him," he wrote to Stella, " and so I frankly | dozen numbers had appeared, and, in answer told them I would do it no more." to her question. had to tell her that it was written by Steele with Addison's help. "Mr. Steele seems to have gathered new life," he added, " and to have a new fund of wit." Already Steele had taken the determination, however, which made this resolve of the least possible importance to him. His loss of the Gazette entailed a change in the conduct So indeed it might have seemed. Never of his paper, which had convinced him of the had he shown greater freshness and invention expediency of commencing it on a new plan. than in his first sketches of the characters that The town was startled by the announcement, were to give life to the new design: nor can therefore, that the Taller of the 2nd January, any higher thing be said of his conception of Sir 1710-11, was to be the last; and Swift informs Roger de Coverly and Will Honeycomb, than us that Addison, whom he met that night at that it deserved the noble elaboration of Addisupper, was as much surprised at the an- son; or of his humorous touches to the shortnouncement as himself, and quite as little pre-faced gentleman,* than that even Addison's pared for it. But this may only express the invention was enriched by them. It is not limit of the confidence now reposed in him- our purpose here to compare or criticise what self. There can be little doubt that the each, according to his genius, contributed. It friends acted together in what already was in is enough to say that to the last both nobly agitation to replace the Tatler. Nor is there bore their part, and that whatever we have any ground to suppose that Addison was igno- seen in the Tatler of Steele's wit, pathos, and rant, or Swift informed, of an interview which philosophy, reappeared with new graces in Steele had with Harley in the interval before the Spectator. There was the same inexpresthe new design was matured. The Lord sible charm in the matter, the same inexhaustTreasurer's weakness was certainly not a con- ible variety in the form; and upon all the tempt or disregard for letters, and though the keen exposure of vice or the pleasant laugh at object of the meeting was to settle a kind of folly, as prominent in the life-like little story armed neutrality, he overpassed it so far as to as in the criticism of an actor or a play, makintimate the wish not simply to retain Steele ing attractive the gravest themes to the unthe Commissionership, but to give him some-thinking, and recommending the lightest fanthing more valuable.* This was civilly de-cies to the most grave, there was still the old clined, but the courtesy was not forgotten; and ineffaceable impress of good nature and and the better feeling it promoted for a time, humanity - the soul of a sincere man shining with the understood abstinence from present out through it all. Let any one read that unhostility involved in it, obtained all the more interrupted series of twenty-two Spectators, zealous help from Addison to his friend's new which Steele daily contributed from the 6th scheme. On Thursday the 1st March, 1710- to the 31st of August, 1711, and doubt his 11, appeared the first number of the Spectator, title to a full share in the glory and, fame of with an announcement that it was to be con- the enterprise. Try his claim to participate tinued daily. Much wonder was raised by in its wit and character by such papers as the so bold a promise, and little hope entertained short-faced gentleman's experiences (No. 4); that it could ever be redeemed. The result as the seven he inserted in the series of Sir showed, nevertheless, with what well-grounded Roger de Coverley; as those numerous confidence the friends had embarked in an sketches of Clubs which his touch filled with enterprise which men of less resource thought such various life; and as the essays we have extravagant and impossible. From day to named below.† Let him be measured, too, in day, without a single intermission, the Spec-graver themes, by such papers as those on tator was continued through 555 numbers, up Living to our own Satisfaction (No. 27), on to the 6th December, 1712. It began with a regular design, which, with unflagging spirit, was kept up to its close. "It certainly is very pretty," wrote Swift to Stella, after some would favor me in it. "When I had the honor of a short conversation with you, you were pleased not only to signify to me that I should remain in this office, but to add that, if I would name to you one of more value, which would be more commodious to me, you I thank your Lordship for the regard and distinction which you have at sundry times showed me." So Steele wrote to Harley (then Lord Oxford) on resigning his Commissionership a little more than two years after the date in the text, when the Spectator had been brought to a close, and his tacit compact with Addison was at an end. We can give only one out of many masterly strokes; but in the whole range of Addison's wit, is the Spectator remember that he was once taken up there anything more perfect than Steele's making for a Jesuit, for no other reason than his profound taciturnity? † On Powell's Puppet-Show (No. 14), On Ordinary People (No. 17), On Envious People (No. 19), On Over Consciousness and Affectation (No. 38), On Coffee-house Politicians (No. 49), On Court Mournings (No. 64), On the Fine Gentlemen of the Stage (No. 65), On Coarse Speaking (No. 75), On the Improvidence of Jack Truepenny (No. 82), On the Footmen of the House