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 Selections from the works of Sir Richard 
 
 3 1924 013 199 280 
 
The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92401 31 99280 
 
THE ATHEN/EUM PRESS SERIES 
 
 G. L. KITTREDGE and C. T. WINCHESTER 
 
 GENERAL EDITORS 
 
atbenajum press Series. 
 
 This series is intended to furnish a 
 library of the best English literature 
 from Chaucer to the present time in a 
 form adapted to the needs of both the 
 student and the general reader. The 
 works selected are carefully edited, with 
 biographical and critical introductions, 
 full explanatory notes, and other neces- 
 sary apparatus. 
 
RICHARD STEELE 
 
^tben^um ipresg Series 
 
 SELECTIONS 
 
 FROM THE WORKS OF 
 
 Sir Richard Steele 
 
 EDITED WITH NOTES AND AN INTRODUCTION 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE RICE CARPENTER 
 
 Professor of Rhetoric and English Composition in 
 Columbia University 
 
 Boston, U.S.A., and London 
 GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 
 
 iSoV 
 
A.\ (i(-ozo 
 
 Copyright, 1897, by 
 GEORGE RICE CARPENTER 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 This volume of selections from Steele's works differs 
 from other similar volumes in that it gives extracts from 
 his plays, his poems, his letters, and his political tracts, 
 as well as from his periodical writings, and in that it 
 arranges the selections in the order of time. My object 
 has been to give as complete an idea as possible of the 
 whole field of Steele's work, and to allow the student 
 to trace the development of his style and genius. 
 
 G. R. C. 
 
 November^ i8c)6. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . ix 
 
 I. The Main Facts of Steele's Life . . . x 
 
 II. Personal Appearance . , . xviii 
 
 III. Character . . . . xx 
 
 IV. Relations with Addison, Pope, and Swift xxxiii 
 V. The Growth of the Reading Public . xliv 
 
 VI. Steele's Poems, his Political and Ethical 
 
 Writings, his Letters, and his Plays . . xlvii 
 
 • VII. Steele's Periodical Writings: their Char- 
 
 acter and their Influence . . . lii 
 
 • VIII. Steele's Style Ix 
 
 IX. Chronological List of Steele's Writings Ixii 
 
 SELECTIONS. 
 
 I, II. Early Letters i 
 
 III. Dedication of the Christian Hero . 3 
 
 IV. The Christian Hero . . ... 5 
 V. The Funeral . 12 
 
 VI. The Tender Husband . ... 21 
 
 VII. Prologue to The Mistake . . .30 
 
 VIII. Letters (1707-8) .... 31 
 
 IX. The Tatler . .... .42 
 
 X. The Spectator . . . . .86 
 XI. Letters (1709-13) . 121 
 
 XII. The Englishman's Thanks to the Duke of 
 
 Marlborough ... ... 124 
 
viii CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 XIII. Prologue to The Distressed Mother . . 126 
 
 XIV. A Letter to Sir Miles Wharton 126 
 XV. The Guardian . . .127 
 
 XVI. The Englishman . .... 135 
 
 XVII. Dedication of The Crisis . . .' 143 
 
 XVIII. The Lover ... . . 148 
 
 XIX. The Reader . . 154 
 
 XX. A Letter to a Member of Parliament . 159 
 
 XXI. Dedication to Mrs. Steele of the Third 
 
 Volume of The Ladies' ^Library . . 162 
 XXII. Mr. Steele's Apology for Himself and his 
 
 Writings . . ... 164 
 
 XXIII. The Theatre 167 
 
 XXIV. The Conscious Lovers .... 167 
 XXV. Letters to his Wife (1716-7) . . .174 
 
 NOTES 179 
 
 INDEX 201 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 No full or thoroughly accurate biography of Steele has 
 been published until within the last decade, although 
 much information concerning him was promulgated by 
 eighteenth century gossips and annotators, and his name 
 has been made famous no less by his works than by the 
 essays of three celebrated men of letters, — Johnson, Mac- 
 aulay, and Thackeray. Johnson and Macaulay wrote of 
 Steele only incidentally, in connection with Addison, but 
 to the extraordinary popularity of the latter's criticism is 
 due the somewhat unfortunate result that current ideas in 
 regard to Steele's character are derived largely from his 
 essay, which, beside being inaccurate in many points of 
 fact, errs in making Steele's whole nature as complete 
 as possible an antithesis to that of Addison. In Henry 
 Esmond (1852) and Lectures on the English Humourists 
 (1853), Thackeray unwittingly did even more harm to 
 Steele's memory than had Macaulay, for his whole 
 attitude was that of pity for " poor Dick's " supposed 
 foibles and exaggerated weaknesses. A fairer point of 
 view was taken by Forster in an essay first published in 
 the Quarterly Review for 1855, and written as a direct 
 contradiction of Macaulay's characterization. The most 
 notable addition to our knowledge about Steele has been 
 made by Mr. G. A. Aitkin, whose Life of Sir Richard 
 Steele (2 volumes, 1889) is a treasury of well-indexed 
 information in regard to even the minutest facts concern- 
 
X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ingiiim. Less detailed, but clearer in its general outlines, 
 is the brilliant biography (1886) by Mr. Austin Dobson, 
 whose accurate knowledge of the whole period is sur- 
 passed only by the compactness and skill of his presenta- 
 tion. Both Mn Aitkin and Mr. Dobson have also written 
 shorter biographical sketches, — the former as an intro- 
 ductibn to his Selecfiotts from the Tatler, Spectator, and 
 Guardian (Oxford, 1885), the latter in an essay prefixed 
 to his Richard Steele (Mermaid Series, 1894). 
 
 In view of the thoroughness with which the whole 
 biographical field has been covered, the present writer 
 has chosen to make his account of Steele's life as brief as 
 possible. Students wishing a more complete statement 
 of the facts are referred to the larger works mentioned 
 above. 
 
 I. 
 
 The Main Facts of Steele's Life. 
 
 Richard Steele, the son and second child of Richard 
 Steele, an attorney, who had from time to time held 
 various petty -governmerit offices, was born in the Parish 
 of St. Bride's, then a fashionable part of Dublin, in 
 March, 1672, in the same year with Addison and Cibber, 
 and five years after Jonathan Swift, his great contem- 
 porary and antagonist, saw the light in the same, or 
 perhaps a neighboring, parish. His father's family seems 
 to have been English ; his mother's, Irish. Both parents 
 died when Steele was scarcely old enough to remember 
 much about them ; but through the kindness of his aunt's 
 husband, Henry Gascoigne, who was in the service of the 
 Duke of Ormond and afterwards became his private 
 
INTRODUCTJON. xi 
 
 secretary, the young orphan was placed, in 1684, on the 
 foundation at the Charterhouse, as the son of a "" decayed 
 gentleman." Five years later he entered Christ Church, 
 Oxford, on a Charterhouse " exhibition." Of his univer- 
 sity life we have no details, except that he was made a 
 postmaster (^portionistd) at Merton, and that in his letters 
 to his uncle and aunt, a few of which are extant, he 
 showed himself proud of his scholarship, eager for prefer- 
 ment, and fond of action. This native impulse toward an 
 active life probably had much to do with his leaving 
 Oxford early in 1694, without a degree, but, it is related, 
 with " the love of the whole society," and enlisting as a 
 cadet-trooper, a not uncommon practice of young gentle- 
 men at that time, in the Duke of Ormond's regiment. 
 
 Although Steele remained in the army for ten years or 
 more, he probably never saw active or foreign service. 
 Indeed, his literary ability seems to have led to his promo- 
 tion. In 1695, on the occasion of the burial of Queen 
 Mary, he published an anonymous poem. The Procession, 
 dedicated to Lord Cutts, Colonel of the Second Regiment 
 of Foot Guards, an ardent Whig and man of dignified 
 culture, as well as a brave and famous soldier. Shortly 
 after, not improbably on account of the dedication, Lord 
 Cutts took Steele under his patronage, made him a mem- 
 ber of his military household, and got him an ensign's 
 commission in his own regiment. Steele continued to 
 live in close connection with Lord Cutts, part of the time 
 as his private secretary, until 1701, when we find him a 
 captain in the Tower Guard, and on friendly terms with 
 the wits and men of letters who frequented Will's Coffee- 
 house. For several years his name steadily became better 
 known. In 1701 The Christian Hero appeared, a second 
 edition of which was issued three months later. His 
 first play. The Funeral, in its main plot a simple and 
 
xii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 earnest bit of remonstrance against the follies of the time, 
 was produced in 1701, and was received with favor, though 
 with keen, if good-natured, criticism. In 1702 Steele was 
 transferred to a new regiment, and put on duty at Land- 
 guard Fort, near Harwich, where he managed to have 
 something to do with local politics as well as to keep up 
 his relations with the larger world of London. His 
 second play, The Lying Lover, acted in December, 1703, 
 was somewhat too dogmatically moral to be^ successful ; 
 the third. The Tender Husband, was produced in April, 
 1705, but did not win a large share of popular favor, 
 although it undoubtedly added to its author's reputa- 
 tion. 
 
 Steele's life at this time must have been a pleasant 
 one. He was on familiar terms with Congreve, Prior, 
 and the gay spirits at Will's Coffee-house, with the Whigs 
 at St. James's, and the members of the famous Kit-Cat 
 Club. In 1705 he married Margaret Stretch, nee Ford, 
 daughter and surviving heir of a large landowner of 
 Barbados. Of the first Mrs. Steele little is known. She 
 could not have been a young woman, and a spiteful con- 
 temporary of Steele's — Mrs. Manley — took occasion to 
 refer to her " elderly charms," and to intimate that Steele's 
 affection for her extended also to her estate, which 
 yielded an income of about eight hundred pounds. It 
 was rumored, probably with truth, that just before his 
 marriage he had squandered a large amount in chemical 
 or alchemistic experiments. It is cert-ain that about this 
 time he was in great want of money, for a letter from 
 Lord Cutts is extant, refusing in a courteous but dignified 
 manner a surprising demand of Steele's for payment for 
 his attendance on him years before. Steele's first wife 
 died late in 1706, and in less than a year he was paying 
 his addresses to Mary Scurlock, a Welsh lady of respect- 
 
INTRODUCTION. xiii 
 
 able family, who had been present at Mrs. Steele's funeral. 
 Miss Scurlock — Mrs. Scurlock, according to the custom 
 of the time — was something of a coquette, and had 
 already been sued for breach of contract by a pertinacious 
 old Welsh bachelor. She was beautiful, merry, and. pious, 
 — although the statement of her age in' the marriage 
 license fell some five years short of the truth. Her tem- 
 per had its ups and downs, and she was said, by her 
 enemies, to have been in after life snobbish and fond of 
 show, but she proved a faithful, though exacting wife, 
 zealous for the welfare of her husband, who loved her 
 devotedly. By the time of his second marriage, in Sep- 
 tember, 1707, Steele's means had increased. In addition 
 to the somewhat uncertain income from his first wife's 
 estate, he had a salary of one hundred pounds as gentle- 
 man waiter to Prince George of Denmark, a post to which 
 he had been appointed in August, 1706, and one of three 
 hundred pounds for writing the Gazette. This latter 
 appointment made him a member of the government, 
 a sort of lowest minister of state, and helped, no doubt, 
 his reputation as a man of letters. Thomas Hearne, for 
 instance, noted in his diary for May 14, 1707, that "the 
 writer of the Gazette is now Captain Steele, who is author 
 of several romantic things, and is accounted an ingenious 
 man." At first Steele and his wife rented a house in 
 Bury Street, St. James's, near the Palace and the Cockpit, 
 in which latter building were the offices of the secretaries 
 of state and consequently of the Gazetteer also. Steele 
 stood well with the still uncertain ministry of the first part 
 of Queen Anne's reign, and should have been in comfort- 
 able circumstances, but his remittances from Barbados 
 came irregularly, and the expenses of living in the public 
 eye were great, particularly as in 1708 he set up a country 
 establishment at Hampton Wick, near Hampton Court, 
 
xiv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 with all the paraphernalia of a great household in minia- 
 ture. To the end of his life Steele's finances were in a 
 bad condition, and he seems each year to have met his 
 debts by borrowing anew. 
 
 In 1709, following an idea that must have occurred to 
 him in the conduct of the Gazette, Steele started the 
 Tatler, frankly a money-making enterprise, but one which 
 exerted a great and growing public influence. In 17 10 
 he was appointed one of the commissioners of the stamp 
 office, with a salary of three hundred pounds. In the 
 same year, on the entrance of the Tories into power, he 
 shared the ill fortune of his friends and his party, losing 
 his most important office, the Gazetteship. He threw 
 himself with the more vigor, however, into the Spectator, 
 which he began, with Addison's help, in 17 11, and which 
 exceeded the Tatler in importance and popularity. As 
 the Tories gained still further power Steele became more 
 active in political discussion. In an anonymous pamphlet 
 he eulogized the Duke of Marlborough at the very moment 
 of his dismissal from his high offices ; he took a share in 
 the controversy about the creation of new peers, and, 
 after bringing the Spectator to a close in 1712, he began 
 the Guardian in 17 13, again with the help of Addison 
 and others. The new journal, though started with peace- 
 able intentions, soon precipitated him into a quarrel with 
 the Tory Examiner, severed forever his friendly relations 
 with Swift, and confirmed him in his political career. In 
 June of the same year he resigned his pension as gentle- 
 man waiter to Prince George, that he might not be 
 dependent upon a queen whose chosen ministry he was 
 attacking, and his office as one of the stamp commis- 
 sioners, that he might legally run for parliament. In 
 July, shortly after the return of the French ambassador 
 to London, much popular excitement was caused by a 
 
introduction: xv 
 
 petition to the Queen from the inhabitants of Dunkirk, 
 praying that, contrary to the provisions of the recent 
 treaty of Utrecht, its harbor should not be destroyed. 
 Steele protested strongly, in the Guardian, against this 
 memorial, which was being widely circulated in England, 
 and insisted that the British nation expected the demoli- 
 tion of Dunkirk. His strong language enraged the 
 Tories, who attacked him, in a pamphlet war, even more 
 vigorously than the Whigs defended him. In October 
 Steele stopped the Guardian and began, without the assist- 
 ance of Addison, the Englishman, which was intended to 
 deal almost entirely with matters less amusing than vital 
 to national life. At the beginning of 17 14 he also pub- 
 lished, with the aid of others, the Crisis, a powerful state- 
 ment of the whole political situation. Parliament met in 
 February. Almost the first business of the Tory majority 
 was to expel Steele from the house, to which he had been 
 elected from Stockbridge, on a charge of writing and 
 publishing seditious matter. He was now in great pecu- 
 niary difficulties, and would perhaps have been entirely 
 ruined had not three thousand pounds been put into his 
 hands by unknown friends. In spite of his attempted 
 disgrace he did not cease expressing his political views, 
 in the short-lived Lover, the Reader, which for its nine 
 numbers was in direct opposition to the Examiner, and in 
 several pamphlets. The Queen died August 1, and 
 George I., a few weeks after his arrival in England, made 
 Steele, the valiant defender of the Hanoverian succession, 
 deputy lieutenant or the county of Middlesex, surveyor 
 of the royal stables at Hampton Court, a justice of the 
 peace, and supervisor of Drury Lane Theatre. 
 
 From 171410 1724 the main facts of Steele's life can 
 be best given under two heads, that of his connection 
 with the theatre and that of his part in public affairs. 
 
xvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Like his predecessor in the office of supervisor of 
 Drury Lane, Steele received at first a pension of seven 
 hundred pounds from the licensed actors, Wilks, Gibber, 
 Doggett, and Booth. This arrangement, however, was 
 soon changed, with their full approval, by Steele's obtain- 
 ing from the King a patent which made him and the 
 actors colleagues in the management and profits of the 
 theatre, responsible to the King for the conduct of it, but 
 not subject to the authority of the Lord Chamberlain. 
 In 17 17, a new Lord Chamberlain requested the mana- 
 gers of the theatre to accept a license under his authority 
 instead of a patent. This they declined to do. Two 
 years later, nevertheless, when Steele was again in politi- 
 cal disgrace for opposing certain Whig projects, the 
 government revenged itself by allowing the Lord Cham- 
 berlain to forbid Cibber, who had just courteously 
 dedicated his Ximena to Steele, to act or take part in the 
 management of the theatre. Appeals to high officials for 
 justice proving useless, Steele brought his cause before 
 the people in an interesting periodical called the I'heatre, 
 but the patent was revoked, acting at Drury Lane forbid- 
 den, and a new license granted, from which Steele was 
 excluded. Not until 1721, when Steele's sound policy in 
 regard to the national finances had again won him the 
 favor of the government, was the Lord Chamberlain 
 forced to issue a warrant ordering the managers of the 
 theatre to account to Steele for his share of the profits, 
 past and future. Steele's fourth play. The Conscious 
 Lovers, was produced with great success in Nfovember, 
 1722. At about the same time he was at work on 
 another. The School of Action, but it was never com- 
 pleted. 
 
 During the first years of the reign of George I., Steele 
 stood high in favor. In 1715 he received five hundred 
 
INTRODUCTION. xvii 
 
 pounds from the King, was knighted, and elected mem- 
 ber of parliament from Boroughbridge. The same year 
 he revived the Englishman as a weapon against the 
 Tories, receiving a large sum of money for the services 
 he thus rendered. In 1716 he was appointed, at a salary 
 of a thousand pounds, one of thirteen commissioners 
 instructed to deal with the forfeited estates of certain 
 noblemen and gentlemen, chiefly Scottish, who had taken 
 part in the recent rising for the Pretender, and he visited 
 Scotland three times within the next few years in the ser- 
 vice of this commission. By remonstrating, in the Plebeian 
 and on the floor of the house, against the bill for limiting 
 the royal prerogative of creating new peers, he lost the 
 goodwill of the government, but regained it in the follow- 
 ing year by taking — again with Walpole — the unpopu- 
 lar side in connection with the South Sea Scheme. The 
 bubble burst, Walpole became first lord of the treasury, 
 and Steele returned to favor. 
 
 In the latter part of his life Steele, engrossed with 
 public affairs or in the pursuit of his private fortune, 
 wrote little that can be classed as pure literature. Anxious, 
 as he felt himself growing old, to increase his property for 
 the sake of his children, he threw himself for several years, 
 first into the establishment of a sort of large lecture or 
 concert hall, and then into a seemingly sensible, but even- 
 tually unsuccessful, scheme, called the Fish Pool, for bring- 
 ing fish alive to distant markets. The year 17 18 saw the 
 death of his wife, whom he had loved tenderly and faith- 
 fully. Thereafter he lived only for his children and the 
 public welfare, but almost all he wrote seemed touched 
 with weariness. From 1724 to 1729, for the better 
 arrangement of his still disordered affairs, he spent the 
 greater part of his time in Wales, in or near Carmarthen, 
 where his wife's estates lay. For years he had been 
 
xviii introduction: 
 
 plagued with the gout. In 1723 Vanbrugh wrote : " Hap- 
 pening to meet with Sir Richard Steele t'other day at 
 Mr. Walpole's in town, he seemed to me to be (at least) 
 in the declining way I had heard he was;" in 1725 
 he had a .stroke of paralysis, suffering partial loss of 
 speech. He died at Carmarthen September 1, 1729, at 
 the age of fifty-seven, and was buried there. For some 
 time there was talk of a monument's being raised to 
 him in Westminster Abbey, where his wife lies, tjut the 
 project was never carried out. 
 
 Steele had a natural daughter, known as Miss Ousley, 
 and four children by his second wife, Elizabeth, Richard, 
 Eugene, and Mary. Of these, the two sons died before 
 their father, and Mary soon afterward. Elizabeth became 
 Lady Trevor and had one child, a daughter, who died 
 without issue. Miss Ousley married a Welsh gentleman, 
 Mr. Aynston. Their only child, a daughter, married a 
 Mr. Thomas, and Lord Trevor provided for the education 
 of their two sons. Steele's only descendants, therefore, 
 neither bore his name nor inherited, seemingly, his 
 genius. 
 
 IL 
 Personal Appearance. 
 
 A spiteful friend of Steele's, Mrs. Manley, describes 
 him in the New Atlantis as a " black beau (stuck up in a 
 pert chariot), thickset, his eyes lost in his head, hanging 
 eyebrows, broad face, and tallow complexion." A more 
 open enemy, John Dennis, thus portrays him in a bitter 
 pamphlet. The Characters and Conduct of Sir John Edgar, 
 called by himself Sole Monarch of the Stage in Drury Lane: 
 " Sir John Edgar, of the county in Ireland, is of 
 
INTRODUCTION. xix 
 
 a middle stature, broad shoulders, thick legs, a shape like 
 the picture of somebody over a farmer's chimney — a 
 short chin, a short nose, a short forehead, a broad flat 
 face, and a dusky countenance." To these and an accu- 
 mulation of other personal charges Steele replied good- 
 naturedly in the Theatre (No. ii), pretending anger at 
 the insinuations against his beauty, and adding, " I have 
 ordered new editions of his [Steele's] face, after Kneller, 
 Thornhill, and Richardson, to disabuse mankind in this 
 particular. He is painted by the first resolute, by the 
 second thoughtful, and by the third indolent." These 
 three portraits, all dating from about the time of the 
 Spectator, are still in existence. That by Kneller, painted 
 for the Kit-Cat Club, represents an energetic, somewhat 
 stout little man, in a brown full-bottomed dress wig, with 
 large, dark eyes, heavy eyebrows, and a large flat face, 
 which wears a bright and cheerful expression, as of one 
 whose good nature and vivacity are unfailing. Richard- 
 son's presentment shows the same bright, dark eyes and 
 lively countenance, but has the disadvantage of giving 
 the face so conventional an eighteenth-century look that 
 the portrait might serve almost as well for another. The 
 " edition of his face " by Thornhill, supposed to represent 
 Steele as indolent, in a dressing-gown and a tasselled cap 
 and unwigged, seems at first the homeliest picture in 
 existence, but it brings out, better even than the others, 
 the same square and stubby face and roguish eyes. 
 
 Lady Steele, according to Sir Godfrey Kneller's por- 
 trait of her, was a beautiful woman, slender and tall, with 
 dark hair and delicate features. Her children, of three 
 of whom we have charming miniatures, inherited their 
 mother's fineness of feature, except the youngest, Mary, 
 who resembled her father in countenance as strongly as 
 her sister Elizabeth did in character. 
 
XX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 III. 
 
 Character. 
 
 Several facts have contributed largely to a current mis- 
 understanding of Steele's character that lasted until very 
 recently. His manly position in, politics laid him open to 
 serious personal attacks from the pamphleteers of both 
 parties, whose testimony must be received with the great- 
 est caution ; his own frankness of speech was allowed to 
 count heavily against him by the world at large, which 
 often charges with grievous sin those who confess them- 
 selves guilty of petty faults ; the fact that he had written 
 the Christian Hero was supposed to be equivalent to his 
 assuming to be better than other men ; and his close con- 
 nection with Addison, whose singularly well-balanced 
 character, successful career, and secretive disposition 
 afforded scarcely a foothold for slander or ill judgment, 
 rendered Steele all the more liable, by contrast, to preju- 
 dice and blame. 
 
 Of the charges preferred against Steele's character by 
 his contemporaries two examples will be sufficient. Th^ 
 first is from Swift's pamphlet, The Importance of the 
 Guardian Considered (17 13); the second is an entry in 
 Hearne's diary for March 23, 1714. Swift says: "He 
 hath no invention, nor is master of a tolerable style ; his 
 chief talent is humour, which he sometimes discovers 
 both in writing and discourse ; for after the first bottle 
 he is no disagreeable companion. I never knew him 
 taxed with ill-nature, which hath made me wonder how 
 ingratitude came to be his prevailing vice ; and I am apt 
 to think it proceeds more from some unaccountable sort 
 of instinct than premeditation. Being the most impru- 
 dent man alive,'he never follows the advice of his friends, 
 
INTRODUCTION. xxi 
 
 but is wholly at the mercy of fools or knaves, or hurried 
 away by his own caprice; by which he hath committed 
 more absurdities in economy, friendship, love, duty, good 
 manners, politics, religion, and writing, than ever fell to 
 one man's sh.are." Hearne records : " Richard Steele, 
 Esq., Member of Parliament, was on Thursday last, 
 about 12 o'clock at night, expelled the House of Com- 
 mons for a roguish pamphlet, called the Crisis, and* for 
 several other pamphlets in which he hath abused the 
 Queen, etc. This Steele was formerly of Christ Church, 
 in Oxford, and afterwards of Merton College. He was a 
 rakish, wild, drunken spark ; but he got a good reputation 
 by publishing a paper that came out daily called the 
 Tatler, and by another called the Spectator; but the most 
 ingenious of these papers were written by Mr. Addison 
 and Dr. Swift, as 't is reported. . r - He now writes for 
 bread, being involved in debt." There are several pas- 
 sages of this temper in other writings, which it is' not 
 necessary here to quote. In substance, then, on the 
 testimony of Steele's political opponents or enemies, or 
 from chance records evidently based on such prejudiced 
 testimony, we discover that rumor had, in Steele's own 
 day, charged him from time to time with being incon- 
 tinent, drunken, spendthrift, and ungrateful. 
 
 Such sporadic statements, never widely accepted, gain 
 a certain sort of credibility from Steele's own testimony. 
 In his Apology (17 14), written to defend himself against 
 the political charges on which he had been expelled from 
 the House of Commons, he says : " He [Steele] first be- 
 came an author when an ensign of the Guards, a way of 
 life exposed to much irregularity ; and being thoroughly 
 convinced of many things, of which he often repented, and 
 which he more often repeated, he writ, for his own private 
 use, a little book called the Christian Hero, with a design 
 
xxii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 principally to fix upon his own mind a strong impression 
 of virtue and religion, in opposition to a stronger propen- 
 sity towards unwarrantable pleasures. This secret admo- 
 nition was too weak ; he therefore printed the book with 
 his name, in hopes that a standing testimony against him- 
 self, and the eyes of the world (that is to say, of his 
 acquaintance) upon him in a new light, might curb his 
 desires, and make him ashamed of understanding and 
 seeming to feel what was virtuous, and living so quite con- 
 trary a life." Further than this, which seems rather to 
 indicate a sensitive conscience than any depth of deprav- 
 ity, the almost constant suits brought against Steele for 
 debt must have been notorious, and in his letters to his 
 wife we have his own authority for the fact that on several 
 occasions he had taken too much wine. 
 
 Unfavorable comments, of the sort we have indicated, 
 on Steele's character and conduct, swelled by the gossip 
 of the Johnsonian age, were taken up by Macaulay and 
 Thackeray, the brilliancy of whose pictures of Steele has 
 won them a ready and wide acceptance. Macaulay, car- 
 ried away by an opportunity for clever antithesis, repre- 
 sents him as Addison's inferior not only intellectually but 
 in morals and manners. "" Steele had," he says, " left col- 
 lege without taking a degree, had been disinherited by a 
 rich relation, had led a vagrant life, had served in the 
 army, had tried to find the philosopher's stone, and had 
 written a religious treatise and several comedies. He was 
 one of those people whom it is impossible either to hate 
 or to respect. His temper was sweet, his affections warm, 
 his spirits lively, and his principles weak. His life was 
 spent in sinning and repenting ; in inculcating what was 
 right, and doing what was wrong. In speculation he was 
 a man of piety and honor ; in practice he was much of 
 the rake and a little of the swindler. He was, however, 
 
INTRODUCTION. xxiii 
 
 SO good-natured that it was not easy to be seriously angry 
 with him, and that even rigid moralists felt more inclined 
 to pity than to blame him when he diced himself into a 
 spunging-house, or drank himself into a fever. Addison 
 regarded Steele with kindness not unmingled with scorn, 
 tried, with little success, to keep him out of scrapes, intro- 
 duced him to the great, procured a good place for him, 
 corrected his plays, and, though by no means rich, lent 
 him large sums of money." 
 
 Thackeray, less keen for an antithesis, but prompt with 
 pity for all erring mortals, covers Steele with a mantle 
 of tender charity that calls attention to rather than 
 extenuates his faults. So justly famous is Thackeray's 
 description of the character of " Dick," as he takes the 
 liberty of calling him, that we must quote here, for pur- 
 poses of comparison, the most striking passage from the 
 lecture on Steele in his English Humourists : — 
 
 " I am afraid no good report could be given by his masters 
 and ushers of that thick-set, square-faced, black-eyed, soft- 
 hearted little Irish boy. He was very idle. He was whipped 
 deservedly a great number of times. Though he had very 
 good parts of his own, he got other boys to do his lessons for 
 him, and only took just as much trouble as should enable him 
 to scuffle through his exercises, and by good fortune escape the 
 flogging-block. . . . 
 
 " Besides being very kind, lazy, and good-natured, this boy 
 went invariably into debt with the tart-woman ; ran out of 
 bounds and entered into pecuniary, or rather promissory en- 
 gagement? with the neighboring lollipop-vendors and piemen — • 
 exhibited an early capacity and fondness for drinking mum and 
 sack, and borrowed from all his comrades who had money to 
 lend. I have no sort of authority for the statements here made 
 of Steele's early life ; but if the child is father of the man, the 
 father of young Steele of Merton, who left Oxford without tak- 
 ing a degree and entered the Life Guards — the father of Cap- 
 
xxiv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 tain Steele, of Lucas's Fusiliers, who got his company through 
 the patronage of my Lord Cutts — the father of Mr. Steele, the 
 Commissioner of Stamps, the editor of the Gazette, the Tatler 
 and Spectator, the expelled member of Parliament, and the 
 author of the Tender Husband and the 'Conscious Lovers j 
 if man and boy resemble each other, Dick Steele the school- 
 boy must have been one of the most generous, good-for- 
 nothing, amiable little creatures that ever conjugated the verb 
 Tupto, I beat, Tuptomai, I am whipped, in any school in Great 
 Britain. . . . 
 
 " As for Dick, whilst writing this ardent, devotional work, 
 he was deep in debt, in drink, and in all the follies of the town ; 
 it is related that all the officers of Lucas's, and the gentlemen of 
 the Guards, laughed at Dick. And in truth a theologian in 
 liquor is not a respectable object, and a hermit, though he may 
 be out at elbows, must not be in debt to the tailor. Steele says 
 of himself that he was always sinning and repenting. He beat 
 his breast and cried most piteously when he did repent ; but as 
 soon as crying had made him thirsty he fell to sinning again. 
 In that charming paper in the Tatler, in which he records his 
 father's death, his mother's grief, his own most solemn and ten- 
 der emotions, he says he is interrupted by the arrival of a 
 hamper of wine, ' the same as is to be sold at Garraway's next 
 week ' ; upon the receipt of which he sends for three friends, 
 and they fall to instantly, ' drinking two bottles apiece with 
 great benefit to themselves, and not separating until two o'clock 
 in the morning.' 
 
 " His life was so. Jack, the drawer, was always interrupting 
 it, bringing him a bottle from the ' Rose,' or inviting him over 
 to a bout there with Sir Plume and Mr. Diver ; and Dick wiped 
 his eyes, which were whimpering over his papers, took down 
 his laced hat, put on his sword and wig, kissed his wife and 
 children, told them a lie about pressing business, and went off 
 to the ' Rose ' to the jolly fellows. 
 
 " While Mr. Addison was abroad, and after he came home 
 in rather a dismal way to wait upon Providence in his shabby 
 lodging in the Haymarket, young Captain Steele was cutting a 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXV 
 
 much smarter figure than that of his classical friend of Charter- 
 house Cloister and Maudlin Walk. Could not some painter' 
 give an interview between the gallant captain of Lucas's, with 
 his hat cocked, and his lace, and his face, too, a trifle tarnished 
 with drink, and that poet, that philosopher, pale, proud, and 
 poor, his friend and monitor of school-days, of all days ? How 
 Dick must have bragged about his chances and his hopes, and 
 the fine company he kept, and the charms of the reigning toasts 
 and popular actresses, and the number of bottles that he and 
 my lord and some other pretty fellows had cracked over night 
 at the 'Devil,' or the 'Garter'! Cannot one fancy Joseph 
 Addison's calm smile and cold gray eyes following Dick for an 
 instant as he struts down the Mall to dine with the Guard at 
 St. James's, before he turns with his sober face and threadbare 
 suit to walk back to his lodgings up the two pair of stairs ? " 
 
 We may, however, well ask ourselves what real authority, 
 other than a brilliant imagination, Macaulay and Thack- 
 eray have for their statements, and what more favorable 
 estimate of Steele's character we can justly hold. 
 
 The charge against Steele of ingratitude toward his 
 friends was brought forward by Mrs. Manley, by Swift, 
 and by some of Addison's friends. The two latter cases 
 we shall discuss later when we consider Steele's relations 
 with Swift and Addison. Mrs. Manley afterwards grace- 
 fully withdrew her complaints, which came, as she 
 acknowledged, from pique. As for the charges of vicious 
 conduct, Macaulay's statement that he was much of a 
 rake, that he diced himself into a spunging-house and 
 drank himself into a fever, and Thackeray's extravagan- 
 cies on the same theme may be at once set aside as false. 
 We have no record that supplies a basis for such astound- 
 ing condemnations. Steele's early years in the army 
 were, as he expressly acknowledged, marked by irregular 
 conduct, and it is well known that he had a natural 
 daughter, but from the time of his second marriage there 
 
xxvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 was no word of reproach against him for infidelity to his 
 wife, and we have every reason to suppose that he was 
 faithful to her. It is to be admitted, also, that Steele, by 
 his own temperament and by the custom of the time and 
 the country, was fond of wine, and drank it sometimes too 
 freely. In his letters to his wife he several times speaks 
 of such occurrences, and later in life, in obedience to her 
 request,' became more abstemious, if we interpret aright 
 allusions in his letters. But Addison, by Swift's testimony, 
 was at times no better off, nor Swift himself. Steele's 
 practice in such matters went scarcely farther than that 
 of many of his honored contemporaries. In this respect, 
 indeed, as in many other respects, the England of Queen 
 Anne must have been greatly like the Germany of 
 yesterday and to-day, where an occasional over-indulgence 
 in beer is not precisely regarded as a heinous crime. 
 How over-emphatic would be a characterization of Steele 
 that made him out a drunkard may be gathered from the 
 following anecdote told of him by Bishop Hoadly, and 
 related in the words of the Bishop's son. It indicates 
 unconsciously the whole situation, and marks the compar- 
 ative unimportance with which even a bishop of the 
 church regarded a weakness such as that of Steele's." 
 "My father," says Dr. John Hoadly, "when Bishop of 
 Bangor, was, by invitation, present at one of the Whig 
 meetings held at the Trumpet in Shoe Lane, where Sir 
 Richard, in his zeal, rather exposed himself, having the 
 double duty of the day upon him, as well to celebrate the 
 immortal memory of King William, it being the 4th of 
 November, as to drink his friend Addison up to the 
 conversation-pitch, whose phlegmatic constitution was 
 hardly warmed for society by that time Steele was not 
 fit for it. Two remarkable circumstances happened. 
 John Sly, the hatter, of facetious memory, was in the 
 
INTRODUCTION. xxvii 
 
 house ; and, when pretty mellow, took it into his head to 
 come into the company on his knees, with a tankard of 
 ale in his hand, to drink off to the immortal memory., and 
 to retire in the same manner. Steele, sitting next my 
 father, whispered him. Do laugh ; it is humanity to laugh. 
 Sir Richard in the eveni;ig, being too much in the same 
 condition, was put into a chair and sent home. Nothing 
 would serve him but being carried to the Bishop of 
 Bangor's, late as it was. However, the chairmen carried 
 him home, and got him up stairs, when his great complai- 
 sance would wait on them down stairs, which he did, and 
 then was got quietly to bed. The next morning he was 
 much ashamed, and sent the Bishop the distich printed 
 above." ^ 
 
 That there was nothing of the rake and very little of 
 the drunkard in Steele is fairly evident. That, on the 
 other hand, he was an habitual spendthrift is not to be 
 denied. The story that the not particularly veracious 
 Savage, who had a reason for not admiring Steele, told 
 Johnson about him, must be taken with caution. We 
 can scarcely conceive of Steele and Phillips taking to 
 their heels in quite such ignominious fear, of a bailiff, or 
 Steele's dragging off Savage to an obscure inn, where, 
 penniless, but out of reach of duns and suits, he dictated 
 to him a pamphlet that more than paid for their meagre 
 dinner. Whether these uncorroborated tales of a doubtful 
 character be accepted or not, however, there is an abun- 
 dance of testimony to show that, from his early days on, 
 Steele was constantly in need of money, continually 
 borrowing, and regularly sued for debt. But in Steele's 
 favor it may be said that, though his over-generosity was 
 his fault and his extravagance his weakness, the irregu- 
 
 1 " Virtue with so much ease on Bangor sits, 
 
 All faults he pardons, though he none commits." 
 
xxviii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 larity of his income from the government and from 
 private sources was a misfortune not easy to be rid of. 
 To dine with lords and sup with wits, to have a post at 
 court and a close connection with the stage, to be 
 responsible for the official news of the Gazette and the 
 kindly gossip of the Tatler, to live in a fashion worthy 
 of the honors he had already received, and in a position 
 for obtaining further advancement, were burdens that 
 played havoc with greater sums of money than such as 
 came intermittently into Steele's shallow pocket. Nor, after 
 all, was any one much the worse for lending to him. His 
 debts were paid before his death, his credit does not seem 
 at any time to have been destroyed, and there was rarely 
 a lack of friendly feeling between him and his creditors. 
 
 We have, moreover, evidence of a high order in Steele's 
 favor in the whole tone of his periodical writings — the 
 simple good sense and gentle remonstrance of the Tatler, 
 the dignified whimsicality of the Spectator, the sturdy and 
 earnest, if less graceful, virtues of the later publications. 
 The wit may sometimes have been forced, but, from first 
 to last, the manner and the matter are those of a kind 
 and honest gentleman. In an age of ribaldry and 
 obscenity, he habitually shows a respect for God and 
 man and woman in his plays, his poems, and his tales. 
 In an age when the license of the pamphleteer was 
 without limit, when the school of Swift was at its height, 
 there is little or nothing to reproach in Steele's attacks 
 on others or his defence of himself. Even when Addison 
 forgot his native courtesy, and admitted an ungracious 
 personal allusion to his old friend into a political article, 
 Steele was gentle enough, as well as wise enough, to retort 
 merely by an apt and. dignified quotation from Cato. 
 
 Stronger even than the presumption raised in Steele's 
 favor by the tone of his periodical and miscellaneous 
 
INTRODUCTION. xxix 
 
 writing is the argument in favor of his gentle and noble 
 character that we draw from his private letters, of which 
 we have some five hundred, and which, taken altogether, 
 form one of the most interesting and enlightening 
 collections of documents belonging to the eighteenth 
 century. Sometimes important communications, preserved 
 in several drafts, but usually hasty notes and familiar 
 messages of the sort that each one of us writes every 
 day, this series of letters furnishes almost incontestable 
 proof of his fine qualities of heart and mind. About 
 two-thirds of the whole number are addressed to his wife, 
 and it is impossible to read them without being deeply 
 impressed by the frankness, the kindness, and the unal- 
 terable constancy of spirit which marked Steele's relations 
 with his family. Indeed, one finds the only adequate 
 expression of his character in a famous phrase of his 
 own. He observed of Lady Elizabeth Hastings that " to 
 love her is a liberal education." To be Steele's friend, 
 to be loved and honored by him, must have been the 
 source of such happiness and human sympathy as to be 
 rightly called a liberal education. Had Swift only 
 gathered from his early friendship with Steele a little 
 sweetness, had Pope gained from him a little manliness, 
 and Addison himself more warmth of affection, the 
 literature of the age would have shone the brighter. 
 
 We may see Steele as his friends saw him if we will 
 ponder a little on three contemporary accounts of him. 
 Berkeley, a singularly lovable and unprejudiced person, 
 thus records, in his correspondence with Sir John Per- 
 ceval, his impressions on first meeting Steele : — 
 
 " The first news I had upon my coming to town was that 
 Mr. Steele did me the honour to desire to be acquainted with 
 me ; upon which I have been to see him ; he is confined with 
 the gout, and is, as I am informed, writing a play, since he 
 
XXX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 gave over the Spectators. This gentleman is extremely civil 
 and obliging, and I propose no small satisfaction in the con- 
 versation of him and his ingenious friends, which, as an 
 encouragement, he tells me are to be met with at his house. 
 
 " The value you have always shown for the Spectators 
 makes me think it neither impertinent nor unwelcome news to 
 tell you that by his mother-in-law's death he is come into an 
 estate of 500 /. a year ; the same day his wife was brought to 
 bed of a son. Before she lay down the poor man told me he 
 was in great pain and put to a thousand little shifts to conceal 
 her mother's desperate illness from her. The tender concern 
 he showed on that occasion and what I have observed in 
 another good friend of mine makes me imagine the best men 
 are always the best husbands. I told Mr. Steele if he neglects 
 to resume his writings the world will look on it as the effect of 
 his growing rich ; but he says this addition to his fortune will 
 rather encourage him to exert himself more than ever ; and I am 
 the apter to believe him because there appears in his natural 
 temper something very generous and a great benevolence to 
 mankind. One instance of it is his kind and friendly be- 
 haviour to me (even though he has heard I am a Tory). I 
 have dined frequently in his house in Bloomsbury Square, 
 which is handsome and neatly furnished. His table, servants, 
 coach, and everything is very genteel, and in appearance above 
 his fortune before this new acquisition. His conversation is 
 very cheerful, and abounds with wit and good sense. Some- 
 body (I know not who) has given him my treatise of the Prin- 
 ciples of Human Knowledge, and that was the ground of his 
 inclination to my acquaintance. For my part, I should reckon 
 it a sufficient recompense of my pains in writing it that it gave 
 me some share in the friendship of so worthy a man." 
 
 Two years later, when Steele, recently knighted, was at 
 the height of his fortunes, he gave a grand entertainment 
 in his Censorium, a large lecture and concert hall, to a 
 large party of invited guests. On this occasion, Wilks, 
 the actor, spoke the verses we give below. They are 
 
INTRODUCTION. xxxi 
 
 attributed to Addison, and, whether they are his or not, 
 they give evidence of Steele's consummate good humor 
 and the general affection borne him. One less heartily 
 and widely beloved would scarcely have been chosen, 
 when a host, for such open raillery. 
 
