Next comes Sir Andrew Freeport, “a merchant of great eminence in the City of London.”  “He abounds in several frugal maxims, amongst which the greatest favorite is, ’A penny saved is a penny got.’”

“Next to Sir Andrew in the Club room sits Captain Sentry, a gentleman of great courage, good understanding, but invincible modesty.  He was some years a captain, and behaved himself with great gallantry in several engagements and at several sieges.  But having a small estate of his own, and being next heir to Sir Roger, he has quitted a way of life in which no man can rise suitably to his merit, who is not something of a courtier as well as a soldier.  The military part of his life has furnished him with many adventures, in the relation of which he is very agreeable to the company, for he is never overbearing, though accustomed to command men in the utmost degree below him, nor ever too obsequious, from an habit of obeying men highly above him.

“But that our society may not appear a set of humorists, unacquainted with the gallantries and pleasures of the age, we have among us the gallant Will Honeycomb, a gentleman who, according to his years, should be in the decline of his life.  But having ever been very careful of his person, and always had a very easy fortune, time has made but very little impression, either by wrinkles on his forehead, or traces in his brain.  His person is well turned, of a good height.  He is very ready at that sort of discourse with which men usually entertain women.  He has all his life dressed very well, and remembers habits as other do men.  He can smile when one speaks to him, and laugh easily.”  He is in fact an old beau, a regular man about town, “a well-bred, fine gentleman,” yet no great scholar, “he spelt like a gentleman and not like a scholar,"* he says.

Spectator, 105.

Last of all there is a clergyman, a man of “general learning, great sanctity of life, and the most exact breeding.”  He seldom comes to the Club, “but when he does it adds to every man else a new enjoyment of himself.”

This setting forth of the characters in the story will remind you a little perhaps of Chaucer in his Prologue to the Canterbury Tales.  As he there gives us a clear picture of England in the time of Edward III, so Addison gives us a clear picture of England in the time of Anne.  And although the essays are in the main unconnected, the slight story of these characters runs through them, weaving them into a whole.  You may pick up a volume of the Spectator and read an essay here or there at will with enjoyment, or you may read the whole six hundred one after the other and find in them a slight but interesting story.