of Peers (No. 88), On the Portable Quality of Good Humor (No. 100), On Servants' Letters (No. 137), On the Man of Wit and Pleasure (No. 151), On the Virtues of Selfdenial (No. 206 and No. 248), On Generous Men Female Education (No. 66), on the Death of | wrote to Addison, with "the brisk sallies and a Friend (No. 133), on the Fear of Death quick turns of wit which Mr. Steele in his (No. 152), on Youth and Age (No. 153), on liveliest and freest humors darts about him," the Flogging at Public Schools (No. 157), on that he did not immediately foresee the conRaffaelle's Cartoons (No. 226), and above all, sequence of engaging with so ardent a polition the death of the comedian Estcourt (No. cian. Accordingly, just as Swift broke out 468), the last one of his most characteristic, into open quarrel with his old associate, we wise, and beautiful pieces of writing; and so find Pope confessing that many honest Jacolong as these and many others survive, there bites were taking it very ill of him that he conwill be no need to strike him apart, or judge tinued to write with Steele. him aloof, from his friend. self under half the ill language he had given others. Swift himself had formerly described to him those early days when he possessed that sensitive fear of libel to an extraordinary degree, and this had not been forgotten by his generous adversary. The dispute with Swift need not detain us. Nothing in England had ever equalled the It is enough if we use it to show Steele's spirit success of the Spectator. It sold, in numbers as a gentleman, who could not retort an injusand volumes, to an extent almost fabulous in tice, or fight wrong with wrong. When, after those days, and, when Bolingbroke's stamp a very few months, he stood before the House carried Grub-street by storm, was the solitary of Commons to justify himself from libels which survivor of that famous siege. Doubling its had exhausted the language of scurrility in price, it yet fairly held its ground, and at its heaping insult upon him and his, the only perclose was not only paying Government 291. a sonal remark he made was to quote a handweek on account of the halfpenny stamp upon some tribute he had formerly offered to their the numbers sold, but had a circulation in vol- writer, with this manly addition: "The genumes of nearly ten thousand. Altogether it tleman I here intended was Dr. Swift. This must often have circulated, before the stamp, kind of man I thought him at that time: we thirty thousand, which might be multiplied by have not met of late, but I hope he deserves six to give a corresponding popularity in our this character still." And why was he thus day. Nevertheless Steele had been for some tender of Swift? He avowed the reason in time uneasy and restless. Thus far, with rea- the last paper of the Englishman, where he sonable fidelity, the armistice on his side had says that he knew his sensibility of reproach to been kept, but from day to day, at what he be such that he would be unable to bear life itbelieved to be the thickening of a plot against public liberty, he found it more and more difficult to observe; and not seldom latterly, perhaps in spite of himself, his thoughts took the direction of politics. "He has been mighty impertinent of late in his Spectators," wrote Swift to Stella, “and I believe he will very But what really was at issue in their quarsoon lose his employment." That was to rel ought to be stated, since it forms the point Steele the last and least thing at present. of departure taken by Steele, not simply from What he wanted was a certain freedom for those who differed but from many who agreed himself which hardly consisted with the plan with him in politics. Principles are out of of the Spectator, and he now resolved to sub- the case," said Swift, "we dispute wholly stitute an entirely new set of characters. He about persons." No," rejoined Steele," the closed it in December, 1712, and announced a dispute is not about persons and parties, but new daily paper, called the Guardian, for the things and causes." Such had been the darfollowing March. ing conduct of the men in power, and such Into this new paper, to which Addison (en- their insolent success, that Steele, at a time gaged in preparing Cato for the stage) did not when few had the courage to speak, did not for a considerable time contribute, he carried scruple to declare what he believed to be their the services of the young poet whose surpris- ultimate design. "Nothing," he wrote to his ing genius was now the talk of the town. wife some few months after the present date, Steele had recognized at once Pope's surpass-"nothing but Divine Providence can prevent ing merit, and in his friendly critic Pope wel- a Civil War within a few years." Swift comed a congenial friend. He submitted ver- laughed, and said Steele's head had been ses to him, altered them to his pleasure, wrote turned by the success of his papers, and he a poem at his request, and protested himself thought himself mightily more important more eager to be called his little friend, Dick than he really was. This may have been so; Distich, than to be complimented with the title but whatever imaginary value he gave himof a great genius or an eminent hand. He self he was at least ready to risk, for the supwas so recreated, in short, as he afterwards (No. 346) On Witty Companions (No. 358), On the Comic Actors (No. 370), On Jack Sippet (No. 448), and On various Forms of Anger (No. 438), with its whimsical contrasts of imperturbability and wrath. 