 " The Sage whose guest you are to-night, is known 
 To watch the public weal, though not his own : 
 StUl have his thoughts uncommon schemes pursued, 
 And teemed with projects for his country's good. 
 Early in youth his enemies have shewn, 
 How narrowly he missed the Chemic Stone : 
 Not Friar Bacon promised England more ; 
 Our artist, lavish of his fancied ore. 
 Could he have brought his great design to pass, 
 Had walled us round with gold instead of brass. 
 That project su'nk, you saw him entertain 
 A notion more chimerical and vain. 
 To give chaste morals to ungoverned youth. 
 To gamesters honesty, to statesmen truth ; 
 To make you virtuous all ; a thought more bold 
 Than that of changing dross and lead to gold. 
 But now to greater actions he aspired, 
 For still his country's good our champion fired ; 
 In treaties versed, in politics grown wise. 
 He looked on Dunkirk with suspicious eyes ; 
 Into her dark foundations boldly dug. 
 And overthrew in fight the famed Sieur Tugghe. 
 Still on his wide unwearied view entends, 
 Which I may tell since none are here but friends. 
 In a few months he is not vfithout hope, 
 But 't is a secret, to convert the Pope. 
 Of this, however, he'll inform you better 
 Soon as his Holiness receives his letter. 
 Meantime he celebrates, for 't is his way. 
 With something singular this happy day; 
 His honest zeal ambitious to approve 
 For the Great Monarch he was born to love ; 
 Resolved in arms and arts to do him right, 
 And serve his sovereign like a trusty knight." 
 
xxxii introduction: 
 
 In sickness Steele was no less lovable than when in 
 full vigor. " Sir Richard Steele," according to Dr. 
 Young, in Spence's Anecdotes, " was the best-natured 
 creature in the world. Even in his worst state of health 
 he seemed to desire nothing but to please and be 
 pleased." And almost the last glimpse that we get of 
 him, from a letter of Victor's, shows that his kindly 
 charm of temper remained even when the power of his 
 intellect and his natural force were abated. " I was 
 told," Victor writes, that " he retained his cheerful sweet- 
 ness of temper to the last, and would often be carried out 
 on a summer's evening where the country lads and lasses 
 were assembled at their rural sports, and, with his pencil, 
 give an order on his agent, the mercer, for a new gown 
 to the best dancer." 
 
 To be born in Dublin, of common stock, as were 
 Steele and Swift, and yet to rise in not many years to 
 wield an important influence in politics and literature, is 
 no small tribute to a man's ambition and perseverance. 
 More credit in this is perhaps due to Steele than to 
 Swift. Not only was his natural genius less great, and 
 his means in youth as slight, but his education was, after 
 all, a mere smattering. He became, nevertheless, a suc- 
 cessful author and politician, and won knighthood by his 
 courage and his pen ; he originated a new literary genre 
 — a form of composition that had a wide influence on 
 the continent as well as in Great Britain, and went far 
 towards expressing the period in England in its most per- 
 fect shape. This splendid success he won rather through 
 his character, the attractive individuality that shone 
 through his writings, than by any extraordinary qualities 
 that appear in his work. And so it is to his character 
 that Steele's strongest hold on later ages is perhaps due. 
 All the writers of that day have lost in ours much of their 
 
INTRODUCTION. xxxiii 
 
 influence. The period was not one of propagation, not 
 one that built up new and great ideas, but one of adapta- 
 tion, one that lessened what was foolish, demolished what 
 was useless and sinful in the legacies of the past. The 
 work of the age was a premature and comparatively 
 unsuccessful attempt to arrange the world of facts and 
 principles in a way just and intelligible to all. What the 
 age of Queen Anne did on the basis of instinct our 
 century has had to re-form and remodel on the basis of 
 wider and deeper knowledge. But all our striving has 
 tended rather to discourage the expression in literature 
 of such individuality, such humanity as that of Steele. 
 Human, humanity, is the keynote of his work and his 
 influence. His work was done for the effect of the 
 moment, and it has not, as a whole, outlived the moment. 
 But Steele has a stronger title to our affection and honor. 
 Lady Mary Wortley Montague remarked on his likeness 
 to her cousin, Henry Fielding. She was right in this, 
 for Fielding was broadly and finely human, and it is to 
 his broad and finely human character that Steele owes 
 his influence, his charm, and his fame. 
 
 IV. 
 Relations with Addison, Pope, and Swift. 
 
 In Steele's time there could scarcely have been a man 
 of note in letters, arts, or politics, whom, in some one of 
 his various functions, he could not have known. With 
 the contributors to the various journals of which he was 
 the moving spirit, the more famous frequenters of the 
 favorite coffee-houses, his fellow-members of the Kit-Cat 
 
xxxiv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Club, the chief actors and wits, the politicians and soldiers, 
 he must have had means of intimate communication. 
 To take up in detail Steele's relations with the men of his 
 age would, therefore, almost amount to treating the litera- 
 ture and history of the period. A knowledge of his con- 
 nections with the three greatest of his contemporaries, 
 however, Addison, Pope, and Swift, is necessary to an 
 understanding of Steele's life and work. 
 
 For a detailed account of the life and character of 
 Addison the reader is referred to a companion volume of 
 this series. Born in the same year as Steele, Addison 
 was destined to be closely associated with him through 
 life. He was for two years at Charterhouse with him, 
 and he was at Oxford, though not in Steele's college, dur- 
 ing the whole time that his friend was in residence there. 
 There are no letters extant that passed between the two 
 men in their school and college days, or later, and we are 
 left entirely in the dark as to the degree of their intimacy, 
 but it is evident from references in Steele's later writings 
 that a firm friendship between them was begun early in 
 life. It is certain, moreover, that the first work that Steele 
 ever published over his own name was a retort in verse 
 (1700) on Sir Richard Blackmore, who had alluded to 
 "poor" Addison in his Satire against Wit; and the 
 Tender Husband (it oc^) was dedicated, with a reference 
 to their daily and familiar conversation, to Addison, who 
 wrote the prologue and assisted in the composition of the 
 play. In 1706 they both received their first political 
 offices, and from that time on they were for many years 
 closely associated with the same political party. From 
 1707 we hear frequently of them together through Swift's 
 Journal to Stella ; for a time after the death of the first 
 Mrs. Steele the two friends evidently lived together ; and 
 even after Steele's second marriage the intimacy con- 
 
INTRODUCTION. xxxv 
 
 tinued, seemingly undiminished, with the approbation of 
 Mrs. Steele. The subsequent association with the Tatler, 
 the Spectator, and the Guardian, which coupled them for- 
 ever in literary history, will be analyzed more closely else- 
 where. It is sufficient here to notice that the changes of 
 the years that followed told slowly but surely on the 
 friendship between the two men. Pope said that "' Addi- 
 son used to blame his dear friend Steele for being too 
 much of a party man." In 1713, at the cessation of 
 the Guardian, Hughes proposed to Addison that they 
 should start by their joint efforts a paper less political in 
 its tendencies. Steele's Englishman, said Hughes, is 
 " written with great boldness and spirit, and shows that 
 his thoughts are at present entirely on politics. Some of 
 his friends are in pain about him, and are concerned that 
 a paper should be discontinued which might have been 
 generally entertaining without engaging in party matters." 
 Addison declined to assist Hughes, but added, " I am in 
 a thousand troubles for poor Dick, and wish that his 
 zeal for the public may not be ruinous to himself ; but 
 he has sent me word that he is determined to go on, and 
 that any advice I can give him, in this particular, will have 
 no weight with him." A year later, when the political 
 tumult was at its highest, and there was most need of 
 sound ideas and plain speaking, Addison calmly laid 
 down the doctrine, in his continuation of the Spectator, 
 that it was a juncture in which good humour and benevo- 
 lence were the highest virtues. It was the inevitable conflict 
 between the shy, gentle, and complacent spirit, who would 
 have peace at any cost, and the more turbulent man of 
 action, who spared no effort to bring the truth actually to 
 pass. Two years later, in 1716, the tables seemed for 
 an instant turned, when Addison established a new and 
 essentially political periodical, the Freeholder, and Steele 
 
xxxvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 was publishing a more purely entertaining paper, Town- 
 Talk, "particularly designed to be helpful to the stage," 
 but it was none the less evident that the two friends were 
 drifting apart. Addison married the Countess of Warwick 
 in 1716, and we have no reason to suppose that Steele 
 was a frequent visitor at Holland House; in 17 17 Steele 
 wrote his wife that he did not " ask anything of Mr. Sec- 
 retary Addison." Unluckily, in 17 19, only a few months 
 before Addison died, the Peerage Bill came up for discus- 
 sion, and the two former allies took different sides. 4ddi-" 
 son was with the government ; Steele, for what he thought 
 right, though against his party. The latter maintained his 
 opinions in the Plebeian, the former in the Old Whig. In 
 this short controversy, which Johnson styled bellum plus- 
 quam civile, Addison gave vent to several unfortunately 
 personal allusions. Steele was less irascible, though his 
 own statements show lack of good judgment. But to 
 have even the apparent enmity which public opposition 
 implies must have cut them both to the quick. Even 
 after Addison's sudden death (June 17, 1719) Steele's 
 resentment was again excited by a proposition of 
 Tickell's to publish Addison's contributions to the Tatler 
 separately from those of Steele, thereby encroaching upon 
 his rights of property, and he wrote to Tonson (July 19, 
 17 19) an angry letter, which ended with the words, 
 " Mr. Addison is the last man who shall be patiently suf- 
 fered in doing unreasonable things (that he has you 
 must know) to, Sir, your most humble servant, Richard 
 Steele." It was not long, however, before Steele's better 
 nature showed itself, and he took occasion, in a number 
 of the Theatre and in his preface to the Drummer, 
 to speak of his old friend in terms of the most touching 
 and affectionate admiration. The tribute he paid him 
 dead, he had many times paid him' living. Addison, on 
 
INTRODUCTION. xxxvii 
 
 the other hand, is not known to have ever publicly 
 referred to such affection as he may have had for Steele, 
 unless it may have been in the lines : — 
 
 " Thy bounteous hand with worldly bliss 
 Has made my cup run o'er, 
 And in a kind and faithful friend 
 Has doubled all my store." 
 
 A Story accepted by Macaulay was current in John- 
 son's time, that Addison had once lent Steele a thou- 
 sand pounds — or, according to Johnson's account, a 
 hundred pounds — on the house at Hampton Wick and 
 its furniture, and that Addison, impatient at not being 
 paid at the end of the period agreed on, put in an execu- 
 tion, had the house and furniture sold, and the amount 
 over and above the bond sent to Steele, with a courteous 
 letter, " stating the friendly reason of this extraordinary 
 proceeding, viz., to awake him, if possible, from a lethargy 
 that must end in his inevitable ruin." " Steele," says 
 Victor, whose words we have just quoted, " told me it was 
 literally true, that he received it as he believed it was 
 meant by his friend, to do him service." No other traces 
 of such a transaction, however, have been preserved. 
 Steele says expressly in a letter to his wife, dated August 
 20, 1708, that he has "paid Mr. Addison his whole thou- 
 sand pounds," although in an undated letter of some 
 years later he promises her that she shall " have Addison's 
 money to-morrow," perhaps referring to a further loan. 
 The story has been frequently used as a reproach against 
 Steele, but, if it be true, it scarcely reflects credit upon 
 his friend's character, and gives us a glimpse of the side 
 of his nature which Pope satirized. 
 
 Macaulay's unresisted temptation to contrast Steele and 
 Addison has its roots in human nature, Lpoli where w^ 
 
xxxviii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 will, in ancient days or modern, in our own experience or 
 in that of others, we shall hardly fail to find our Steeles 
 and our Addisons. The inevitable but diverse products of 
 the artificial life of the city, the club, and the university, 
 the two types are not of unfrequent occurrence to-day. 
 The Addison, the critic, full of dignity and cold grace, is 
 marked from his school-days up, among his fellows, as an 
 object of admiration ; he is a respected friend of the 
 great, a patron of the small, an honored companion of all. 
 Clever, though restrained in speech, discreet in action, 
 shy, not rashly ambitious, shining in select company, he 
 leads a life happily adjusted between that of the scholar 
 and that of the man of the world. The other type is less 
 valued as a critic, and more as a friend. Kind to all, free 
 to all and with all, normal in intellect but ardent in sym- 
 pathy, eager, imaginative, susceptible, frank to the ex- 
 treme, with a whole handful of human weaknesses — such 
 are the men who for a lifetime wear their hearts upon 
 their sleeves, winning, it would seem, only jeers or pity for 
 their devotion, but who rarely leave a place or the world 
 without taking, as Steele did in his departure from Oxford, 
 " the love of the whole society." 
 
 With Pope Steele had at no time intimate relations. 
 Steele was the elder by years of reputation and experi- 
 ence when Pope, then only twenty-three, made his 
 acquaintance through Caryll. All that passed between 
 them in subsequent years, were somewhat conventional 
 letters, of praise or suggestion on the part of Steele, of 
 modest acquiescence on the part of Pope. The latter, 
 however, on at least one occasion, rather took advantage 
 of Steele's good nature by getting him to publish an 
 anonymous letter, really Pope's own, which praised 
 Pope's pastorals at the expense of Philips's, and led to a 
 well-known literary quarrel. In the more famous warfare 
 
INTRODUCTION. xxxix 
 
 waged with Addison in regard to the translations of the 
 Iliad, Steele had no part, and the letters ostensibly 
 addressed to him in Pope's correspondence are artificial 
 later concoctions from letters really sent to Caryll. 
 
 Little as Pope and Steele knew each other, however, 
 there were strong resemblances between their work. 
 What each wrote was full of the " common sense " of the 
 time. Pope polished and refined the aphorisms of the 
 day, based now upon the sound experience of mankind, 
 now upon the superficial dicta of a premature philosophy, 
 until many of his couplets have remained to the present 
 time stamped with the die of common quotation and 
 seemingly as incontrovertible as the axioms of mathe- 
 matics. Steele, too, expressed as a rule the best current 
 feeling of the time, not only as a simple spectator, but as 
 a participant, an indiscreet tatler, a trusty guardian, a 
 fellow- Englishman, sometimes following, sometimes -lead- 
 ing public opinion, but always sharing the best of it. 
 Pope, again, as Mr. Stephen justly says, " aims at giving 
 us the refined and doubly distilled essence of the conver- 
 sation of the statesmen and courtiers of his time. The 
 standard of good writing always implicitly present to his 
 mind is the fitness of his poetry to pass muster when 
 shown by Gay to his duchess, or read after dinner to a 
 party composed of Swift, Bolingbroke, and Congreve. 
 That imaginary audience is always looking over his 
 shoulder, applauding a good hit, chuckling over allusions 
 to the last bit of scandal, and ridiculing any extravagance 
 tending to romance or sentimentalism." Steele, too, was 
 distinctly a writer of the town, but it was for the whole 
 that he wrote, not for the few, for the people, not for the 
 wits. Though his work decrease in value or lose per- 
 manent audience, it was, therefore, work in the right 
 direction, on a sound and noble basis. 
 
xl INTRODUCTION. 
 
 No two things could well be less alike than Pope's satire 
 and that of Steele. Pope, Swift's best pupil, made him- 
 self a master in a form of literature in which permanence 
 of fame is granted to but few. At this distance we can 
 admire his work and recognize the immortality of some 
 of it. In comparison with its enormous force all that 
 Steele did of the sort is trifling. What is a thrust or two 
 in exasperation, a rough blow in defence, to the fine pre- 
 meditated murder of the twenty small lines that blurred 
 the shining record of Addison's life ? But, after all, how 
 cold and hard Pope's kindliest satire is, and how little 
 human it seems when set side by side with the sympathy 
 that Steele lavished on the, worthiest of his generation. 
 
 Steele's acquaintance with Swift probably goes back to 
 1705, and the coffee-houses where the mad parson used 
 to stride up and down, opening his mouth only for abrupt 
 and astonishing remarks. During the summer of 1708 
 he was certainly in constant intercourse with both Steele 
 and Addison. He gave good advice to the impetuous 
 Steele about the conduct of the Gazette, was, through the 
 famous Partridge joke, a sort of godfather to the Tatler, 
 and gave the venture aid which Steele publicly acknowl- 
 edged in the preface to the first volume of the collected 
 edition. By 1710, when Swift's political sympathies had 
 changed and he was already author of the Tory Ex- 
 aminer, the friendship cooled somewhat. On November 3, 
 Swift wrote in his journal : " We have had scurvy Tatlers 
 of late, so pray do not suspect me. I have one or two 
 hints. I design to send one, and never any more : he 
 does not deserve it. He is governed by his wife most 
 abominably, as bad as [Marlborough]. I never saw her 
 since I came, nor has he ever made me an invita- 
 tion." On December 15 he notes: "Lewis told me a 
 pure thing. I had been hankering with Mr. Harley to 
 
INTRODUCTION. xli 
 
 save Steele his other employment [that of stamp com- 
 missioner]; and have a little mercy on him ; and I had 
 been saying the same thing to Lewis, who is Mr. Harley's 
 chief favorite. Lewis tells Mr. Harley how kindly I 
 should take it if he would be reconciled to Steele, etc. 
 Mr. Harley, on my account, falls in with it, and appoints 
 Steele a time to let him attend him, which Steele accepts 
 with great submission, but never comes, nor sends any 
 excuse. Whether it was blundering, sullenness, insolence, 
 or rancour of party, I cannot tell, but I shall trouble my- 
 self no more about him. I believe Addison hindered 
 him out of pure spite, being grated to the soul to think 
 that he should ever want my help to save his friend ; yet 
 now he is soliciting me to make another of his friends 
 queen's secretary at Geneva ; and I will do it if I can ; it 
 is poor Pastoral Philips." 
 
 What obligation Steele, should be under towards Swift 
 in regard to his retaining the office just mentioned came 
 up again in the quarrel between the two politicians in 
 1 7 13. It began with Steele's assuming the cause of 
 a young gentlewoman who had been spoken lightly of, 
 for party purposes, in the Examiner, of which Steele sup- 
 posed Swift still to be the author. Several private letters 
 passed between them, in addition to the articles in the 
 Guardian and the Examiner, Swift accusing Steele of 
 ingratitude and Steele Swift of duplicity. It seems plain 
 now that both were in the wrong. Swift was no longer 
 in charge of the Examiner, and it is evident that Steele 
 had an understanding with Harley without Swift's aid. 
 
 This skirmish only preceded a bitter attack by Swift on 
 Steele a few months later, occasioned by the fierce politi- 
 cal dispute which occupied the last year of Queen Anne's 
 reign. In this warfare Swift and his party had the best 
 of it, for the Tories expelled Steele from the House and 
 
xlii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Swift scathed him unmercifully, not only in pamphlet 
 after pamphlet, but in such stinging lines as these, on the 
 
 Crisis : — 
 
 " Thou pompously wilt let us know 
 What all the world knew long ago. . 
 Believe me, what thou'st undertaken 
 May bring in jeopardy thy bacon. 
 For madmen, children, wits, and fools 
 Should never meddle with edged tools." 
 
 Steele's quiet retort in his defence of himself before 
 the House of Commons was, however, not unworthy of 
 him and his antagonist. Quoting, in reply to a charge 
 that he had written disrespectfully on the church, a 
 criticism of Swift's Project for the Advancement of Religion, 
 ending with the words, " the man writes much like a gen- 
 tleman, and goes to heaven with a very good mien," he 
 added, "the gentleman I here intended was Dr. Swift; 
 this kind of man I thought him at the time. We have 
 not met of late, but I hope he deserves this character 
 still." A reconciliation never took place, and in 1730, 
 the year after Steele's death. Swift, in the savage exas- 
 peration of his later years, gave vent to the bitterest 
 lines of all : 
 
 " Thus Steele, who owned what others writ, 
 And flourished by imputed wit, 
 From perils of a hundred gaols, 
 Withdrew to starve and die in Wales." 
 
 The contrast between Swift and Steele is striking. 
 Both were born in Ireland, in circumstances unfavorable 
 to great ambitions, of English families, which, by an odd 
 coincidence, were both under the protection of the Duke 
 of Ormond ; both men became, after a devious course, 
 the cherished instruments of different parties, which 
 warmly espoused them in time of need, but ungraciously 
 
INTRODUCTION. xliii 
 
 rewarded services of the first order with recompenses of 
 a much lower grade. And, to complete the tragedy, both 
 died in retirement, broken in body and mind. Of the 
 two Swift was incomparably the greater man : but his 
 genius was abnormal to such a degree that he dared to 
 conceive of his generation and of the whole human race, 
 not only as insignificant creatures, but as the vilest beasts 
 of the earth. Steele, on the contrary, though recognizing 
 the trivial and irrational in man, was still not outside the 
 bonds of natural human feeling. He lived and wrote as 
 a man among men, discouraging their vices and his own, 
 sustaining their virtue and his, and always inculcating 
 noble and beautiful ideals of thought and action, however 
 short he fell of attaining them in his own life. The 
 contrast between them showed most plainly as age- and 
 infirmity bore heavily on them both. The ravings of 
 Swift's madness clash strangely with the cheerfulness of 
 Steele's declining years. Which vision of life is truest 
 there is none to tell us, but whether our race be that of 
 Yahoos or not, he would indeed be beyond the reach of 
 ordinary human feeling who would habitually think us 
 to be so vile or wish us to be so. We accept more 
 gladly, tjierefore, Steele's picture of his contemporaries 
 than that of Swift, even where the contrast is strongest 
 — Steele's lovely and wholesome ideal of feminine grace 
 and beauty, with the acknowledged imperfections of her 
 sex and her time, rather than Swift's disgusting portrait 
 of the much bedecked but unclean beauty of the period. 
 To Steele's other great contemporary, Defoe, there is 
 not, we believe, a single personal reference in all his 
 works. It is almost inconceivably strange that a genius 
 so productive, one of whose books at least was destined 
 to be familiar throughout two continents, should have 
 been all but utterly unknown to the best writers of his 
 
xliv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 time. But Defoe was outside the literary circle ; he had 
 not even a foothold in the gay and gallant society of 
 Queen Anne's court and city. Who of our own time, it 
 makes us wonder, will be best known in arts or letters a 
 century to come, — one now courted and feted, to whom 
 publishers are deferential and whose place in the literary 
 hierarchy of the moment is secure, or one unknown to the 
 papers and the clubs and the universities, but whom 
 chance or his own acuteness has marked out as the 
 leader of a new movement or the culmination of a line of 
 progress which only a generation later than ours can 
 trace ? 
 
 V. 
 The Growth of the Reading Public. 
 
 The eighteenth century was a period of great progress 
 in every department of organized society. Literature, 
 never exempt from the conditions which society imposes 
 upon it, took on new forms and adopted new methods. 
 When Steele began to write, his ambition naturally led 
 him to the stage, where the great successes had been 
 made and the great gains won. The reaction at the 
 Restoration against puritanical rule, the lively interest 
 of the King and the court, no less than the intrinsic 
 attractions of scenery and costumes and the introduction 
 of actresses, had given the theatre an extraordinary 
 vogue among the compact little group that composed the 
 public of the day. With zeal for writing plays began 
 again a process that had been for some time interrupted 
 in England, the growth of a class of professional men of 
 letters. To the irregular and casual, though frequently 
 
INTRODUCTION. xlv 
 
 large, income derived from plays was soon added, as the 
 strife of politics grew hotter, an income from party 
 sources. Partly from a real delight in letters, partly in 
 return for services which writers had rendered or would 
 render, or from a desire to silence public opposition on 
 their part, the government, especially through the whole 
 reign of Queen Anne, and as late as 172 1, took in hand 
 promising or successful authors, gave them pensions, 
 and put them into posts of honor or emolument. M. 
 Beljame, who, in an interesting volume entitled Le public 
 et les hommes de lettres en Angleterre au dix-huitieme siecle, 
 has made an elaborate study of the subject we are now 
 treating, gives a list of the offices held by authors of the 
 time, in which no well-known name of the period is 
 wanting. Admitted to intimacy with the rich and the 
 great, entering society not wholly under patronage, but 
 on fairly equal terms, with high places in the government 
 service open to them, capable authors were no longer in 
 danger of falling into penury or sinking to the level of 
 the mere workman. It was to this fortunate condition 
 of matters in Steele's time that M. Beljame would 
 attribute Steele's success, or rather his opportunity. It 
 seems more reasonable, however, to regard the period as 
 one, not in which the men of letters were subsidized by 
 the government, but as one in which the term politician 
 included individuals who would now fall under the head 
 of men of letters. The fact is that Steele, Addison, and 
 Swift were, during many years of their lives at least, 
 interested more in the service of the state and the people, 
 as Cicero and Demosthenes had been, than in pure 
 literature. 
 
 In the early eighteenth century, certainly, nothing is 
 more remarkable than the ease with which what we now 
 consider technical or professional knowledge was supposed 
 
xlvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 to be gained. Then there were no experts. All learning 
 and science were currently thought to be in the grasp of the 
 most superficial scholar. Steele wrote, and with success, 
 on questions of public finance, Addison on numismatics, 
 Swift on economics and linguistics. Pope on philosophy. 
 Knowledge was almost supposed to be innate. It was a 
 tradition which survives in England and America even 
 at the present day, especially in regard to questions of 
 the history and philosophy of religion, on which all kinds 
 of men and women, from Mr. Gladstone to Colonel 
 Ingersoll, have thought themselves competent to write 
 without special investigation. Of what requirements the 
 man of letters had need, in the conception of Steele and 
 Addison, we have proof positive. A correspondent asks 
 in the Spectator (No. 314) what are the chief qualifica- 
 tions of a "good poet, especially of one who writes plays," 
 and the succinct answer is, " To be a very well-bred man." 
 How far the extreme specialization of the man of letters 
 in our time has been an advantage this is scarcely the 
 place to discuss, though it would be interesting to 
 compare the relations of the author with the public in 
 the age of Queen Anne with those now existing in the 
 Ignited States, where the extraordinary popularity of the 
 periodical press and the tendency of men of letters to 
 mass themselves in the vicinity of large publishing 
 houses have wrought distinct changes in the economics 
 of modern literature. 
 
 The conditions of to-day have been of slow growth. 
 The man of letters was not in any sense independent, 
 not free from patronage, whether public or private, until 
 after Steele's death. Steele, however, did much to 
 prepare the way for such a development. The influence 
 of the periodicals he founded was enormous. The extent 
 of their circulation, the classes which they reached, their 
 
INTRODUCTION. xlvii 
 
 effect on literary taste and on popular morals, we shall 
 discuss later. Here it is important only to emphasize 
 the fact that through his agency, for the first time in 
 English literature, authors began to receive a regular 
 and handsome income, through widely-circulated printed 
 literature, from the public at large. The general public 
 on the other hand, unaccustomed to buy books or reading 
 matter with frequency, and still in the habit of receiving 
 literature by the ear instead of by the eye, rather intermit- 
 tently than regularly, learned for the first time what it 
 was to have a means of steady pleasure and profit through 
 reading. Communication was established between the 
 writer and the reader, and each succeeding generation saw 
 the system of communication more thoroughly organized. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Steele's Poems, his Political and Ethical Writ- 
 ings, HIS Letters, and his Plays. 
 
 Steele's poetical performance was exceedingly small 
 and mediocre. Yet what verse he wrote was regarded iX. 
 the time as respectable ; Pope had not yet perfected the 
 couplet, and capable rhymes passed for poems. As a 
 lover and critic of poetry, however, Steele had an 
 influence upon his time. He took a warm interest in the 
 best contemporary verse, and his criticism of Shakspere, 
 Spenser, and Milton corresponded to the best sentiments 
 of his time and contributed to the broadening of the 
 public taste. 
 
 The necessary information in regard to Steele's political 
 writings will be given in the notes that accompany the 
 selections. Steele was a stanch Whig, and played at 
 
xlvi'li INTRODUCTION. 
 
 times an important, though now nearly forgotten, part in 
 the gallant and successful fight that the smaller party 
 made against the larger. His work did much to prepare 
 the way for the succession of the House of Hanover, 
 whose fortunes long lay trembling in the balance, and in 
 restraining the Whigs, once in power, from rash projects 
 and policies. 
 
 We shall have occasion later to notice the distinct 
 ethical influence of Steele's periodical writings. His 
 only separate work which has a plain ethical bearing 
 was the Christian Hero, the much misunderstood and 
 neglected essay with which his literary career really 
 opened. It is scarcely a religious manual, as careless 
 readers have styled it, but rather a simple monu- 
 ment of noble and unaffected piety. In a time when 
 Christianity in all its aspects was more a convention 
 or a creed than a living force, this enthusiastic young 
 soldier, whose education and surroundings had naturally 
 drawn him close to the models of antiquity, set himself 
 seriously to an examination of a problem that may 
 perplex many a pious mind, why the heroes of Greece 
 and Rome, extolled and imitated throughout Europe 
 since the ideals of the Renaissance first began to 
 prevail, should so predominate in our minds over the 
 heroes and martyrs of the Church. The style is ambi- 
 tious and sonorous, as of one fascinated by the periods 
 of Sallust and Cicero. Thought and feeling, on the other 
 hand, are thoroughly Puritan in their simple idealism, 
 and bear witness to the freshening and reawakening of 
 the emotions that was steadily leading up to the great 
 religious and literary movements of the latter part of the 
 century. 
 
 As a letter-writer, Steele had in his day no superior. 
 Lady Mary Wortley Montague showed more sprightliness. 
 
INTRODUCTION. xlix 
 
 Pope a more studied grace, and Swift an admirable and 
 wonderful conciseness of phrase of which he alone was 
 the possessor. But Steele's letters, especially those to his 
 wife, not only charm by their grace but delight by the 
 frank expression of his more intimate feelings, and by 
 what they reveal of his fine and ever buoyant spirit. 
 
 In the drama Steele won a good reputation, partly 
 from his natural merit, partly by the peculiar circum- 
 stances existing at that time. His force lay chiefly in 
 his instinctive trend to comedy, which is often to be 
 observed in the Tatter and the Spectator, and his talent for 
 character drawing, that inimitable and indescribable art, 
 soon to bloom even more delicately in England, which 
 transforms the dull commonplaces of life into situations 
 brimming with mirth, without being false to reality. 
 Steele lacked the rough cynicism of Wycherley, the 
 polished wit of Congreve, the constructive skill of Van- 
 brugh, but his characters, particularly the noblest of 
 them — and few contemporary plays handled types other 
 than despicable — show a strong grasp of the tangible 
 life of his day, as the good-humored moralist and jour- 
 nalist saw it. The romping beauty, the foolish, romance- 
 devouring girl, the shy maiden, the adventurer, the 
 country-lad, the young braggadocio, — to choose only a 
 few of his best creations — do not easily depart from the 
 memory, and the reader of Steele's plays closes the book, 
 as the beholder must have left the theatre, with a light 
 heart and a kindly smile. 
 
 But Steele's dramatic work recommended itself also to 
 his contemporaries because it stood for an attempt to 
 reform the stage. The reaction against the Restoration 
 drama is too well known to be told here in detail. It was 
 indeed impossible that a state of things so abnormal 
 should have long remained in full force. Brilliant as the 
 
1 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Stage was at its best, in .Congreve, it was a topsy-turvy 
 condition of the world which it portrayed, as unnatural 
 as that of Gulliver's Travels, or of the modern French 
 novel. That for a generation even courtiers, fops, and 
 soldiers, not to speak of sober citizens, should endure the 
 dust and bustle of these afternoon performances, where 
 audience and actors were inconveniently mingled, where 
 ladies came only in masks, is now as hard to conceive of 
 as the gay play of unlicensed wit and unbridled mockery 
 of church and state, of honesty in husband or friend, in 
 wife or maid. Such conditions could maintain themselves 
 only in a select circle of courtiers, and as long as the 
 divine rights of kings could set aside all the world's 
 experience. When whiggism developed apace, and 
 Charles and James gave place to William and Anne, the 
 protest against such plays grew and the interest in them 
 weakened. 
 
 Naturally, the immorality of this somewhat artificial 
 comedy of manners has been greatly overrated. From 
 first to last the stage had distinctly rebuked the vices of 
 the time, or at worst had merely put before the world 
 without comment the bodily aspect of a reckless age. In 
 the prologue to the Provoked Wife, Vanbrugh stated 
 clearly a programme which was not unlike that of 
 
 Molifere : — 
 
 " the intent and business of the stage 
 To copy out the follies of the age ; 
 To hold to every man a faithful glass, 
 And show him of what species he's an ass." 
 
 But by Steele's time the old convention had outlived its 
 Usefulness, and the citizen power, the Puritan influence, 
 asserted itself again in Blackmore's preface to Prince 
 Arthur, and in Collier's Short Vieiv of the Immorality and 
 Profaneness of the English Stage. The first scarcely 
 
INTRODUCTION. H 
 
 reached its mark, but the second, in spite of much 
 inherent absurdity, inflicted a serious wound on the 
 traditions of Etheredge and Wycherley. 
 
 The first fruits of the reaction were arrests and prose- 
 cutions of actors, sometimes on foolish charges, better 
 regulations in regard to conduct in playhouses, revisions 
 of old plays, and a whole crop of new and different plays 
 on the new basis. Of the last the most representative 
 were written by Gibber and Steele. Gibber's work, 
 however, was less vicious simply because he was himself 
 not of the old mould and was more interested in the 
 portrayal of the fop than the rake. His plays still had 
 in them situations insupportable on the modern stage, 
 but, like Sunday-school novels, they all ended admirably. 
 He even had the effrontery to declare in his preface to 
 the Careless Husband, dated December 15, 1704, that 
 " the best critics have long and justly complained that 
 the coarseness of most characters in our late comedies 
 have been unfit entertainments for people of quality, 
 especially the ladies, and therefore I was long in hopes 
 that some able pen (whose expectation did not hang 
 upon the profits of success) would generously attempt to 
 reform the town into a better taste than the world 
 generally allows it. But nothing of that kind having 
 lately appeared that would give me the opportunity of 
 being wise at another's expense, I find it impossible any 
 longer to resist the secret temptations of my vanity, and 
 so even struck the first blow myself." 
 
 But Steele had preceded Gibber, as Gibber probably 
 very well knew. The Funeral (1701) was an earnest 
 satire, with marked nobility of purpose and tone ; and 
 The Lying Lover (1703) was due, as the author confesses 
 in the preface to the published play, to his "honest 
 ambition to attempt a comedy which might be no 
 
lii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 improper entertainment in a Christian commonwealth." 
 So far as can be seen, Steele's influence, exerted both 
 through his own practice and his criticism of the drama, 
 was by no means an unimportant influence in the refor- 
 mation of the stage. He may even be recognized as 
 originating in England, with the Lying Lover and the 
 Conscious Lovers, the sentimental comedy, — a genre 
 destined to acquire great prominence in the English as 
 well as the continental theatre, and to permeate contem- 
 porary literature with something of its ethical earnestness, 
 its ludicrously sombre exaggeration of typical vices, and 
 its roseate characterization of typical virtues. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Steele's Periodical Writings : their Character 
 AND Influence. 
 
 In the notes accompanying the selections will be found 
 the less important facts in regard to the various periodi- 
 cals which played so large a part in Steele's life and 
 fame. Here it will be sufficient to discuss in general the 
 more prominent periodicals with which he was connected 
 and, very briefly, their influence on English and conti- 
 nental literature and culture. 
 
 The curious type of periodical which the Tatler brought 
 into vogue was destined to great popularity. Its distin- 
 guishing characteristics were, first, a tendency to deal 
 thoughtfully with matter of general, social, and ethical 
 interest, rather than with mere political or personal news 
 or scandal, and, second, a playful artifice whereby the 
 
INTRODUCTION. liii 
 
 author, who played the role of a whimsical person devoted 
 to the public weal, gave to his uttetances, for the most 
 part, a narrative form and the dramatic elements of plot 
 and character. The originality of the Tatler in both 
 points was real. Still, Steele had behind him Bacon, 
 Montaigne, and La Bruyfere, to mention no others, as 
 essajdsts in a kindred genre. In France, then far more 
 advanced than England in such matters, the Mercure 
 galani, a sort of quarterly with somewhat similar aims, 
 had been in existence since 1672, and its motive had 
 been imitated by several periodicals, described in detail 
 in Hatin's interesting Histoire de la Presse, which were 
 devoted largely to literary criticism and written with an 
 individuality that faintly reminds one of the Tatler series. 
 The genesis of the Tatler was probably not, however, 
 stimulated by foreign products. Its English ancestry 
 has often been given in full and can be most conveniently 
 traced in Perry's English Literature in the Eighteenth 
 Century and in Beljame's Le public et les hommes de lettres 
 en Angleterre au dix-huitieme siecle. The main facts are 
 these. News-sheets had existed in England for a cen- 
 tury, a daily paper since 1702, and sundry gossipy 
 Mercuries since 1690. Defoe's popular Review (1704- 
 13) not only led the way in treating political and econom- 
 ical questions but attacked the follies of the time with 
 Steele's spirit, though not with his grace and wit. Taking 
 his cue from Defoe's paper, and drawing on the news he 
 had access to in his capacity of editor of the official 
 London Gazette, Steele began the Tatler as a tri-weekly, 
 published on post days, at a penny a copy.^ Addison's 
 contributions began only after the success of the venture 
 
 > For convenience in reference I add a table giving the more 
 important data concerning each of the chief periodicals with which 
 Steele was associated : — 
 
liv 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 was assured and its character determined. The style was 
 Ught and graceful, the tone that of gentle or vigorous 
 satire, as the occasion demanded, the matter short narra- 
 tives or character sketches, and dramatic or literary 
 criticism, through much of all which ran a vein of 
 fantastic humor appropriate to the name and genius of 
 Isaac Bickerstaff. To the Tatler suddenly succeeded the 
 Spectator, the mature work of the two friends, now grown 
 skilful in collaboration. The subject-matter was much 
 the same, the assumed character of the whimsical author 
 more attractive, the machinery for securing continuity in 
 the action and variety of the dramatis personae more com- 
 plicated. Beginning with a circulation of 3000, a very 
 large number for those times, the Spectator increased 
 rapidly in popularity, falling somewhat when, in 17 12, the 
 price was doubled on account of the new tax on papers. 
 As in the case of the Tatler, the sale of the reprinted 
 bound volumes was also large. The Guardian started out 
 on a slightly more serious basis, with a tone more frankly 
 that of advice and reproof. Its chief purpose was " to 
 protect the modest, the industrious ; to celebrate the 
 wise, the valiant ; to encourage the good, the pious ; to 
 confront the impudent, the idle ; to contemn the vain, 
 the cowardly ; and to disappoint the wicked and profane." 
 
 
 
 
 Num- 
 
 Of 
 
 Number 
 
 Name. 
 
 Began. 
 
 Ended. 
 
 bers 
 
 Steele 
 
 WROTE. 
 
 OF ISSUES 
 
 
 
 
 ISSUED. 
 
 A WEEK. 
 
 The Tatler . 
 
 April 12, 1709 
 
 Jan. 2, 1711 
 
 271 
 
 188 
 
 3 
 
 The Spectator 
 
 March i, 1711 
 
 Dec. 6, 1712 
 
 555 
 
 236 
 
 6 
 
 The Guardian. 
 
 March 12, 1713 
 
 Oct. I, 1713 
 
 17s 
 
 82 
 
 6 
 
 The Englishman 1 
 (second series) ' 
 
 Oct. 6, 1713 
 
 Feb. 15, 1714 
 
 57 
 
 s . 
 
 3 
 
 July II, 1715 
 
 Nov. 21, 1715 
 
 38 
 
 &s 
 
 2 
 
 The Theatre . 
 
 Jan. 2, 1720 
 
 April 5, 1720 
 
 23 
 
 r 
 
 2 
 
INTRODUCTION. Iv 
 
 At first Steele intended to be impartial in regard to 
 politics, but the new journal had not run a quarter of its 
 course before it became involved in a quarrel with the 
 Examiner, and from then on assumed a more partisan 
 character. The Englishman was frankly a Whig paper. 
 The Theatre, Steele's last venture into periodical litera- 
 ture, was more in the style of the Tatler and the Spectator, 
 and had much of their interest and charm, though it was 
 largely occupied with the discussion of his personal 
 affairs. 
 
 The popularity of Steele's journals was extraordinary. 
 Queen Anne herself had the Spectator every morning at 
 breakfast ; the women read it drinking their tea, the men 
 while smoking their morning pipes. Even in Scotland 
 grave people read it aloud on Sundays, when they met 
 after church to discuss the news of the week. The 
 influence of Steele's work was fully commensurate with 
 its popularity. "'Tis incredible to conceive," said Gay 
 in the Present State of Wit, "the effect his [the Tatler' s^ 
 writings have had in the town ; how many thousand follies 
 they have either quite banished or given a very great 
 check to ; how much countenance they have added to 
 virtue and religion ; how many people they have rendered 
 happy by shewing them it was their own fault if they were 
 not so ; 4nd lastly, how entirely they have convinced our 
 fops and young fellows of the value and advantages of 
 learning." 
 
