswerable" (!) and also "Man is distinguished from all other creatures by his faculty of laughter."