66 66 posed duty he thought incumbent on him. Nor was it little for him, in his position at that time, to surrender literature for politics; to resign his Commissionership of Stamps; and to enter the House of Commons. He did not " His spirits took require Pope to point him out lamentingly to his wife from the St. James's coffeehouse, on the Congreve, as a great instance of the fate of 31st July 1714, that the queen was dead. It was all who are so carried away, with the risk of a mistake, but she died next day. Three days being not only punished by the other party later he writes from the Thatched House, St. but of suffering from their own. Even from James's, that he has been loaded with complithe warning of Addison, that his zeal for the ments by the Regents, and assured of somepublic might be ruinous to himself, he had thing immediately. Yet it was but little he obturned silently aside. Not a day now passed tained. He received a place in the household that the most violent scurrilities were not di- (surveyorship of the royal stables); was placed rected against his pen and person, in which in the commission of peace for Middlesex; and one of Swift's "under-writers," Wagstaff, on subsequently going up with an address from made himself conspicuous; and Colley Cibber that county, was knighted. A little before he laughs at the way in which these scribes were became Sir Richard, however, the member for laboring to transfer to his friend Addison the Truro resigned the supervision of the Theatre credit of all his Tatlers and Spectators. Never- Royal (then a government office, entitling to a theless he went steadily on. "It is not for share in the patent, and worth seven or eight me," he remarked with much dignity, "to say hundred a-year), and the players so earnestly how I write or speak, but it is for me to say petitioned for Steele as his successor, that he I do both honestly; and when I threw away was named to the office. some fame for letters and politeness, to serve such a lively turn upon it," says Cibber, "that, the nobler ends of justice and government, I had we been all his own sons, no unexpected did not do it with a design to be as negligent act of filial duty could have more endeared us of what should be said of me with relation to to him." Whatever the coldness elsewhere my integrity. No, wit and humor are the might be, here, at any rate, was warmth dress and ornament of the mind; but honesty enough. Benefits past were not benefits forgot and truth are the soul itself." We may, or with those lively goodnatured men. They remay not, think Steele discreet in the choice membered, as Cibber tells us, when a criticism he made; but of his sincerity and disinterest- in the Tatler used to fill their theatre at a time edness there ought to be no doubt whatever. when nothing else could; and they knew that When at last, upon the publication of his not a comedian among them but owed someCrisis, which was but the sequel to those pa- thing to Sir Richard Steele, whose goodpers in the Guardian that led to his election for nature on one occasion even consented that Stockbridge, the motion was made to expel Doggett should announce the Tatler as intendhim for having" maliciously insinuated that the ing to be bodily present at his benefit, and Protestant succession in the House of Hanover permitted him to dress at himself a fictitious is in danger under her Majesty's administra- Isaac Bickerstaff for amusement of the crowded tion," the Whigs rallied to his support with what house. strength they could. Walpole and Stanhope | Less mindful of the past than the players, took their place on either side of him as he Steele certainly found the politicians. But, in waited at the bar, and Addison prompted him showing that the course he took in the prosthroughout his spirited and temperate defence. perous days of Whiggism differed in no reBut the most interesting occurrence of that day spect from that which he had taken in its was the speech of Lord Finch. This young no- adverse days, some excuse may perhaps arise bleman, afterwards famous as a minister and for the dispensers of patronage and office. He orator, owed gratitude to Steele for having re-entered Parliament for Boroughbridge, the pelled in the Guardian a libel on his sister, and Duke of Newcastle having given him his inhe rose to make his maiden speech in defence terest there; and for some time, and with of her defender. But bashfulness overcame him, some success as a speaker, he took part in the and after a few confused sentences he sat down, crying out as he did so : "It is strange I cannot speak for this man, though I could readily fight for him!" Upon this, such cheering rang through the house, that suddenly the young lord took heart, rose again, and made the first of a long series of telling and able speeches. But of course it did not save Steele, who was expelled by a majority of nearly a hundred in house of four hundred members. a It was a short-lived triumph, we need hardly say. Soon came the blow which struck down that tyrant majority, dispersed its treason into air, consigned Oxford to the Tower, and drove Bolingbroke into exile. Eagerly Steele wrote to The most humble, as well as the highest, obtained his good word, and it would be difficult to give a better instance, in a few lines, at once of his what he says of a small actor of Betterton's time: kindness and his genius as a critic of players, than "Mr. William Peer distinguished himself particularly in two characters, which no man ever could touch but himself: one of them was the speaker of the prologue to the play, which is contrived in the tragedy of Hamlet, to awake the conscience of the guilty princess. Mr. William Peer spoke that pre face to the play with such an air as represented that he was an actor; and with such an inferior manner, as only acting an actor, that the others on the stage were made to appear real great persons, and not representatives. This was a nicety in acting that none but the most subtle player could so much as conceive." 