 The new form of periodical, Steele's timely invention, 
 found at once imitators in England. A score of similar 
 papers appeared in quick succession after the founding of 
 the Tatler, a dozen after the beginning of the Spectator, 
 though none of them had more than a short life and a 
 trifling influence. By 1750, the time of Johnson's Ram- 
 bler, the number of such journals in England had reached 
 
Ivi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 94; by 1764 it had reached 117; and by 1808, a total 
 oi 22-]} In America also there were marked traces of 
 the same influence." Benjamin Franklin's affection and 
 admiration for the Spectator are well known from the 
 passage in his autobiography, and it was he who gave a 
 lightness of tone, hitherto unknown in America, to his 
 brother's paper, the New England Couraiit, founded in 
 August, 172 1. When on February 11, 1723, Franklin 
 began to print and publish the Cpurant under his own 
 name, his salutatory,^ his Latin mottoes, and his club 
 of whimsical characters all bear witness to the extent 
 to which he followed Steele's model. Quickly suc- 
 ceeding the Courant appeared, on March 20, 1727, 
 the New England Weekly Journal, Containitig the most 
 remarkable Occurrences, Foreign and Domestick, in which 
 young and ambitious writers set themselves to imitate the 
 Spectator type. The editor assumed the name of Proteus 
 Echo, -Esq.; the "Society" which he represented was 
 composed of the Honorable Charles Gravely, Esq.; Mr. 
 Timothy Blunt, Mr. Christopher Careless, Mr. Will But- 
 terfly, and Mr. Honeysuckle ; and the moral essays and 
 social sketches which the paper contained were of the 
 sort that could have been expected under the circum- 
 stances. A third instance of direct imitation was the 
 Weekly Rehearsal, begun in Boston on September 27, 
 1 73 1, by Jeremy Gridley, afterwards Attorney-General of 
 the Province of Massachusetts Bay. The writers made 
 large pretensions to literary taste, and their essays, strik- 
 
 ^ Drake, Essays Illustrative of the Tatler, etc. Kawczyriski, 
 Studien zur Literaturgeschichte des XVIII. Jahrhunderts. Mora- 
 lisehe Zeitschriften. Leipzig, 1880. 
 
 ^ See Hudson's Journalism in the United States, Harpers, 1873, 
 pp. 69 ff., and Winsor's Memorial History of Boston, vol. II., pp. 
 
 394 ff- 
 
 ^ Quoted in Hudson ; facsimile in Winsor. 
 
INTRODUCTION. lyii 
 
 ing freshly on minds already much occupied with affairs 
 and politics, won a large degree of popular favor. ^ Even 
 now the most common names of the older English peri- 
 odicals of this kind — the Spectators and their kin — are 
 not rare among us, and the tone, the method of Steele 
 and Addison are still to be detected in the utterances 
 of "The Observer," "The Lounger," or "The Listener." 
 In France the Tatter and the Spectator had also a dis- 
 tinct influence. Both were translated into French,^ and 
 in that form became familiar wherever French books were 
 read. Rousseau read the Spectator in his youth. " J'avais 
 trouve," he said, " quelques livres dans la chambre que 
 j'occupais : le Spectateur, Puffendorff, Saint-Evremont, 
 la Henriade. Quoique je n'eusse plus mon ancienne 
 fureur de lecture, par de'soeuvrement je lisais un pen de 
 tout cela. Le Spectateur surtout me plut beaucoup et 
 me fit du bien." ^ The form and contents of the new 
 periodicals were frequently imitated. Between 171 1 and 
 181 5 thirty-one such journals were founded. In 17 13 
 Voltaire, in a letter to M. de Vauvenargues (May 9), 
 wrote as follows in regard to Le Spectateur Htteraire de 
 France : " Le chevalier de Quinsonas a abandonne son 
 Spectateur. II ne s'agit plus, pour les Observateurs, que 
 
 1 Franklin's Poor liic/iard'i Almanac, published by him under the 
 name of Richard Saunders, was a direct descendant of the Tatter 
 and the Spectator. See the passage relating to it in Franklin's Auto- 
 biography, in Bigelow's Life of Benjamin Frantilin, vol. I., p. 251. 
 For Franklin's imitation of the style of the Spectator, see ibid., 
 vol. I., p. log. For the influence of the style and character of the 
 English periodicals on Irving, see his contributions to the Morning 
 Chronicte, under the signature of Jonathan Oldstyle, and his later 
 venture, with J. K. Paulding, Salmagundi; or, tJie Whini-wtiams 
 and Opinions of I.auncelot Langstaff, Esq., and ot/iers. 
 
 ^ Le Bahillard, Amsterdam, 1723 ; Le Spectateur, Amsterdam, 
 17 1 5-18, Paris, 17 16. 
 
 ^ Les Confessions, book III. 
 
Iviii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 de trouver un libraire accommodant et honnete homme, 
 ce qui est plus difficile que de faire un bon journal. Qu'ils 
 se conduisent avec prudence, et tout ira bien." An 
 interest in English life, manners and customs, literature, 
 science, and politics began, indeed, to be felt in Paris. 
 In 1 7 17 a French refugee, Michel de La Roche, founded 
 in Amsterdam a Bibliotheque anglaise, oh Histoire litteraire 
 de la Grande-Bretagne^ which was well received in France, 
 held its own for a decade, and was followed in 1733 by a 
 no less successful Bibliotheque brittanique ou Histoire des 
 Savafits de la Grande-Bretagne. Of all the journals built 
 upon the English model, however, the most famous was 
 that of Prevost, Le Pour et Contre? But the characteris- 
 tically whimsical English humor of the Tatler series was 
 never quite to the French taste, and the imitative move- 
 ment passed away without leaving deep traces on the 
 history of journalism or of literature. 
 
 In Germany, on the other hand, the seed that Steele 
 sowed multiplied in a fertile soil. A translation, from 
 the French, of the Spectator appeared in 17 19 ; in 1739 a 
 version from the English was made, chiefly, it seems, by 
 Gottsched's wife and by Gottsched himself.^ Between 
 17 13 and 17 19 three periodicals were founded on the 
 model of the Spectator, of which one bore the name of 
 Der Spectateur oder Betrachtutig der verdorbene7i Sitteii. 
 Between 172 1 and 1739 no less than 78 such papers 
 appeared; 68 between 1740 and 1749; 92 between 1750 
 and 1761; 66 between 1761 and 1769 ; 64 between 1770 
 and 1779 ; 114 between 1780 and 1789 ; and 26 between 
 
 1 Hatin, Histoire de la Pressc, Paris, 1859, vol. II,, p. 290. 
 
 2 Hatin, vol. III., p. 19. Sainte-Beuve, Portraits litteraires, vol. 
 I., p. 276. 
 
 3 Koberstein, Geschichte der deiitscken A^atioiialliteratur, fifth 
 edition, vol. III., p. 157, note. 
 
INTRODUCTION. lix 
 
 1790 and 1800. The Zurich school were the first to 
 make such a journal famous. The Discurse der Maler, 
 begun in 1721 by Bodmer and Breitinger, and so called 
 both because the authors of essays signed themselves by 
 the names of celebrated painters and because they de- 
 picted the life and customs of the time, followed the Spec- 
 tator almost slavishly. The first volume was dedicated 
 " an die erlauchten Zuschauer der Engelandischen Nation," 
 and the second was dedicated to Steele himself, to whom 
 it appears, from the proceedings of the " Society," that 
 the authors had, on October 18, 1721, addressed a long 
 letter of gratitude and explanation.' The Chronick der 
 Geselhchaft der Maler bears record, under the date of 
 August 28, 1721, were further testimony necessary, to 
 the zeal with which the " Society " studied the Spectator: 
 " Es ward in der Gesellschaft beliebt, unser Original, ich 
 meine die Discourse der Engellanders, besser zu studiren ; 
 zu dem Ende wurden von Zeit zu Zeit in der Gesellschaft 
 hin und wieder einiche Discourse vorgelesen, und dariiber 
 so reflectirt, dass man die Folgen seiner Gedancken, die 
 Rechtigkeit seiner Schliissen, die Abanderungen seiner 
 tours, etc., genau bemerckte." The Discurse der Maler 
 suggested to Gottsched the establishment of Die ver- 
 niinftigen Tadleritmen (1725), which was two years later 
 followed by Der Biedermann. Thus started by the great 
 leaders of two opposite schools, the movement grew 
 rapidly in magnitude and influence, with the effect of 
 
 - Dr. Theodor Vetter, Der Spectator ah Quelle der ^'Discurse der 
 Maler" Frauenfeld, 1S87. The Chronick der Gesellschaft der Maler 
 was edited by Dr. Vetter in 18S7. A clear liistory and criticism of 
 the esthetic questions thus raised is to be found in Professor Fried- 
 rich Braitmaier's Geschichte der foetischeii Tlieorie und Kritik von 
 den Disknrsen der Maler bis auf Lessing, Frauenfeld, 1888. 
 
 See also Milberg's Die ?noralisclien Wochenschriften des iS. Jahr- 
 hunderts, Meissen, undated. 
 
Ix INTRODUCTION. 
 
 educating greatly the almost extinct popular taste and 
 encouraging it both to the observation of character and 
 to an interest in literature based on domestic life. More 
 important still, these periodicals, with their frequent 
 discussions of moral and aesthetic questions, led directly 
 to the whole critical movement of the later eighteenth 
 century, which had so powerful an effect on the develop- 
 ment of German literature. 
 
 In Holland, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and Denmark 
 the influence of the Spectator can likewise be traced.^ In 
 Italy the movement came late and is scarcely to be 
 separated from that resulting from the general influence 
 of the later English essayists and novelists, but it is 
 distinctly to be traced in L' Osservatore (1761-2), the 
 well-known Venetian journal in which Gasparo Gozzi 
 imitated the Spectator, familiar to him through a French 
 translation.^ 
 
 VIII. 
 
 . Steele's Style. 
 
 Steele's style has often been severely criticised. Ur. 
 Drake ^ was "afraid that it cannot be affirmed that our 
 
 ' For Holland and Poland see Kawczy"ski, pp. 42, 43 ; for 
 Russia, Thf Academy (London), March 25, 1882, p. 211, in a trans- 
 lation of a letter to Le Livre ; for Sweden see Malmstriim's 
 Gruttddragcn af svenska Vitterhetens Historia, 1866, vol. I., pp. 237 
 and 552 ; for Denmark, where the influence came through German 
 literature, see Petersen's Bidrag til den danske Literaturs Historic, 
 Copenhagen, 1870, vol. V., pp. 14, 23, 98, etc. 
 
 2 -See Zanella, G. Addison e G. Gozzi, in Paralleli Utterari, 
 Verona, 18S4, and Luigi Piccioni, // Giornalismo letterario in 
 Italia, vol. I., pp. 174, 175, Torino, 1894. 
 
 " Essays Illustrative of the Tatler, etc., vol. I., p. 185. 
 
IiVTRODUCTION. Ixi 
 
 author contributed much to inspire or embellish the art 
 of composition . he found it incorrect and left it so." It 
 is plain, however, that Steele never pretended to write 
 with the grace or outward accuracy of a rhetorician. In 
 one of his earliest Tatlcrs he announces his intention of 
 telling for news whatever he pleases, provided that he 
 " trespass not as a Tatler further than in an incorrectness 
 of style, and writing in an air of common speech." Late 
 in his life again, in a prefatory letter to an edition of 
 Addison's Drummer^ he thus contrasts his friend's style 
 and method of writing with his own : " The elegance, 
 purity, and correctness which appeared in his writings 
 were not so much to my purpose as, in any intelligible 
 manner as I could, to rally all those singularities of 
 human life, through the different professions and charac- 
 ters in it, which obstruct any thing that was truly good 
 and great." Mr. Dobson's estimate takes into account 
 Steele's object, and prefers rightly to praise him for 
 what he is rather than to blame him for what he is not. 
 " As a prose-writer," he says," " Steele does not rank 
 with the great masters of English style. He claimed, 
 indeed, in his capacity as a TaHcr, to use ' common 
 speech,' to be even incorrect if need be, and, it may be 
 added, he sometimes abused this license. Writing hastily 
 and under pressure, his language is frequently involved 
 and careless ; and it is only when he is strongly stirred 
 by his subject that he attains to real elevation and dignity 
 of diction. His eloquence is wholly of the heart ; and 
 there is little or nothing of epigram in his expression." 
 But in the language of common speech, in the eloquence 
 of the heart, Steele has few equals in the literature of his 
 century ; and surely no one can read the mass of his 
 
 ^ Epistolary Coyrespojidcfice^ vol, II., p. 606. 
 - Selections from Steele, p. xlvi. 
 
Ixii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 extant letters without feeling that through their style — 
 that inimitably gracious and sympathetic style — he has 
 gained for a moment the power of looking deep into the 
 heart of one of the noblest and most sincere men of his 
 century. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Chronological List of Steele's Writings. 
 
 1695. March. "The Procession, A Poem on Her Majesties 
 Funeral, by a Gentleman of the Army." See, also, 171 3, 
 " Poetical Miscellanies." A dedicatory letter, " To the 
 Right Honourable the Lord Cutts," is prefixed. 
 
 1 700. Contributed verses, entitled to the " Mirrour of British 
 Knighthood, the worthy Author of the Satyr against Wit ; 
 occasion'd by the Hemistich, p. 8," to a folio pamphlet, 
 called " Commendatory Verses, on the Author of the 
 Two Arthurs, and the Satyr against Wit ; by some of his 
 particular Friends." The pamphlet was directed against 
 Sir Richard Blackmore, to a line referring to Addison in 
 whose "Satyr against Wit" (pubhshed in 1699) Steele 
 replies. 
 
 1 701. Contributed an "Epistle to Mr. Congreve, occasioned 
 by his Comedy called 'The Way of the World ' "; to " A 
 New Miscellany of Original Poems, on Several Occasions." 
 See, also, 1713, " Poetical Miscellanies." 
 
 1 701. April 15-17. "The Christian Hero: an Argument 
 
 proving that No Principles but those of Religion are 
 
 Sufficient to make a Great Man." 
 1701. December 20. "The Funeral; or Grief-k-la-Mode, a 
 
 Comedy." Acted at the Drury Lane Theatre in the latter 
 
 part of the same year. 
 1704. January 26. "The Lying Lover; or, the Ladies 
 
 Friendship, a Comedy." Acted at the Drury Lane 
 
 Theatre, December 2, 1703. 
 
INTRODUCTION. Ixiii 
 
 1705. May 9. "The Tender Husband; or, the Accom- 
 plished Fools, a Comedy." Acted at the Drury Lane 
 Theatre, April 23, 1705. 
 
 1706. January 11. Prologue to "The Mistake" (by Sir 
 John Vanbrugh). Acted at the Queen's Theatre in the 
 Haymarket, December 27, 1705. The prologue was 
 spoken by Booth. 
 
 1706. July. "A Prologue to the University of Oxford, 
 spoken by Mr. Wilks at the opening of the Theatre 
 
 there." Afterwards printed, as "By Capt. S 1," in 
 
 the "Muses Mercury" for September, 1707. 
 
 1707. In the first number of the "Muses Mercury," which 
 was dated January, verses " To a Young Lady who had 
 married an Old Man. By Capt. Steel." 
 
 1707. In the number of the "Muses Mercury," dated Febru- 
 ary, a " Song. By Capt. Steel." 
 
 1707. From April or May until October, 1710, author of the 
 "London Gazette." 
 
 1709. April 1 2. " The Tatler " begun. Ran until January 2, 
 1711. 
 
 1709. Contributed verses entitled " An Imitation of Horace's 
 Sixth Ode," applied to the Duke of Marlborough. By 
 Captain R. S.," to Fenton's " Oxford and Cambridge 
 Miscellany Poems." See, also, 1780, Nichols's "Select 
 Collection of Poems," and 1809, Nichols's Steele's "Cor- 
 respondence." 
 
 1710. July. "The Tatler," vols. i. and ii., with dedicatory 
 letters, respectively, to Mr. Maynwaring and to Edward 
 Wortley Montague, Esq. 
 
 1710-11. "The Medley." Steele contributed a part of one 
 number (23). 
 
 171 1. March I. " The Spectator " begun. Steele's connec- 
 tion with it lasted until December 6, 1712. He had 
 nothing to do with the subsequent papers, which formed 
 an eighth volume. 
 
 171 1. "The Tatler," vols. iii. and iv., with dedicatory letters, 
 respectively, to William Lord Cowper (Baron of Wing- 
 h —" - -' ■ - :^ ' " '■- 
 
Ixiv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 1 71 1. "A Grammar of the English Tongue. Printed for 
 John Brightland." With "The Approbation of Isaac 
 Bicl<erstaff." See Aitkin, ii., 395. 
 
 1711-12. "The Spectator," vols. i. and ii., with dedicatory 
 letters, respectively, to Lord Somers and to Charles Lord 
 Halifax. 
 
 1 71 2. January 4. "The Englisliraan's Thanks to the Duke 
 of Marlborough." A quarto pamphlet signed Scoto- 
 Britannus. Acknowledged by Steele, and reprinted in his 
 "Political Writings," 171 5. 
 
 1 712. March. Prologue to " The Distrest Mother. By A. 
 Philips." 
 
 1712. "The Spectator," vols. iii. and iv., with dedicatory 
 letters, respectively, to Henry Boyle, Esq., and to the 
 Duke of Marlborough. 
 
 1712-13. "The Spectator," vols. v. and vi., with dedicatory 
 letters, respectively, to the Earl of Wharton and to the 
 Earl of Sunderland. 
 
 1713. "The Spectator," vol. vii., with a dedicatory letter to 
 Mr. Methuen. 
 
 1713. March 5. "A Letter to Sir Miles Wharton, concern- 
 ing Occasional Peers." Issued under the name of Francis 
 Hicks, but reprinted by Steele in his " Political Writings," 
 1715. 
 
 1713. March 12. " The Guardian " begun. Ran until Octo- 
 ber I, 1713. 
 
 I 713. September 22. " The Importance of Dunkirk Consid- 
 ered : In Defence of the Guardian of August the 7th, 1713. 
 In a letter to the Bailiff of Stockbridge." Reprinted in 
 " Political Writings," 1715. 
 
 1713. October 6. "The EngHshman " begun. Ran until 
 February 15, 1 71 4. 
 
 1713. December, " The Guardian," vols. i. and ii., with dedi- 
 catory letters, respectively, to Lieutenant-General Cadogan 
 and to Mr. Pulteney. 
 
 1713. December 26-29. "Poetical Miscellanies, consisting 
 of Original Poems and Translations. By the best Hands. 
 
INTRODUCTION. Ixv 
 
 Publish'd by Mr. Steele." Contains Steele's "To Mr. 
 Congreve, occasion'd by his Comedy called, ' The Way 
 of the World' " (see above, 1701) and "The Procession" 
 (see above, 1695). 
 
 1714. January 19. "The Crisis: Or, a Discourse represent- 
 ing, from the most authentic Records, the just causes of 
 the late Happy Revolution. With some Seasonable 
 
 Remarks on the Danger of a Popish Successor. By 
 Richard Steele, Esq." Reprinted in " Political Writings," 
 1715. 
 
 1714. February. " Mr. Steele's Speech upon the proposal 
 of Sir Thomas Hanmer for Speaker of the House of 
 Commons." 
 
 1 714. February 25. "The Lover" begun. Ran until 
 May 27. 
 
 1714. April 22. " The Reader " begun. Ran until May 10. 
 
 I 714. May 25. " The Romish Ecclesiastical History of Late 
 Years." Of this Steele probably wrote only the dedica- 
 tion to Lord Finch, which is reprinted in Nichols's "Epis- 
 tolary Correspondence of Sir Richard Steele," 1809. 
 
 1714. June 3. "A Letter to a Member of Parliament con- 
 cerning the Bill for Preventing the Growth of Schism. 
 By Richard Steele, Esq." Reprinted in " Political 
 Writings." 
 
 1714. July 2. " The French Faith represented in the Present 
 State of Dunkirk. A Letter to the Examiner, in defence 
 
 of Mr. S le." Signed C. P. Reprinted in " Pohtical 
 
 Writings." 
 
 1714. "The Englishman," vol. i., with a dedicatory letter to 
 General Stanhope. 
 
 1 7 14. October 9. "The Ladies Library. Written by a 
 Lady. Published by Mr. Steele." 3 vols. Vol. i. was 
 dedicated to the Countess of Burlington, vol. ii. to Mrs. 
 Bovey, and vol. iii. to Mrs. Steele. The dedicatory 
 letters are reprinted in Nichols's " Correspondence," 1809. 
 1714. October 22. "Mr. Steele's Apology for Himself and 
 his Writings ; Occasioned by his Expulsion from the 
 
Ixvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 House of Commons." Reprinted in " Political Writings," 
 1715. 
 
 1714. December 18. "The Lover; to which is added The 
 Reader." With a dedicatory letter to Sir Samuel Garth. 
 
 1715. May 13. "An Account of the State of the Roman- 
 Catholick Religion throughout the World. Written for the 
 Use of Pope Innocent XI. by Monsignor Cerri, Secretary 
 of the Congregation de propaganda Fide. Now first 
 translated. . . . With a Large Dedication to the Present 
 Pope. ... By Sir Richard Steele." Really written by 
 Bishop Hoadley. 
 
 1715. July II. A new series of "The Englishman" begun. 
 
 Ran until November 21. 
 1715. September 30. "A Letter from the Earl of Mar to 
 
 the King, before His Majesty's Arrival in England. 
 
 With some Remarks on my Lord's subsequent Conduct. 
 
 By Sir Richard Steele." Reprinted in Somers's " Tracts," 
 
 fourth Collection, 1751, and at the end of some copies of 
 
 "The Englishman, vol. ii.," 1716 and 1737. 
 1 71 5. December 17. "Town-Talk, in a Letter to a Lady in 
 
 the Country" begun. Ran until February 13, 1716. 
 
 1715. "The Political Writings of Sir Richard Steele." 
 
 1 716. January. "The British Subjects' Answer to the Pre- 
 tender's Declaration. By Sir Richard Steele." Reprinted 
 in Somers's "Tracts," 1751. 
 
 1716. January 21. "Sir Richard Steele's Account of Mr. 
 Desaguliers' new-invented Chimneys. Printed for E. 
 Curll." In No. 3 of " Town-Talk " Steele has casually 
 mentioned a device for heating and ventilating contrived 
 by Mr. Desaguliers. Curll, the publisher of Desaguliers' 
 book called "Fires Improved," reprinted the passage and 
 distributed it as an advertisement. Mr. Desaguliers 
 wrote to " Town-Talk," No. 7, to protest that he had 
 had no part in the proceeding and did not approve it. 
 
 1716. January 2i. "The Protestant Packet." With this 
 new weekly periodical Nichols, who had seen three num- 
 bers, said that Steele doubtless had some connection. 
 
lA'TRODUCTION. Ixvii 
 
 1716. February ^. "The Tea-Table. " This periodical 
 pamphlet was to appear fortnightly, but it ran for only 
 three numbers. " This paper, too, is attributed to Steele, 
 but no copies appear now to be known." Aitkin, vol. ii., 
 p. 87. 
 
 1 716. March 3 (.?). "Chit-Chat. In a Letter to a Lady in 
 the Country. By Humphrey Philroye." Two copies of 
 this paper, the only ones known to exist, are in the Bod- 
 leian, and are described by Aitkin, vol. ii., p. 87. 
 
 1 716. March 6. "A Letter, a Member, etc., concerning the 
 condemn'd lords, in vindication of gentlemen calumni- 
 ated in the St. James's Post of Friday, March 2." 
 
 1716. March 21. Addison's "The Drummer: Or, the 
 Haunted House. A Comedy." With a preface by 
 Steele. 
 
 1716. April. "Sir Richard Steele's Speech for repealing of 
 the Triennial Act and his reasons for the Septennial Bill. 
 As it was spoken in the House of Commons in answer 
 to several speeches made against it, the 24th of April, 
 1716." 
 
 1717. "The Funeral and the Tender Husband. Comedies. 
 By Mr. Steele." Prefixed is a dedication to the Duchess 
 of Hamilton. 
 
 1717. "Lucius, by Mrs. Manley." Contains a prologue by 
 Steele and is dedicated to him. 
 
 1718. November 19. "An Account of the Fish Pool. . . 
 By Sir Richard Steele, and Mr. Joseph Gillmore, Mathe- 
 matician." 
 
 1719. March 14. "The Plebeian" begun. Ran weekly 
 until April 6. 
 
 1719. April 30-May 2. "The Joint and Humble Address 
 of the Tories and Whigs Concerning the Bill of Peer- 
 age." Reprinted in Boyer's Annals for May, 1719. 
 
 1719. June. " The Antidote. In a letter to the Free-Thinker. 
 Occasioned by the management of the present dispute 
 between Dr. Woodward and certain other Physicians." 
 Also, "The Antidote, No. ii. In a Letter to the Free- 
 
Ixviii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Thinker. Occasioned by later actions between Dr. 
 Woodward and Dr. Mead." There is strong evidence 
 for believing both these pamphlets to be by Steele. 
 
 1 719. December 7. " A Letter to the Earl of O d, con- 
 cerning the Bill of Peerage. By Sir R d S le." 
 
 1 71 9. December 19. "The Spinster: In defence of the 
 Woollen Manufacturers. To be continued occasionally, 
 No. i." No others appeared.. 
 
 1 719. " An inquiry into the manner of creating Peers." Also 
 attributed to Richard West. 
 
 1720. January 2. "The Theatre" begun. Ran until 
 April 5. 
 
 1720. Febriiary I. " The Crisis of Property. An argument 
 proving that the Annuitants for ninety-nine years, as 
 such, are not in the condition of other subjects of Great 
 Britain, but by compact with the Legislature are exempt 
 from any new direction relating to the said Estates. By 
 Sir Richard Steele, Knt." Reprinted in Nichols's " The 
 Theatre, by Sir Richard Steele," London, 1791. 
 
 1 720. February 26. " A Nation a Family : Being the 
 Sequel of The Crisis of Property ; or, A Plan for the im- 
 provement of the South Sea Proposal. By Sir Richard 
 Steele, Knight, Member of Parliament." Reprinted in 
 Nichols's " The Theatre," etc. 
 
 1720. March 29 (?). "The State of the Case between the 
 Lord-Chamberlain of His Majesty's Household, and the 
 Governor of the Royal Company of Comedians. With 
 the opinions of Pemberton, Northey, and Parker, concern- 
 ing the Theatre. By Sir Richard Steele." Reprinted in 
 Nichols's edition of " The Theatre." 
 
 1721. January 23. "A Prologue to the Town, as it was 
 spoken at the Theatre in Little Lincoln's Inn Fields. 
 Written by Mr. Welsted. With an Epilogue on the 
 same occasion. By Sir Richard Steele." Reprinted in 
 Welsted's "Works," 1787. 
 
 1 721. December 29. Second edition of Addison's "The 
 Drummer," with the addition of a dedication to Con- 
 
INTRODUCTION. Ixix 
 
 greve. The latter is reprinted in Arber's " English 
 Garner," vol. vi. 
 
 1722. December i. "The Conscious Lovers. A Comedy. 
 Written by Sir Richard Steele." Acted at Drury Lane, 
 November 7. 
 
 1723. Two papers for Nos. 46 and 51 (July 9 and 26) of 
 Pasquin. Reprinted in Nichols's " The Theatre," etc. 
 
 1787. "The Epistolary Correspondence of Sir Richard 
 Steele ; including his familiar letters to his wife and 
 daughters ; to which are prefixed fragments of three 
 plays ; two of them undoubtedly Steele's, the third sup- 
 posed to be Addison's. Faithfully printed from the 
 originals ; and illustrated with literary and historical 
 anecdotes, by John Nichols." First Edition in 1789, 
 second in 1809. 
 Several publications in which one or more letters of Steele's 
 
 are included are indicated in Aitkin's " Life of Richard Steele," 
 
 vol. ii., pp. 390-407. 
 
SELECTIONS 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 WRITINGS OF RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 [A letter written by Steele from Christ's Church College, 
 Oxford, to his uncle, Henry Gascoigne, urging him to use his 
 interest with the Duke of Ormond, whose secretary he was, to 
 obtain Steele a studentship.] 
 
 May 14 [i6go]. 
 
 s% 
 
 I have received the Bundle My Lady sent to me And 
 do most humbly thank ye for that and all the rest of y' 
 favours, but my request to you now is that you would 5 
 compleat all the rest by solliciting the Dean who is now 
 in London in my behalf e for a student's place here ; I 
 am satisfied that I stand very fair in his favour. He saw 
 one of my Exercises in the House and commended it 
 very much and said y' if I went on in me Study he did 10 
 not question but I should make something more than 
 ordinary. I had this from ray Tutour. I have I think a 
 good character through the whole Coll : I speake not this, 
 S', out of any vanity or affectation but to let you know that 
 I have not been altogether negligent on my part : these 15 
 places are not given by merit but are secured by friends, 
 though I question not but so generous a man as our 
 Dean would rather prefer one that was a Scholar before 
 another. I have had so great advantages in being [edu- 
 
2 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 cated at anj excellent school [that although] my own 
 abilities are so very mean I beleive there are very few of 
 [the] Gown in the Coll : so good scholars as I am. My 
 Tutour before told me that if you should be pleased to 
 S use your interest for me, and g' my Lord's letter or word 
 in my behalfe ; it would certainly do my businesse. And 
 y"' Friend, D' Hough the new Bishop of Oxon, I beleive 
 may doe much now for D"" Aldrich is, as it were, his 
 Dean. Perhaps, Sir, you may be modest in soUiciting 
 
 10 him, because you may think others trouble him for the 
 same thing ; But pray, S'', don't let that hinder you for it 
 will be the same case next Election, and if we misse this 
 opportunity 'tis ten to one whether we ever have such 
 another ; besides the Dean won't have a place again this 
 
 1 5 three year ; therefore I beseech you S'' as you have been 
 always heretofore very good to me to use your utmost 
 Endeavour now in my behalfe. And assure y'' selfe that 
 whatever preferment I ever attain to shall never make 
 me ingratefully forget, and not acknowledge the authour 
 
 20 of all my advances but I shall ever be proud of writing 
 
 myself. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 Your most obliged [nephew] and 
 
 Hum : Ser"', 
 
 2S Rich. Steele. 
 
 II. 
 
 [An undated letter, probably of a slightly later period, is 
 addressed by Steele to his aunt, wife of Henry Gascoigne, and 
 shows that grace of compliment was as early characteristic of 
 him as energy and ambition.] 
 
 Honoured Madam, 
 
 Out of a deep sense of y'' la^P= goodnesse Towards me, 
 I could not forbear accusing myselfe of Ingratitude in 
 
THE CHRISTIAN HERO. 3 
 
 omitting my duty, by not acknowledging y' Lad^'''?'^ 
 favours by frequent letters ; but how to excuse myselfe 
 as to that point I know not, but must humbly hope y' as 
 you have been alwaies soe bountifull to me as to encour- 
 age my endeavours, soe y" will be soe mercifull to me as to 5 
 pardon my faults and neglects. But, Madam, should I 
 expresse my gratitude for every benefit y' I receive at y"" 
 lajjshp's and my good Vncle, I should never sit down to 
 meat but I must write a letter when I rise from table ; 
 for to his goodnesse I humbly acknowledge my being. 10 
 But, Mada™, not to be too tedious, I shall only subscribe 
 myselfe Mada™, y Xti?'^'?'^ Humble servant and obedient 
 though unworthy nephew, 
 
 R. Steele. 
 
 Pray, mad™ give my duty to my unkle and my good 15 
 Ant, and my love to me Ingenious Cousin and humble 
 service to good M" Dwight. 
 
 III. 
 
 [Dedication of the Christian Hero: An Argtiment prov- 
 ing that no Principles but those of Religion are Sufficient to 
 make a Great Man, April, 1701. J 
 
 To THE Right Honourable the 
 LORD CUTTS, 
 
 COLONEL OF HIS MAJESTY'S COLDSTREAM 20 
 
 REGIMENT OF GUARDS, ETC. 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 The address of the following papers is so very much 
 due to your Lordship, that they are but a mere report of 
 what has past upon my guard to my commander; for they 25 
 were writ upon duty, when the mind was perfectly dis- 
 engaged, and at leisure, in the silent watch of the night. 
 
4 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 to run over the busy dream of the day ; and the vigilance 
 which obliges us to suppose an enemy always near us, has 
 awakened a sense that there is a restless and subtle one 
 which constantly attends our steps and meditates our ruin. 
 5 Thoughts of this nature a man may, with freedom, 
 acknowledge to your Lordship, who have ever been so 
 far from running into the fashionable vice of exploding 
 religion that your early valour first appeared against the 
 professed enemies of Christianity, and Buda had trans- 
 
 lo mitted you to late posterity, but that you yourself have 
 obliterated your part in that glorious scene by the fresher 
 memory of you at Limerick and Namur. 
 
 With one honest purpose of life, and constant service 
 of one interest and one cause, in what country have you 
 
 15 not fought; in what field have you not bled? But I 
 know I here offend you, nor will you allow warmth in 
 commendation to be like a friend ; but if, my Lord, to 
 speak you generous, honest, and brave be not so, I do 
 assure you, it is the only thing I shall ever do in common 
 
 20 with your enemies. . . . 
 
 Go on, my Lord, thus to contemn and thus to enjoy 
 life ; and if some great English day does not call for that 
 sacrifice which you are always ready to offer, may you, in 
 a mature age, go to sleep with your ancestors, in expecta- 
 
 25 tion not of an imaginary fame but a real immortality. 
 
 As for the present I now make you, if you will accept 
 it with your usual goodness and affection to me, I shall 
 entertain no further hopes ; for as your favour is my for- 
 tune, so your approbation is my fame. 
 
 30 I am, my Lord, your Lordship's 
 
 Most obedient, most faithful, 
 and most humble servant. 
 
 Tower Guard, Richard Steele. 
 
 March 23, 1701. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN HERO. 5 
 
 IV. 
 [From the Christian Hero.l 
 
 It were not then, methinks, a useless inquiry to search 
 into the reason that we are so willing to arm ourselves 
 against the assaults of delight and sorrow rather with the 
 dictates of morality than those of religion ; and how it 
 has obtained that when we say a thing was done like an 5 
 old Roman, we have a generous and sublime idea that 
 warms and kindles in us, together with a certain self- 
 disdain, a desire of imitation ; when, on the other side, 
 to say, it was like a primitive Christian, chills ambition, 
 and seldom rises to more than the cold approbation of a 10 
 duty that perhaps a man wishes he were not obliged to. 
 Or, in a word, why is it that the heathen struts and the 
 Christian sneaks in our imagination ? If it be as 
 Machiavil says, that religion throws our minds below 
 noble and hazardous pursuits, then its followers are slaves 1 5 
 and cowards ; but if it gives a more hardy and aspiring 
 genius than the world before knew, then he and all our 
 fine observers who have been pleased to give us only 
 heathen portraitures, to say no worse, have robbed their 
 pens of characters the most truly gallant and heroic that 20 
 ever appeared to mankind. 
 
 About the time the world received the best news it 
 ever heard, the men whose actions and fortunes are most 
 pompously arrayed in story had just acted or were then 
 performing their parts, as if it had been the design of 25 
 Providence to prepossess at that time, after a more sin- 
 gular manner than ordinary, the minds of men with the 
 trappings and furniture of glory and riches, to heighten 
 the virtue and magnanimity of those who were to oppose 
 them all, by passing through wants, miseries, and dis- 30 
 graces ; and, indeed, the shining actions of these illus- 
 
6 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 trious men do yet glare so much in our faces tjiat we lose 
 our way by following a false fire, which, well considered, 
 is but a delusive vapour of the earth, when we might 
 enjoy the leading constant light of Heaven. 
 5 To make, therefore, a just judgment in our conduct, 
 let us consider two or three of the most eminent heathen,, 
 and observe whether they or we are better appointed for 
 the hard and weary march of human life ; for which 
 examination we will not look into the closets of men of 
 
 10 reflection and retirement, but into the practice and reso- 
 lution of those of action and enterprise. There were 
 never persons more conspicuously of this latter sort than 
 those concerned in the fortunes and death of Caesar ; 
 and since the pulse of man then beat at the highest, we 
 
 15 will think it sufficient to our purpose carefully to review 
 him and them as they march by us, and if we can see 
 any apparent defect in their armour, find out some way 
 to mend it in our own. But it will require all our patience, 
 by taking notice of the minutest things, to come at (what 
 
 20 is absolutely necessary to us) the recesses of their hearts 
 and folds of their tempers. 
 
 Sallust has transmitted to us two very great but very 
 different personages, Caesar and Cato, and placed them 
 together in the most judicious manner for appearing to 
 
 25 advantage, by the alternate light and shade of each other. 
 Caesar's bounty, magnificence, popular and sumptuous 
 entertainments stole a universal affection ; Cato's parsi- 
 mony, integrity, austere and rigid behaviour commanded 
 as universal reverence ; none could do an ungentle thing 
 
 30 before Caesar, none a loose one before Cato ; to one it 
 was recommendation enough to be miserable, to the other 
 to be good ; to Caesar all faults were pardonable, to Cato 
 none ; one gave, obliged, pitied, and succoured indiffer- 
 ently ; the other blamed, opposed, and condemned im- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN' HERO. 7 
 
 partially ; Caesar was the refuge of the unhappy, Cato 
 the bane of the wicked ; Cato had rather be than seem 
 good, Caesar was careless of either but . as it served his 
 interests; Cato's sword was the sword of justice, Caesar's 
 that of ambition ; Caesar had an excellent common sense 5 
 and right judgment of occasion, time, and place ; the 
 other blunt man understood not application, knew how 
 to be in the right, but was generally so out of season ; 
 Caesar's manner made even his vice charming, Cato's 
 even his virtue disagreeable ; Caesar insinuated ill, Cato lo 
 intruded good ; Caesar in his sayings, his actions, and 
 his writings was the first and happiest of all men ; in his 
 discourse he had a constant wit and right reason ; in his 
 actions, gallantry and success ; in his writings, everything 
 that any author can pretend to, and one which perhaps 15 
 no man else ever had : he mentions himself with a good 
 grace. Thus it was very natural for Caesar, adorned 
 with every art, master of every necessary quality, either 
 for use or ornament, with a steady and well-placed indus- 
 try to outrun Cato and all like him, who had none and 20 
 desired none but (an ever weak party) the good for his 
 friends. 
 
 Now this sort of men were Caesar and Cato, and by 
 these arts they arrived at that height which has left one's 
 name proverbial for a noble and princely nature, the 25 
 other's for an unmoved and inexorable honesty ; yet, 
 without following them through all the handsome inci- 
 dents and passages of life, we may know them well 
 enough in miniature by beholding them only in the 
 manner of dying : for in those last minutes the soul 3° 
 and body both collect all their force, either bravely to 
 oppose the enemy, or gracefully receive the conqueror. 
 Death. 
 
8 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 This was the applauded exit of that noble Roman 
 [Cato], who is said with a superior and invincible con- 
 stancy to have eluded the partiality of fortune, and 
 escaped the incursion upon the liberty of his country : it 
 5 seems, then, had he lived, his own had been lost, and his 
 calling himself still free and Caesar the usurper, a bond- 
 man and slave, were but mere words ; for his opinion of 
 things was, in reality, stunned by success, and he died 
 disappointed of the imaginary self-existence his own set 
 
 lo of thoughts had promised him, by an action below the 
 
 precepts of his philosophy and the constancy of his life. 
 
 Thus did Cato leave the world, for which, indeed, he 
 
 was very unfit, in the hands of the most skilful man in 
 
 it, who at his entrance on its empire excelled his past 
 
 IS glorious life, by using with so much temper and modera- 
 tion what he had purchased with so much bloodshed and 
 violence : but we must leave at present this busy and 
 incessant mind to the meditation of levelling inaccessible 
 mountains, checking the course of the ocean, and cor- 
 
 20 recting the periods of time ; we must leave him employed 
 in modelling the universe (now his own) in the secure 
 enjoyment of a life hitherto led in illustrious hazards, 
 and now every way safe but where it is its beauty to lie 
 open, to the treachery of his friends. 
 
 25 Now the use we make of these reflections is, that since 
 we have seen the mighty Caesar himself fall into supersti- 
 tion at the thought of his exit, since Cato's firm constancy, 
 Brutus's generous zeal, and Cassius's steady malice, all 
 ended in the same dereliction of themselves and despond- 
 
 30 ence at last, we may justly conclude, that whatever law 
 we may make to ourselves from the greatness of nature 
 or the principles of philosophy for the conduct and regu- 
 lation of life, is itself but an artificial passion by which 
 
THE CHRISTIAN HERO. 9 
 
 we vainly hope to subdue those that are natural, and 
 which will certainly rise or fall with our disappointment 
 or success, and we that are liable to both are highly con- 
 cerned to be prepared for either. At which perfection 
 there is no nearer way to arrive but by attending our own 5 
 make and observing by what means human life, from its 
 simple and rural happiness, swelled into the weighty 
 cares and distractions with which it is at present en- 
 chanted, and from this knowledge of our misery extract 
 our satisfaction. 10 
 
 ****** 
 
 Now since the dictates of Christianity are thus excel- 
 lently suited to an enlarged love and ambition to serve 
 the world, the most immediate method of seeing to what 
 height they would accomplish that noble work is taking 
 the liberty of observing how they would naturally influ- 15 
 ence the actions and passions of such persons as have 
 power to exert all the dictates and impulses which are 
 inspired either by their inclinations or opinions. For 
 whatever is acted in the narrow path of a private life 
 passes away in the same obscurity that it was performed 20 
 in, while the purposes and conduct of princes attract all 
 eyes and employ all tongues. In which difficult station 
 and character it is not possible but that a man without 
 religion must be more exquisitely unhappy than the 
 meanest of his vassals, for the repeated pomp and 25 
 • pageantry of greatness must needs become in time either 
 languid in the satisfactions they give, or turn the heads 
 of the powerful, so that it is absolutely necessary that he 
 should have something of more inward and deep regard 
 to keep his condition from being an oppression either to 30 
 himself or others. 
 
 There were not ever before the entrance of the Chris- 
 tian name into the world, men who have maintained a 
 
10 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 more renowned carriage than the two great rivals who 
 possess the full fame of the present age and will be the 
 theme and examination of the future. They are exactly 
 formed by nature for these ends to which heaven seems 
 5 to have sent them amongst us. Both animated with a 
 restless desire of glory, but pursue it by different means 
 and with different motives. To one it consists, in an 
 extensive undisputed empire over his subjects, to the 
 other in their rational and voluntary obedience ; one's 
 
 :o happiness is founded in their want of power, the other's 
 in their want of desire, to oppose him ; the one enjoys the 
 summit of fortune with the luxury of a Persian, the other 
 with the moderation of a Spartan ; one is made to 
 oppress, the other to relieve the oppressed ; the one is 
 
 1 5 satisfied with the pomp and ostentation of power to pre- 
 fer and debase his inferiors, the other delighted only 
 with the cause and foundation of it to cherish and pro- 
 tect them ; to one, therefore, religion is but a convenient 
 disguise, to the other a. vigorous motive of action. 
 
 2o All the circumstances of the illustrious life of our 
 Prince seem to have conspired to make him the check 
 and bridle of tyranny, for his mind has been strengthened 
 and confirmed by one continued struggle, and Heaven 
 has educated him by adversity to a quick sense of the 
 
 25 distresses and miseries of mankind, which he was born 
 to redress : in just scorn of the trivial glories and light 
 ostentations of power, that glorious instrument of Prov- 
 idence moves like that, in a steady, calm, and silent 
 course, independent either of applause or of calumny, 
 
 30 which renders him, if not in a political, yet in a moral, 
 a philosophic, an heroic, and Christian sense, an abso- 
 lute monarch, who, satisfied with this unchangeable, just, 
 and ample glory, must needs turn all his regards from him- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN HERO. 11 
 
 self to the service of others ; for he begins his enterprises 
 with his own share in the success of them, for integrity 
 bears in itself its reward, nor can that which depends not 
 on event ever know disappointment. 
 
 With the undoubted character of a glorious captain, s 
 and (what he much more values than the most splendid 
 titles) that of a sincere and honest man, he is the hope 
 and stay of Europe, a universal good not to be engrossed 
 by us only ; for distant potentates implore his friendship, 
 and injured empires court his assistance : he rules the lo 
 world, not by an invasion of the people of the earth, but 
 the address of its princes ; and if that world should be 
 again roused from the repose which his prevailing arms 
 have given it, why should we not hope that there is an 
 Almighty, by whose influence the terrible enemy that 15 
 thinks himself prepared for battle may find that he is 
 but ripe for destruction, and that there may be in the 
 womb of time great incidents which may make the 
 catastrophe of a prosperous life as unfortunate as the 
 particular scenes of it were successful ? 20 
 
 For there does not want a skilful eye and resolute arm 
 to observe and grasp the occasion : a Prince, who, from a 
 just notion of his duty to that Being, to whom he must 
 be accountable, has in the service of his fellow-creatures 
 a noble contempt of pleasure and patience of labours, to 25 
 whom it is hereditary to be the guardian and assertor of 
 the native rights and liberties of mankind, and who, with 
 a rational ambition, knows how much greater it is to give 
 than to take away ; whose every day is productive of 
 some great action, in behalf of men's universal liberty, 30 
 which great affection to them it is not in the power of 
 their very ingratitude to alienate ; he is constant and 
 collected in himself, nor can their murmurs interrupt 
 his toil any more than their dreams his vigilance ; a 
 
12 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 Prince who never did or spoke an)rthing that could justly 
 give grief to his people, but when he mentioned his 
 succession to them : but what grateful mind can bear that 
 insupportable reflection ? No, we will with endless 
 S adoration implore Heaven to continue him to us, or ex- 
 pire in heaps before his pavilion, to guard his important 
 life, and in the joint cause of Heaven and earth, our 
 religion and our liberty, destroy like ministering angels 
 or die an army of martyrs. 
 
 [From Act II., Scene 3, of The Funeral, or Grief-&-la Mode, 
 1701. The play is in substance a rough satire on the absurd 
 funeral customs of the time, but the most charming scenes in it 
 are those which have to do with the wooing of the grave Lady 
 Sharlot and the gay Lady Harriot by the modest young soldier, 
 Lord Hardy, and his dashing comrade, Mr. Campley.] 
 
 Scene draws and discovers Lady Sharlot reading at a 
 table. Lady Harriot playing at a glass to and fro and view- 
 ing herself. 
 
 10 Lady H. Nay, good sage sister, you may as well talk 
 to me \JLooking at herself as she speaks. '\ as sit staring at a 
 book which I know you can't attend. Good Dr. Lucas 
 may have writ there what he pleases, but there's no putting 
 Francis Lord Hardy, now Earl of Brumpton, out of your 
 15 head or making him absent from your eyes. Do but look 
 at me now, and deny it if you can. 
 
 Lady S. You are the maddest girl — \_Smiling. 
 
 Lady H. Look ye, I knew you could not say it, and 
 
 forbear laughing. \_Looking over Sharlot.J Oh, I see 
 
 20 his name as plain as you do. F-r-a-n, Fran, c-i-s, cis, 
 
 Francis. 'Tis in every line of the book. 
 
 Lady S. {Rising.'\ 'Tis in vain, I see, to mind any- 
 thing in such impertinent company — but granting 'twere 
 
THE FUNERAL. 13 
 
 as you say, as to my Lord Hardy, 'tis more excusable to 
 admire another than one's self. 
 
 Lady H. No, I think not. Yes, I grant you than 
 really to be vain at one's person, but I don't admire my- 
 self. Pish ! I don't believe my eyes have that softness. 5 
 \Looking in the glass. \ They ain't so piercing; no, 'tis 
 only stuff the men will be talking. Some people are 
 such admirers of teeth. Lord, what signifies teeth ! 
 \Showing her teeth.'\ A very black-a-moor has as white 
 teeth as I. No, sister, I don't admire myself, but I've a lo 
 spirit of contradiction in me : I don't know I'm in love 
 with myself, only to rival the men. 
 
 Zady S. Aye, but Mr. Campley will gain ground even 
 of that rival of his, your dear self. 
 
 Zady H. Oh, what have I done to you, that you 'S 
 should name that insolent intruder. A confident opin- 
 ionative fop ! No, indeed, if I am, as a poetical lover of 
 mine sighed and sung, of both sexes 
 
 " The public envy and the public care," 
 
 I shan't be so easily catched, — I thank him. I want 20 
 but to be sure I should heartily torment him by ban- 
 ishing him, and then consider whether he should depart 
 this life or not. 
 
 Lady S. Indeed, sister, to be serious with you, this 
 vanity in your humour does not at all become you. 25 
 
 Lady H. Vanity ! All the matter is, we gay people 
 are more sincere than you wise folks. All your life's an 
 art. Speak your soul. Look you there. \_HaiUng her 
 to the glass.'] Are you not struck with a secret pleasure 
 when you view that bloom in your looks, that harmony in 30 
 your shape, that promptitude of your mien ? 
 
 Lady S. Well, simpleton, if I am at first so silly as to 
 be a little taken with myself, I know it a fault, and take 
 pains to correct it. 
 
14 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 Lady H. Pshaw ! Pshaw ! talk this musty tale to old 
 Mrs. Fardingale; 'tis too soon for me to think at that 
 rate. 
 
 Lady S. They that think it too soon to understand 
 S themselves will very soon find it too late. But tell me 
 honestly, don't you like Campley ? 
 
 Lady H. The fellow is not to be abhorred if the for- 
 ward thing did not think of getting me so easily. Oh, I 
 hate a heart I can't break when I please. What makes 
 10 the value of dear china but that 'tis so brittle ? Were it 
 not for that you might as well have stone mugs in your 
 closet. 
 
 Lady S. Hist, hist, here's Fardingale. 
 
 Enter Fardingale. 
 
 Fardingale. Lady Harriot, Lady Sharlot ! I'll enter- 
 iS tain you now ; I've a new song just come hot out of the 
 poet's brain. Lady Sharlot, my cousin Campley writ it, 
 and it's set to a pretty air, I warrant you. 
 
 Lady H. 'Tis like to be pretty, indeed, of his writing. 
 
 \Flings away. 
 
 Far. Come, come, this is not one of your tringham 
 
 20 trangham witty things that your poor poets write ; no, 'tis 
 
 well known my cousin. Campley has two thousand pounds 
 
 a year. But this is all dissimulation in you. 
 
 Lady S. 'Tis so indeed, for your cousin's song's very 
 pretty, Mrs. Fardingale. \Reads. 
 
 25 " Let not Love on me bestow 
 
 Soft distress and tender woe. 
 
 I know none but substantial blisses, 
 
 Eager glances, solid kisses. 
 
 I know not what the lovers feign, 
 30 Of finer pleasure mixed with pain. 
 
 Then prithee give me, gentle boy, 
 
 None of thy grief, but all thy joy." 
 
THE FUNERAL. IS 
 
 But Harriot thinks that a little unreasonable, to expect 
 one without enduring t'other. 
 
 Enter Servant. 
 
 Ser. There's your cousin Campley to wait on you 
 without. 
 
 Far. Let him come in. We shall have the song now. 5 
 
 Enter Campley. 
 
 Cam. Ladies, your most obedient servant. Your ser- 
 vant. Lady Sharlot. Servant, Lady Harriot. \_Harriot 
 looks grave upon him.'] What's the matter, dear Lady 
 Harriot? Not well? I protest to you I'm mightily con- 
 cerned. \PuUs out a bottle.] This is a most excellent 10 
 spirit. Snuff it up, madam. 
 
 Lady H. Pish ! The familiar coxcomb frets me 
 heartily. 
 
 Cam. 'Twill be over, I hope, immediately. 
 
 Lady S. Your cousin Fardingale has shown us some 15 
 of your poetry. There's the spinnet, Mr. Campley, I 
 know you're musical. 
 
 Cam. She should not have called it my poetry. 
 
 Far. No? Who waits there? Pray bring my lute 
 out of the next room. 20 
 
 Enter Servant with a lute. 
 
 You must know I conned this song before I came in, 
 and find it will go to an excellent air of old Mr. Lawes's, 
 who was my mother's intimate acquaintance. My 
 mother's, what do I talk of ? I mean my grandmother's. 
 Oh, here's the lute. Cousin Campley, hold the song 25 
 upon your hat. \Aside to him.] 'Tis a pretty gallantry 
 to a relation. \_Sings and squalls.] 
 
 " Let not Love," etc. 
 
16 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 Oh, I have left off these things many a day. 
 
 Cam. Madam, from my Lord Hardy. [^Delivers a letter 
 to Lady Sharlot."] How do you say, my Lady Harriot ? 
 Except I sing it myself ? Then I assure you I will. 
 5 Lady S. I han't patience, I must go read my letter. 
 
 [Exit. 
 Cam. [&«^J.J " Let not Love," etc. 
 Far. Bless me, what's become of Lady Sharlot ? 
 
 \_Exit. 
 
 Lady H. Mrs. Fardingale, Mrs. Fardingale, what, 
 
 must we lose you ? [ Going after her. 
 
 Campley runs to the door, takes the key out, and locks 
 
 her in. 
 
 10 What means this insolence? A plot upon me? Do 
 
 you know who I am ? 
 
 Cam. Yes, madam, you're my Lady Harriot Lovely, 
 with ten thousand pounds in your pocket ; and I am Mr. 
 Campley, with two thousand a year, of quality enough to 
 IS pretend to you. And I do design, before I leave this 
 room, to hear you talk like a reasonable woman, as nature 
 has made you. Nay, 'tis in vain to flounce and discom- 
 pose yourself and your dress. 
 
 Lady H. If there are swords, if they are men of 
 20 honour, and not all dastards, cowards, that pretend to 
 this injured person — \Running round the room. 
 
 Cam. Ay, ay, madam, let 'em come. That's putting 
 me in my way; fighting's my trade. But you've used all 
 mankind too ill to expect so much service. In short, 
 25 madam, were you a fool, I should not desire to expostu- 
 late with you. \Seizing her hand. 
 Lady H. Unhand me, ravisher. [Fulls her hand 
 from him, chases round the room ; Campley after her. 
 
THE FUNERAL. 17 
 
 Cam. But, madam, madam, madam, why, madam ! 
 
 \Sings. 
 " Prithee, Cynthia, look behind you, 
 Age and wrinkles will o'ertake you." 
 
 Lady H. Age, wrinkles, small-pox, nay, any thing 
 that's most abhorrent to youth and bloom, were welcome s 
 in the place of so detested a creature. 
 
 Cam. No such matter, Lady Harriot. I would not be 
 a vain coxcomb, but I know I am not detestable, nay, 
 know where you've said as much before you understood 
 me for your servant. Was I immediately transformed lo 
 because I became your lover ? 
 
 Lady H. My lover, sir ! Did I ever give you reason 
 to think I admitted you as such ? 
 
 Cam. Yes, you did in your using me ill, for if you did 
 not assume upon the score of my pretending to you, how i s 
 do you answer to yourself some parts of your behaviour 
 to me as a gentleman ? 'Tis trivial all this in you, and 
 derogates from the good sense I know you mistress of. 
 Do but consider, madam. I have long loved you, bore 
 with this fantastic humour through all its mazes. Nay, 20 
 do not frown, for 'tis no better. I say, I have bore with 
 this humour, but would you have me with an unmanly 
 servitude feed it? No, I love with too sincere, too honest 
 a devotion, and would you have your mind as faultless as 
 your person, which 'twould be if you'd lay aside this 25 
 vanity of being pursued with sighs, with flatteries, with 
 nonsense — \_She walks about hss violently, but more con- 
 fused.'] Oh, my heart aches at the disturbance which 
 I give her, but she must not see it. [^Aside.] Had I not 
 better tell you of it now than when you are in my power ? 30 
 I should be then too generous to thwart your inclination. 
 
 Lady H. That is indeed very handsomely said. Why 
 should I not obey reason as soon as I see it 1 \Aside^ 
 
18 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 Since so, Mr. Campley, I can, as ingenuously as I should 
 then, acknowledge that I have been in an error. 
 
 \_Looking down on her fan. 
 
 Cam. Nay, that's too great a condescension. Oh, 
 
 excellence ! I repent ! I see 'twas but justice in you to 
 
 S demand my knees \KneeUng.\ my sighs, my constant, 
 
 tenderest regard and service. And you shall have 'em, 
 
 since you are above 'em. 
 
 Lady H. Nay, Mr. Campley, you won't recall me to a 
 fault you have so lately shown me. I will not suffer this. 
 10 No more ecstasies ! But pray, sir, what was't you did to 
 get my sister out of the room ? 
 
 Cam. You may know it, and I must desire you to 
 assist my Lord Hardy there, who writ to her by me. For 
 he is no ravisher, as you called me just now. He is now 
 IS in the house, and I would fain gain an interview. 
 
 Lady H. That they may have. But they'll make little 
 use of it : for the tongue is the instrument of speech to 
 us of a lower form ; they are of that high order of lovers 
 who know none but eloquent silence, and can utter them- 
 20 selves only by a gesture that speaks their passion inex- 
 pressible — and what not fine things. 
 
 Cam. But pray let's go into your sister's closet while 
 they are together. 
 
 Lady H. I swear I don't know how to see my sister. 
 2S She'll laugh me to death to see me out of my pantofies, 
 and you and I thus familiar. However, I know she'll 
 approve it. 
 
 Cam. You may boast yourself an heroine to her, and 
 the first woman that was ever vanquished by hearing 
 3° truth, and had sincerity enough to receive so rough an 
 obligation as being made acquainted with her faults. 
 Come, madam, stand your ground bravely ; we'll march 
 in to her thus. \_She leaning on Campley. 
 
THE FUNERAL. 19 
 
 Lady H. Who'll believe a woman's anger more ? I've 
 betrayed the whole sex to you, Mr. Campley. \Exeunt. 
 
 Re-enter Lord Hardy and Campley. 
 
 Cam. My lord, her sister, who now is mine, will im- 
 mediately send her hither. But be yourself. Charge 
 her bravely. I wish she were a cannon, an eighteen- 5 
 pounder, for your sake. Then I know, were there occa- 
 sion, you'd be in the mouth of her. 
 
 Lord H. I long, yet fear to see her. I know I am 
 unable to utter myself. 
 
 Cam. Come, retire here till she appears. {They go lo 
 back to the door. 
 
 Enter Lady Sharlot. 
 
 Lady S. Now is the tender moment now approaching. 
 \Aside.'\ There he is. {They approach and salute each 
 other trembling.'] Your lordship will please to sit. {After 
 a very long pause, stolen glances, and irresolute gestures.] 
 Your lordship, I think, has travelled those parts of Italy 
 where the armies are — 15 
 
 Lord H. Yes, madam. 
 
 Lady S. I think I have letters from you dated Mantua. 
 
 Lord H. I hope you have, madam, and that their 
 purpose — 
 
 Lady S. My lord 1 {Looking serious and confused. 20 
 
 Lord IT. Was not your ladyship going to say some- 
 thing ? 
 
 Lady S. I only attended to what your lordship was 
 going to say — That is, my lord — But you were, I be- 
 lieve, going to say something of that garden of the world, 25 
 Italy. I am very sorry your misfortunes in England are 
 such as make you justly regret your leaving that place. 
 
 Lord H. There is a person in England may make 
 those losses insensible to me. 
 
20 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 Lady S. Indeed, my lord, there have so very few of 
 quality attended his majesty in the war that your birth 
 and merit may well hope for his favour. 
 
 Lord H. I have, indeed, all the zeal in the world for 
 5 his majesty's service and most grateful affection for his 
 person, but did not then mean him. 
 
 Lady S. But can you indeed impartially say that our 
 island is really preferable to the rest of the world, or is 
 it an arrogance only in us to think so ? 
 10 Lord H. I profess, madam, that little I have seen has 
 but more endeared England to me ; for that medley of 
 humours which perhaps distracts our public affairs does, 
 methinks, improve our private lives, and makes conversa- 
 tion more various, and consequently more pleasing. Every- 
 15 where else both men and things have the same counte- 
 nance. In France you meet with much civility and little 
 friendship ; in Holland deep attention, but little reflec- 
 tion ; in Italy all pleasure, but no mirth. But here with 
 us, where you have everywhere pretenders or masters in 
 20 everything, you can't fall into company wherein you shall 
 not be instructed or diverted. 
 
 Lady S. I never had an account of anything from 
 you, my lord, but I mourned the loss of my brother. You 
 would have been so happy a companion for him, with that 
 25 right sense of yours. My lord, you need not bow so 
 obsequiously, for I do you but justice. But you sent me 
 word of your seeing a lady in Italy very like me. Did 
 you visit her often ? 
 
 Lord H. Once or twice, but I observed her so loose a 
 30 creature that I could have killed her for having your person. 
 
 Lady S. I thank you, sir ; but heaven that preserves 
 me unlike her, will, I hope, make her more like me. But 
 your fellow-traveller — his relations themselves know not 
 a just account of him. 
 
THE TENDER HUSBAND. 21 
 
 Lord H. The original cause of his fever was a violent 
 passion for a fine young woman he had not power to 
 speak to, but I told her his regard for her as passionately 
 as possible. 
 
 Lady S. You were to him what Mr. Campley has been 5 
 to you — Whither am I running ? Poor — your friend — 
 poor gentleman ! 
 
 Lord H. I hope, then, as Campley's eloquence is 
 greater, so has been his success. 
 
 Lady S. My lord ? lo 
 
 Lj)rd H. Your ladyship's — 
 
 Enter Lady Harriot. 
 
 Lady H. Undone ! Undone ! Tattleaid has found 
 by some means or other that Campley brought my Lord 
 Hardy hither. We are utterly ruined ; my lady's coming. 
 
 VI. 
 
 [From Act II., Scene i, of The Tender Husband., Steele's 
 third play, produced April 23, 1705. The main plot is strik- 
 ingly moral in purpose. The chief interest Hes in the means 
 by which the penniless adventurer, Capitain Clerimont, 
 aided by the lawyer Pounce, wins the hand of the rich and 
 sentimental Biddy Tipkin, who has already been promised to 
 her country cousin, Humphry Gubbin.] 
 
 Enter Pounce, and Captain Clerimont with his arm in a scarf. 
 
 Pounce. You are now well enough instructed both in '5 
 the aunt and niece to form your behaviour. 
 
 Capt. C. But to talk with her apart is the great matter. 
 
 Pounce. The antiquated virgin has a mighty affecta- 
 tion for youth, and is a great lover of men and money. 
 One of these, at least, I am sure I can gratify her in by 20 
 turning her pence in the annuities or the stocks of one of 
 
22 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 the companies. Some way or other I'll find to entertain 
 her and engage you with the young lady. 
 
 Capt. C. Since that is her ladyship's turn, so busy 
 and fine a gentleman as Mr. Pounce must needs be in 
 S her good graces. 
 
 Pounce. So shall you, too. But you must not be seen 
 with me at first meeting ; I'll dog 'em, while you watch at 
 a distance. \Exeunt. 
 
 Enter AuNT [Mrs. Tipkin] and Niece [Biddy Tipkin]. 
 
 Niece. Was it not my gallant that whistled so charm- 
 10 ingly in the parlour before be went out this morning? 
 He's a most accomplished cavalier. 
 
 Aunt Come, niece, come. You don't do well to 
 make sport with your relations, especially with a young 
 gentleman that has so much kindness for you. 
 I s Niece. Kindness for me ! What a phrase is there to 
 express the darts and flames, the sighs and languishings 
 of an expecting lover ! 
 
 Aunt. Pray, niece, forbear this idle trash, and talk 
 like other people. Your cousin Humphry will be true 
 20 and hearty in what he says, and that's a great deal better 
 than the talk and compliment of romances. 
 
 Niece. Good madam, don't wound my ears with such 
 
 expressions. Do you think I can ever love a man that's 
 
 true and hearty? What a peasantlike amour do these 
 
 25 coarse words import ! True and hearty ! Pray, aunt, 
 
 endeavour a little at the embellishment of your style. 
 
 Aunt. Alack-a-day, cousin Biddy, these idle romances 
 have quite turned your head. 
 
 Niece. How often must I desire you, madam, to lay 
 
 30 aside that familiar name, cousin Biddy ? I never hear it 
 
 without blushing. Did you ever meet with an heroine in 
 
 those idle romances, as you call 'em, that was termed 
 
 Biddy? 
 
THE TENDER HUSBAND. 23 
 
 Aunt. Ah, cousin, cousin ! These are mere vapours, 
 indeed, nothing but vapours. 
 
 Niece. No, the heroine has always something soft and 
 engaging in her name, something that gives us a notion 
 of the sweetness of her beauty and behaviour. A name s 
 that glides through half a dozen tender syllables, as 
 Elismonda, Clidamira, Deidamia, that runs upon vowels 
 off the tongue, not hissing through one's teeth, or 
 breaking them with consonants. 'Tis strange rudeness, 
 those familiar names they give us, when there is Aurelia, lo 
 Sacharissa, Gloriana, for people of condition ; and Celia, 
 Chloris, Corinna, Mopsa, for their maids and those of 
 lower rank. 
 
 Aunt. Look ye, Biddy, this is not to be supported. I 
 know not where you learned this nicety, but I can tell 15 
 you, forsooth, as much as you despise it, your mother was 
 a Bridget afore you, and an excellent housewife. 
 
 Niece. Good madam, don't upbraid me with my 
 "mother Bridget" and an "excellent housewife." 
 
 Aunt. Yes, I say she was, and spent her time in better 20 
 learning than ever you did — not in reading of fights and 
 battles of dwarfs and giants, but in writing out receipts 
 for broths, possets, caudles, and surfeit-waters, as became 
 a good country gentlewoman. 
 
 Niece. My mother, and a Bridget ! 25 
 
 Aunt. Yes, niece, I say again your mother, my sister, 
 was a Bridget, the daughter of her mother Margery, of 
 her mother Sisly, of her mother Alice. 
 
 Niece. Have you no mercy? Oh, the barbarous gen- 
 ealogy ! 30 
 
 Aunt. Of her mother Winifred, of her mother Joan. 
 
 Niece. Since you will run on, then I must needs tell 
 you I am not satisfied in the point of my nativity. Many 
 an infant has been placed in a cottage with obscure 
 
24 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 parents, till by chance some ancient servant of the family 
 has known it by its marks. 
 
 Aunt. Aye, you had best be searched. That's like 
 
 your calling the winds "the fanning gales" before I don't 
 
 5 know how much company, and the tree that was blown 
 
 down by it had, forsooth, a spirit imprisoned in the trunk 
 
 of it. 
 
 Niece. Ignorance ! 
 
 Aunt. Then a cloud this morning had a flying dragon 
 lo in it. 
 
 Niece. What eyes had you that you could see nothing.' 
 For my part I look upon it to be a prodigy, and expect 
 something extraordinary will happen to me before night. 
 But you have a gross relish of things. What noble de- 
 15 scriptions in romances had been lost if the writers had 
 been persons of your gout ! 
 
 Aunt. I wish the authors had been hanged and their 
 books burnt before you had seen 'em. 
 
 Niece. Simplicity ! 
 20 Aunt. A parcel of improbable lies ! 
 
 Niece. Indeed, madam, your raillery is coarse. 
 
 Aunt. Fit only to corrupt young girls and fill their 
 heads with a thousand foolish dreams of I don't know 
 what. 
 25 Niece. Nay, now, madam, you grow extravagant. 
 
 Aunt. What I say is not to vex but advise you for 
 your good. » 
 
 Niece. What, to burn Philocles, Artaxerxes, Oroon- 
 dates, and the rest of the heroic lovers, and take my 
 30 country booby, cousin Humphry, for a husband ? 
 
 Aunt. Oh, dear ! Oh, dear, Biddy ! Pray, good 
 dear, learn to act and speak like the rest of the world. 
 Come, come, you shall marry your cousin and live com- 
 fortably. 
 
THE TENDER HUSBAND. 25 
 
 Niece. Live comfortably ! What kind of life is that? 
 A great heiress live comfortably ! Pray, aunt, learn to 
 raise your ideas. What is, I wonder, to live comfortably ? 
 
 Aunt. To live comfortably is to live with prudence 
 and frugality, as we do in Lombard Street. 5 
 
 Niece. Oh, let's be going. I see yonder another 
 creature, that does my uncle's law business, and has, I 
 believe, made ready the deeds, — those barbarous deeds ! 
 
 Aunt. What, Mr. Pounce a creature too ? Nay, now, 
 I'm sure you're ignorant. You shall stay, and you'll 10 
 learn more wit from him in an hour than in a thousand of 
 your foolish books in an age. Your servant, Mr. Pounce. 
 
 Enter PouNCE. 
 
 Pounce. Ladies, I hope I don't interrupt any private 
 discourse. 
 
 Aunt. Not in the least, sir. 15 
 
 Pounce. I should be loth to be esteemed one of those 
 who think they have a privilege of mixing in all com- 
 panies, without any business but to bring forth a loud 
 laugh or vain jest. 
 
 Niece. He talks with the mien and gravity of a 20 
 Paladin. \_Aside. 
 
 Pounce. Madam, I bought the other day at three and 
 a half and sold at seven. 
 
 Aunt. Then, pray, sir, sell for me in time. Niece, 
 mind him ; he has an infinite deal of wit. 25 
 
 Pounce. This that I speak of was for you. I never 
 neglect such opportunities to serve my friends. 
 
 Aunt. Indeed, Mr. Pounce, you are, I protest, without 
 flattery, the wittiest man in the world. 
 
 Pounce. I assure you, madam, I said last night, before 30 
 an hundred head of citizens, that Mrs. Bersheba Tipkin 
 was the most ingenious young lady in the liberties. 
 
26 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 Aunt. Well, Mr. Pounce, you are so facetious. But 
 you are always among the great ones ; 'tis no wonder 
 you have it. 
 
 Niece. Idle ! Idle ! 
 5 Pounce. But, madam, you know Alderman Grey- 
 Goose ; he's a notable joking man. Well, says he, here's 
 Mrs. Bersheba's health ; she's my mistress. 
 
 Aunt. That man makes me split my sides with laugh- 
 ing, he's such a wag. Mr. Pounce pretends Grey-Goose 
 10 said all this, but I know 'tis his own wit, for he's in love 
 with me. \Aside. 
 
 Pounce. But, madam, there's a certain affair I should 
 communicate to you. \Apart. 
 
 Aunt. Aye, 'tis certainly so. He wants to break his 
 '5 mind to me. \Aside.'\ [Captain Clerimont/(M««^. 
 Pounce. Oh, Mr. Clerimont, Mr. Clerimont ! Ladies, 
 pray let me introduce this young gentleman. He's my 
 friend, a youth of great virtue and goodness, for all he is 
 in a red coat. 
 20 Aunt. If he's your friend, we need not doubt his 
 virtue. 
 
 Capt. C. Ladies, you are taking the cool breath of 
 the morning. 
 
 Niece. A pretty phrase. \_Aside. 
 
 25 Aunt. That's the pleasantest time this warm weather. 
 Capt. C. Oh, 'tis the season of the pearly dews and 
 gentle zephyrs. 
 
 Niece. Aye ! Pray mind that again, aunt. \Aside. 
 Pounce. Shan't we repose ourselves on yonder seat ? 
 30 I love improving company and to communicate. 
 
 Aunt. 'Tis certainly so. He's in love with me, and 
 wants opportunity to tell me so. \_Aside.\ I don't care 
 if we do. He's a most ingenious man. 
 
 \_Exeunt Aunt and Pounce. 
 
THE TENDER HUSBAND. 27 
 
 Capt. C. We enjoy here, madam, all the pretty land- 
 scape of the country without the pains of going thither. 
 
 Niece. Art and nature are in a rivalry, or rather a 
 confederacy, to adorn this beauteous park with all the 
 agreeable variety of water, shade, walks, and air. What 5 
 can be more charming than these flowery lawns ? 
 
 Capt. C. Or these gloomy shades .' 
 
 Niece. Or these embroidered valleys ? 
 
 Capt. C. Or that transparent stream ? 
 
 Niece. Or these bowing branches on the banks of it, 10 
 that seem to admire their own beauty in the crystal 
 mirror ? 
 
 Capt. C. I am surprised, madam, at the delicacy of 
 your phrase. Can such expressions come from Lombard 
 Street.' 15 
 
 Niece. Alas, sir, what can be expected from an inno- 
 cent virgin that has been immured almost one and twenty 
 years from the conversation of mankind, under the care 
 of an Urganda of an aunt ? 
 
 Capt. C. Bless me, madam, how have you been abused ! 20 
 Many a lady before your age has had an hundred lances 
 broken in her service and as many dragons cut to pieces 
 in honour of her. 
 
 Niece. Oh, the charming man ! \_Aside. 
 
 Capt. C. Do you believe Pamela was one and twenty 25 
 before she knew Musidorus ? 
 
 Niece. I could hear him ever. \Aside. 
 
 Capt. C. A lady of your wit and beauty might have 
 given occasion for a whole romance in folio before that 
 age. 30 
 
 Niece. Oh, the powers ! Who can he be ? Oh, youth 
 unknown, — but let me, in the first place, know whom I 
 talk to, for, sir, I am wholly unacquainted both with youi 
 person and your history. You seem, indeed, by your 
 
28 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 deportment and the distinguishing mark of your bravery 
 which you bear, to have been in a conflict. May I not 
 know what cruel beauty obliged you to such adventures 
 till she pitied you ? 
 S Capt. C. Oh, the pretty coxcomb ! [^Aside.] Oh, 
 Blenheim, Blenheim ! Oh, Cordelia, Cordelia ! 
 
 Niece. You mention the place of battle. I would fain 
 
 hear an exact description of it. Our public papers are 
 
 so defective ; they don't so much as tell us how the sun 
 
 lo rose on that glorious day. Were there not a great many 
 
 flights of vultures before the battle began ? 
 
 Capt. C. Oh, madam, they have eaten up half my 
 acquaintance. 
 
 Niece. Certainly never birds of prey were so feasted ; 
 I S by report, they might have lived half a year on the very 
 legs and arms our troops left behind them. 
 
 Capt. C. Had we not fought near a wood we should 
 never have got legs enough to have come home upon. 
 The joiner of the Foot Guards has made his fortune by it. 
 20 Niece. I shall never forgive your general. He has 
 put all my ancient heroes out of countenance ; he has 
 pulled down Cyrus and Alexander as much as Louis le 
 Grand. But your own part in that action ? 
 
 Capt. C. Only that slight hurt. For the astrologer 
 
 25 said at my nativity, nor fire, nor sword, nor pike, nor 
 
 musket shall destroy this child ; let him but avoid fair 
 
 eyes. But, madam, mayn't I crave the name of her that 
 
 has so captivated my heart ? 
 
 Niece. I can't guess who you mean by that description ; 
 3° but, if you ask my name, I must confess you put me 
 upon revealing what I always keep as the greatest secret 
 I have : for would you believe it ? — they have called me 
 — I don't know how to own it — but they have called 
 me — Bridget. 
 
THE TENDER HUSBAND. 29 
 
 Capt. C. Bridget? 
 
 Niece. Bridget. 
 
 Capt. C. Bridget? 
 
 Niece. Spare my confusion, I beseech you, sir ; and 
 if you have occasion to mention me,* let it be by Parthe- s 
 nissa, for that's the name I have assumed ever since I 
 came to years of discretion. 
 
 Capt. C. The insupportable tyranny of parents, to fix 
 names on helpless infants which they must blush at all 
 their lives after ! I don't think there's a surname in the lo 
 world to match it. 
 
 Niece. No ! What do you think of Tipkin ? 
 
 Capt. C. Tipkin ! Why, I think, if I was a young 
 lady who had it, I'd part with it immediately. 
 
 Niece. Pray, how would you get rid of it ? 15 
 
 Capt. C. I'd change it for another. I could recom- 
 mend to you three very pretty syllables. What do you 
 think of Clerimont ? 
 
 Niece. Clerimont ! Clerimont ! Very well. But 
 what right have I to it ? 20 
 
 Capt. C. If you will give me leave, I'll put you in 
 possession of it. By a very few words I can make it 
 over to you and your children after you. 
 
 Niece. Oh, fie, whither are you running ! You know 
 a lover should sigh in private and languish whole years 25 
 before he reveals his passion ; he should retire into some 
 solitary grove and make the woods and wild beasts his 
 confidants. You should have told it to the echo half a 
 year before you had discovered it even to my handmaid. 
 And yet besides — to talk to me of children ! Did you 30 
 ever hear of a heroine with a big belly ? 
 
 Capt. C. What can a lover do, madam, now the race 
 of giants is extinct? Had I lived in those days, there 
 had not been a mortal six feet high but should have 
 
30 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 owned Parthenissa for the paragon of beauty or measured 
 his length on the ground. Parthenissa should have been 
 heard by the brooks and deserts at midnight, the echo's 
 burden and the river's murmur. 
 S Niece. That had been a golden age indeed ! But, 
 see, my aunt has left her grave companion and is coming 
 towards us. I command you to leave me. 
 
 Capt. C. Thus Oroondates, when Statira dismissed 
 
 him her presence, threw himself at her feet and implored 
 
 10 permission but to live. \_Offering to kneel. 
 
 Niece. And thus Statira raised him from the earth, 
 
 permitting him to live and love. \Exit Capt. Clerimont. 
 
 VII. 
 
 [From the Prologue to Vanbrugh's The Mistake, first pro- 
 duced December 27, 1705.] 
 
 Our author's wit and raillery to-night 
 Perhaps might please, but that your stage-delight 
 
 15 No more is in your minds, but ears and sight. 
 With audiences composed of belles and beaux, 
 The first dramatic rule is, have good clothes. 
 To charm the gay spectator's gentle breast 
 In lace and feather tragedy's expressed^ 
 
 20 And heroes die unpitied if ill dressed. 
 
 The other style you full as well advance ; 
 If 'tis a comedy, you ask — Who dance ? 
 For oh ! what dire convulsions have of late 
 Torn and distracted each dramatic state, 
 
 25 On this great question, which house first should sell 
 The new French steps imported by Ruel t 
 
LETTERS. 31 
 
 VIII. 
 
 [Letters to Mary Scurlock, afterwards Mrs. Steele, 1 707-8.] 
 
 I. 
 Madam 1707- 
 
 I came to Your house this night to wait on You, but 
 You have commanded me to expect the happinesse of 
 Seeing You at another time of more Leisure. I am now 
 under Your own Roof while I write, and that imaginary 5 
 satisfaction of being so near You tho' not in Your 
 presence has in it something that touches me with so 
 tender Ideas that it is impossible for me to describe their 
 Force. All great passion makes us dumb, and the highest 
 happinesse as well as highest Greif seizes us too Violently 10 
 to be express'd by Our Words. 
 
 You Are so Good as to Let me Know I shall have the 
 honour of Seeing You when I next come Here. I will 
 live upon that Expectation, and meditate on y' perfections 
 till that happy Hour. The Vainest Woman upon Earth 15 
 never saw in her Glasse half the attractions which I veiw 
 in you, your Air, y"" Shape, Your Every glance Motion 
 and Gesture have such peculiar Graces that you possesse 
 my whole Soul, and I know no life but in the hopes of 
 your approbation; I know not what to say but that I 20 
 Love y" with the Sincerest passion that ever enter'd the 
 Heart of Man. I will make it the businesse of my Life 
 to find out means of Convincing You that I prefer y" to 
 All that's pleasing upon earth. 
 
 I am, Madam, 25 
 
 Y"- Most Obedient, Most Faithful Hum"' Sv' 
 
 RiCHD Steele. 
 
32 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 Aug. i6, lyoy. 
 Madam, 
 
 Before the light this morning dawn'd upon the Earth I 
 awak'd and lay in expectation of its return, not that it 
 5 could give any new sense of Joy to me, but as I hop'd it 
 would blesse you with It's chearfull face, after a quiet 
 which I wish'd you last night. If my Prayers are heard 
 the day appear'd with all the influence of a merciful 
 Creator upon Your person and actions. Let others, my 
 
 lo Lovely Charmer, talk of a Blind Being that disposes 
 their Hearts, I contemn their low images of Love. I 
 have not a thought which relates to You that I cannot 
 with Confidence beseech the All-seeing Power to bless 
 me in. May He direct You in all Your steps, and reward 
 
 15 Your Innocence, Your Sanctity of manners. Your prudent 
 Youth, and becoming piety, with the Continuance of His 
 Grace and Protection. This is an unusuall Language to 
 Ladies, but You have a mind elevated above the Giddy 
 motions of a Sex insnar'd by Flattery, and misled by a 
 
 20 False and short adoration into a solid and long contempt. 
 Beauty, my fairest Creature, palls in the possession, but 
 I Love also Your mind ; Your Soul is as . dear to me as 
 my Own, And if the Advantages of a Liberall Education, 
 some Knowledge and as much contempt of the world 
 
 25 Join'd with the Endeavours towards a life of Strict Vertue 
 and Religion, can qualifie Me to raise new Ideas in a 
 breast so well dispos'd as Yours is, our days will passe 
 away with Joy, and old Age instead of introducing mel- 
 ancholy prospects of decay, give us hope of Eternall 
 
 3° Youth in a better life. I have but few minutes from the 
 duty of my Employment to write in, and without time to 
 read over what I have Writ, therefore beseech You to 
 
LETTERS. 33 
 
 pardon the first hints of my mind which I have express'd 
 in so little order. 
 
 I am, Dearest Creature, 
 
 ¥■■ Most Obedient Most devoted Ser°' 
 
 RiCHD Steele. 5 
 
 3- 
 
 1707, 
 
 Ld Sunderland's Office. 
 Madam 
 
 With what Language shall I addresse my Lovely Fair 
 to acquaint Her with the Sentiments of an Heart she 10 
 delights to Torture ? I have not a minute's Quiet out of 
 y'' sight ; and, when I'me with You, You Use riie with so 
 much distance, that I am still in a State of Absence 
 heightened with a View of the Charms which I am 
 deny'd to Approach. In a word You must give Me 15 
 either a Fan, a Mask or a Glove, you have Wore or I 
 cannot Live, otherwise You must expect I'le Kiss Your 
 hand, or when I next sit by You Steal Your Handker- 
 chief. You Your self are too Great a Bounty to be 
 receiv'd at Once therefore I must be prepar'd by degrees 20 
 least the Mighty Gift distract Me with Joy. Dear Mrs. 
 Scurlock I'me tired with calling you by that name there- 
 fore Say the day in which Youle take that of. Madam, 
 Y"' Most Obedient Most devoted Hu^i Ser°' 
 
 RiCHD Steele. 25 
 
 Smith Street, Westminster, 
 Madam 1707- 
 
 I lay down last night with y Image in my thoughts, 
 and have awak'd this morning in the same contempla- 
 tion. The pleasing Transport with which I'me delighted, 30 
 
34 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 has a sweetnesse in it attended with a Train of Ten 
 thousand soft desires, anxieties, and cares ; The day 
 arises on my hopes with new Brightnesse ; Youth Beauty 
 and Innocence are the charming objects that Steal me 
 5 from myself, and give me Joys above the reach of Ambi- 
 tion pride or Glory. Beleive Me, Fair One, to throw 
 myself at y"' Feet is giving my self the highest blisse I 
 know on Earth. Oh hasten Ye Minutes ! bring on the 
 happy Morning wherein to be ever her's will make me 
 10 look down on Thrones ! Dear Molly I am tenderly, 
 passionately, faithfully Thine, 
 
 RicHD Steele. 
 
 S- 
 
 Saturday Night \_Aug. 30, i'7of\. 
 
 Dear, Lovely Mrs. Scurlock, 
 1 5 I have been in very good company, where your Health, 
 under the Character of the Woman I lov'd best has been 
 often drank. So that I may Say I am Dead Drunk for 
 Your sake, which is more y° I die for you. Y''^, 
 
 R. Steele. 
 
 6. 
 
 20 Snt. James Coffee-House, 
 
 Madam, Sepbr nt, x^^oj. 
 
 It is the hardest thing in the World to be in Love and 
 yet attend businesse. As for Me, all who speake to Me 
 find Me out, and I must Lock my self up, or other people 
 25 will do it for Me. 
 
 A Gentleman ask'd Me this Morning what news from 
 Lisbon, and I answer'd. She's Exquisitly handsome. 
 Another desir'd to know when I had been last at Hamp- 
 ton-Court, I reply'd Twill be on Tuesday come se'nnight. 
 
LETTERS. 35 
 
 Prithee Allow Me at least to Kisse Your hand before that 
 day, that my mind may be in some Composure. Oh Love ! 
 
 A thousand Torments dwell about Thee, 
 Yet who would Live to Live without Thee ? 
 
 Methinks I could write a Volume to You, but all the S 
 Language on earth would fail in saying how much, and 
 with what disinterested passion, I am Ever Y''^ 
 
 Ricnn Steele. 
 
 7- 
 
 Sefir 2d^ lyoy, between One and Two. 
 
 Dear Creature, lo 
 
 Ever since sev'n this morning I have been in Company, 
 but have stole a moment to Pour out the fullnesse of my 
 thoughts, and complain to You of the Interruption that 
 Impertinent amusement call'd businesse has giv'n me 
 amidst my Contemplation on the best of Women, and the 15 
 most Agreeable object that ever Charm'd the Heart of 
 Man. I am. Dearest Lovelyest Creature 
 
 Eternally Thine, R. Steele. 
 