542 SIR RICHARD STEELE. debates. He wittily described the House at a man of a different temperament and more self-control would hardly at this time, after all the opportunities his own genius had opened to him, have needed the exercise or complained of the absence of such "favor." of Sir Richard Steele, nor have we sought to omit them from this picture of his career. It is not our desire to extenuate the failings was unhappily of the very essence of his character that any present social impression took, so far, the place of all previous moral resolutions; It and that, bitterly as he had often felt the "shot of accident and the dart of chance,” he still thought them carelessly to be brushed aside by the smiling face and heedless hand. No man's projects for fortune had so often failed, yet none were so often renewed. The very art of his genius told against him in his life; and that he could so readily disentangle his thoughts from what most gave them pain and uneasiness, and direct his sensibility at will to flow into many channels, had certainly not a tendency to favor the balance at his banker's. But such a man is no example of improvidence for others. Its ordinary warnings come within quite another class of cases; and, even in stating what is least to be commended in Steele, there is no need to omit what in his case will justify some exceptional consideration of it. At least we have the example of a bishop to quote for as much good nature as we can spare. this time as consisting very much of silent people oppressed by the choice of a great deal to say, and of eloquent people ignorant that what they said was nothing to the purpose; and as it was, he tells us, his own ambition to speak only what he thought, so it was his weakness to think such a course might have its use. He attacked every attempt to give power to the Church independent of the State, and created much offence by declaring that, if Rome pretended to be infallible and England to be always in the right, he saw little difference between the two. In his prosperity Harley had no assailant more bitter, and in his adversity no more generous opponent, than Steele. As he had fought the Schism Bill under the Tories, under the Whigs he pleaded for toleration to the Roman Catholics. "I suppose this," he wrote to his wife, "gave a handie to the fame of my being a Tory; but you may perhaps by this time have heard that I am turned Presbyterian, for the same day, in a meeting of a hundred Parliament-men, I labored as much for the Protestant Dissenters." No man was so bitter against the Jacobites as long as any chance of their success remained, but none so often or so successfully interceded for mercy when the day had gone against them. The mischief of the South-Sea Scheme was by Steele more than any man exposed, but for such of the directors as had themselves been its dupes no man spoke so charitably. Walpole steady friend of Steele's, and consented ultihad befriended him most on the question of his mately to act as executor and guardian to his Doctor Hoadly, the Bishop of Bangor, was a expulsion, and he admired him more than any children. He accompanied him and Addison other politician; yet he alone in the House one day to a Whig celebration of King Wilspoke against Walpole's proposition about the liam's anniversary, and became rather grave Debt, "because he did not think the way of do- to see the lengths to which the festivity threating it just." Addison was the man he to the ened to arrive. In the midst of his doubts, in last admired the most, and, notwithstanding came a humble but facetious Whig on his knees, any recurring coolness or indifference, loved with a tankard of ale in his hand; drank it off the most on earth; but, on the question of Lord to the immortal memory; and then, still in his Sunderland's Peerage Bill, he joined Walpole kneeling posture, managed to shuffle out. against Addison, and with tongue and pen so" Do laugh," whispered Steele to the bishop, actively promoted its defeat that we may even next to whom he sat ; yet, on that score, hold ourselves his debtors. To this rapid sketch of Steele's career as a carried to a yet higher tolerance, in his own politician, it might seem superfluous to add his case at a later period of the evening, Steele "it's humanity to laugh." For which humané episcopal exertion, complaint against those who neglected him, or sent him next morning this pleasant couplet : that, when the Duke of Newcastle had been mean as to punish his opposition to the Peer- Virtue with so much ease on Bangor sits, age Bill by depriving him of his Drury Lane appointment (to which, we may interAll faults he pardons, though he none commits. pose, he was restored as soon as Walpole returned to office), he should thus have written to Lady Steele: "I am talking to my wife, and therefore may speak my heart, and the vanity of it. I know-and you are witness that I have served the Royal Family with an unreservedness due only to Heaven; and I am now (I thank my brother Whigs) not possessed of twenty