 Dear Creature ' ' 20 
 
 I write to tell You before hand that I am not in a very 
 good Humour, but all shall vanish at Her sight whome 
 Providence has giv'n me for the banishment of Care, and 
 the improvement of delight to 
 
 Y' Most Oblig'd Husband & Most Humble Ser"', 25 
 
 RicHD Steele. 
 9- 
 
 nj^ T> -i.r-r Octir S'A, 1707. 
 
 My Dear Wife, ' ' 
 
 You were not I am sure awake so soon as I was for 
 You, and desir'd the blessing of God upon You. After 3° 
 
36 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 that first duty my next is to let you know I am in health 
 this morning which I know you are soUicitous for. I 
 beleive it would not be amisse if some time this afternoon 
 you tooke a Coach or chair and went to see an house 
 5 next door to Lady Bulkely's towards S°' James's Street 
 which is to be Lett. I have a solid reason for Quicken- 
 ing my diligence in all affairs of the World, which is that 
 you are my partaker in 'em, and will make me labour 
 more than any incitation of Ambition, or Wealth could 
 10 do. After I have implor'd the help of Providence I will 
 have no motive to my Actions but y^ love of the best 
 Creature living to whome I am an Obedient Husband, 
 
 RiCHD Steele. 
 
 lO. 
 
 Monday Morning, Octtr i^th, i-joy. 
 IS Dear Madam, 
 
 This comes to begg y' pardon for every Act of Rebel- 
 lion I have ever committed against You, and to subscribe 
 my self in an errour for being impatient of Your kind 
 concern in interesting Your self with so much affection 
 20 [in] all which relates to me. I do not Question but y' 
 prudence will be a lasting honour and advantage to Me 
 in all the occurences of my Life ; the cheif happinesse in 
 it is that I have the honor of being 
 
 Y"- Most Oblig'd Husband & Most Humble Serv°*, 
 
 25 * RicHD Steele. 
 
 Detr 8th, lyoy. 
 Dear Ruler, 
 
 I can't Wait upon you to-day to Hampton-Court. I 
 
 have the West-Indian businesse on my hands and find 
 
 3° very much to be done before Thursday's post. I shall 
 
LETTERS. 37 
 
 dine at Our Table at Court where the Bearer knows how 
 to come to me with any Orders for 
 
 ¥■■ Obedient Husband & Most Humble Ser""', 
 
 RiCHD Steele. 
 My duty to my Mother. 5 
 
 12. 
 
 Jan. _j<^, iyo8. 
 Devil Tavern, Temple-Bar. 
 Dear Prue 
 
 I have partly succeeded in my businesse to-day & en- 
 close two Guinneas as earnest of more. Dear Prue I lo 
 can't come home to dinner. I languish for y"' Welfare 
 and will never be a moment carelesse more. 
 
 Y"^ Faithfull Husband R : Steele. 
 
 Send me word you have received this. 
 
 13- 
 
 Eleven at Night, Jan. jth.^ iyo8. 1 5 
 
 Dear Prue, 
 
 I was going home two hours ago, but was met by M"^ 
 Griffith who has kept me ever since meeting me as he 
 came from M"" Lambert's. I'le come within a Pint of 
 Wine. R: S: 20 
 
 We drink y"' health, and M"' Griffith is y Ser"'. 
 
 14. 
 
 Jan. i^fli, ijoS. 
 Dear Wife, 
 
 M"' Edgecomb, Ned Ash, and M"' Lumley have desir'd 
 Me to sitt an hour with them at the George in Pall-Mall 25 
 for which I desire your patience till twelve of clock and 
 that you will go to bed. 
 
 I am Ever Thine, Richd Steele. 
 
38 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 IS- 
 
 Feb. 31I, 1708, Grey's Inn. 
 Dear Prue 
 
 If the man who has my shoemaker's bill calls let Him 
 
 be answer'd that I shall call on Him as I come home. I 
 
 5 stay Here in Order to get Tonson to discount a Bill for 
 
 Me and shall dine with Him for that end. He is 
 
 expected at home every minute. 
 
 Y' Most Humble Obedient Husband 
 
 RicHD Steele. 
 
 16. 
 
 10 Tennis Court Coffee-House, 
 
 May ^ih-, if 08. 
 
 Dear Wife 
 
 I hope I have done this day what will be pleasing to 
 you ; in the mean time shall lye this night at a Barbers, 
 15 one Legg, over against the Devill Tavern at Charing 
 Crosse. I shall be able to confront the fools who wish 
 me Uneasy and shall have the Satisfaction to see thee 
 Chearfull and at Ease. 
 
 If the Printer's boy be at Home send Him hither, and 
 20 let M'^ Todd send by the Boy my Night-Gown, Slippers 
 & Clean Linnen. You shall Hear from me early in the 
 morning. 
 
 17- 
 
 May igth, iyo8. 
 Ld Sunderland's Office, 
 25 II OF Clock. 
 
 Dear Prue, 
 
 I desire of You to gett the Coach and y"" Self ready as 
 
 soon as You can conveniently and call for Me here from 
 
 Whence We will go and Spend some time together in the 
 
 30 fresh Air in free Conference. Let my best Periwigg be 
 
LETTERS. 39 
 
 put in the Coach Box and my New Shoes for 't is a Com- 
 fort to be well dress'd in agreeable Company. You are 
 Vitall Life to 
 
 Y-- Oblig'd Affectionate Husband & Humble Ser"', 
 
 RiCHD Steele. 
 
 May 3^ih \^iyo8']. 
 Almost one of Clock, D. Sunderland's Office. 
 Dear Prue, 
 
 I wish Sleeping so long this morning after I came to 
 Work may not do you harm. I design to dine at Court, lo 
 After which I shall return to the office and shall be glad 
 of a Visitt there from so Agreeable a Lady as Your self. 
 
 I am y" Unreservedly 
 
 RiCHD Steele. 
 
 19. 
 
 June ^th^ iyo8. 15 
 
 Dear Prue, 
 
 What you would have me do I know not. All that my 
 fortune will compasse you shall always enjoy, and have 
 no body near you that You do not like except I am my- 
 self disapproved by You for being devotedly Y"" Obedient 20 
 Husband Richd Steele. 
 
 I shan't come home till night. 
 
 20. 
 
 June yth, iyo8. 
 
 Dear Prue, 
 
 I enclose to you a Guinnea for y'' Pockett. I dine 25 
 with IJ^ Hallifax. 
 
 I wish I knew how to Court you into Good-Humour, 
 for Two or Three Quarrells more will dispatch Me quite. 
 
40 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 If you have any Love for Me beleive I am always pur- 
 suing our Mutual Good. Pray consider that all My little 
 fortune is to [be] settled this month and that I have in- 
 advertently made my self Liable to Impatient People 
 5 who take all advantages. If you have [not] patience I 
 shall transact my businesse rashly and Lose a very great 
 sum to Quicken the time of y"^ being ridd of all people 
 you don't like. 
 
 ¥■■= Ever Richd Steele. 
 
 21. 
 
 10 Augst I2ih, tjoS. 
 
 Madam 
 
 I have your letter wherein you let me know that the 
 little dispute we have had is far from being a Trouble to 
 you, nevertheless I assure you any disturbance between 
 
 15 Us is the greatest affliction to me imaginable. You talk 
 of the Judgement of the World I shall never govern my 
 Actions by y', but by the rules of morality and right 
 reason. I Love you better than the light of my Eyes or 
 the life-blood in my Heart but when I have lett you know 
 
 20 that you are also to understand that neither my sight 
 shall be so far inchanted or my affection so much master 
 of me as to make me forgett our Common Interest. To 
 attend my businesse as I ought, and improve my fortune 
 it is necessary that my time and my Will should be under 
 
 25 no direction but my own. Pray give my most Humble 
 Service to M'^ Binns. I write all this rather to explain 
 my own thoughts to You than answer Your letter dis- 
 tinctly. I inclose it to You that upon second thoughts 
 you may see the disrespectfull manner in which you 
 
 30 Treat ^r Affectionate FaithfuU Husband 
 
 R. Steele. 
 
LETTERS. 41 
 
 Monday Morning, Augsi i6t\ I'joS. 
 
 Dear Prue 
 
 I hope you have compos'd Your mind and are con- 
 vinc'd that the methods I have taken were absolutely 
 necessary for our Mutuall Good. I do assure You that 5 
 there is not that thing on earth except my Honour and 
 that dignity which every man who lives in the world must 
 preserve to Himself, which I am not ready to sacrifice to 
 y' Will and inclination. 
 
 I din'd yesterdav^with my Lord Hallifax where the 10 
 Beauties in th^!^arden were drank to. I have settled a 
 great deal of business within these few days, of all which 
 I will give you an account when We meet. I am with 
 the most sincere affection 
 
 y Oblig'd Husband R. Steele. 15 
 
 I sent you some Tea on Friday last. My most Humble 
 Service to M'^ Binns 
 
 23- 
 Sepir igih, jy 08, five in the Evening. 
 
 Dear Prue 
 
 I send you seven-pen'orth of wall nutts at five a penny 20 
 Which is the greatest proof I can give you at present of 
 my being with my whole Heart 
 
 Y'^ RicHD Steele. 
 
 The little Horse comes back with the Boy who returns 
 with him for Me on Wednesday evening. In the mean- 25 
 time I beleive it will be well that He run in the Park. 
 
 Ime M-'s Binn's Servant. 
 
 Since I writ this I came to the place where the Boy 
 was order'd with the Horses and not finding him sent 
 
42 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 this Bearer lest you should be in fears the Boy not 
 returning. 
 
 There are but 29 Walnutts. 
 
 24. 
 
 Octtr Sift; 1708. 
 
 S Dear Prue 
 
 This brings you a Quarter of a pound of Bohee, and 
 as much of Green Tea, Both which I hope you will find 
 good. Tomorrow morning ¥"■ Favourite M"' Addison and 
 I shall sett out for Hampton-Court, He to meet some 
 10 great men there, I to see You, who am but what you 
 make me. 
 
 Y"'^ with the Utmost Fondnesse Richd Steele. 
 
 25- 
 
 March nth, iyo8-g. 
 Dear Prue 
 
 15 I enclose five guinneas, but can't come home to dinner. 
 Dear Little Woman take care of thy Self, and eat and 
 drink Chearfully. 
 
 Richd Steele. 
 
 IX. 
 
 [From the Tatler, 1 709-1 1 .] 
 
 20 [No. I.] 
 
 QUICQUID AGUNT HOMINES NOSTRI FARRAGO LIBELLI. 
 
 Tuesday, April 12, lyog. 
 
 Though the other papers which are published for the 
 use of the good people of England have certainly very 
 25 wholesome effects and are laudable in their particular 
 kinds, they do not seem to come up to the main design 
 of such narrations, which, I humbly presume, should be 
 principally intended for the use of politic persons, who 
 
THE TATLER. 43 
 
 are so public-spirited as to neglect their own affairs to 
 look into transactions of state. Now these gentlemen, for 
 the most part, being persons of strong zeal and weak 
 intellects, it is both a charitable and necessary work to 
 offer something whereby such worthy and well-affected 5 
 members of the commonwealth may be instructed, after 
 their reading, what to think ; which shall be the end and 
 purpose of this my paper, wherein I shall from time to 
 time report and consider all matters of what kind soever 
 that shall occur to me, and publish such my advices and lo 
 reflections every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday in the 
 week, for the convenience of the post. I resolve also to 
 have something which may be of entertainment to the fair 
 sex, in honour of whom I have invented the title of this 
 paper. I therefore earnestly desire all persons, without 15 
 distinction, to take it in for the present gratis, and here- 
 after at the price of one penny, forbidding all hawkers to 
 take more for it at their peril. And I desire all persons 
 to consider that I am at a very great charge for proper 
 materials for this work, as well as that, before I resolved 20 
 upon it, I had settled a correspondence in all parts of the 
 known and knowing world. And forasmuch as this globe 
 is not trodden upon by mere drudges of business only, 
 but that men of spirit and genius are justly to be esteemed 
 as considerable agents in it, we shall not upon a dearth 25 
 of news present you with musty foreign edicts, or dull 
 proclamations, but shall divide our relation of the 
 passages which occur in action or discourse throughout 
 this town, as well as elsewhere, under such dates of 
 places as may prepare you for the matter you are to 3° 
 expect, in the following manner : 
 
 All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment 
 shall be under the article of White's Chocolate-house; 
 poetry, under that of Will's Coffee-house ; learning, under 
 
44 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 the title of Grecian ; foreign and domestic news, you will 
 have from Saint James's Coffee-house ; and what else I 
 have to offer on any other subject shall be dated from my 
 own apartment. 
 5 I once more desire my reader to consider that, as I 
 cannot keep an ingenious man to go daily to Will's under 
 twopence each day, merely for his charges ; to White's 
 under sixpence ; nor to the Grecian, without allowing him 
 some plain Spanish, to be as able as others at the learned 
 
 lo table ; and that a good observer cannot speak with even 
 Kidney at Saint James's without clean linen ; I say, these 
 considerations will, I hope, make all persons willing to 
 comply with my humble request (when my gratis stock is 
 exhausted) of a penny a piece ; especially since they are 
 
 1 5 sure of some proper amusement, and that it is impossible 
 for me to want means to entertain them, having, besides 
 the force of my own parts, the power of divination, and 
 that I can, by casting a figure, tell you all that will happen 
 before it comes to pass. 
 
 20 But this last faculty I shall use very sparingly, and 
 speak but of few things until they are passed, for fear of 
 divulging matters which may offend our superiors. 
 
 From my own Apartment. 
 
 I am sorry I am obliged to trouble the public with so 
 25 much discourse upon a matter which I at the very first 
 mentioned as a trifle, viz., the death of Mr. Partridge, 
 under whose name there is an almanack come out for the 
 year 1709, in one page of which it is asserted by the said 
 John Partridge that he is still living, and not only so, but 
 30 that he was also living some time before, and even at the 
 instant when I writ of his death. I have in another place, 
 and in a paper by itself, sufficiently convinced this man 
 
THE TATLER. 45 
 
 that he is dead, and if he has any shame, I don't doubt 
 but that by this time he owns it to all his acquaintance : 
 for though the legs and arms and whole body of that man 
 may still appear and perform their animal functions, yet 
 since, as 1 have elsewhere observed, his art is gone, the 5 
 man is gone. I am, as I said, concerned that this little 
 matter should make so much noise ; but since I am 
 engaged, I take myself obliged in honour to go on in my 
 lucubrations, and, by the help of these arts of which I am 
 master, as well as my skill in astrological speculations, I 10 
 shall, as I see occasion, proceed to confute other dead 
 men, who pretend to be in being, that they are actually 
 deceased. I therefore give all men fair warning to mend 
 their manners ; for I shall from time to time print bills of 
 mortality, and I beg the pardon of all such who shall be 1 5 
 named therein, if they who are good for nothing shall find 
 themselves in the number, of the deceased. 
 
 White's Chocolate House, 
 [No. 25.] June 6 [i^og]. 
 
 .... As the matter at present stands, it is not to do 20 
 handsome actions denominates a man of honour ; it is 
 enough if he dares to defend ill ones. Thus you often 
 see a common sharper in competition with a gentleman of 
 the first rank, though all mankind is convinced that a 
 fighting gamester is only a pickpocket with the courage 25 
 of an highwayman. One cannot with any patience reflect 
 on the unaccountable jumble of persons and things in this 
 town and nation, which occasions very frequently that a 
 brave man falls by a hand below that of a common hang- 
 man, and yet his executioner escapes the clutches of the 30 
 hangman for doing it. I shall therefore hereafter con- 
 sider how the bravest men in other ages and nations have 
 behaved themselves upon such incidents as we decide by 
 
46 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 combat; and show, from their practice, that this resent- 
 ment neither has its foundation from true reason or solid 
 fame, but is an imposture made up of cowardice, false- 
 hood, and want of understanding. For this work, a good 
 5 history of quarrels would be very edifying to the public, 
 and I apply myself to the town for particulars and circum- 
 stances within their knowledge, which may serve to embel- 
 lish the dissertation with proper cuts. Most of the 
 quarrels I have ever known have proceeded from some 
 
 10 valiant coxcomb's pers istinsf in the wri ; inp;, to defend some 
 prevailing folly, and preserve himself from the ingenuity 
 of owning a mistake. 
 
 By this means it is called " giving a man satisfaction " 
 to urge your offence against him with your sword, which 
 
 15 puts me in mind of Peter's order to the keeper, in The 
 Tale of a Tub : " If you neglect to do all this, damn you 
 and your generation forever ; and so we bid you heartily 
 farewell." If the contradiction in the very terms of one 
 of our challenges were as well explained, and turned 
 
 20 into downright English, would it not run after this 
 manner ? 
 
 Sir, 
 
 Your extraordinary behaviour last night, and the liberty 
 you were pleased to take with me, makes me this morning 
 
 25 give you this, to tell you, because you are an ill-bred 
 puppy, I will meet you in Hyde Park an hour hence ; and 
 because you want both breeding and humanity, I desire 
 you would come with a pistol in your hand, on horseback, 
 and endeavor to shoot me through the head, to teach 
 
 30 you more manners. If you fail of doing me this pleasure, 
 I shall say you are a rascal on every post in town ; and so, 
 sir, if you will not injure me more, I shall never forgive 
 what you have done already. Pray, sir, do not fail of 
 
THE TATLEK. 47 
 
 getting everything ready, and you will infinitely oblige, 
 sir, your most obedient, humble servant, etc. 
 
 White's Chocolate House, 
 [No. 27.] June 9 [/709]. 
 
 .... As a Rake among men is a man who lives in 5 
 the constant abuse of his reason, so a Coquette among 
 women is one who lives in continual misapplication of 
 her beauty. The chief of all, whom I have the honour 
 to be acquainted with, is pretty Mrs. Toss ; she is ever 
 in practice of something which disfigures her and takes 10 
 from her charms, though all she does tends to a contrary 
 effect. She has naturally a very agreeable voice and 
 utterance, which she has changed for the prettiest lisp 
 imaginable. She sees what she has a mind to see at half 
 a mile distance; but poring with herje^rgs^ half shut at 15 
 every one she passes by she believes much more becom- 
 ing. The Cupid on her fan and she have their eyes full 
 on each other, all the time in which they are not both in 
 motion. Whenever her eye is turned from that dear 
 object, you may have a glance, and your bow, if she is in 20 
 humour, returned as civilly as you make it ; but that must 
 not be in the presence of a man of greater quality, for 
 Mrs. Toss is so thoroughly well-bred that the chief person 
 present has all her regards. And she who giggles at 
 divine service and laughs at her very mother can compose 25 
 herself at the approach- of a man of a good estate. 
 
 From my own Apartment, 
 [No. 30.] June 16 \_i7og\. 
 
 The vigilance, the anxiety, the tenderness, which I 
 have for the good people of England, I am persuaded 30 
 will in time be much commended ; but I doubt whether 
 they will be ever rewarded. However, I must go on 
 
48 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 cheerfully in.i nywo.dc r>f '•pfnnri2*j;!^IL). that being my great 
 design, I am studious to prevent my labour's increasing 
 upon me ; therefore am particularly observant of the 
 temper and inclinations of childhood and youth, that we 
 S may not give vice and folly supplies from the growing 
 generation. It is hardly to be imagined how useful this 
 study is, and what great evils or benefits arise from put- 
 ting us in our tender years to what we are fit or unfit : 
 therefore, on Tuesday last (with a design to sound their 
 
 10 inclinations) I took three lads who are under my guardian- 
 ship a-rambling, in a hackney-coach, to show them the 
 town, as the lions, the tombs, Bedlam, and the other 
 places which are entertainments to raw minds, because 
 they strike forcibly on the fancy. The boys are brothers, 
 
 1 5 one of sixteen, the other of fourteen, the other of twelve. 
 The first was his father's darling, the second his mother's, 
 and the third is mine, who am their uncle. Mr. Wi lliam^ 
 is a lad of true genius ; but, being at the upper end of a 
 great school, and having all the boys below him, his 
 
 20 arrogance is unsupportable. If I begin to show a little 
 of my Latin, he immediately interrupts : " Uncle, under 
 favour, that which you say is not understood in that 
 manner." " Brother," says my boy Jack , " you do not 
 show your manners much in contradicting my uncle 
 
 25 Isaac!" "You queer cur," says Mr. William, "do you 
 think my uncle takes any notice of such a dull rogue as 
 you are ? " Mr. William goes on, "-He is the most stupid 
 of all my mother's children : he knows nothing of his 
 book ; when he should mind that, he is hiding or hoarding 
 
 30 his taws and marbles, or laying up farthings. His way 
 of thinking is, four-and-twenty farthings make sixpence, 
 and two sixpences a shilling, two shillings and sixpence 
 half-a-crown, and two half-crowns five shillings. So 
 within these two months the close hunks has scraped up 
 
THE TATLER. 49 
 
 twenty shillings, and we '11 make him spend it all before 
 he comes home." Jack immediately claps his hands into 
 both pockets, and turns as pale as ashes. There is nothing 
 touches a parent (and such I am to Jack) so nearly as a 
 provident conduct. //This lad has in him the true temper 5 
 for a good husband, a kind father, and an honest executor. 
 All the great people you see make considerable figures 
 on the Change, in the court, and sometimes in senates, are 
 such as in reality have no greater faculty than what may 
 be called human instinct, which is a natural tendency to 10 
 their own preservation, and that of their friends, with- 
 out being capable of striking out of the road for adven- 
 tures. There 's_ Sir Willj am. Scrip was of this sort of 
 capacity from his childhood ; he has bought the country 
 round him, and makes a bargain better than Sir Harry 15 
 Wildfire with all his wit and humour. Sir Harry never 
 wants money but he comes to Scrip, laughs at him half 
 an hour, and then gives bond for t'other thousand. The 
 close men are incapable of placing merit any where 
 but in their pence, and therefore gain it ; while others, 20 
 who have larger capacities, are diverted from the pursuit 
 by enjoyments which can be supported only by that cash 
 which they despise, and therefore are in the end slaves to 
 their inferiors both in fortune and understanding. I once 
 heard a man of excellent sense observe, that more affairs in 25 
 the world failed by being in the hands of men of too large 
 capacities for their business than by being in the con- 
 duct of such as wanted abilities to execute them, iyjack, 
 therefore, being of a plodding make, shall be a citizen; 
 and I design him to be the refuge of the family in their 30 
 distress, as well as their jest in prosperity. His brother 
 Will shall go to Oxford with all speed, where, if he does 
 not arrive at being a man of sense, he will soon be 
 informed wherein he is a coxcomb. There is in that place 
 
so RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 such a true spirit of raillery and humour that, if they 
 can't make you a wise man, they will certainly let you 
 know you are a fool, which is all my cousin wants to 
 cease to be so. Thus, having taken these two out of the 
 5 way, I have leisure to look at my third lad. I observe 
 in the young rogue a natural subtil ty of mind, which dis- 
 covers itself rather in forbearing to declare his thoughts 
 on any occasion, than in any visible way of exerting him- 
 self in discourse. For which reason I will place him 
 
 10 where, if he commits no faults, he may go farther than 
 those in other stations, though they excel in virtues. The 
 boy is well-fashioned and will easily fall into a graceful 
 manner ; wherefore I have a design to make him a page 
 to a great lady of my acquaintance, by which means he 
 
 1 5 will be well skilled in the common modes of life, and make 
 a greater progress in the world by that knowledge than 
 with the greatest qualities without it. A good mien in a 
 court will carry a man greater lengths than a good under 
 standing in any other place. We see a world of pains 
 
 20 taken, and the best years of life spent, in collecting a set 
 of thoughts in a college for the conduct of life ; and after 
 all, the man so qualified shall hesitate in his speech to a 
 good suit of clothes, and want common sense before an 
 agreeable woman. A^Hence it is, that wisdom, valour, 
 
 25 justice, and learning can't keep a man in countenance 
 that is possessed with these excellencies, if he wants that 
 inferior art of life and behaviour c alled gond-hre^din p -. 
 A man endowed with great perfections, without this, is 
 like one who has his pockets full of gold, but always 
 
 30 wants change for his ordinary occasions. // 
 
THE TATLER. 51 
 
 White's Chocolate House, 
 [No. 60.] August 26 \_iyog\. 
 
 To proceed regularly in the history of my worthies, 
 I ought to give you an account of what has passed from 
 day to day in this place ; but a young fellow of my 5 
 acquaintance has so lately been rescued out of the hands 
 of the knights of the industry, that I rather choose to relate 
 the manner of his escape from 'em, and the uncommon 
 way which was used to reclaim him, than to go on in my 
 intended diary. You are to know, then, that Tom Wildair 10 
 is a student of the Inner Temple, and has spent his time, 
 since he left the University for that place, in the common 
 diversions of men of fashion, that is to say, in whoring, 
 drinking, and gaming. The two former vices he had from 
 his father, but was led into the last by the conversation 15 
 of a partizan of the Myrmidons who had chambers near 
 him. His allowance from his father was a very plentiful 
 one for a man of sense, but as scanty for a modern fine 
 gentleman. His frequent losses had reduced him to so 
 necessitous a condition that his lodgings were always 20 
 haunted by impatient creditors, and all his thoughts 
 employed in contriving low methods to support himself in 
 a way of life from which he knew not how to retreat, and 
 in which he wanted means to proceed. There is never 
 wanting some good-natured person to send a man an 25 
 account of what he has no mind to hear ; therefore many 
 epistles were conveyed to the father of this extravagant, 
 to inform him of the company, the pleasures, the distresses, 
 and entertainments in which his son passed his time. The 
 old fellow received these advices with all the pain of a 30 
 parent, but frequently consulted his pillow, to know how 
 to behave himself on such important occasions as the 
 welfare of his son and the safety of his fortune. After 
 many agitations of mind, he reflected that necessity was 
 
52 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 the usual snare which made men fall into meanness, and 
 that a liberal fortune generally made a liberal and honest 
 mind ; he resolved, therefore, to save him from his ruin 
 by giving him opportunities of tasting what it is to be at 
 5 ease, and inclosed to him the following order upon Sir 
 Tristram Cash. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 Pray pay to Mr. Thomas Wildair, or order, the sum of 
 one thousand pounds, and place it to the account of 
 lo Yours, Humphrey Wildair. 
 
 Tom was so astonished with the receipt of this order, 
 that though he knew it to be his father's hand, and that 
 he had always large sums at Sir Tristram's, yet a thousand 
 pounds was a trust of which his conduct had always made 
 IS him appear so little capable, that he kept his note by him 
 until he writ to his father the following letter : 
 
 Honoured Father, 
 
 I have received an order under your hand for a thousand 
 pounds, in words at length, and I think I could swear it 
 20 is your hand. I have looked it over and over twenty 
 thousand times. There is in plain letters, 2]h,o,tt,s,a,n,d : 
 and after it the letters P,o,u,n,d,s. I have it still by me, 
 and shall, I believe, continue reading it until I hear from 
 you. 
 
 25 The old gentleman took no manner of notice of the 
 receipt of his letter, but sent him another order for three 
 thousand pounds more. His amazement on this second 
 letter was unspeakable. He immediately doublelocked 
 his door and sat down carefully to reading and comparing 
 
 30 both his orders. After he had read 'em till he was 
 half mad, he walked six or seven turns in his chamber. 
 
THE TATLER. S3 
 
 then opens his door, then locks it again ; and, to examine 
 thoroughly this matter, he locks his door again, puts his 
 table and chairs against it ; then goes into his closet, and 
 locking himself in, reads his notes over again about nine- 
 teen times, which did but increase his astonishment, s 
 Soon after, he began to recollect many stories he had 
 formerly heard of persons who had been possessed with 
 imaginations and appearances which had no foundation in 
 nature, but had been taken with sudden madness in the 
 midst of a seeming clear and untainted reason. This lo 
 made him very gravely conclude he was out of his wits ; 
 and, with a design to compose himself, he immediately 
 betakes him to his nightcap, with a resolution to sleep 
 himself into his former poverty and senses. To bed, 
 therefore, he goes at noon-day, but soon rose again and 15 
 resolved to visit Sir Tristram upon this occasion. He did 
 so, and dined with the knight, expecting he would mention 
 some advice from his father about paying him money ; 
 but no such thing being said, " Look you, Sir Tristram," 
 said he, " you are to know that an affair has happened, 20 
 which — " "Look you," says Tristram, "I know, Mr. 
 Wildair, you are going to desire me to advance, but the 
 late call of the bank, where I have not yet made my last 
 payment, has obliged me — " Tom interrupted him by 
 showing him the bill of a thousand pounds. When he had 25 
 looked at it for a convenient time, and as often surveyed 
 Tom's looks and countenance, " Look you, Mr. Wildair, 
 a thousand pounds — " Before he could proceed, he 
 shows him the order for three thousand more. Sir Tris- 
 tram examined the orders at the light, and, finding at the 30 
 writing the name there was a certain stroke in one letter 
 which the father and he had agreed should be to such 
 directions as he desired might be more immediately 
 honoured, he forthwith pays the money. The possession 
 
54 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 of four thousand pounds gave my young gentleman a new 
 train of thoughts ; he began to reflect upon his birth, the 
 great expectations he was born to, and the unsuitable 
 ways he had long pursued. Instead of that unthinking 
 5 creature he was before, he is now provident, generous, 
 and discreet. The father and son have an exact and 
 regular correspondence, with mutual and unreserved con- 
 fidence in each other. The son looks upon his father as 
 the best tenant he could have in the country, and the 
 10 father finds the son the most safe banker he could have 
 in the city. 
 
 [No. 82.] 
 
 Ubi idem et maximus et honestissimus amor est, ali- 
 
 QUANDO PRAESTAT MORTE JUNGI, QUAM VITA DISTRAHI. 
 I r Val. Max. 
 
 From my own Apartment, 
 October I'j \i'jo<)\ . 
 
 .... Incidents of this nature are the more moving 
 when they are drawn by persons concerned in the catas- 
 
 20 trophe, notwithstanding they are often oppressed beyond 
 the power of giving them in a distinct light, except we 
 gather their sorrow from their inability to speak it. 
 
 I have two original letters written both on the same 
 day, which are to me exquisite in their different kinds. 
 
 25 The occasion was this. A gentleman who had courted a 
 most agreeable young woman and won her heart, obtained 
 also the consent of her father, to whom she was an only 
 child. The old man had a fancy that they should be 
 married in the same church where he himself was, in a 
 
 30 village in Westmoreland, and made 'em set out while he 
 was laid up with the gout at London. The bridegroom 
 took only his man, the bride her maid. They had the 
 most agreeable journey imaginable to the place of marriage. 
 
THE TATLER. 55 
 
 from whence the bridegroom writ the following letter to 
 his wife's father : 
 
 March i8, 1672. 
 Sir, 
 
 After a very pleasant journey hither, we are preparing 5 
 for the happy hour in which I am to be your son. I 
 assure you the bride carries it, in the eye of the vicar 
 who married you, much beyond her mother, though he 
 says your open sleeves, pantaloons, and shoulder-knot 
 made a much better show than the finical dress I am in. 10 
 However, I am contented to be the second fine man this 
 village ever saw, and shall make it very merry before 
 night, because I shall write myself from thence. 
 
 Your most dutiful son, T. D. 
 
 The bride gives her duty, and is as handsome as an 15 
 angel — I am the happiest man breathing. 
 
 The villagers were assembling about the church, and 
 the happy couple took a walk in a private garden. The 
 bridegroom's man knew his master would leave the place 
 on a sudden after the wedding, and seeing him draw his 20 
 pistols the night before, took this opportunity to go into 
 his chamber and charge them. Upon their return from 
 the garden, they went into that room ; and after a little 
 fond raillery on the subject of their courtship, the lover 
 took up a pistol whic h he 1<new he had unloaded the 25 
 night before, and presenting it to her, said, with the most 
 graceful air, whilst she looked pleased at his agreeable 
 flattery : " Now, madam, repent of all those cruelties you 
 have been guilty of to me ; consider, before you die, how 
 often you have made a poor wretch freeze under your 30 
 casement ; you shall die, you tyrant, you shall die, with 
 all those instruments of death and destruction about you, 
 with that enchanting smile, those killing ringlets of your 
 
56 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 hair — " "Give fire!" said she, laughing. He did so, 
 and shot her dead. Who can speak his condition ? But 
 he bore it so patiently as to call up his man. The poor 
 wretch entered, and his master locked the door upon him. 
 S "Will," said he, "did you charge these pistols?" He 
 answered, "Yes." Upon which he shot him dead with 
 that remaining. After this, amidst a thousand broken 
 sobs, piercing groans, and distracted motions, he writ the 
 following letter to the father of his dead mistress. 
 
 10 Sir, 
 
 I who two hours ago told you truly, I was the happiest 
 man alive, am now the most miserable. Your daughter 
 lies dead at my feet, killed by my hand, through a mistake 
 of my man's charging my pistols unknown to me. Him 
 
 15 I have murdered for it. Such is my wedding day, 
 
 I will immediately follow my wife to her grave ; but, 
 before I throw myself upon my sword, I command my 
 distraction so far as to explain my story to you. I fear 
 my heart will not keep together until I have stabbed it. 
 
 20 Poor, good old man ! Remember, he that killed your 
 
 daughter, died for it. In the article of death I give you 
 my thanks, and pray for you, though I dare not for myself. 
 If it be possible, do not curse me. 
 
 [No. 94.] 
 
 25 Si NGN ERRASSET, FECERAT ILLE MINUS. — MART. 
 
 Will's Coffee House, 
 November 14 [-tyog]. 
 
 That which we call gallantry to women seems to be the 
 
 heroic virtue of private persons ; and there never breathed 
 
 30 one man, who did not, in that part of his days wherein he 
 
 was recommending himself to his mistress, do something 
 
 beyond his ordinary course of life. As this has a very 
 
THE TATLER. 57 
 
 great effect even upon the most slow and common men, 
 so, upon such as it finds qualified with virtue and merit, 
 it shines out in proportionable degrees of excellence : it 
 gives new grace to the most eminent accomplishments, 
 and he, who of himself has either wit, wisdom, or valour, 5 
 exerts each of these noble endowments, when he becomes 
 a lover, with a certain beauty of action above what was 
 ever observed in him before ; and all who are without any- 
 one of these qualities, are to be looked upon as the rabble 
 of mankind. 10 
 
 I was talking after this manner in a corner of this place 
 with an old acquaintance, who, taking me by the hand, 
 said, " Mr. Bickerstaff, your discourse recalls to my mind 
 a story, which I have longed to tell you ever since I read 
 that article wherein you desire your friends to give you 15 
 accounts of obscure merit." The story I had of him is 
 literally true and well known to be so in the country 
 wherein the circumstances were transacted. He acquainted 
 me with the names of the persons concerned, which I 
 shall change into feigned ones, there being a respect 20 
 due to their families, that are still in being, as well as 
 that the names themselves would not be so familiar to an 
 English ear. The adventure really happened in Denmark; 
 and if I can remember all the passages, I doubt not but 
 it will be as moving to my readers as it was to me. 25 
 
 Clarinda and Chloe, two very fine women, were bred 
 up as sisters in the family of Romeo, who was the father 
 of Chloe and the guardian of Clarinda. Philander, a 
 young gentleman of a good person and charming conver- 
 sation, being a friend of old Romeo's, frequented his 3° 
 house, and by that means was much in conversation with 
 the young ladies, though still in the presence of the father 
 and the guardian. The ladies both entertained a secret 
 passion for him, and could see well enough, notwith- 
 
58 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 Standing the delight which he really took in Romeo's 
 conversation, that there was something more in his heart 
 which made him so assiduous a visitant. Each of them 
 thought herself the happy woman ; but the person beloved 
 5 was Chloe. It happened that both of them were at a 
 play in a carnival evening, when it is the fashion there 
 (as well as in most countries of Europe) both for men 
 and women to appear in masks and disguises. It was on 
 that memorable night in the year 1679, when the play- 
 
 10 house, by some unhappy accident, was set on fire. 
 Philander, in the first hurry of the disaster, immediately 
 ran where his treasure was, burst open the door of the 
 box, snatched the lady up in his arms, and, with unspeak- 
 able resolution and good fortune, carried her off safe. 
 
 ij He was no sooner out of the crowd but he set her down, 
 and, grasping her in his arms, with all the raptures of a 
 deserving lover, " How happy am I,'^ says he, " in an 
 opportunity to tell you I love you more than all things, 
 and of showing you the sincerity of my passion at the very 
 
 20 first declaration of it."Af " My dear, dear Philander," says 
 the lady, pulling off her mask, " this is not a time for art ; 
 you are much dearer to me than the life you have pre- 
 served, and the joy of my present deliverance does not 
 transport me so much as the passion which occasioned 
 
 25 it." Who can tell the grief, the astonishment, the terror, 
 that appeared in the face of Philander, when he saw the 
 person he spoke to was Clarinda ! After a short pause, 
 " Madam," says he, with the looks of a dead man, " we 
 are both mistaken," and immediately flew away, without 
 
 30 hearing the distressed Clarinda, who had just strength 
 enough to cry out, " Cruel Philander ! why did you not 
 leave me in the theatre ! " Crowds of people immediately 
 gathered about her, and after having brought her to her- 
 self, conveyed her to the house of the good old unhappy 
 
THE TATLER. 59 
 
 Romeo. Philander was now pressing against a whole 
 tide of people at the doors of the theatre, and striving 
 to enter with more earnestness than any there endea- 
 voured to get out. He did it at last, and -with much 
 difficulty forced his way to the box where his beloved s 
 Chloe stood, expecting her fate amidst this scene of terror 
 and distraction. She revived at the sight of Philander, 
 who fell about her neck with a tenderness not to be 
 expressed, and, amidst a thousand sobs and sighs, told 
 her his love and his dreadful mistake. The stage was lo 
 now in flames and the whole house full of smoke ; the 
 entrance was quite barred up with heaps of people, who 
 had fallen upon one another as they endeavoured to get 
 out ; swords were drawn, shrieks heard on all sides ; and 
 in short, no possibility of an escape for Philander himself, 15 
 had he been capable of making it without his Chloe. But 
 his mind was above such a thought, and wholly employed in 
 weeping, condoling, and comforting. He catche? her in his 
 arms. The fire surrounds them, while — I cannot go on — 
 
 Were I an infidel, misfortunes like this would convince 20 
 me that there must be an hereafter : for who can believe 
 that so much virtue could meet with so great distress 
 without a following reward ? As for my part, I am so old- 
 fashioned as firmly to believe that all who perish in such 
 generous enterprises are relieved from the further exercise 25 
 of life ; and Providence, which sees their virtue consum- 
 mate and manifest, takes them to an immediate reward, 
 in a being more suitable to the grandeur of their spirits. 
 What else can wipe away our tears, when we contemplate 
 such undeserved, such irreparable distresses ? It was a 30 
 sublime thought in some of the heathens of old : 
 
 " Quae gratia currfim 
 
 Armorumque fuit vivis, quae cura nitentes 
 Pascere equos, eadem sequitur tellure repostos." 
 
60 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 That is, in other words, " The same employments and 
 inclinations which were the entertainment of virtuous 
 men upon earth, make up their happiness in Elysium." 
 
 [No. 95.] 
 
 5 interea dulces pendent circum oscula nati, 
 
 Casta pudicitiam servat domus. Virg. 
 
 From my own Apartment, 
 November 16 [,i7ogi]. 
 
 There are several persons who have many pleasures 
 
 10 and entertainments in their possession which they do not 
 enjoy. It is, therefore, a kind and good office to acquaint 
 them with their own happiness, and turn their attention 
 to such instances of their good fortune which they are apt to 
 overlook. Persons in the married state often want such 
 
 15 a monitor, and pine away their days, by looking upon the 
 same condition in anguish and murmur which carries with 
 it in the opinion of others a complication of all the 
 pleasures of life and a retreat from its inquietudes. 
 
 I am led into this thought by a visit I made an old 
 
 20 friend, who was formerly my school-fellow. He came to 
 town last week with his family for the winter, and yester- 
 day morning sent me word his wife expected me to dinner. 
 I am, as it were, at home at that house, and every member 
 of it knows me for their well-wisher. I cannot, indeed, 
 
 25 express the pleasure it is, to be met by the children with 
 so much joy as I am when I go thither : the boys and 
 girls strive who shall come first, when they think it is I 
 that am knocking at the door ; and that child which loses 
 the race to me, runs back again to tell the father it is 
 
 30 Mr. Bickerstafif. This day I was led in by a pretty girl 
 that we all thought must have forgot me, for the family 
 has been out of town these two years. Her knowing me 
 again was a mighty subject with us, and took up our 
 
THE TATLER. 61 
 
 discourse at the first entrance. After which they began 
 to rally me upon a thousand little stories they heard in 
 the country about my marriage to one of my neighbour's 
 daughters : upon which, the gentleman, my friend, said, 
 " Nay, if Mr. Bickerstaff marries a child of any of his s 
 old companions, I hope mine shall have the preference ; 
 there 's Mrs. Mary is now sixteen, and would make him 
 as fine a widow as the best of them : but I know him too 
 well ; he is so enamoured with the very memory of those 
 who flourished in our youth that he will not so much as lo 
 look upon the modern beauties. I remember, old gentle- 
 man, how often you went home in a day to refresh your 
 countenance and dress when Teraminta reigned in your 
 heart. As we came up in the coach, I repeated to my 
 wife some of your verses on her." With such reflections 15 
 on little passages which happened long ago, we passed 
 our time during a cheerful and elegant meal. After 
 dinner his lady left the room, as did also the children. 
 As soon as we were alone, he took me by the hand; "Well, 
 my good friend," says he, " I am heartily glad to see thee; 20 
 I was afraid you would never have seen all the company 
 that dined with you to-day again. Do not you think the 
 good woman of the house a little altered, since you followed 
 her from the play-house, to find out who she was, for me ? " 
 I perceived a tear fall down his cheek as he spoke, which 25 
 moved me not a little. But to turn the discourse, said I, 
 " She is not, indeed, quite that creature she was when she 
 returned me the letter I carried from you, and told me, 
 she hoped, as I was a gentleman, I would be employed 
 no more to trouble her who had never offended me, but 30 
 would be so much the gentleman's friend as to dissuade 
 him from a pursuit which he could never succeed in. 
 You may remember, I thought her in earnest, and you 
 were forced to employ your cousin Will, who made his 
 
62 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 sister get acquainted with her for you. You cannot 
 expect her to be for ever fifteen." " Fifteen ? " replied 
 my good friend, '" Ah ! you little understand, you that 
 have lived a bachelor, how great, how exquisite a pleasure 
 5 there is in being really beloved ! It is impossible that 
 the most beauteous face in nature should raise in me such 
 pleasing ideas as when I look upon that excellent woman. 
 That fading in her countenance is chiefly caused by her 
 watching with me in my fever. This was followed by a 
 
 10 fit of sickness, which had like to have carried her off last 
 winter. I tell you sincerely, I have so many obligations to 
 her that I cannot with any sort of moderation think of 
 her present state of health. But as to what you say of 
 fifteen, she gives me every day pleasures beyond what I 
 
 IS ever knew in the possession of her beauty when I was in 
 the vigour of youth. Every moment of her life brings 
 me fresh instances of her complacency to my inclinations, 
 and her prudence in regard to my fortune. Her face is 
 to me much more beautiful than when I first saw it ; there 
 
 20 is no decay in any feature which I cannot trace from the 
 very instant it was occasioned, by some anxious concern 
 for my welfare and interests. Thus at the same time, 
 methinks, the love I conceived towards her for what she 
 was, is heightened by my gratitude for what she is. The 
 
 25 love of a wife is as much above the idle passion commonly 
 called by that name as the loud laughter of buffoons is 
 inferior to the elegant mirth of gentlemen. Oh ! she is 
 an inestimable jewel. In her examination of her house- 
 hold affairs she shows a certain fearfulness to find a fault, 
 
 30 which makes her servants obey her like children ; and the 
 meanest we have has an ingenuous shame for an offence, 
 not always to be seen in children in other families. I 
 speak freely to you, my old friend ; ever since her sick- 
 ness, things that gave me the quickest joy before, turn 
 
THE TATLER. 63 
 
 now to a certain anxiety. As the children play in the 
 next room, I knew the poor things by their steps, and am 
 considering what they must do, should they lose their 
 mother in their tender years. The pleasure I used to 
 take in telling my boy stories of the battles, and asking 5 
 my girl questions about the disposal of her baby, and 
 the gossiping of it, is turned into inward reflection and 
 melancholy." 
 
 He would have gone on in this tender way, when the 
 good lady entered, and with an inexpressible sweetness 10 
 in her countenance told us, she had been searching her 
 closet for something very good, to treat such an old friend 
 as I was.. Her husband's eyes sparkled with pleasure at 
 the cheerfulness of her countenance ; and I saw all his 
 fears vanish in an instant. The lady, observing something 15 
 in our looks which showed we had been more serious than 
 ordinary, and seeing her husband receive her with great 
 concern under a forced cheerfulness, immediately guessed 
 at what we had been talking of ; and, applying herself to 
 me, said, with a smile, " Mr. Bickerstaff, do not believe a 20 
 word of what he tells you ; I shall still live to have you 
 for my second, as I have often promised you, unless he 
 takes more care of himself than he has done since his 
 coming to town. You must know, he tells me that he 
 finds London is a much more healthy place than the 25 
 country ; for he sees several of his old acquaintance and 
 school-fellows are here, young fellows with fair full- 
 bottomed periwigs. I could scarce keep him this morning 
 from going out open-breasted." My friend, who is always 
 extremely delighted with her agreeable humour, made her 30 
 sit down with us. She did it with that easiness which is 
 peculiar to women of sense ; and to keep up the good 
 humour she had brought in with her, turned her raillery 
 upon me. '" Mr. Bickerstaff, you remember you followed 
 
64 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 me one night from the play-house ; supposing you should 
 carry me thither to-morrow night, and lead me into the 
 front box." This put us into a long field of discourse 
 about the beauties who were mothers to the present, and 
 5 shined in the boxes twenty years ago. I told her, " I was 
 glad she had transferred so many of her charms, and I 
 did not question but her eldest daughter was within half 
 a year of being a toast." 
 
 We were pleasing ourselves with this fantastical pre- 
 
 10 ferment of the young lady, when on a sudden we were 
 alarmed with the noise of a drum, and immediately 
 entered my little godson to give me a point of war. His 
 mother, between laughing and chiding, would have put 
 him out of the room ; but I would not part with him so. 
 
 15 I found, upon conversation with him, though he was a 
 little noisy in his mirth, that the child had excellent parts, 
 and was a great master of all the learning on t'other 
 side eight years old. I perceived him a very great 
 historian in ^sop's Fables ; but he frankly declared to 
 
 20 me his mind, that he did not delight in that learning, 
 because he did not believe they were true ; for which 
 reason, I found, he had very much turned his studies, for 
 about a twelvemonth past, into the lives and adventures 
 of Don Bellianis of Greece, Guy of Warwick, the Seven 
 
 25 Champions, and other historians of that age. I could 
 not but observe the satisfaction the father took in the 
 forwardness of his son ; and. that these diversions might 
 turn to some profit, I found the boy had made remarks, 
 which might be of service to him during the course of his 
 
 30 whole life. He would tell you the mismanagements of 
 John Hickarthrift, find fault with the passionate temper 
 in Bevis of Southampton, and loved Saint George for 
 being the champion of England ; and by this means had 
 his thoughts insensibly moulded into the notions of dis- 
 
THE TATLER. 65 
 
 cretion, virtue, and honour. I was extolling his accom- 
 plishments, when the mother told me that the little girl 
 who led me in this morning was in her way a better 
 scholar than he. " Betty " (says she) " deals chiefly in 
 fairies and sprights ; and sometimes in a winter-night 5 
 will terrify the maids with her accounts, until they are 
 afraid to go up to bed." 
 
 I sat with them until it was very late, sometimes in 
 merry, sometimes in serious discourse, with this particular 
 pleasure, which gives the only true relish to all conversa- 10 
 tion, a sense that every one of us liked each other. I 
 went home considering the different conditions of a 
 married life and that of a bachelor ; and, I must confess, 
 it struck me with a secret concern to reflect that when- 
 ever I go off, I shall leave no traces behind me. In this 15 
 pensive mood I return to my family ; that is to say, to 
 my maid, my dog, and my cat, who only can be the better 
 or worse for what happens to me. 
 
 [No. 132.] 
 
 HaBEO SENECTUTI MAGNAM GRATIAM, quae MIHI SERMONIS 20 
 AVIDITATEM AUXIT, POTIONIS ET CIBI SUSTULIT. 
 
 TULL. DE SeNECT. 
 
 Sheer Lane, February 10 [i^io]. 
 After having applied my mind with more than ordinary 
 attention to my studies, it is my usual custom to relax 25 
 and unbend it in the conversation of such as are rather 
 easy than shining companions. This I find particularly 
 necessary for me before I retire to rest, in order to draw 
 my slumbers upon me by degrees, and fall asleep insen- 
 sibly. This is the particular use I make of a set of 30 
 heavy, honest men, with whom I have passed many hours 
 with much indolence, though not with great pleasure. 
 Their conversation is a kind of preparative for sleep : it 
 
66 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 takes the mind down from its abstractions, leads it into 
 the familiar traces of thought, and lulls it into that state 
 of tranquillity which is the condition of a thinking man 
 when he is but half awake. After' this, my reader will 
 5 not be surprised to hear the account which I am about to 
 give of a club of my own contemporaries, among whom I 
 pass two or three hours every evening. This I look upon 
 as taking my first nap before I go to bed. The truth of 
 it is, I should think myself unjust to posterity, as well as 
 
 10 to the society at the Trumpet, of which I am a member, 
 did not I in some part of my writings give an account of 
 the persons among whom I have passed almost a sixth 
 part of my time for these last forty years. Our club 
 consisted originally of fifteen ; but partly by the severity 
 
 IS of the law in arbitrary times, and partly by the natural 
 effects of old age, we are at present reduced to a third 
 part of that number : in which, however, we have this con- 
 solation, that the best company is said to consist of five 
 persons. I must confess, besides the aforementioned 
 
 2o benefit which I meet with in the conversation of this 
 select society, I am not the less pleased with the company, 
 in that I find myself the greatest wit among them, and 
 am heard as their oracle in all points of learning and 
 difficulty. 
 
 25 Sir Jeoffrey Notch, who is the oldest of the club, has 
 been in possession of the right-hand chair time out of 
 mind, and is the only man among us that has the liberty 
 of stirring the fire. This our foreman is a gentleman of 
 an ancient family, that came to a great estate some years 
 
 30 before he had discretion, and run it out in hounds, horses, 
 and cock-fighting ; for which reason he looks upon him- 
 self as an honest, worthy gentleman, who has had mis- 
 fortunes in the world, and calls evel-y. thriving man a 
 pitiful upstart. 
 
THE TATLER. 67 
 
 Major Mat^ ^hlnr.k is the next senior, who served in the 
 last civil wars, and has all the battles by heart. He does 
 not think any action in Europe worth talking of since the 
 fight of Marston Moor ; and every night tells us of his 
 having been knocked off his horse at the rising of the s 
 London apprentices, for which he is in great esteem 
 among us. 
 
 Honest old Dick Reptile is the third of our society. 
 He is a good-natured, indolent man, who speaks little 
 himself, but laughs at our jokes, and brings his young lo 
 nephew along with him, a youth of eighteen years old, 
 to show him good company, and give him a taste of the 
 world. This young fellow sits generally silent ; but 
 whenever he opens his mouth, or laughs at anything that 
 passes, he is constantly told by his uncle after a jocular 15 
 manner, " Ay, ay, Jack, you young men think us fools ; 
 but we old men know you are." 
 
 The greatest wit of our company, next to myself, is 
 a bencher of the neighbouring inn, who in his youth " 
 frequented the ordinaries about Charing Cross, and pre- 20 
 tends to have been intimate with Jack Ogle. He has 
 about ten distichs of Hudibras without book, and never 
 leaves the club until he has applied them all. If any 
 modern wit be mentioned, or any town-frolic spoken of, 
 he shakes his head at the dulness of the present age, and 25 
 tells us a story of Jack Ogle. 
 
 For my own part, I am esteemed among them, because 
 they see I am something respected by others, though at 
 the same time I understand by their behaviour that I am 
 considered by them as a man of a great deal of learning 3° 
 but no knowledge of the world ; insomuch that the Major 
 sometimes, in the height of his military pride, calls me 
 the Philosopher, and Sir Jeoffrey no longer ago than last 
 night, upon a dispute what day of the month it was then 
 
68 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 in Holland, pulled his pipe out of his mouth, and cried, 
 " What does the scholar say to it ? " 
 /Our club meets precisely at six o'clock in the evening ; 
 but I did not come last evening until half an hour after 
 5 seven, by which means I escaped the battle of Naseby, 
 which the Major usually begins at about three-quarters 
 
 ' after six ; I found also, that my good friend the bencher 
 had already spent three of his distichs, and only waited 
 an opportunity to hear a sermon spoken of, that he might 
 
 10 introduce the couplet where " a stick " rhymes to " eccle- 
 siastic." At my entrance into the room, they were naming 
 a red petticoat and a cloak, by which I found that the 
 bencher had been diverting them with a story of Jack 
 Ogle/ 
 
 15 I had no sooner taken my seat but Sir Jeoffrey, to 
 show his good-will towards me, gave me a pipe of his 
 own tobacco, and stirred up the fire. I look upon it as a 
 point of morality to be obliged by those who endeavour 
 to oblige me; and, therefore, in requital for his kindness, 
 
 20 and to set the conversation a-going, I took the best 
 occasion I could to put him upon telling us the story of 
 old Gantlett, which he always does with very particular 
 concern. He traced up his descent on both sides for 
 several generations, describing his diet and manner of 
 
 25 life, with his several battles, and particularly that in which 
 he fell. This Gantlett was a game cock, upon whose 
 head the knight in his youth had won five hundred 
 pounds and lost two thousand. This naturally set the 
 Major upon the account of Edge-hill fight, and ended in 
 
 30 a duel of Jack Ogle's. 
 
 Old Reptile was extremely attentive to all that was said, 
 though it was the same he had heard every night for these 
 twenty years, and upon all occasions winked upon his 
 nephew to mind what passed. 
 
THE TATLER. 69 
 
 This may suffice to give the world a taste of our 
 innocent conversation, which we spun out until about ten 
 of the clock, when my maid came with a lantern to light 
 me home. I could not but reflect with myself, as I was 
 going out, upon the talkative humour of old men, and the 5 
 little figure which that part of life makes in one who can- 
 not employ his natural propensity in discourses which 
 would make him venerable. I must own, it makes me 
 very melancholy in company, when I hear a young man 
 begin a story ; and have often observed that one of a 10 
 quarter of an hour long in a man of five-and-twenty 
 gathers circumstances every time he tells it, till it 
 grows into a long Canterbury tale of two hours by that 
 time he is threescore. 
 
 The only way of avoiding such a trifling and frivolous 15 
 old age is to lay up in our way to it such stores of knowl- 
 edge and observation_as may make us useful and-a^ree- 
 able in our decHning years. The mind of man in a long 
 life" will become a magazine of wisdom or folly, and will 
 consequently discharge itself in something impertinent 20 
 or improving. For which reason, as there is nothing 
 more ridiculous than an old trifling story-teller, so there 
 is nothing more venerable than one who has turned his ex- 
 perience to the entertainment and advantage of mankind. 
 
 In short, we who are in the last stage of life, and are 25 
 apt to indulge ourselves in talk, ought to consider if what 
 we speak be worth being heard, and endeavour to make 
 our discourse like that of Nestor, which Homer compares 
 to the flowing of honey for its sweetness. 
 
 I am afraid I shall be thought guilty of this excess I am 30 
 speaking of, when I cannot conclude without observing, 
 that Milton certainly thought of this passage in Homer, 
 when in his description of an eloquent spirit, he says, 
 " His tongue dropped manna." 
 
70 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 [No. 135.] 
 
 Quod si in hoc erro, quod animos hominum immortales 
 
 esse credam, libenter erro ; nec mihi hung errorem, 
 
 quo delector, dum vivo, extorqueri volo : sin mortuus, 
 
 5 ut quidam minuti philosophi censent, nihil sentiam, 
 
 non vereor, ne hunc errorem meum mortui philosophi 
 
 IRRIDEANT. TuLL. 
 
 Sheer Lane, February ly [17 Jo]. 
 
 Several letters which I have lately received give me 
 
 10 information that some well-disposed persons have taken 
 offence at my using the word free-thinker as a term of 
 reproach. To set therefore this matter in a clear light, 
 I must declare that no one can have a greater veneration 
 than myself for the free-thinkers of antiquity, who acted 
 
 15 the same part in those times as the great men of the 
 reformation did in several nations of Europe, by exerting 
 themselves against the idolatry and superstition of the 
 times in which they lived. It was by this noble impulse 
 that Socrates and his disciples, as well as all the philos- 
 
 20 ophers of note in Greece, and Cicero, Seneca, with all 
 the learned men of Rome, endeavoured to enlighten their 
 contemporaries amidst the darkness and ignorance in 
 which the world was then sunk and buried. The great 
 points which these free-thinkers endeavoured to establish 
 
 25 and inculcate into the minds of men, was the formation 
 of the universe, the superintendency of providence, 
 the perfection of the divine nature, the immortality 
 of the soul, and the future state of rewards and 
 punishments. They all complied with the religion of 
 
 30 their country, as much as possible, in such particulars as 
 did not contradict and pervert these great and fundamental 
 doctrines of mankind. On the contrary, the persons who 
 now set up for free-thinkers are such as endeavour, by a 
 little trash of words and sophistry, to weaken and destroy 
 
THE TATLER. 71 
 
 those very principles, for the vindication of which freedom 
 of thought at first became laudable and heroic. These 
 apostates from reason and good sense can look at the 
 glorious frame of nature- without paying an adoration to 
 Him that raised it ; can consider the great revolutions in 5 
 the universe without lifting up their minds to that superior 
 power which hath the direction of it ; can presume to 
 censure the Deity in his ways towards men ; can level 
 mankind with the beasts that perish ; can extinguish in 
 their own minds all the pleasing hopes of a future state, lo 
 and lull themselves into a stupid security against the 
 terrors of it. If one were to take the word priestcraft out 
 of the mouths of these shallow monsters, they would be 
 immediately struck dumb. It is by the help of this single 
 term that they endeavour to disappoint the good works of 1 5 
 the most learned and venerable order of men, and harden 
 the hearts of the ignorant against the very light of nature 
 and the common received notions of mankind. We ought 
 not to treat such miscreants as these upon the foot of fair 
 disputants, but to pour out contempt upon them, and 20 
 speak of them with scorn and infamy, as the pests of 
 society, the revilers of human nature, and the blasphemers 
 of a Being whom a good man would rather die than hear 
 dishonoured. Cicero, after having mentioned the great 
 heroes of knowledge that recommended this divine 25 
 doctrine of the immortality of the soul, calls those small 
 pretenders to wisdom who declared against it, " certain 
 minute philosophers," using a diminutive even of the word 
 little, to express the despicable opinion he had of them. 
 The contempt he throws upon them in another passage 30 
 is yet more remarkable, where, to show the mean thoughts 
 he entertains of them, he declares, " he would rather be 
 in the wrong with Plato than in the right with such com- 
 pany." There is, indeed, nothing in the world so ridiculous 
 
72 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 as one of these grave philosophical free-thinkers, that hath 
 neither passions nor appetites to gratify, no heats of 
 blood nor vigour of constitution that can turn his systems 
 of infidelity to his advantage, or raise pleasures out of 
 5 them which are inconsistent with the belief of an here- 
 after. One that has neither wit, gallantry, mirth, or 
 youth to indulge by these notions, but only a poor, joy- 
 less, uncomfortable vanity of distinguishing himself from 
 the rest of mankind, is rather to be regarded as a mis- 
 
 10 chievous lunatic than a mistaken philosopher. A chaste 
 infidel, a speculative libertine, is an animal that I should 
 not believe to be in nature, did I not sometimes meet 
 with this species of men, that plead for the indulgence of 
 their passions in the midst of a severe studious life, and 
 
 1 5 talk against the immortality of the soul over a dish of coffee. 
 I would fain ask a minute philosopher, what good he 
 proposes to mankind by the publishing of his doctrines ? 
 Will they make a man a better citizen or father of a fam- 
 ily ; a more endearing husband, friend, or son ? Will they 
 
 2o enlarge his public or private virtues, or correct any of 
 his frailties or vices? What is there either joyful or 
 glorious in such opinions ? Do they either refresh or en- 
 large our thoughts ? Do they contribute to the happiness, 
 or raise the dignity, of human nature? The only good 
 
 25 that I have ever heard pretended to is that they banish 
 terrors, and set the mind at ease. But whose terrors do 
 they banish ? It is certain, if there were any strength in 
 their arguments, they would give great disturbance to 
 minds that are influenced by virtue, honour, and morality, 
 
 30 and take from us the only comforts and supports of afifiic- 
 tion, sickness, and old age. The minds, therefore, which 
 they set at ease are only those of impenitent criminals 
 and malefactors, and which, to the good of mankind, 
 should be in perpetual terror and alarm. 
 
THE TATLER. 73 
 
 I must confess, nothing is more usual than for a free- 
 thinker, in proportion as the insolence of scepticism is 
 abated in him by years and knowledge, or humbled and 
 beaten down by sorrow or sickness, to reconcile himself 
 to the general conceptions of reasonable creatures; so 5 
 that we frequently see the apostates turning from their 
 revolt toward the end of their lives, and employing the 
 refuse of their parts in promoting those truths which they 
 had before endeavoured to invalidate. 
 
 [No. 167.] 10 
 
 Segnius irritant animos dimissa per aures, 
 
 QuAM quae sunt oculis submissa fidelitas. 
 
 Hoe. 
 
 From my own Apartment, 
 
 May 2 {^lyid]. 15 
 
 ... I have hardly a notion that any performer of an- 
 tiquity could surpass the action of Mr. Betterton in any 
 of the occasions in which he has appeared on our stage. 
 The wonderful agony which he appeared in, when he 
 examined the circumstance of the handkerchief in 20 
 Othello, the mixture of love that intruded upon his 
 mind upon the innocent answers Desdemona makes, be- 
 trayed in his gesture such a variety and vicissitude of 
 passions as would admonish a man to be afraid of his 
 own heart, and perfectly convince him, that it is to stab 25 
 it, to admit that worst of daggers, jealousy. Whoever ; 
 reads in his closet this admirable scene, will find that he 
 cannot, except he has as warm an imagination as Shaks- 
 peare himself, find any but dry, incoherent, and broken 
 sentences ; but a reader that has seen Betterton act it 30 
 observes that there could not be a word added ; that 
 longer speeches had been unnatural, nay, impossible, in 
 Othello's circumstances. The charming passage in the 
 same tragedy, where he tells the manner of winning the 
 
74 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 affection of his mistress, was urged with so moving and 
 graceful an energy, that, while I walked in the cloisters, 
 I thought of him with the same concern as if I waited for 
 the remains of a person who had in real life done all that 
 5 I had seen him represent. The gloom of the place, and 
 faint lights before the ceremony appeared, contributed to 
 the melancholy disposition I was in ; and I began to be 
 extremely afflicted that Brutus and Cassius had any dif- 
 ference ; that Hotspur's gallantry was so unfortunate ;^ 
 
 10 and that the mirth and good humour of Falstaff could 
 not exempt him from the grave. Nay, this occasion 
 in me, who look upon the distinctions amongst men 
 to be merely scenical, raised reflections upon the empti- 
 ness of all human perfection and greatness in general ; 
 
 1 5 and I could not but regret that the sacred heads which 
 lie buried in the neighbourhood of this little portion of 
 earth in which my poor old friend is deposited, are re- 
 turned to dust as well as he, and that there is no differ- 
 ence in the grave between the imaginary and the real 
 
 20 monarch. This made me say of human life itself with 
 Macbeth, 
 
 " To-morrow, to-morrow, and to-morrow, 
 Creeps in a stealing pace from day to day, 
 To the last moment of recorded time ! 
 25 And all our yesterdays have lighted fools 
 
 To their eternal night ! Out, out, short candle I 
 Life 's but a walking shadow, a poor player 
 That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, 
 And then is heard no more." 
 
 30 The mention I have here made of Mr. Betterton, for 
 whom I had, as long as I have known anything, a very 
 great esteem and gratitude for the pleasure he gave me, 
 can do him no good ; but it may possibly be of service 
 to the unhappy woman he has left behind him, to have 
 
 35 it known that this great tragedian was never in a scene 
 
THE TATLER. 75 
 
 half so moving as the circvimstances of his affairs created 
 at his departure. His wife, after a cohabitation of forty 
 years in the strictest amity, has loixg pined away with a 
 sense of his decay, as well in his person as his little for- 
 tune ; and, in proportion to that, she has herself decayed 5 
 both in her health and reason. Her husband's death, 
 added to her age and infirmities, would certainly have 
 determined her life, but that the greatness of her distress 
 has been her relief, by a present deprivation of her 
 senses. This absence of reason is her best defence 10 
 against age, sorrow, poverty, and sickness. I dwell upon 
 this account so distinctly, in obedience to a certain great 
 spirit who hides her name, and has by letter applied to 
 me to recommend to her some object of compassion, from 
 whom she may be concealed. 15 
 
 This, I think, is a proper occasion for exerting such 
 heroic generosity ; and as there is an ingenuous shame 
 to those who have known better fortune to be reduced to 
 receive obligations, as well as a becoming pain in the 
 truly generous to receive thanks, in this case both those 20 
 delicacies are preserved ; for the person obliged is as 
 incapable of knowing her benefactress as her benefactress 
 is unwilling to be known by her. 
 
 [No. 181.] 
 
 Dies, ni fallor, adest, quem semper acerbum, 25 
 
 Semper honoratum, sic, dii, voluistis, habebo. 
 
 ViRG. 
 
 From my own Apartment, 
 June ^ [ly/o']. 
 
 The first sense of sorrow I ever knew was upon the 30 
 death of my father, at which time I was not quite five 
 years of age ; but was rather amazed at what all the 
 house meant than possessed with a real understanding 
 why nobody was willing to play with me. I remember I 
 
76 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 went into the room where his body lay, and my mother 
 sat weeping alone by it. I had my battledore in my 
 hand, and fell a-beating the coffin, and calling " Papa " ; 
 for, I know not how, I had some slight idea that he was 
 S locked up there. My mother catched me in her arms, 
 and transported beyond all patience of the silent grief 
 she was before in, she almost smothered me in her em- 
 brace, and told me in a flood of tears, "Papa could not 
 hear me, and would play with me no more, for they were 
 
 10 going to put him under ground, whence he could never 
 come to us again." She was a very beautiful woman, of 
 a noble spirit, and there was a dignity in her grief 
 amidst all the wildness of her transport, which, methought, 
 struck me with an instinct of sorrow which, before I was 
 
 15 sensible of what it was to grieve, seized my very soul, 
 and has made pity the weakness of my heart ever 
 since. The mind in infancy is, methinks, like the body 
 in embryo, and receives impressions so forcible that they 
 are as hard to be removed by reason, as any mark with 
 
 20 which a child is born is to be taken away by any future 
 application. Hence it is that good-nature in me is no 
 merit; but, having been so frequently overwhelmed with 
 her tears before I knew the cause of any affliction, or 
 could draw defences from my own judgment, I imbibed 
 
 25 commiseration, remorse, and an unmanly gentleness of 
 mind, which has since insnared me into ten thousand 
 calamities, and from whence I can reap no advantage, 
 except it be that, in such a humour as I am now in, I 
 can the better indulge myself in the softnesses of hu- 
 
 30 manity, and enjoy that sweet anxiety which arises from 
 the memory of past afflictions. 
 
THE TATLER. Tl 
 
 From my own Apartment, 
 [No. 207.] August 4\_iyio\. 
 
 Having yesterday morning received a paper of Latin 
 verses, written with much elegance in honour of these 
 my papers, and being informed at the same time that 5 
 they were composed by a youth under age, I read 
 them with much delight, as an instance of his improve- 
 ment. There is not a greater pleasure to old age than 
 seeing young people entertain themselves in such a man- 
 ner as that we can partake of their enjoyments. On 10 
 such occasions we flatter ourselves that we are not quite 
 laid aside in the world, but that we are either used with 
 gratitude for what we were, or honoured for what we are. 
 A well-inclined young man, and whose good-breeding is 
 founded upon the principles of nature and virtue, must 15 
 needs take delight in being agreeable to his elders, as we 
 are truly delighted when we are not the jest of them. 
 When I say this, I must confess I cannot but think it a 
 very lamentable thing that there should be a necessity 
 for making that a rule of life which should be, methinks, 20 
 a mere instinct of nature. If reflection upon a man in 
 poverty, whom we once knew in riches, is an argument 
 of commiseration with generous minds, sure old age, 
 which is a decay from that vigour which the young pos- 
 sess, and must certainly (if not prevented against their 25 
 will) arrive at, should be more forcibly the object of that 
 reverence which honest spirits are inclined to, from a 
 sense of being themselves liable to what they observe has 
 already overtaken others. 
 
 My three nephews, whom, in June last was twelve- 30 
 month I disposed of according to their several capacities 
 and inclinations, the first to a university, the second to 
 a merchant, and the third to a woman of quality as her 
 page, by my invitation dined with me to-day. It is my 
 
78 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 custom often, when I have a mind to give myself a more 
 than ordinary cheerfulness, to invite a certain young 
 gentlewoman of our neighbourliood to make one of the 
 company. She did me that favour this day. The pres- 
 5 ence of a beautiful woman of honour, to minds which are 
 trivially disposed, displays an alacrity which is not to be 
 communicated by any other object. It was not unpleasr 
 ant to me to look into her thoughts of the company she 
 she was in. She smiled at the party of pleasure I had 
 
 lo thought of for her, which was composed of an old man 
 and three boys. My scholar, my citizen, and myself 
 were very soon neglected ; and the young courtier, by the 
 bow he made to her at her entrance, engaged her observa- 
 tion without a rival. I observed the Oxonian not a little 
 
 15 discomposed at this preference, while the trader kept his 
 eye upon his uncle. My nephew Will had a thousand 
 secret resolutions to break in upon the discourse of his 
 younger brother, who gave my fair companion a full 
 account of the fashion, and what was reckoned most be- 
 
 20 coming to this complexion, and what sort of habit ap- 
 peared best upon t'other shape. He proceeded to 
 acquaint her, who of quality was well or sick within the 
 bills of mortality, and named very familiarly all his lady's 
 acquaintance, not forgetting her very words when he 
 
 25 spoke of their characters. Besides all this, he had a road 
 of flattery; and upon her enquiring what sort of woman 
 Lady Lovely was in her person, " Really, madam," says 
 the jackanapes, " she is exactly of your height and shape ; 
 but as you are fair, she is a brown woman." There was 
 
 30 no enduring that this fop should outshine us all at this 
 unmerciful rate ; therefore I thought fit to talk to my young 
 scholar concerning his studies ; and because I would 
 throw his learning into present service, I desired him to 
 repeat to me the translation he had made of some tender 
 
THE TATLER. 79 
 
 verses in Theocritus. He did so, with an air of elegance 
 peculiar to the college to which I sent him. I made 
 some exceptions to the turn of the phrases, which he 
 defended with much modesty, as believing in that place 
 the matter was rather to consult the softness of a swain's 5 
 passion than the strength of his expressions. It soon 
 appeared that Will had outstripped his brother in the 
 opinion of our young lady. A little poetry, to one who is 
 bred a scholar, has the same effect that a good carriage 
 of his person has on one who is to live in courts. The 10 
 favour of women is so natural a passion that I envied 
 both the boys their success in the approbation of my 
 guest ; and I thought the only person invulnerable was 
 my young trader. During the whole meal I could ob- 
 serve in the children a mutual contempt and scorn of 15 
 each other, arising from their different way of life and 
 education, and took that occasion to advertise them of 
 such growing distastes, which might mislead them in 
 their future life, and disappoint their friends, as 
 well as themselves, of the advantages which might 20 
 be expected from the diversity of their professions and 
 interests. 
 
 The prejudices which are growing up between these 
 brothers from the different ways of education are what 
 create the most fatal misunderstandings in life. But all 25 
 distinctions of disparagement merely from our circum- 
 stances, are such as will not bear the examination of 
 reason. The courtier, the trader, and the scholar, should 
 all have an equal pretension to the denomination of a 
 gentleman. That tradesman who deals with me in a 30 
 commodity which I do not understand with uprightness, 
 has much more right to that character than the courtier 
 that gives me false hopes, or -the scholar who laughs at 
 my ignorance. 
 
80 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 The appellation of gentleman is never to be affixed to 
 a man's circumstances but to his behaviour in them. For 
 this reason I shall ever, as far as I am able, give my 
 nephews such impressions as shall make them value 
 S themselves rather as they are useful to others than as 
 they are conscious of merit in themselves. There are no 
 qualities from which we ought to pretend to the esteem of 
 others, but such as render us serviceable to them ; for 
 "free men have no superiors but benefactors." .... 
 
 10 From my own Apartment, 
 
 [No. 245.] November i \^iyid\. 
 
 The lady hereafter-mentioned, having come to me in 
 very great haste, and paid me much above the usual fee 
 as a cunning-man, to find her stolen goods, and also 
 15 having approved my late discourse of advertisements, 
 obliged me to draw up this, and insert it in the body of 
 my paper. 
 
 Advertisement. 
 
 Whereas Bridget Howd'ee, late servant to the Lady 
 20 Fardingdale, a short, thick, lively, hard-favoured wench, 
 of about twenty-nine years of age, her eyes small and 
 bleared, her nose very broad at bottom, and turning up 
 at the end, her mouth wide, and lips of an unusual thick- 
 ness, two teeth out before, the rest black and uneven, 
 25 the tip of her left ear being of a mouse colour, her voice 
 loud and shrill, quick of speech, and something of a 
 Welsh accent, withdrew herself on Wednesday last from 
 her ladyship's dwelling-house, and, with the help of her 
 consorts, carried off the following goods of her said lady, 
 30 viz., a thick wadded calico wrapper, a musk-coloured vel- 
 vet mantle lined with squirrel skins, eight night-shifts, 
 four pair of silk stockings curiously darned, six pair of 
 laced shoes, new and old, with the heels of half two 
 
THE TATLER. 81 
 
 inches higher than their fellows ; a quilted petticoat of 
 the largest size, and one of canvas with whale-.bone hoops ; 
 three pair of stays, bolstered below the left shoulder ; 
 two pair of hips of the newest fashion, six round-about 
 aprons with pockets, and four striped muslin night-rails 5 
 very little frayed ; a silver pot for coffee or chocolate, the 
 lid much bruised ; a broad-brimmed flat silver plate for 
 sugar with Rhenish wine; a silver ladle for plum-porridge ; 
 a silver cheese-toaster with three tongues, an ebony handle, 
 and silvering at the end ; a silver posnet to butter eggs ; 10 
 one caudle and two cordial-water cups, two cocoa-cups, 
 and an ostrich's egg, with rims and feet of silver ; a mar- 
 row-spoon, with a scoop at the other end ; a silver orange- 
 strainer, eight sweet-meat spoons made with forks at the 
 end, an agate-handle knife and fork in a sheath, a silver 15 
 tongue-scraper, a silver tobacco-box, with a tulip graved 
 on the top ; and a bible bound in shagreen, with gilt 
 leaves and clasps, never opened but once. Also a small 
 cabinet with six drawers inlaid with red tortoise-shell, 
 and brass gilt ornaments at the four corners, in which 20 
 were two leather forehead-cloths, three pair of oiled dog- 
 skin gloves, seven cakes of superfine Spanish wool, half- 
 a-dozen of Portugal dishes, and a quire of paper from 
 thence ; two pair of brand new plumpers, four black-lead 
 combs, three pair of fashionable eye-brows, two sets of 25 
 ivory teeth, little the worse for wearing, and one pair of 
 box for common use ; Adam and Eve in bugle work, 
 without fig leaves, upon canvas, curiously wrought with 
 her ladyship's own hand ; several filigrain curiosities ; a 
 crotchet of one hundred and twenty-two diamonds, set 30 
 strong and deep in silver, with a rump-jewel after the 
 same fashion ; bracelets of braided hair, pomander, and 
 seed-pearl ; a large old purple velvet purse, embroidered, 
 and shutting with a spring, containing two pictures in 
 
82 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 miniature, the features visible ; a broad thick gold ring, 
 with a hand-in-hand graved upon it, and within this 
 poesy, "While life does last, I'll hold thee fast"; an- 
 other set around with small rubies and sparks, six want- 
 5 ing; another of Turkey stone, cracked through the 
 middle ; an Elizabeth and four Jacobuses, one guinea, 
 the first of the coin, an angel with a hole bored 
 through, a broken half of a Spanish piece of gold, a 
 crown-piece with the breeches, an old nine-pence bent 
 
 10 both ways by Lilly the almanack maker, for luck at lang- 
 teraloo, and twelve of the shells called blackmoor's teeth ; 
 one small amber box with apoplectic balsam, and one 
 silver gilt of a larger size for cashu and carraway com- 
 fits, to be taken at long sermons, the lid enamelled, re- 
 
 15 presenting a cupid fishing for hearts, with a piece of gold 
 on his hook ; over his head this rhyme, " Only with gold 
 you me shall hold." In the lower drawer was a large 
 new gold repeating watch, made by a Frenchman ; a gold 
 chain, and all the proper appurtenances hung upon steel 
 
 20 swivels, to wit, lockets with the hair of dead and living 
 lovers, seals with arms, emblems and devices cut in cor- 
 nelian, agate, and onyx, with cupids, hearts, darts, altars, 
 flames, rocks, pickaxes, roses, thorns, and sun-flowers ; 
 as also variety of ingenious French mottos ; together 
 
 25 with gold etuis for quills, scissors, needles, thimbles, and 
 a sponge dipped in Hungary water, left but the night 
 before by a young lady going upon a frolic incog. There 
 was also a bundle of letters, dated between the years 
 1670 and 1682, most of them signed Philander, the rest 
 
 30 Strephon, Amyntas, Corydon, and Adonis ; together with a 
 collection of receipts to make pastes for the hands, poma- 
 tums, lip-salves, white-pots, beautifying creams, water of 
 talc, and frog spawn water ; decoctions for clearing the 
 complexion, and an approved medicine to procure abortion. 
 
THE TATLER. 83 
 
 Whoever can discover the aforesaid goods, so that 
 they may be had again, shall have fifty guineas for the 
 whole, or proportionable for any part. N. B. Her lady- 
 ship is pleased to promise ten pounds for the packet of 
 letters over and above, or five for Philander's only, 5 
 being her first love. My lady bestows those of Strephon 
 to the finder, being so written that they may serve to any 
 woman who reads them. 
 
 [No. 263.] 
 
 Minima contentos nocte Britannos. to 
 
 Juv. Sat. ii. 
 
 From my own Apartment, 
 December 13 [f/io]. 
 
 An old friend of mine being lately come to town, I 
 went to see him on Tuesday last about eight o'clock in 15 
 the evening, with a design to sit with him an hour or two, 
 and talk over old stories ; but upon enquiring after him, 
 I found he was gone to bed. The next morning, as soon 
 as I was up and dressed, and had despatched a little 
 business, I came again to my friend's house about eleven 20 
 o'clock, with a design to renew my visit ; but upon ask- 
 ing for him, his servant told me he was just sat down to 
 dinner. In short, I found that my oldfashioned friend 
 religiously adhered to the example of his forefathers, and 
 observed the same hours that had been kept in the family 25 
 ever since the Conquest. 
 
 It is very plain that the night was much longer former- 
 ly in this island than it is at present. By the night, I 
 mean that portion of time which nature has thrown into 
 darkness, and which the wisdom of mankind had for- 30 
 merly dedicated to rest and silence. This used to begin 
 at eight o'clock in the evening and conclude at six in the 
 morning. The curfew or eight o'clock bell was the sig- 
 
84 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 nal throughout the nation for putting out their candles 
 and going to bed. 
 
 Our grandmothers, though they were wont to sit up 
 the last in the family, were all of them fast asleep at the 
 S same hours that their daughters are busy at crimp and 
 basset. Modern statesmen are concerting schemes, and 
 engaged in the depth of politics, at the time when their 
 forefathers were laid down quietly to rest, and had noth- 
 ing in their heads but dreams. As we have thus thrown 
 
 10 business and pleasure into the hours of rest, and by that 
 means made the natural night but half as long as it 
 should be, we are forced to piece it out with a great part 
 of the morning ; so that near two-thirds of the nation lie 
 fast asleep for several hours in broad daylight. This 
 
 15 irregularity is grown so very fashionable at present that 
 there is scarce a lady of quality in Great Britain that ever 
 saw the sun rise. And if the humour increases in pro- 
 portion to what it has done of late years, it is not impos- 
 sible but our children may hear the bell-man going about 
 
 20 the streets at nine o'clock in the morning, and the watch 
 making their rounds until eleven. This unaccountable 
 disposition in mankind to continue awake in the night 
 and sleep in sunshine, has made me enquire whether 
 the same change of inclination has happened to any other 
 
 25 animals ? For this reason I desired a friend of mine 
 in the country to let me know, whether the lark rises 
 as early as he did formerly and whether the cock 
 begins to crow at his usual hour ? My friend has 
 answered me, that his poultry are as regular as 
 
 30 ever, and that all the birds and the beasts of his 
 neighbourhood keep the same hours that they have 
 observed in the memory of man ; and the same which, 
 in all probability, they have kept for these five thousand 
 years. 
 
THE TATLER. 85 
 
 If you would see the innovations that have been made 
 among us in this particular, you may only look into the 
 hours of colleges, where they still dine at eleven, and sup at 
 six, which were doubtless the hours of the whole nation 
 at the time when those places were founded. But at 5 
 present, the courts of justice are scarce opened in West- 
 minster Hall at the time when William Rufus used to go 
 to dinner in it. All business is driven forward : the land- 
 marks of our fathers (if I may so call them) are removed, 
 and planted further up into the day; insomuch that I am 10 
 afraid our clergy will be obliged (if they expect full con- 
 gregations) not to look any more upon ten o'clock in the 
 morning as a regular canonical hour. In my own memory, 
 the dinner has crept by degrees from twelve o'clock to 
 three, and where it will fix nobody knows. 15 
 
 [No. 271.] 
 
 \The whole number is dated: From Saturday, December 30 (i^io) to 
 Tuesday, January z, lyio (77//).] 
 
 The printer having informed me that there are as many 
 of these papers printed as will make four volumes, I am 
 now come to the end of my ambition in this matter, and 
 have nothing further to say to the world under the char- 
 acter of Isaac Bickerstaff. This work has, indeed, for 20 
 some time been disagreeable to me, and the purpose of it 
 wholly lost by my being so long understood as the author. 
 I never designed in it to give any man any secret wound 
 by my concealment, but spoke in the character of an old 
 man, a philosopher, a humorist, an astrologer, and a cen- 25 
 sor, to allure my reader with the variety of my subjects, 
 and insinuate, if I could, the weight of reason with the 
 agreeableness of wit. The general purpose of the whole 
 has been to recommend truth, innocence, honour and 
 virtue as the chief ornaments of life ; but I considered 30 
 
86 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 that severity of manners was absolutely necessary to him 
 who would censure others, and for that reason, and that 
 only, chose to talk in a mask. I shall not carry my 
 humility so far as to call myself a vicious man, but at the 
 5 same time must confess my life is at best but pardonable. 
 And, with no greater character than this, a man would 
 make but an indifferent progress in attacking prevailing 
 and fashionable vices, which Mr. Bickerstaff has done 
 with a freedom of spirit that would have lost both its 
 
 10 beauty and efficacy had it been pretended to by Mr. Steele. 
 