shillings from the favor of the Court." But neither should we attempt to conceal that SO for Hoadly was also an actor with Steele. They known To watch the public weal, though not his own etc. The duties of this office took him much and, as the Bishop was preparing the usual [ "The Sage, whose guests you are to-night, is fees, "I have not enough," cried his companion, and much to the episcopal discomposure, proceeded to address the footmen, told them he had been much struck by the good taste-nay, though we can hardly doubt that he with which he had seen then applauding in showed no reluctance himself to partake of the the right place up stairs, and invited them all Burgundy and Champagne, Addison may yet gratis to Drury Lane theatre, to whatever play have thought it no unfriendly act to check the they might like to bespeak. At this date it was, too, that young Savage, danger of any frequent repetition of indulgen-, ces in that direction. for whom Wilks had produced a comedy at the nights they now so frequently passed toAnd, even apart from Drury Lane, was kindly noticed and greatly gether at Button's new coffee-house, we have assisted by Steele, though all the stories of abundant evidence that the friendly relations, him he afterwards told to Johnson only show though certainly not all the old intimacy, coned how sorely he needed assistance himself. tinued. On the day following that on which He surprised him one day by carrying him in Addison became Secretary of State, Steele his coach to a tavern, and dictating a pam- dined with him, and on the next day he wrote phlet to him, which he was sent out into Grub to his wife that he was named one of the Comstreet to sell; when he found that Sir Richard missioners for Forfeited Estates in Scotland. had only retired for the day to avoid his creditors, and composed the pamphlet to pay his from home in his latter years; and before we reckoning. Johnson also believed on the close with the brief mention those years may same authority, that at one of Steele's great claim from us, we will give a parting glance dinner parties he had dressed up in expensive at what his home had now become. For the liveries, and turned to use as additional footmen, certain bailiffs whose attendance, though Bury Street, he has lived in Bloomsbury greater part of the time since he moved from unavoidable, might not else have seemed so Square. His wife has borne him four children, creditable. It was from Savage, too, Johnson two boys and two girls, of whom the eldest heard the story of the bond put in execution boy, Richard, Lord Halifax's godson, died in against his friend by Addison, which Steele childhood, and the second, Eugene, a few mentioned, he said, with tears in his eyes. years before his father. His girls survived Not so, however, did Steele tell it to another him, and the eldest became Lady Trevor. friend, Benjamin Victor, who, before Savage's The old sudden alternations of sunshine and relation was made public, had told it again to Garrick. To Victor, Steele said that certainly his bond on some expensive furniture had been put in force, but that, from the letter he received with the surplus arising from the sale, he knew that Addison only intended a friendly warning against a manner of living altogether too costly, and that, taking it as he believed it to be meant, he met him afterwards with the same gayety of temper he had always shown. This story is not incredible, we think; and to invent, as Mr. Macaulay has done, another story in place of one so well authenticated, involves at least some waste of ingenuity. One may fairly imagine such an incident following not long after the accession of King George, when in his new house in York Buildings, Steele gave an extravagant entertainment to some couple of hundred friends, and amused his guests with a series of dramatic recitations, which (one of his many projects) he had some thought of trying on an extended plan, with a view to the more regular supply of trained actors for the stage. For though Addison assisted at this entertainment, and even wrote an epilogue for the occasion, making ant mirth of the foibles of his friend storm have continued between himself and " Prue; there have been great wants and great enjoyments, much peevishness and much tenless; but very manifestly, also, on the whole, the derness, quarrels and reconciliations numberchildren have brought them nearer to each other. He is no longer his dearest Prue's alone, but, as he occasionally signs himself, fectionate Richard Steele." At his own reYour-Betty-Dick-Eugene-Molly's afquest, his wife's small fortune has been settled him, upon the result of this arrangement with on these children; and one of her letters to her mother, appears to have begun with the dren would at least have to say hereafter of expression of her thankfulness that the chiltheir father that he kept his integrity. He gives her incessant reports of them when she happens to be absent. He tells her how Moll, who is the noisiest little creature in the world, and as active as a boy, has bid him let her know she fell down just now, and did not hurt herself; how Madam Betty is the gravest of matrons in her airs and civilities; how Eugene pleas-writers; but it was certainly written by Addison, as the lines themselves bear internal proof. It was first printed, and with Addison's name, in the eighth volume of that now rare book, Nichols's Select Col lection of Poems. *Dr. Drake attributed this Epilogue to Steele himself; and has been followed by subsequent |