 As to the work itself, the acceptance it has met with 
 
 is the best proof of its value ; but I should err against 
 
 that candour which an honest man should always carry 
 
 about him, if I did not own that the most approved pieces 
 
 15 in it were written by others, and those which have been 
 most excepted against by myself. The hand that has 
 assisted me in those noble discourses upon the immor- 
 tality of the soul, the glorious prospects of another life,, 
 and the most sublime ideas of religion and virtue, is a 
 
 20 person who is too fondly my friend ever to own them ; 
 but I should Uttle deserve to be his if I usurped the 
 glory of them. I must acknowledge at the same time 
 that I think the finest strokes of wit and humour in all 
 Mr. Bickerstaff's Lucubrations are those for which he is 
 
 25 also beholden to him. 
 
 [No. 2.] ^• 
 
 [From the Spectator, 1711-12.] 
 
 ( AST ALII SEX 
 
 ^ ET PLURES UNO CONCLAMANT ORE. 
 
 Juv. 
 
 Friday, March z, ijii. 
 
 The first of our society is a gentleman of Worcester- 
 30 shire, of ancient descent, a baronet, his name Sir Roger 
 
THE SPECTATOR. 87 
 
 I 
 
 de Coverley. His great-grandfather was inventor of that 
 famous country-dance which is called after him. All who 
 know that shire are very well acquainted with the parts 
 and merits of Sir Roger. He is a gentleman that is very 
 singular in his behaviour, but his singularities proceed s 
 from his good sense, and are contradictions to the man- 
 ners of the world only as he thinks the world is in the 
 wrong. However, this humour creates him no enemies, 
 for he does nothing with sourness or obstinacy; and his 
 being unconfined to modes and forms makes him but the lo 
 readier and more capable to please and oblige all who 
 know him. When he is in town, he lives in Soho Square. 
 It is said he keeps himself a bachelor by reason he was 
 crossed in love by a perverse beautiful widow of the next 
 county to him. Before this disappointment Sir Roger 15 
 was what you call a fine gentleman, had often supped 
 with my Lord Rochester and Sir George Etheredge, 
 fought a duel upon his first coming to town, and kicked 
 Bully Dawson in a public coffee-house for calling him 
 youngster. But being ill-used by the above-mentioned 20 
 widow, he was very serious for a year and a half ; and 
 though, his temper being naturally jovial, he at last got 
 over it, he grew careless of himself, and never dressed 
 afterward. He continues to wear a coat and doublet of 
 the same cut that were in fashion at the time of his 25 
 repulse, which, in his merry humours, he tells us, has been 
 in and out twelve times since he first wore it. 'T is said 
 Sir Roger grew humble in his desires after he had forgot 
 this cruel beauty, insomuch that it is reported he has fre- 
 quently offended in point of chastity with beggars and 30 
 gypsies ; but this is looked upon by his friends rather as 
 matter of raillery than of truth. He is now in his fifty- 
 sixth year, cheerful, gay, and hearty ; keeps a good house 
 both in town and country ; a great lover of mankind ; but 
 
88 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 there is such a mirthful cast in his behaviour that he is 
 rather beloved than esteemed. His tenants grow rich, 
 his servants look satisfied, all the young women profess 
 love to him, and the young men are glad of his company. 
 5 When he comes into a house, he calls the servants by 
 their names, and talks all the way up-stairs to a visit. I 
 must not omit that Sir Roger is a justice of the quorum ; 
 that he fills the chair at a quarter-session with great 
 abilities, and three months ago gained universal applause 
 
 10 by explaining a passage in the game act. 
 
 The gentleman next in esteem and authority among us 
 is another bachelor, who is a member of the Inner Tem- 
 ple, a man of great probity, wit, and understanding ; but 
 he has chosen his place of residence rather to obey the 
 
 15 direction of an old humoursome father than in pursuit of 
 his own inclinations. He was placed there to study the 
 laws of the land, and is the most learned of any of the 
 house in those of the stage. Aristotle and Longinus are 
 much better understood by him than Littleton or Coke. 
 
 20 The father sends up every post questions relating to mar- 
 riage articles, leases, and tenures in the neighbourhood, 
 all which questions he agrees with an attorney to answer 
 and take care of in the lump. He is studying the pas- 
 sions themselves when he should be inquiring into the 
 
 25 debates among men which arise from them. He knows 
 the argument of each of the orations of Demosthenes and 
 Tully, but not one case in the reports of our own courts. 
 No one ever took him for a fool ; but none, except his 
 intimate friends, know he has a great deal of wit. This 
 
 30 turn makes him at once both disinterested and agreeable : 
 as few of his thoughts are drawn from business, they are 
 most of them fit for conversation. His taste of books is 
 a little too just for the age he lives in ; he has read all, 
 but approves of very few. His familiarity with the cus- 
 
THE SPECTATOR. 89 
 
 toms, manners, actions, and writings of tlie ancients 
 makes him a very delicate observer of what occurs to him 
 in the present world. He is an excelleiit critic, and the 
 time of the play is his hour of business ; exactly at five 
 he passes through New Inn, crosses through Russell 5 
 Court, and takes a turn at Will's till the play begins ; he 
 has his shoes rubbed and his perriwig powdered at the 
 barber's as you go into the Rose. It is for the good of 
 the audience when he is at a play, for the actors have an 
 ambition to please him. lo 
 
 The person of next consideration is Sir Andrew Free- 
 port, a merchant of great eminence in the city of London, 
 a person of indefatigable industry, strong reason, and 
 great experience. His notions of trade are noble and 
 generous, and (as every rich man has usually some sly 15 
 way of jesting which would make no great figure were he 
 not a rich man), he calls the sea the British Common. 
 He is acquainted with commerce in all its parts, and will 
 tell you that it is a stupid and barbarous way to extend 
 dominion by arms : for true power is to be got by arts 20 
 and industry. He will often argue that if this part of 
 our trade were well cultivated, we should gain from one 
 nation ; and if another, from another. I have heard him 
 prove that diligence makes more lasting acquisitions 
 than valour, and that sloth has ruined more nations than 25 
 the sword. He abounds in several frugal maxims, amongst 
 which the greatest favourite is, "A penny saved is a penny 
 got." A general trader of good sense is pleasanter com- 
 pany than a general scholar ; and Sir Andrew having a 
 natural unaffected eloquence, the perspicuity of his dis- 30 
 course gives the same pleasure that wit would in another 
 man. He has made his fortunes himself, and says that 
 England may be richer than other kingdoms by as plain 
 methods as he himself is richer than other men ; though 
 
90 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 at the same time I can say this of him, that there is not 
 a point in the compass but blows home a ship in which 
 he is an owner. 
 
 Next to Sir Andrew in the club-room sits Captain Sen- 
 5 try, a gentleman of great courage, good understanding," 
 but invincible modesty. He is one of those that deserve 
 very well, but are very awkward at putting their talents 
 within the observation of such as should take notice of 
 them. He was some years a captain, and behaved him- 
 
 10 self 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. I have 
 
 1 5 heard him often lament that in a profession where merit 
 is placed in so conspicuous a view, impudence should get 
 the better of modesty. When he had talked to this pur- 
 pose, I never heard him make a sour expression, but 
 frankly confess that he left the world because he was not 
 
 20 fit for it. A strict honesty, and an even, regular behaviour, 
 are in themselves obstacles to him that must press through 
 crowds who endeavour at the same end with himself, the 
 favour of a commander. He will, however, in his way of 
 talk excuse generals for not disposing according to men's 
 
 25 desert or inquiring into it; " for," says he, "that great man 
 who has a mind to help me has as many to break through 
 to come at me as I have to come at him.'' Therefore he 
 will conclude that the man who would make a figure, 
 especially jtL a military way, must get over all false mod- 
 
 30 esty, and assist hfrpatran against the importunity of other 
 pretenders by a proper assurance in his own vindication. 
 He says it is a civil cowardice to be backward in assert- 
 ing what you ought to expect, as it is a military fear to 
 be slow in attacking when it is your duty. With this can- 
 
THE SPECTATOR. 91 
 
 dour does the gentleman speak of himself and others. 
 The same frankness runs through all his conversation. 
 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 5 
 accustomed to command men in the utmost degree below 
 him; nor ever too obsequious, from a habit of obeying 
 men highly above him. 
 
 But that our society may not appear a set of humourists 
 unacquainted with the gallantries and pleasure of the age, 10 
 we have among us the gallant Will Honeycomb, a gen- 
 tleman who, according to his years, should be in the 
 decline of his life ; but, having 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 15 
 forehead or traces in his brain. His person is well turned 
 and 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 others do mei;. He can smile when one speaks to 20 
 him, and laughs easily. He knows the history of every 
 mode, and can inform you from which of the French 
 king's wenches our wives and daughters had this manner 
 of curling their hair, that way of placing their hoods, 
 whose frailty was covered by such a sort of petticoat, and 25 
 whose vanity to shew her foot made that part of the dress 
 so short in such a year. In a word, all his conversation 
 and knowledge has been in the female world. As other 
 men of his age will take notice to you what such a minis- 
 ter said upon such an occasion, he will tell you, when the 30 
 Duke of Monmouth danced at court, such a woman was 
 then smitten, another was taken with him at the head 
 of his troop in the Park. In all these important relations 
 he has ever about the same time received a kind glance 
 
92 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 or a blow of a fan from some celebrated beauty, mother 
 of the present Lord Such-a-one. If you speak of a young 
 commoner that said a lively thing in the House, he starts 
 up : " He has good blood in his veins ; Tom Mirabell 
 5 begot him ; the rogue cheated me in that affair ; that 
 young fellow's mother used me more like a dog than any 
 woman I ever made advances to.'' This way of talking 
 of his very much enlivens the conversation among us of 
 a more sedate turn, and I find there is not one of the 
 
 10 company but myself, who rarely speak at all, but speaks 
 of him as of that sort of man who is usually called a well- 
 bred, fine gentleman. To conclude his character, where 
 women are not concerned, he is an honest, worthy 
 man. 
 
 15 I cannot tell whether I am to account him whom I am 
 next to speak of as one of our company, for he visits us 
 but seldom ; but when he does, it adds to every man else 
 a new enjoyment of himself. He is a clergyman, a very 
 philosophic man, of general learning, great sanctity of 
 
 20 life, and the most exact good breeding.. He has the mis- 
 fortune to be of a very weak constitution, and consequently 
 cannot accept of such cares and business as preferments 
 in his function would oblige him to ; he is therefore 
 among divines what a chamber-counsellor is among law- 
 
 25 yers. The probity of his mind and the integrity of his 
 life create him followers as being eloquent or loud 
 advances others. He seldom introduces the subject he 
 speaks upon ; but we are so far gone in years that he 
 observes, when he is among us, an earnestness to have 
 
 30 him fall on some divine topic, which he always treats with 
 much authority, as one who has no interest 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. 
 
THE SPECTA TOR. 93 
 
 [No. 88.] 
 
 Quid domini facient, audent cum talia fures? 
 
 ViRG. 
 
 May 30, lyii. 
 
 Mr. Spectator : — I have no small value for your 
 endeavours to lay before the world what may escape their 
 observation and yet highly conduces to their service. 5 
 You have, I think, succeeded very well on many subjects; 
 and seem to have been conversant in very different scenes 
 of life. But in the considerations of mankind, as a Spec- 
 tator, you should not omit circumstances which relate to 
 the inferior part of the world any more than those which 10 
 concern the greater. There is one thing in particular 
 which I wonder you have not touched upon, and that is 
 the general corruption of manners in the servants of 
 Great Britain. I am a man that have travelled and seen 
 many nations, but have for seven years last past resided 15 
 constantly in London or within twenty miles of it. In 
 this time I have contracted a numerous acquaintance 
 among the best sort of people, and have hardly found one 
 of them happy in their servants. This is matter of great 
 astonishment to foreigners and all such as have visited 20 
 foreign countries ; especially since we cannot but observe 
 that there is no part of the world where servants have 
 those privileges and advantages as in England. They 
 have nowhere else such plentiful diet, large wages, or 
 indulgent liberty. There is no place where they labour 25 
 less, and yet where they are so little respectful, more 
 wasteful, more negligent, or where they so frequently 
 change their masters. To this I attribute, in a great 
 measure, the frequent robberies and losses which we suf- 
 fer on the high road and in our own houses. That, indeed, 30 
 which gives me the present thought of the kind is that a 
 careless groom of mine has spoiled me the prettiest pad 
 
94 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 in the world with only riding him ten miles ; and I assure 
 you if I were to make a register of all the horses I have 
 known thus abused by the negligence of servants, the 
 number would mount a regiment. I wish you would give 
 5 us your observations, that we may know how to treat 
 these rogues, or that we masters may enter into measures 
 to reform them. Pray give us a speculation in general 
 about servants, and you make me 
 
 Yours, 
 10 Philo-Britannicus. 
 
 Pray do not omit the mention of grooms in particular. 
 
 This honest gentleman, who is so desirous that I should 
 write a satire upon grooms, has a great deal of reason for 
 his resentment ; and I know no evil which touches all 
 
 15 mankind so much as this of the misbehaviour of ser- 
 vants. 
 
 The complaint of this letter runs wholly upon men- 
 servants ; and I can attribute the licentiousness which 
 has at present prevailed among them, to nothing but 
 
 20 what a hundred before me have ascribed it to, the custom 
 of giving board-wages. This one instance of false econ- 
 omy is sufficient to debauch the whole nation of servants, 
 and makes them as it were but for some part of their 
 time in that quality. They are either attending in places 
 
 25 where they meet and run into clubs, or else, if they wait 
 at taverns, they eat after their masters, and reserve their 
 wages for other occasions. From hence it arises, that 
 they are but in a lower degree what their masters 
 themselves are, and usually affect an imitation of their 
 
 30 manners ; and you have, in liveries, beaux, fops, and 
 coxcombs in as high perfection as among people that 
 keep equipages. It is a common humour among the 
 retinue of people of quality, when they are in their revels, 
 
THE SPECTATOR. 95 
 
 that is, when they are out of their masters sight, 
 to assume in a humorous way the names and titles of 
 those whose liveries they wear. By which means, char- 
 acters and distinctions become so familiar to them, that 
 it is to this, among other causes, one may impute a 5 
 certain insolence among our servants, that they take no 
 notice of any gentleman, though they know him ever so 
 well, except he is an acquaintaince of their master. 
 
 My obscurity and taciturnity leave me at liberty, 
 without scandal, to dine, if I think fit, at a common 10 
 ordinary, in the meanest as well as the most sumptuous 
 house of entertainment. Falling in the other day at a 
 victualling-house near the House of Peers, I heard the 
 maid come down and tell the landlady at the bar, that 
 my lord bishop swore he would throw her out at window, 1 5 
 if she did not bring up more mild beer, and that my lord 
 duke would have a double mug of purl. My surprise 
 was increased, in hearing loud and rustic voices speak 
 and answer to each other upon the public affairs, by the 
 names of the most illustrious of our nobility ; - till of a 20 
 sudden one came running in, and cried the house was 
 rising. Down came all the company together, and away ! 
 The alehouse was immediately filled with clamour, and 
 scoring one mug to the marquis of such a place, oil and 
 vinegar to such an earl, three quarts to my new lord for 25 
 wetting his title, and so forth. It is a thing too notorious 
 to mention the crowd of servants, and their insolence, near 
 the courts of justice, and the stairs towards the supreme 
 assembly, where there is a universal mockery of all order, 
 such riotous clamour and licentious confusion that one 30 
 would think the whole nation lived, in jest, and that there 
 were no such thing as rule and distinction among us. 
 
 The next place of resort, wherein the servile world are 
 let loose, is at the entrance of Hyde Park, while the 
 
96 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 gentry are at the Ring. Hither people bring their 
 lackeys out of state, and here it is that all they say at 
 their tables and act in their houses is communicated to 
 the whole town. There are men of wit in all conditions 
 5 of life ; and, mixing with these people at their diversions, 
 I have heard coquettes and prudes as well rallied, and 
 insolence and pride exposed (allowing for their want of 
 education), with as much humour and good sense, as in 
 the politest companies. It is a general observation, that 
 
 10 all dependents run in some measure into the manners 
 and behaviour of those whom they serve. You shall 
 frequently meet with lovers and men of intrigue among 
 the lackeys as well as at White's or in the side boxes. I 
 remember once some years ago an instance of this kind. 
 
 1 5 A footman to a captain .of the Guard used frequently, 
 when his master was out of the way, to carry on amours 
 and make assignations in his master's clothes. The 
 fellow had a very good person, and there were very many 
 women who think no further than the outside of a 
 
 20 gentleman ; besides which, he was almost as learned a 
 man as the colonel himself. I say, thus qualified, the 
 fellow could scrawl billets doux so well, and furnish a 
 conversation on common topics, that he had, as they call 
 it, a great deal of good business on his hands. It 
 
 25 happened one day that, coming down a tavern stairs, in 
 his master's fine guard-coat, with a well-dressed woman 
 masked, he met the colonel coming up with other com- 
 pany; but with a ready assurance he quitted his lady, 
 came up to him, and said, " Sir, I know you have too 
 
 30 much respect for yourself to cane me in this honourable 
 habit. But you see there is a lady in the case, and I 
 hope on that score also you will put off your anger till 
 I have told you all another time." After a little pause 
 the colonel cleared up his countenance, and with an 
 
THE SPECTATOR. 97 
 
 air of familiarity whispered his man apart, " Sirrah, 
 bring the lady with you to ask pardon for you " ; then 
 aloud, " Look to it. Will. I '11 never forgive you else." 
 The fellow went back to his mistress, and telling her, 
 with a loud voice and an oath, that was the honestest 5 
 fellow in the world, conveyed her to a hackney-coach. 
 
 But the many irregularities committed by servants in 
 the places above-mentioned, as well as in the theatres, 
 of which masters are generally the occasions, are too 
 various not to need being resumed on another occasion. 10 
 
 [No. 109.] 
 
 Ab normis sapiens. Hor. 
 
 Thursday, July j', lyii. 
 
 I was this morning walking in the gallery, when Sir 
 Roger entered at the end opposite Jo me, and advancing 
 towards me, said he was glad to meet me among his 15 
 relations the de Coverleys, and hoped I liked the conver- 
 sation of so much good company, who were as silent as 
 myself. I knew he alluded to the pictures, and as he is 
 a gentleman who does not a little value himself upon his 
 ancient descent, I expected he would give me some 20 
 account of them. We were now arrived at the upper 
 end of the gallery, when the knight faced towards one of 
 the pictures, and, as we stood before it, he entered into 
 the matter after his blunt way of saying things as they 
 occur to his imagination, without regular introduction, or 25 
 care to preserve the appearance of chain of thought. 
 
 " It is," said he, " worth while to consider the force of 
 dress ; and how the persons of one age differ from those 
 of another, merely by that only. One may observe, also, 
 that the general fashion of one age has been followed by 30 
 one particular set of people in another, and by them 
 preserved from one generation to another. Thus the 
 
98 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 vast jetting coat and small bonnet, which was the habit 
 in Henry the Seventh's time, is kept on in the yeomen 
 of the Guard; not without a good and politic view, 
 because they look a foot taller, and a foot and an half 
 
 5 broader, besides that the cap leaves the face expanded, 
 and consequently more terrible and fitter to stand at the 
 entrance of palaces. 
 
 " This predecessor of ours, you see, is dressed after this 
 manner, and his cheeks would be no larger than mine 
 
 10 were he in a hat as I am. He was the last man that 
 won a prize in the Tilt Yard (which is now a common 
 street before Whitehall). You see the broken lance that 
 lies there by his right foot. He shivered that lance of 
 his adversary all to pieces ; and bearing himself, look 
 
 15 yoiu, sir, in this manner, at the same time he came within 
 the target of the gentleman who rode against him, and 
 taking him with incredible force before him on the pum- 
 mel of his saddle, he in that manner rid the tournament 
 over, with an air that shewed he did it rather to perform 
 
 20 the rules of the lists than expose his enemy ; however, 
 it appeared he knew how to make use of a victory, and 
 with a gentle trot he marched up to a gallery where their 
 mistress sat (for they were rivals), and let him down with 
 laudable courtesy and pardonable insolence. I do not 
 
 25 know but it might be exactly where the coffee-house is 
 now. 
 
 '" You are to know this my ancestor was not only of a 
 military genius, but fit also for the arts of peace, for he 
 played on the bass-viol as well as any gentleman at court ; 
 
 30 you see where his viol hangs by his basket-hilt sword. 
 The action at the Tilt Yard, you may be sure, won the 
 fair lady, who was a maid of honour and the greatest 
 beauty of her time; here she stands, the next picture. 
 You see, sir, my great-great-great-grandmother has on 
 
THE SPECTATOR. 99 
 
 the new-fashioned petticoat, except that the modern is 
 gathered at the waist ; my grandmother appears as if she 
 stood in a large drum, whereas the ladies now walk as if 
 they were in a go-cart. For all this lady was bred at 
 court, she became an excellent country-wife ; she brought 5 
 ten children, and when I show you the library, you shall 
 see in her own hand (allowing for the difference of the 
 language) the best receipt now in England both for a 
 hasty-pudding and a white-pot. 
 
 " If you please to fall back a little, because it is neces- 10 
 sary to look at the three next pictures at one view ; these 
 are three sisters. She on the right hand who is so very 
 beautiful, died a maid ; the next to her, still handsomer, 
 had the same fate, against her will ; this homely thing in 
 the middle had both their portions added to her own, and 15 
 was stolen by a neighbouring gentleman, a man of strata- 
 gem and resolution ; for he poisoned three mastiffs to 
 come at her, and knocked down two deer-stealers in 
 carrying her off. Misfortunes happen in all families. 
 The theft of this romp, and so much money, was no 20 
 great matter to our estate ; but the next heir that 
 possessed it was this soft gentleman whom you see there; 
 observe the small buttons, the little boots, the laces, the 
 slashes about his clothes, and above all the posture he is 
 drawn in (which to be sure was his own choosing) : you 25 
 see he sits with one hand on a desk, writing, and looking, 
 as it were, another way, like an easy writer, or a sonnet- 
 teer. He was one of those that had too much wit to 
 know how to live in the world ; he was a man of no 
 justice, but great good manners ; he ruined everybody 30 
 that had anything to do with him, but never said a rude 
 thing in his life ; the most indolent person in the world, 
 he would sign a deed that passed away half his estate 
 with his gloves on, but would not put on his hat before a 
 
100 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 lady if it were to save his country. He is said to be the 
 first that made love by squeezing the hand. He left the 
 estate with ten thousand pounds debt upon it ; but, 
 however, by all hands I have been informed that he was 
 
 5 every way the finest gentleman in the world. That debt 
 lay heavy on our house for one generation, but it was 
 retrieved by a gift from that honest man you see there, a 
 citizen of our name, but nothing at all akin to us. I 
 know Sir Andrew Freeport has said behind my back that 
 
 10 this man was descended from one of the ten children of 
 the maid of honour I showed you above. But it was 
 never made out ; we winked at the thing, indeed, 
 because money was wanting at that time." 
 
 Here I saw my friend a little embarrassed, and turned 
 
 15 my face to the next portraiture. 
 
 Sir Roger went on with his account of the gallery in 
 the following manner. " This man (pointing to him I 
 looked at) I take to be the honour of our house, Sir 
 Humphrey de Coverley; he was in his dealings as punctual 
 
 20 as a tradesman, and as generous as a gentleman. He 
 would have thought himself as much undone by breaking 
 his word, as if it were to be followed by bankruptcy. 
 He served his country as knight of the shire to his dying 
 day. He found it no easy matter to maintain an integ- 
 
 25 rityin his words and actions even in things that regarded 
 the offices which were incumbent upon him, in the care 
 of his own affairs and relations of life, and therefore 
 dreaded (though he had great talents) to go into employ- 
 ments of state, where he must be exposed to the snares 
 
 30 of ambition. Innocence of life and great ability were 
 the distinguishing parts of his character ; the latter, he 
 had often observed, had led to the destruction of the 
 former, and he used frequently to lament that great and 
 good had not the same signification. He was an excel- 
 
THE SPECTATOR. 101 
 
 lent husbandman, but had resolved not to exceed such a 
 degree of wealth ; all above it he bestowed in secret 
 bounties many years after the sum he aimed at for his 
 own use was attained. Yet he did not slacken his 
 industry, but to a decent old age spent the life and 5 
 fortune which were superfluous to himself in the service 
 of his friends and neighbours." 
 
 Here we were called to dinner, and Sir Roger ended 
 the discourse of this gentleman, by telling me, as we 
 followed the servant, that this his ancestor was a brave 10 
 man, and narrowly escaped being killed in the civil wars ; 
 "for," said he, "he was sent out of the field upon a 
 private message, the day before the battle of Worcester." 
 The whim of narrowly escaping by having been within 
 a day of danger, with other matters above-mentioned, 15 
 mixed with good sense, left me at a loss whether I was 
 more delighted with my friend's wisdom or simplicity. 
 
 [No. 113.] 
 
 HaERENT INFIX! PECTORE VULTUS.. 1 
 
 Tuesday, July 10, 171 1- 
 
 In my first description of the company in which I pass 20 
 most of my time, it may be remembered that I mentioned 
 a great affliction which my friend Sir Roger had met with 
 in his youth, which was no less than a disappointment in 
 love. It happened this evening that we fell into a very 
 pleasing walk at a distance from his house. As soon as 25 
 we came into it, " It is," quoth the good old man, looking 
 round him with a smile, " very hard that any part of my 
 land should be settled upon one who has used me so ill 
 as the perverse widow did ; and yet I am sure I could 
 not see a sprig of any bough of this whole walk of trees 30 
 but I should reflect upon her and her severity. She has 
 
102 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 certainly the finest hand of any woman in the world. 
 You are to know, this was the place wherein I used to 
 muse upon her ; and by that custom I can never come 
 into it but the same tender sentiments revive in my mind, 
 5 as if I had actually walked with that beautiful creature 
 under these shades. I have been fool enough to carve 
 her name on the bark of several of these trees; so 
 unhappy is the condition of men in love, to attempt the 
 removing of their passion by the methods which serve 
 
 10 only to imprint it deeper. She has certainly the finest 
 hand of any woman in the world.'' 
 
 Here followed a profound silence ; and I was not 
 displeased to observe my friend falling so naturally into 
 a discourse which I had ever before taken notice he 
 
 15 industriously avoided. After a very long pause, he 
 entered upon an account of this great circumstance in 
 his life, with an air which I thought raised my idea of 
 him above what I had ever had before, and gave me the 
 picture of that cheerful mind of his before it received 
 
 20 that stroke which has ever since affected his words and 
 actions. But he went on as follows : — 
 
 " I came to my estate in my twenty-second year, and 
 resolved to follow the steps of the most worthy of my 
 ancestors who have inhabited this spot of earth before 
 
 25 me, in all the methods of hospitality and good neighbour- 
 hood, for the sake of my fame, and in country sports 
 and recreations, for the sake of my health. In my 
 twenty-third year I was obliged to serve as sheriff of the 
 county ; and in my servants, officers, and whole equipage, 
 
 30 indulged the pleasure of a young man (who did not think 
 ill of his own person) in taking that public occasion of 
 showing my figure and behaviour to advantage. You 
 may easily imagine to yourself what appearance I made, 
 who am pretty tall, ride well, and was very well dressed, 
 
THE SPECTATOR. 103 
 
 at the head of a whole county, with music before me, a 
 feather in my hat, and my horse well bitted. I can 
 assure you I was not a little pleased with the kind looks 
 and glances I had from all the balconies and windows as 
 I rode to the hall where the assizes were held. But, 5 
 when I came there, a beautiful creature in a widow's 
 habit sat in court to hear the event of a cause concerning 
 her dower. This commanding creature (who was born 
 for the destruction of all who behold her) put on such a 
 resignation in her countenance, and bore the whispers of 10 
 all around the court with such a pretty uneasiness, I 
 warrant you, and then recovered herself from one eye to 
 another, until she was perfectly confused by meeting 
 something so wistful in all she encountered, that at last, 
 with a murrain to her, she casts her bewitching eye upon 15 
 me. I no sooner met it but I bowed like a great 
 surprised booby ; and knowing her cause to be the first 
 which came on, I cried, like a captivated calf as I was, 
 " Make way for the defendant's witnesses.' This sudden 
 partiality made all the county immediately see the sheriff 20 
 also was become a slave to the fine widow. During the 
 time her cause was upon trial, she behaved herself, I 
 warrant you, with such a deep attention to her business, 
 took opportunities to have little billets handed to her 
 counsel, then would be in such a pretty confusion, occa- 25 
 sioned, you must know, by acting before so much com- 
 pany, that not only I but the whole court was prejudiced 
 in her favour ; and all that the next heir to her husband 
 had to urge was thought so groundless and frivolous, 
 that when it came to her counsel to reply, there was not 30 
 half so much said as every one besides in the court 
 thought he could have urged to her advantage. You 
 must understand, sir, this perverse woman is one of 
 those unaccountable creatures that secretly rejoice in the 
 
RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 admiration of men, but indulge themselves in no farther 
 consequences. Hence it is that she has ever had a train 
 of admirers, and she removes from her slaves in town to 
 those in the country, according to the seasons of the 
 5 year. She is a reading lady, and far gone in the pleas- 
 ures of friendship. She is always accompanied by a 
 confidante, who is witness to her daily protestations 
 against our sex, and consequently a bar to her first steps 
 towards love, upon the strength of her own maxims and 
 
 lo declarations. 
 
 " However, I must need say, this accomplished mistress 
 of mine has distinguished me above the rest, and has 
 been known to declare Sir Roger de Coverley was the 
 tamest and most human of all the brutes in the country. 
 
 1 5 I was told she said so by one who thought he rallied me ; 
 but upon the strength of this slender encouragement of 
 being thought least detestable, I made new liveries, new- 
 paired my coach-horses, sent them all to town to be 
 bitted, and taught to throw their legs well, and move 
 
 20 all together, before I pretended to cross the country, and 
 wait upon her. As soon as I thought my retinue suitable 
 to the character of my fortune and youth, I set out from 
 hence to make my addresses. The particular skill of 
 this lady has ever been to inflame your wishes, and yet 
 
 25 command respect. To make her mistress of this art, she 
 has a greater share of knowledge, wit, and good sense 
 than is usual even among men of merit. Then she is 
 beautiful beyond the race of women. If you will not let 
 her go on with a certain artifice with her eyes, and the 
 
 30 skill of beauty, she will arm herself with her real charms, 
 and strike you with admiration instead of desire. It is 
 certain that if you were to behold the whole woman, 
 there is that dignity in her aspect, that composure in her 
 motion, that complacency in her manner, that if her form 
 
THE SPECTATOR. 105 
 
 makes you hope, her merit makes you fear. But then 
 again, she is such a desperate scholar that no country 
 gentleman can approach her without being a jest. As I 
 was going to tell you, when I came to her house I was 
 admitted to her presence with great civility ; at the same 5 
 time she placed herself to be first seen by me in such an 
 attitude, as I think you call the posture of a picture, that 
 she discovered new charms, and I at last came towards 
 her with such an awe as made me speechless. This she 
 no sooner observed but she made her advantage of it, 10 
 and began a discourse to me concerning love and honour, 
 as they both are followed by pretenders, and the real 
 votaries to them. When she discussed these points in a 
 discourse which, I verily believe, was as learned as the 
 best philosopher in Europe could possibly make, she 15 
 asked me whether she was so happy as to fall in with 
 my sentiments on these important particulars. Her con- 
 fidante sat by her, and on my being in the last confusion 
 and silence, this malicious aid of hers, turning to her, 
 says, ' I am very glad to observe Sir Roger pauses upon 20 
 this subject, and seems resolved to deliver all his senti- 
 ments upon the matter when he pleases to speak.' They 
 both kept their countenances, and after I had sat half an 
 hour meditating how to behave before such profound 
 casuists, I rose up and took my leave. Chance has since 25 
 that time thrown me very often in her way, and she as 
 often has directed a discourse to me which I do not 
 understand. This barbarity has kept me ever at a 
 distance from the most beautiful object my eyes ever 
 beheld. It is thus also she deals with all mankind, and 30 
 you must make love to her as you would conquer the 
 sphinx, by posing her. But were she like other women, 
 and that there were any talking to her, how constant 
 must the pleasure of that man be, who could converse 
 
106 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 with a creature — But, after all, you may be sure her 
 heart is fixed on some one or other ; and yet I have been 
 credibly informed — but.who can believe half that is said ! 
 After she had done speaking to me, she put her hand 
 5 to her bosom, and adjusted her tucker ; then she cast 
 her eyes a little down, upon my beholding her too 
 earnestly. They say she sings excellently ; her voice in 
 her ordinary speech has something in it inexpressibly 
 sweet. You must know I dined with her at a public 
 
 10 table the day after I first saw her, and she helped me to 
 some tansy in the eye of all the gentlemen in the country. 
 She has certainly the finest hand of any woman in the 
 world. I can assure you, sir, were you to behold her, 
 you would be in the same condition ; for as her speech is 
 
 15 music, her form is angelic. But I find I grow irregular 
 while I am talking of her ; but indeed it would be 
 stupidity to be unconcerned at such perfection. Oh, the 
 excellent creature ! she is as inimitable to all women as 
 she is inaccessible to all men." 
 
 20 I found my friend begin to rave, and insensibly led 
 him towards the house, that we might be Joined by some 
 other company, and am convinced that the widow is the 
 secret cause of all that inconsistency which appears in 
 some parts of my friend's discourse ; though he has so 
 
 25 much command of himself as not directly to mention 
 her, yet according to that of Martial which one knows 
 not how to render into English, dum facet hanc loquitur. 
 I shall end this paper with that whole epigram, which 
 represents with much humour my honest friend's condi- 
 
 30 tion : — 
 
 " Quicquid agit Rufus, nihil est, nisi Naevia Rufo, 
 Si gaudet, si flet, si tacet, hanc loquitur : 
 Coenat, propinat, poscit, neget, annuit, una est 
 Naevia : si non sit Naevia, mutus erit. 
 
THE SPECTATOR. 107 
 
 Scriberet hesterna patri cum luce salutem, 
 Naevia lux, iuquit, Naevia numen, ave." 
 
 " Let Rufus weep, rejoice, stand, sit, or walk, 
 Still he can nothing but of Naevia talk ; 
 
 Let him eat, drink, ask questions, or dispute, S 
 
 Still he must speak of Na;via, or be mute. 
 He writ to his father, ending with this line — 
 I am, my lovely Nasvia, ever thine." 
 
 [No. 248.] 
 
 Hoc MAXIME OFFICII EST, UT QUISQUE MAXIME OPIS INDIGEAT, ITA 
 
 EI POTISSIMUM OPITULARI. TuLL. TO 
 
 Friday, December 14, ijii. 
 
 There are none who deserve superiority over others in 
 the esteem of mankind, who do not make it their endeav- 
 our to be beneficial to society, and who, upon all occasions 
 which their circumstances of life can administer, do not 15 
 take a certain unfeigned pleasure in conferring benefits 
 of one kind or other. Those whose great talents and high 
 birth have placed them in conspicuous stations of life are 
 indispensably obliged to exert some noble inclinations for 
 the service of the world, or else such advantages become 20 
 misfortunes, and shade and privacy are a more eligible 
 portion. Where opportunities and inclinations are given 
 to the same person, we sometimes see sublime instances 
 of virtue, which so dazzle our imaginations, that we look 
 with scorn on all which in lower scenes of life we may 25 
 ourselves be able to practise. But this is a vicious way 
 of thinking ; and it bears some spice of romantic madness 
 for a man to imagine that he must grow ambitious, or seek 
 adventures, to be able to do great actions. It is in every 
 man's power in the world who is above mere poverty, not 3° 
 only to do things wofthy, but heroic. The great founda- 
 tion of civil virtue is self-denial ; and there is no one 
 
108 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 above the necessities of life but has opportunities of exer- 
 cising that noble quality, and doing as much as his cir- 
 cumstances will bear for the ease and convenience of 
 other men ; and he who does more than ordinarily men 
 S practise upon such occasions as occur in his life, deserves 
 the value of his friends, as if he had done enterprises 
 which are usually attended with the highest glory. Men 
 of public spirit differ rather in their circumstances than 
 their virtue ; and the man who does all he can, in a low 
 
 10 station, is more a hero than he who omits any worthy 
 action he is able to accomplish in a great one. It is not 
 many years ago since Lapirius, in wrong of his elder 
 brother, came to a great estate by gift of his father, by 
 reason of the dissolute behaviour of the first-born. Shame 
 
 15 and contrition reformed the life of the disinherited youth, 
 and he became as remarkable for his good qualities as 
 formerly for his errors. Lapirius, who observed his 
 brother's amendment, sent him on a New Year's Day in 
 the morning the following letter : 
 
 20 Honoured Brother, 
 
 I enclose to you the deeds whereby my father gave me 
 ' this house and land. Had he lived till now, he would not 
 have bestowed it in that manner ; he took it from the man 
 you were, and I restore it to the man you are. 
 25 I am. Sir, your affectionate brother, 
 
 and humble servant, 
 
 P. T. 
 
 As great and exalted spirits undertake the pursuit of 
 hazardous actions for the good of others, at the same time 
 30 gratifying their passion for glory, so do worthy minds in 
 the domestic way of life deny themselves many advan- 
 tages, to satisfy a generous benevolence, which they bear 
 
THE SPECTATOR. 109 
 
 to their friends oppressed with distresses and calamities. 
 Such natures one may call stores of Providence, which 
 are actuated by a secret celestial influence to undervalue 
 the ordinary gratifications of wealth, to give comfort to an 
 heart loaded with affliction, to save a falling family, to 5 
 preserve a branch of trade in their neighbourjiood, and 
 give work to the industrious, preserve the portion of the 
 helpless infant, and raise the head of the mourning father. 
 People whose hearts are wholly bent towards pleasure or 
 intent upon gain, never hear of the noble occurrences lo 
 among men of industry and humanity. It would look 
 like a city romance to tell them of the generous merchant, 
 who the other day sent this billet to an eminent trader, 
 under difficulties to support himself, in whose fall many 
 hundreds besides himself had perished; but because I 15 
 think there is more spirit and true gallantry in it than in 
 any letter I have ever read from Strephon to Phillis, I 
 shall insert it even in the mercantile honest style in which 
 it was sent. 
 
 Sir, 20 
 
 I have heard of the casualties which have involved 
 you in extreme distress at this time ; and, knowing you 
 to be a man of great good nature, industry, and probity, 
 have resolved to stand by you. Be of good cheer ; the 
 bearer brings with him five thousand pounds, and has my 25 
 order to answer your drawing as much more .on my 
 account. I did this in haste, for fear I should come too 
 late for your relief ; but you may value yourself with me 
 to the sum of fifty thousand pounds ; for I can very cheer- 
 fully run the hazard of being so much less rich than I am 30 
 now, to save an honest man whom I love. 
 
 Your friend and servant, 
 
 W. S. 
 
110 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 I think there is somewhere in Montaigne mention made 
 of a family-book, wherein all the occurrences that hap- 
 pened from one generation of that house to another were 
 recorded. Were there such a method in the families 
 S which are concerned in this generosity, it would be an hard 
 task for the greatest in Europe to give in their own an 
 instance of a benefit better placed, or conferred with a 
 more graceful air. It has been heretofore urged how bar- 
 barous and inhuman is any unjust step made to the dis- 
 
 10 advantage of a trader ; and by how much such an act 
 towards him is detestable, by so much an act of kindness 
 towards him is laudable. I remember to have heard a 
 bencher of the Temple tell a story of a tradition in their 
 house, where they had formerly a custom of choosing 
 
 IS kings for such a season, and allowing him his expenses at 
 the charge of the society. One of our kings, said my 
 friend, carried his royal inclination a little too far, and 
 there was a committee ordered to look into the manage- 
 ment of his treasury. Among other things it appeared, 
 
 20 that his majesty walking incog, in the cloister, had 
 overheard a poor man say to another, " Such a small sum 
 would make me the happiest man in the world." The 
 king, out of his royal compassion, privately inquired into 
 his character, and finding him a proper object of charity, 
 
 25 sent him the money. When the cotamittee read the 
 report, the house passed his accounts v;ith &plauditemiXh- 
 out further examination, upon the recital of this article in 
 them : 
 
 £ =. d. 
 For making a man happy 1000 
 
THE SPECTATOR. Ill 
 
 [No. 324.] 
 
 UjQU&VAEXN terris animae, et coelestium inanes ! 
 
 Pers. 
 
 Mr. Spectator, Wednesday, March. 12, iyi2. 
 
 The materials you have collected together towards a 
 general history of clubs make so bright a part of your 
 speculations that I think it is but a justice we all owe the s 
 learned world, to furnish you with such assistances as may 
 promote that useful work. For this reason I could not 
 forbear communicating to you some imperfect information 
 of a set of men (if you will allow them a place in that 
 species of being) who have lately erected themselves into 10 
 a nocturnal fraternity, under the title of the Mohock Club, 
 a name borrowed, it seems, from a sort of cannibals in 
 India, who subsist by plundering and devouring all the 
 nations about them. The president is styled " Emperor 
 of the Mohocks"; and his arms are a Turkish crescent, 15 
 which his imperial majesty bears at present in a very 
 extraordinary manner engraven upon his forehead. Agree- 
 able to their name, the avowed design of their institution 
 is mischief ; and upon this foundation all their rules and 
 orders are framed. An outrageous ambition of doing all 20 
 possible hurt to their fellow-creatures is the great cement 
 of their assembly and the only qualification required in 
 the members. In order to exert this principle in its full 
 strength and perfection, they take care to drink themselves 
 to a pitch, that is, beyond the possibility of attending to 25 
 any motions of reason or humanity ; then make a general 
 sally, and attack all that are so unfortunate as to walk the 
 streets through which they patrol. Some are knocked 
 down, others stabbed, others cut and carbonadoed. To 
 put the watch to a total rout, and mortify some of those 30 
 inoffensive militia, is reckoned a coup d'Sdat. The par- 
 
112 RICHARD STEEIfE. 
 
 ticular talents by which these misanthropes are distin- 
 guished from one another consist in the various kinds 
 of barbarities which they execute upon their prisoners. 
 I Some are celebrated for a happy dexterity in tipping the 
 5 lion upon them, which is performed by squeezing the 
 I nose flat to the face, and boring out the eyes with their 
 fingers. Others are called the dancing-masters, and teach 
 1 their scholars to cut capers by running swords through 
 their legs ; a new invention, whether originally French I 
 
 lo; cannot tell. A third sort are the tumblers, whose office it 
 is to set women on their heads and commit certain inde- 
 cencies, or rather barbarities, on the limbs they expose. 
 But these I forbear to mention, because they cannot but 
 be very shocking to the reader as well as the Spectator. 
 
 I s In this manner they carry on a war against mankind, and, 
 by the standing maxims of their policy, are to enter into 
 no alliances but one, and that is ofEensive and defensive 
 with all bawdy-houses in general, of which they have 
 declared themselves protectors and guarantees. 
 
 20 I must own, sir, these are only broken, incoherent 
 memoirs of this wonderful society ; but they are the best 
 I have been yet able to procure, for, being but of late 
 establishment, it is not ripe for a just history, and, to be 
 serious, the chief design of this trouble is to hinder it 
 
 25 from ever being so. You have been pleased, out of a 
 concern for the good of your countrymen, to act, under 
 the character of Spectator., not only the part of a looker-on, 
 but an observer of their actions ; and whenever such 
 enormities as this infest the town, we immediately fly to 
 
 30 you for redress. I have reason to believe that some 
 thoughtless youngsters, out of a false notion of bravery 
 and an immoderate fondness to be distinguished for fel- 
 lows of fire, are insensibly hurried into this senseless, 
 scandalous project. Such will probably stand corrected 
 
THE SPECTATOR. 113 
 
 by your reproofs, especially if you inform them that it is 
 not courage for half a score fellows, mad with wine and 
 lust, to set upon two or three soberer than themselves ; 
 and that the manners of Indian savages are no becoming 
 accomplishments to an English fine gentleman. Such of 5 
 them as have been bullies and scowerers of a long stand- 
 ing, and are grown veterans in this kind of service, are, I 
 fear, too hardened to receive any impressions from your 
 admonitions. But I beg you would recommend to their 
 perusal your ninth Speculation. They may there be 10 
 taught to take warning from the club of Duellists, and be 
 put in mind that the common fate of those men of honour 
 was to be hanged. 
 
 I am. Sir, 
 
 Your most humble servant, 1 5 
 
 Philanthropos. 
 March the loth, 1711-12. 
 
 The following letter is of a quite contrary nature ; but 
 I add it here, that the reader may observe, at the same 
 view, how amiable ignorance may be, when it is shown in 20 
 its simplicities ; and how detestable in barbarities. It is 
 written by an honest countryman to his mistress, and 
 came to the hands of a lady of good sense, wrapped 
 about a thread-paper, who has long kept it by her as an 
 image of artless love. as 
 
 To her T very much respect, Mrs. Margaret Clark. 
 
 Lovely, and O that I could write loving, Mrs. Margaret 
 Clark, I pray you let affection excuse presumption. Hav- 
 ing been so happy as to enjoy the sight of your sweet 
 countenance and comely body sometimes, when I had 30 
 occasion to buy treacle or liquorish powder at the apothe- 
 
114 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 cary's shop, I am so enamoured with you that I can no 
 more keep close my flaming desire to become your servant. 
 And I am the more bold now to write to your sweet self 
 because I am now my o wn m an^JJitL iii3,y match where I 
 5 please ; for my tather is taken away, and now I am come 
 to my living, which is ten yard land and a house ; and 
 there is never a yard land in our field but is as well worth 
 ten pound a year as a thief's worth a halter, and all my 
 brothers and sisters are provided for. Besides, I have 
 
 10 good household stuff, though I say it, both brass and 
 pewter, linens and woollens ; and though my home be 
 thatched, yet, if you and I match, it shall go hard but I 
 will have one half of it slated. If you think well of this 
 motion, I will wait upon you as soon as my new clothes 
 
 15 is made, and hay-harvest is in. I could, though I say 
 it, have good matches in our town ; but my mother (God's 
 peace be with her) charged me upon her death-bed, to 
 marry a gentlewoman, one who had been well trained up 
 in sewing and cookery. I do not think but that if you 
 
 20 and I can agree to marry, and lay our means together, I 
 shall be made grand jury-man e'er two or three years 
 come about, and that will be a great credit to us. If I 
 could have got a messenger for sixpence, I would have 
 sent one on purpose, and some trifle or other for a token 
 
 25 of my love, but I hope there is nothing lost for that 
 neither. So, hoping you will take this letter in good part, 
 and answer it with what care and speed you can, 
 I rest and remain, 
 
 Yours, if my own, 
 
 30 Mr. Gabriel Bullock, 
 
 now my father is dead. 
 Swepston, Leicestershire. 
 
 When the coal carts come, I shall send oftener; and 
 may come in one of them myself. 
 
THE SPECTATOR. US 
 
 [No. 454.] 
 
 Sine me, vacivum tempus ne quod dem mihi 
 
 LaborIS. Tek. Heau. 
 
 Monday, August 11 li^is]. 
 
 It is an expressible pleasure to know a little of the 
 world ^nd to be oi_Dii-c]iaract£r-or-significancv in it. 5 
 
 To be ever unconcerned, and ever looking on new 
 objects with an endless curiosity, is a delight known only 
 to those who are turned for speculation : nay, they who 
 enjoy it must value things only as they are the objects of 
 speculation, without drawing any worldly advantage to 10 
 themselves from them, but just as they are what contrib- 
 ute to their amusement, or the improvement of the mind. 
 I lay one night last week at Richmond ; and being rest- 
 less, not out of dissatisfaction, but a certain busy inclina- 
 tion one sometimes has, I rose at four in the morning, 15 
 and took boat for London, with a resolution to rove by 
 boat and coach for the next four-and-twenty hours, till 
 the many different objects I must needs meet with should 
 tire my imagination, and give me an inclination to a re- 
 pose more profound than I was at that time capable of. 20 
 I beg people's pardon for an odd humour I am guilty of, 
 and was often that day, which is saluting any person 
 whom I like, whether I know him or not. /This is a par- 
 ticularity would be tolerated in me, if they considered 
 that the greatest pleasure I know I receive at my eyes, 25 
 and that I am obliged to an agreeable person for coming 
 abroad into my view, as another is for a visit of conversa- 
 tion at their own houses. / 
 
 The hours of the day and night are taken up in the 
 cities of London and Westminster by people as different 30 
 from each other as those who are born in different cen- 
 turies. Men of six o'clock give way to those of nine. 
 
116 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 they of nine to the generation of twelve ; and they of 
 twelve disappear, and make room for the fashionable 
 world, who have made two o'clock the noon of the day. 
 When we first put off from shore, we soon fell in with 
 5 a fleet of gardeners, bound for the several market ports 
 of London ; and it was the most pleasing scene imagin- 
 able to see the cheerfulness with which those industrious 
 people plied their way to a certain sale of their goods. 
 The banks on each side are as well peopled, and beauti- 
 
 10 fied with as agreeable plantations, as any spot on the 
 earth ; but the Thames itself, loaded with the product of 
 each shore, added very much to the landscape. It was 
 very easy to observe by their sailing and the countenances 
 of the ruddy virgins who were supercargoes, the parts of 
 
 15 the town to which they were bound. There was an air 
 in the purveyors for Covent Garden, who frequently con- 
 verse with morning rakes, very unlike the seeming sobriety 
 of those bound for Stocks Market. 
 
 Nothing remarkable happened in our voyage ; but I 
 
 20 landed with ten sail of apricot-boats, at Strand Bridge, 
 after having put in at Nine Elms, and taken in melons, 
 consigned by Mr. Cufle, of that place, to Sarah Sewell 
 and Company, at their stall in Covent Garden. We 
 arrived at Strand .Bridge at six of the clock, and were 
 
 25 unloading, when the hackney-coachmen of the foregoing 
 night took their leave of each other at the Darkhouse, to 
 go to bed before the day was too far spent. Chimney- 
 sweepers passed by us as we made up to the market, 
 and some raillery happened between one of the fruit- 
 
 30 wenches and those black men about the Devil and Eve, 
 with allusion to their several professions. I could not 
 believe any place more entertaining than Covent Garden, 
 where I strolled from one fruit-shop to another, with 
 crowds of agreeable young women around me, who were 
 
THE SPECTATOR. 117 
 
 purchasing fruit for their respective families. It was 
 almost eight of the clock before I could leave that variety 
 of objects. I took coach and followed a young lady, who 
 tripped into another just before me, attended by her 
 maid. I saw immediately she was of the family of the 5 
 Vainloves. There are a set of these, who, of all things, 
 ailect the play of blindman's-buff, and leading men into 
 love for they know not whom, who are fled they know 
 not where. This sort of woman is usually a jaunty slat- 
 tern ; she hangs on her clothes, plays her head, varies 10 
 her posture, and changes place incessantly, and all with 
 an appearance of striving at the same time to hide her- 
 self, and yet give you to understand she is in humour to 
 laugh at you. You must have often seen the coachmen 
 make signs with their fingers, as they drive by each other, 1 5 
 to intimate how much they have got that day. They can 
 carry on that language to give intelligence where they are 
 driving. In an instant my coachman took the wink to 
 pursue, and the lady's driver gave the hint that he was 
 going through Longacre toward St. James's ; while he 20 
 whipped up James Street, we drove for King Street, to 
 save the pass at St. Martin's Lane. The coachmen took 
 care to meet, jostle, and threaten each other for way, and 
 be entangled at the end of Newport Street and Longacre. 
 The fright, you must believe, brought down the lady's 25 
 coach-door, and obliged her, with her mask off, to in- 
 quire into the bustle, — when she sees the man she would 
 avoid. The tackle of the coach-window is so bad she 
 cannot draw it up again, and she drives on, sometimes 
 wholly discovered, and sometimes half escaped, according 30 
 to the accident of carriages in her way. One of these 
 ladies keeps her seat in a hackney-coach as well as the 
 best rider does on a managed horse. The laced shoe on 
 her left foot, with a careless gesture, just appearing on 
 
RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 the opposite cushion, held her both firm and in a proper 
 attitude to receive the next jolt. 
 
 As she was an excellent coach-woman, many were the 
 glances at each other which we had for an hour and a 
 
 S half, in all parts of the town, by the skill of our drivers, 
 till at last my lady was conveniently lost, with notice from 
 her coachman to ours to make off, and he should hear 
 where she went. This chase was now at an end, and the 
 fellow who drove her came to us, and discovered that he 
 
 10 was ordered to come again in an hour, for that she was a 
 silk-worm.y^ was surprised with this phrase, but found 
 it was a cmt among the hackney fraternity for their best 
 customers, women who ramble twice or thrice a week 
 from shop to shop, to turn over all the goods in town- 
 
 15 wi thout buy i ng ; anything . The silk- worms are, it seems, 
 indulged by the tradesmen ; for, though they never buy, 
 they are ever talking of new silks, laces, and ribbons, 
 and serve the owners in getting them customers, as their 
 common dunners do in making them pay./ 
 
 20 The day of people of fashion began now to break, and 
 carts and hacks were mingled with equipages of show and 
 vanity, when I resolved to walk it, out of cheapness ; but 
 my unhappy curiosity is such, that I find it always my 
 interest to take a' coach, for some odd adventure among 
 
 25 beggars, ballad-singers, or the like, detains and throws 
 me into expense. It happened so immediately, for at the 
 corner of Warwick Street, as I was listening to a new 
 ballad, a ragged rascal, a beggar who knew me, came up 
 to me, and began to turn thft eyes of the good company 
 
 30 upon me, by telling me he was extreme poor, and should 
 die in the street for want of drink, except I immediately 
 would have the charity to give him sixpence to go into 
 the next ale-house and save his life. He urged with a 
 melancholy face, that all his family had died of ^thirst. 
 
THE SPECTATOR. 119 
 
 All the mob have humour, and two or three began to 
 take the jest ; by which Mr.- Sturdy carried his point, and 
 let me sneak off to a coach. As I drove along, it was a 
 pleasing reflection to see the world so prettily checkered 
 since I left Richmond, and the scene still filling with 5 
 children of a new hour. This satisfaction increased as I 
 moved towards the city ; and gay signs, well-disposed 
 streets, magnificent public structures, and wealthy shops 
 adorned with contented faces, made the joy still rising 
 till we came into the centre of the city, and centre of the 10 
 world of trade, the Exchange of London. As other men 
 in the crowds about me were pleased with their hopes 
 and bargains, I found my account in observing them, in 
 attention to their several interests. I, indeed, looked 
 upon myself as the richest man that walked the Exchange 15 
 that day; for my benevolence made me share the gains 
 of every bargain that was made. It was not the least of 
 my satisfaction in my survey, to go up stairs and pass 
 the shops of agreeable females ; to observe so many 
 pretty hands busy in the folding of ribbons, and the 20 
 utmost eagerness of agreeable faces in the sale of patches, 
 pins, and wires, on each side of the counters, was an 
 amusement in which I could longer have indulged myself, 
 had not the dear creatures called to me, to ask what I 
 wanted, when I could not answer, " Only to look at you." 25 
 I went to one of the windows which opened to the area 
 below, where all the several voices lost their distinction, 
 and rose up in a confused humming, which created in me 
 a reflection that could not come into the mind of any but 
 of one a little too studious ; for I said to myself with a kind 30 
 of pun in thought, " What nonsense is all the hurry of 
 this world to those who are above it? " In these, or not 
 much wiser thoughts, I had like to have lost my place at 
 the chop-house, where every man, according to the natu- 
 
120 . RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 ral bashfulness or sullenness of our nation, eats in a 
 public room a mess of broth, or chop of meat, in dumb 
 silence, as if they had no pretence to speak to each other 
 on the foot of being men, except they were of each other's 
 5 acquaintance. 
 
 I went afterward to Robin's, and saw people who had 
 dined with me at the five-penny ordinary just before, give 
 bills for the value of large estates ; and could not but 
 behold with great pleasure property lodged in and trans- 
 
 10 ferred in a moment from, such as would never be masters 
 of half as much as is seemingly in them, and givein from 
 them, every day they live. But before five in the after- 
 noon I left the city, came to my common scene of Covent 
 Garden, and passed the evening at Will's in attending 
 
 15 the discourses of several sets of people, who relieved 
 each other within my hearing on the subjects of cards, 
 dice, love, learning, and politics. The last subject kept 
 me till I heard the streets in the possession of the bell- 
 man, who had now the world to himself, and cried, " Past 
 
 20 two o'clock." This roused me from my seat; and I went 
 to my lodgings, led by a light, whom I put into the dis- 
 course of his private economy, and made him give me an 
 account of the charge, hazard, profit, and loss of a family 
 that depended upon a link, with a design to end my 
 
 25 trivial day with the generosity of sixpence, instead of a 
 third part of that sum. When I came to my chambers, 
 I writ down these minutes, but was at a loss what instruc- 
 tion I should propose to my reader from the enumeration 
 of so many insignificant matters and occurrences ; and I 
 
 30 thought it of great use, if they could learn with me to 
 keep their minds open to gratification, and ready to re- 
 ceive it from anything it meets with. This one circum- 
 stance will make every face you see give you the satisfac- 
 tion you now take in beholding that of a friend ; will 
 
LETTERS. 121 
 
 make every object a pleasing one ; will make all the good 
 which arrives to any man an increase of happiness to 
 yourself. 
 
 XL 
 
 [Letters, 1709-13.] 
 
 [1-7. To Mrs. Steele.] 
 
 I. 
 Dear Prue ^"V 7'^ '709- 
 
 I am just drinking a Pint of Wine and will come home 5 
 forthwith. I am with Mr. Elliot settling things. 
 ¥"•= Ever Ever 
 
 RiCHD Steele. 
 
 2. 
 
 Dear Prue J^'^y ^S'^^ '7°9^ from Mr. Nutts. 
 
 I have finished the Gazette at the Office, and am here 10 
 ending the other businesse in order to have the Evening 
 with my Wife and Mistresse Prue. 
 
 Here is next door a fellow that makes old Wiggs new 
 
 therefore Pray send both mine in the Bed Chamber by 
 
 this boy to ¥■■ Loving Devoted Obedient Husband i s 
 
 R. Steele. 
 
 3- 
 Dear Wife ^'^- -V'*' nog-^o. 
 
 I beleive I am the first that ever rejoiced at the flight 
 of one He Loved. After I was done Writing, I went up 
 to visit my Sick Wife, and found she was Her self gone 20 
 a visiting. I wish you had given me the pleasure of 
 knowing you were so well it would have giv'n what I was 
 writing a more lively Turn. 
 
 I am y'' Affectionate Tender Observant and indulgent 
 Husband Richd Steele. 25 
 
122 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 4- 
 
 Half hour after six^ 
 Wednesday Aug^t gtl^, lyio. 
 Berry-Street. 
 Dear Prue 
 
 5 Thou art such a foolish Tender thing that there is no 
 living with Thee. 
 
 I have broke my rest last night because I knew you 
 would be such a fool as not to sleep. Pray come home by 
 this morning's Coach, if you are impatient : but if you are 
 10 not here before noon I will come down to you in the 
 Evening, but I must make visits this morning to hear 
 what is doing. 
 
 ¥■•= Ever, R. S. 
 
 5- 
 
 Aug^t gi\ lyiO, COCKPITT. 
 
 15 Dear Prue 
 
 I cannot possibly come expecting Orders Here which 
 I must overlook, and having not half done .my other busi- 
 nesse at the Savoy. 
 
 Dear Creature come in the morning Coach and if I 
 20 can I will return w* you in the Evening. Pray wrap 
 y"" self very Warm. 
 
 ^^ Ever, R^ s^^^j^^ 
 
 6. 
 Dear Prue, 4 of Clock. 
 
 25 Take this boy to sit behind you' in the boat, and put 
 on your mask and come to Somerset-stairs. From whence 
 send him to call me from Nutt's, where your Servant 
 [waits] for your arrival to visit my grand-daughter. 
 
 R. S. 
 
LETTERS. 123 
 
 7- 
 Dear Prue, 
 
 I desire you to dress yourself decently before you ap- 
 pear before me, for I will [not] be so easily pleased as 
 I have been, being now in a fair way of being a great 
 man. 5 
 
 8. To Alexander Pope. 
 Dear Sir, /««■ ^o, 171 j [-12]. 
 
 I have received y"^ very kind letter, That part of it 
 which is grounded upon y' belief that I have much affec- 
 tion and friendship for you, I receive with great pleasure. 
 That which acknowledges the honour due to y"' Essay, I 10 
 have no pretence to. The paper was written by one 
 whom I will make you acquainted with, which is the best 
 return I can make to you for y"^ favour to. Sir, 
 Y' most obliged humble servant, 
 
 Rich. Steele. 15 
 
 9. To Mrs. Scurlock. 
 
 August Sif^, 1712. 
 
 Dear Madam, Bloomsbury-Square. 
 
 Ever since I had the honour to be of your family My 
 heart has yearned to Exert my self in a particular manner 
 towards you, and to make your life easy and happy. The 20 
 uneasinesses of my fortune have hitherto made it imprac- 
 ticable to me, and some little frowardnesses of Prue have ^ 
 also been an Hindrance to it. But I thank God matters 
 are now settled after such a manner, and the renewall of 
 my Employments in my favour has enabled me to invite 25 
 you hither, where you shall be attended with Plenty 
 Chearfulnesse and Quiet. I shall wait on you to talk 
 further on this subject, and if you are averse to it nothing 
 shall be taken ill by, Madam, 
 
 Yr Most Obedient Son & Most Humble Servant 30 
 
 Richard Steele. 
 
124 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 lo. To Jonathan Swift. 
 Sir, May ig, lyij. 
 
 Mr. Addison shewed me your letter, wherein you 
 
 menl'ioh me. They laugh at you, if they make you 
 
 believe your interposition has kept me thus long in my 
 
 S office. If you have spoken in my behalf at any time, I 
 
 am glad I have always treated you with respect : though 
 
 I believe you an accomplice of the Examiner. In the 
 
 'letter you are angry at, you see I have no reason for 
 
 being so merciful to him, but out of regard to the imputa- 
 
 lo tion you lie under. You do not in direct terms say you 
 
 are not concerned with him ; but make it an argument of 
 
 your innocence, that the Examiner has declared you have 
 
 nothing to do with him. I believe I could prevail upon 
 
 the Guardian to say there was a mistake in putting my 
 
 15 name in his paper; but the English would laugh at us, 
 
 should we argue in so Irish a manner. 
 
 I am heartily glad of your being made Dean of St. 
 Patrick's. 
 I am. Sir, 
 20 Your most obedient humble servant, 
 
 Richard Steele. 
 
 XII. 
 
 [From The Englishman's Thanks to the Duke of 
 Marlborough.'] 
 
 My Lord, , January r, lyii. 
 
 It was with the utmost consternation that I this day 
 heard Your Grace had received a dismission from all 
 25 your employments. And lest you should, out of the soft- 
 ness which is inseparable from natures truly heroic, 
 believe this a diminution of your glory, I take the liberty 
 to express to you, as well as I can, the sense which man- 
 kind has of your merit. 
 
THE ENGLISHMAN'S THANKS. 125 
 
 That great genius with which God has endowed you 
 was raised by him to give the first notion that the enemy 
 was to be conquered. Till you were placed at the head 
 of armies the confederates seemed contented to show 
 France that she could not overcome Europe, but it S 
 entered not into the heart of man that the rest of Europe 
 could conquer France. When I have said this, my Lord, 
 there arise in my soul so many instances of your having 
 been the ministring angel in the cause of Liberty that 
 my heart flags, as if it expected the lash of slavery, when lo 
 the sword is taken out of his hand who defended me and 
 all men from it. Believe me, immortal Sir, you have a 
 slighter loss in this change of your condition than any 
 other man in England. Your actions have exalted you to 
 be the chief of your species, and a continued chain of 15 
 successes, resulting from wise counsels, have denominated 
 you the first of mankind in the age which was blessed 
 with your birth. Enjoy what it is not in the power of 
 fate to take from you, the memory of your past actions. 
 Past actions make- up present glory. It is in the power 20 
 of mortals to be thankless to you for doing them ; but it is 
 not in their power to take from you that you have done 
 them. It is in the power of man to make your services 
 ineffectual in consequences to your country, but it is not 
 in their power to make them inglorious to yourself. Be 25 
 not, therefore, you concerned ; but let us lainent, who may 
 suffer by your removal. Your glory is augmented by 
 comparison of your merit to the reward it meets with. 
 But the honour of your country 
 
126 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 [The Prologue to Ambrose Philips's The Distressed Mother, 
 March, 171 2.] 
 
 Since fancy of itself is loose and vain, 
 
 The wise by rules that airy power restrain ; 
 
 They think those writers mad, who at their ease 
 
 Convey this house and audience where they please ; 
 S Who Nature's stated distances confound. 
 
 And make this spot all soils the sun goes round ; 
 
 'T is nothing, when a fancied scene 's in view. 
 
 To skip from Covent Garden to Peru. 
 
 But Shakespeare's self transgressed; and shall each elf, 
 10 Each pigmy genius, quote great Shakespeare's self ! 
 
 What critic dares prescribe what 's just and fit, 
 
 Or mark out limits for such boundless wit ! 
 
 Shakespeare could travel through earth, sea, and air. 
 
 And point out all the powers and wonders there ; 
 15 In barren deserts he makes Nature smile. 
 
 And gives us feasts in his Enchanted Isle. 
 Our Author does his feeble force confess. 
 
 Nor dares pretend such merit to transgress ; 
 
 Does not such shining gifts of genius share, 
 20 And, therefore, makes propriety his care. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 [From A Letter to Sir Miles Wharton, concerning Occasional 
 Peers. March 5, 1713.] 
 
 As to the house of peers, it is visible to anything 
 above a natural fool that the power of each lord is so 
 much less considerable as it is repeated in other persons ; 
 but the great hardship to that great and awful body. 
 
THE GUARDIAN. 127 
 
 whose privileges have so often been a safety and protec- 
 tion to the rights of us below them, — I say, the great 
 hardship to these noble patriots is that, when they are 
 prepared with the most strict honour and integrity to do 
 their duty in relation to their prince and country, all their s 
 determinations may be avoided by a set of people brought 
 in the moment before they come to a question. This has 
 ,been done once, as I am credibly informed, in so frank a 
 way that there have been above six at a time brought 
 into that place without any further preamble than : " This lo 
 gentleman's name is So ; do not call him Mr. from this 
 time forward but My Lord, for he is now one of you. 
 Sit close there ; let the gentleman sit down. I beg 
 pardon ; make way for his Lordship." 
 
 XV. 
 
 [From the Guardian, 17 13.] 
 
 [No. 34.] 
 
 Mores multorum vidit. hor. t\ 
 
 Monday, April so, 1713- 
 
 It is a most vexatious thing to an old man, who 
 endeavours to square his notions by reason, and to talk 
 from reflection and experience, to fall in with a circle of 
 young ladies at their afternoon tea-table. This happened 20 
 ' very lately to be my fate. The conversation, for the first 
 half-hour, was so very rambling, that it is hard to say 
 what was talked of, or who spoke least to the purpose. 
 The various motions of the fan, the tossings of the head, 
 intermixed with all the pretty kinds of laughter, made up 25 
 the greatest part of the discourse. At last, this modish 
 way of shining and being witty settled into something 
 like conversation, and the talk ran upon fine gentlemen. 
 From the several characters that were given, and the 
 
128 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 exceptions that were made, as this or that gentleman 
 happened to be named, I found that a lady is not difficult 
 to be pleased, and that the town swarms with fine gentle- 
 men, /a nimble pair of heels, a smooth complexion, a 
 
 5 full-bottom wig, a laced shirt, an embroidered suit, a pair 
 of fringed gloves, a hat and feather ; any one or more of 
 these and the like accomplishments ennobles a man, and 
 raises him above the vulgar, in a female imagination.// 
 On the contrary, a modest, serious behaviour, a plain 
 
 10 dress, a thick pair of shoes, a leathern belt, a waistcoat 
 not lined with silk, and such like imperfections, degrade 
 a man, and are so many blots in his escutcheon. I could 
 not forbear smiling at one of the prettiest and liveliest of 
 this gay assembly, who excepted to the gentility of Sir 
 
 1$ William Hearty because he wore a frieze coat, and break- 
 fasted upon toast and ale. I pretended to admire the 
 fineness of her taste, and to strike in with her in ridicul- 
 ing those awkward healthy gentlemen, that seem to make 
 nourishment the chief end of eating. I gave her an 
 
 20 account of an honest Yorkshire gentleman, who (when I 
 was a traveller) used to invite his acquaintance at Paris 
 to break their fast with him upon cold roast beef and 
 mum. There was, I remember, a little French marquis, 
 who was often pleased to rally him unmercifully upon 
 
 25 beef and pudding, of which our countryman would 
 despatch a pound or two with great alacrity, while this 
 antagonist was piddling at a mushroom or the haunch of 
 a frog. I could perceive the lady was pleased with what 
 I said, and we parted very good friends, by virtue of a 
 
 30 maxim I always observe, Never to contradict or reason 
 with a sprightly female. I went home, however, full of a 
 great many serious reflections upon what had passed, and 
 though, in complaisance, I disguised my sentiments, to 
 keep up the good humour of my fair companions, and to 
 
THE GUARDIAN. 129 
 
 avoid being looked upon as a testy old fellow, yet out of 
 the good-will I bear to the sex, and to prevent for the 
 future their being imposed upon by counterfeits, I shall 
 give them the distinguishing marks of a true fine 
 gentleman. 5 
 
 When a good artist would express any remarkable 
 character in sculpture, he endeavours to work up his 
 figure into all the perfections his imagination can form, 
 and to imitate not so much what is, as what may or ought 
 to be. I shall follow their example, in the idea I am 10 
 going to trace out of a fine gentleman, by assembling > 
 together such qualifications as seem requisite to make the 
 character complete, v In order to this I shall premise in 
 general, that by a fine gentleman I mean a man com- 
 pletely qualified as well for the service and good as for 15 
 the ornament and delight of societVjH When I consider 
 the frame of mind peculiar to a gentleman, I suppose it 
 graced with all the dignity and elevation of spirit that 
 human nature is capable of. To this I would have joined 
 a clear understanding, a reason free from .prejudice, a 20 
 steady judgment, and an extensive_kna5Eledge. When I 
 think of the Heart of a gentleman, I imagine it firm and 
 intrepid, void of all i nordinate pass ions, and full of 
 tenderness, compassion, and benevolence.; ' When I view 
 the fine gentlematTwith regard to his manners, methinks 25 
 I see him modest_without bashfulness, f rank and a ffable 
 without impertinence, obligin g and complaisant without 
 servility, chgeiful and in good hu mour w ithout noise. 
 These amiable qualities are not easily obtained ; neither 
 are there many men that have a genius to excel this way. 30 
 A finish ed gentleman is perhaps the most uncommon of 
 all t he g reat characters in life . |/Besides the natural 
 endowments with which this disti^uished man is to be 
 born, he must run through a long series of education. 
 
130 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 Before he makes his appearance and shines in the world, 
 he must be principled in religion, instructed in all the 
 moral virtues, and led through the whole course of the 
 polite arts and sciences. He should be no stranger to 
 5 courts and to camps ; he must travel to open his mind, 
 to enlarge his views, to learn the policies and interests of 
 foreign states, as well as to fashion and polish himself, 
 and to get clear of national prejudices, of which every 
 country has its share. To all these more essential 
 
 lo improvements, he must not forget to add the fashionable 
 ornaments of life, such as are the languages and the 
 bodily exercises most in vogue ; neither would I have 
 him think even dress itself beneath his notice. 
 
 It is no very uncommon thing in the world to meet with 
 
 15 men of probity ; there are likewise a great many men of 
 honour to be found. Men of courage, men of sense, and 
 men of letters are frequent ; but a true fine gentleman is 
 what one seldom sees. He is properly a compound of 
 the various good qualities that embellish mankind. As 
 
 20 the great poet animates all the different parts of learning 
 by the force of his genius, and irradiates all the compass 
 of his knowledge by the lustre and brightness of his 
 imagination, so all the great and solid perfections of life 
 appear in the finished gentleman, with a beautiful gloss 
 
 25 and varnish ; everything he says or does is accompanied 
 with a manner, or rather a charm, that draws the admira- 
 tion and good-will of every beholder. 
 
 Advertisement. 
 For the benefit of my female readers. 
 
 30 N. B. — The gilt chariot, the diamond ring, the gold 
 snuff-box, and brocade sword-knot, are no essential parts 
 of a fine gentleman, but may be used by him, provided 
 he casts his eye upon them but once a day. 
 
THE GUARDIAN. 
 
 '- ' '■' JJELENDA^JIST tARTHAGO. 
 
 Vriday, Augtlft 7, 1713. 
 
 It is usually thought, with great justice, a very imperti- 
 nent thing in a private man to intermeddle in matters 
 which regard the state. But the memorial which is 5 
 mentioned in the following letter is so daring, and so 
 apparently designed for the most traitorous purpose 
 imaginable, that I do not care what misinterpretation I 
 suffer, when I expose it to the resentment of all men who 
 value their country, or have any regard for the honour, 10 
 safety, or glory of their Queen. It is certain there is not 
 much danger in delaying the demolition of Dunkirk 
 during the life of his present most Christian Majesty,, 
 who is renowned for the most inviolable regard to treaties ; 
 but that pious prince is aged, and in case of his decease, 15 
 now the power of France and Spain is in the same family, 
 it is possible an ambitious successor (or his ministry in a 
 king's minority) might dispute his being bound by the 
 act of his predecessor in so weighty a particular. 
 
 Mr. Ironside, 20 
 
 lYou employ your important moments, methinks, a little 
 too frivolously, when you consider so often little circum- 
 stances of dress and behaviour, and never make mention 
 of matters wherein you and all your fellow-subjects in 
 general are concerned. I give you now an opportunity, 25 
 not only of manifesting your loyalty to your Queen, but 
 your affection to your country, if you treat an insolence 
 done to them both with the disdain it deserves. The 
 inclosed printed paper in French and English has been 
 handed about the town, and given gratis to passengers in 3° 
 the streets at noonday. You see the title of it is, " A 
 most humble address, or memorial, presented to Her 
 
132 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 Majesty the Queen of Great Britain by the deputy of the 
 magistrates of Dunkirk." The nauseous memorialist, 
 with the most fulsome flattery, tells the Queen of her 
 thunder, and of wisdom and clemency adored by all the 
 
 5 earth, at the same time that he attempts to undermine 
 her power and escape her wisdom, by beseeching her to 
 do an act which will give a well-grounded jealousy to her 
 people. What the sycophant desires is that the mole and 
 dikes of Dunkirk may be spared ; and it seems the Sieur 
 
 10 Tugghe, for so the petitioner is called, was thunderstruck 
 by the denunciation (which he says) " the lord viscount 
 Bolingbroke made to him," that Her Majesty did not think 
 to make any alteration in the dreadful sentence she had 
 pronounced against the town. Mr. Ironside, I think you 
 
 15 would do an act worthy your general humanity if you 
 would put the Sieur Tugghe right in this matter; and 
 let him know that Her Majesty has pronounced no 
 sentence against the town, but his most Christian 
 Majesty has agreed that the town and harbour shall 
 
 20 be demolished. 
 
 That the British nation expect the immediate demoli- 
 tion of it. 
 
 That the very common people know that, within three 
 months after the signing of the peace, the works towards 
 
 25 the sea were to be demolished ; and within three months 
 after it, the works towards the land. 
 
 That the said peace was signed the last of March, O. S. 
 That the parliament has been told from the Queen that 
 the equivalent for it is in the hands of the French king. 
 
 30 That the Sieur Tugghe has the impudence to ask the 
 Queen to remit the most material part of the articles of 
 peace between Her Majesty and his master. 
 
 That the British nation received more damage in their 
 trade from the port of Dunkirk than from almost all 
 
THE GUARDIAN. 133 
 
 the ports of France, either in the ocean or in the 
 Mediterranean. 
 
 That fleets of above thirty sail have come together out 
 of Dunkirk, during the late war, and taken ships of war 
 as well as merchantmen. 5 
 
 That the Pretender sailed from thence to Scotland ; 
 and that it is the only port the French have until you 
 come to Brest, for the whole length of St. George's 
 channel, where any considerable naval armament can 
 be made. lo 
 
 That destroying the fortifications of Dunkirk is an 
 inconsiderable advantage to England in comparison to 
 the advantage of destroying the mole, dikes, and harbour, 
 it being the naval force from thence which only can hurt 
 the British nation. 15 
 
 That the British nation expect the immediate demolition 
 of Dunkirk. 
 
 That the Dutch, who suffered equally with us from 
 those of Dunkirk, were probably induced to sign the 
 treaty with France from this consideration, that the town 20 
 and harbour of Dunkirk should be destroyed. 
 
 That the situation of Dunkirk is such as that it may 
 always keep runners to observe all ships sailing on the 
 Thames and Medway. 
 
 That all the suggestions which the Sieur Tugghe brings 25 
 concerning the Dutch are false and scandalous. 
 
 That whether it may be advantageous to the trade of 
 Holland or not that Dunkirk should be demolished, it is 
 necessary for the safety, honour, and liberty of England 
 that it should be so. 30 
 
 That when Dunkirk is demolished, the power of France, 
 on that side, should it ever be turned against us, will be 
 removed several hundred miles further off of Great Britain 
 than it is at present. 
 
134 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 That after the demolition there can be no considerable 
 preparation made at sea by the French on all the channel 
 but at Brest ; and that Great Britain, being an island, 
 which cannot be attacked but by a naval power, we may 
 5 esteem France effectually removed, by the demolition, 
 from Great Britain, as far as the distance from Dunkirk 
 to Brest. 
 
 Pray, Mr. Ironside, repeat this last particular, and put 
 
 it in a different letter, That the demolition of Dunkirk will 
 
 10 remove France many hundred miles further off from us ; 
 
 and then repeat again. That the British nation expects the 
 
 demolition of Dunkirk. 
 
 I demand of you, as you love and honour your Queen 
 and country, that you insert this letter, or speak to this 
 15 purpose, your own way; for in this all parties must agree, 
 that however bound in friendship one nation is with 
 another, it is but prudent that in case of a rupture, they 
 should be, if possible, upon equal terms. 
 
 Be honest, old Nestor, and say all this ; for whatever 
 20 half-witted hot Whigs may think, we all value our estates 
 and liberties, and every true man of each party must think 
 himself concerned that Dunkirk should be demolished. 
 
 It lies upon all who have the honour to be in the 
 ministry to hasten this matter, and not let the credulity 
 25 of an honest, brave people be thus infamously abused in 
 our open streets. 
 
 I cannot go on for indignation, but pray God that our 
 mercy to France may not expose us to the mercy of 
 France. your humble servant, 
 
 30 English Tory. 
 
THE ENGLISHMAN. 135 
 
 XVI. 
 [From the Englishman, October, 1713, to February, 1714.] 
 
 L '■-! Delenda est Carthago 
 
 Tuesday, October 6, 171 3. 
 
 The regular explanation of my design, and the pre- 
 tensions I have to the title of this paper, I shall think fit 
 to suspend in favour of the author of the following letter. 5 
 All which I shall say at present is, that for valuable con- 
 siderations I have purchased the lion, desk, pen, ink, and 
 paper, and all other goods of Nestor Ironside, Esq., who 
 has thought fit to write no more himself, but has given 
 me full liberty to report any sage expressions or maxims 10 
 which may tend to the instruction of mankind and the 
 service of his country. "It is not," said the good man, 
 giving me the key of the lion's den, " now a time to im- 
 prove the taste of men by the reflections and railleries 
 of poets and philosophers, but to awaken their under- 15 
 standing, by laying before them the present state of the 
 world like a man of experience and a patriot : it is a jest 
 to throw away our care in providing for the palate, when 
 the whole body is in danger of death ; or to talk of 
 amending the mien and air of a cripple that has lost his 20 
 legs and his arms." The old gentleman spoke this with 
 a concern not to be described; and opening a drawer, 
 wherein were papers containing loose sketches of future 
 discourses, he bid me hold my hat and take off my 
 peruke. He filled my hat with those papers, and then 25 
 put it upon my bare head ; after which he spoke several 
 words in Arabic ; and while the papers were still 
 between my bald pate and the words "Sly's hunting 
 cock" in the lining of my hat, he placed his hand upon 
 my head, and crying " Pass," told me he had conveyed to 30 
 
136 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 me the use of all his arts and sciences ; then struck me 
 a soft blow, and with a voice of exhortation said, " Be an 
 Englishman." This is a summary account of the trans- 
 fusion of the spirit of Ironside into me, an unknown 
 5 writer. Though I cannot pretend to come up to the 
 authority which that venerated gentleman has so de- 
 servedly enjoyed, I hope I shall not appear his unworthy 
 disciple, but, as I have frequent access to him, be to him 
 what Xenophon was to Socrates. 
 
 TO '- °' ^'J Quid enim nisi vota supersunt.' ov. 
 
 From Thursday, October 8, to Saturday, October lo, 1713. 
 
 We are now happy in a peace with the most puissant 
 potentate upon the continent of Europe ; but though we 
 are in that friendship, we are to take care that, as we are 
 
 15 both a trading people, our new ally may not be too hard 
 for us, as we are serviceable to each other and the rest 
 of the world, in point of commerce. It is so far from a 
 secret that it is a declared circumstance, that the late 
 rejected bill will come before our country in Parliament 
 
 20 a second time. The city of London, almost in every 
 circumstance, is followed in its declared sentiments by 
 every other part of England ; but certainly it can in no 
 point be so reasonably and justly imitated as in its sense 
 of trade. There is an election of representatives for this 
 
 25 forum of the mercantile world now approaching ; and it 
 behooves every man who is so happy as to have a vote 
 on this occasion, to be very circumspect in the choice. 
 An error in this may perhaps make it insignificant whom 
 he shall choose for the future. If any one of the number 
 
 30 of electors can be at a loss to know how to determine 
 himself in the question for or against this important bill 
 it may not be an ill rule to judge by the wealth of the 
 
THE ENGLISHMAN. 137 
 
 persons for and against it, by their known integrity, by 
 the effect it may have upon their own fortunes, and by 
 their publicly avowing their thoughts on the occasion. 
 The citizens of Rome, bred to eloquence, could not 
 before their assemblies have ever offered matters more 5 
 forcibly, intelligently, and warmly, than some merchants 
 of London, from common sense and experience, delivered 
 themselves against this bill before our Houses of Lords 
 and Commons. 
 
 Let the electors consider that none are proposed to 10 
 their choice but Churchmen, nay (if the invidious names 
 of distinction must still be kept on foot), none but Tories ; 
 so that the Church of England is entirely out of the dis- 
 pute. 
 
 That the city of London is infinitely the most trading 15 
 city in the universe. 
 
 That therefore none ought to represent her in Parlia- 
 ment but traders. 
 
 That the honourable name of a trader cannot, properly, 
 be applied to any but merchants who are concerned in 20 
 exports and imports. 
 
 That all other traders are only subordinate to them, 
 and are no other than the mechanics, who either prepare 
 our manufactures for the exportation of the merchants, 
 or are the dispersers of foreign commodities when im- 25 
 ported by the merchant from abroad, in exchange for 
 those of our own growth. 
 
 That such are the only proper judges of our trade : 
 these only can go to the fountain-head, and see the 
 causes of the declension and increase of our trade. The 30 
 farmer may wonder his wool doth not come to so good a 
 market this year as it did the last ; the weaver that he 
 has not so many looms going as he had a few months 
 ago ; the clothier that he hears nothing from his factors 
 
138 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 at Blackwell Hall ; and these again that they have no 
 demands for their woollen manufactures from the mer- 
 chant. The farmer, weaver, clothier, and factor may 
 indeed lament each other, bemoan the loss of their trade, 
 5 but know nothing of the real cause of its declension ; 
 they sensibly find the stream diverted from its old course, 
 but do not see the dam that stops its flowing, or the new 
 channel that conveys it from them. It is the merchant 
 only that has the science, and sees trade in its naked 
 
 lo principles, and its first causes. He sees immediately the 
 designs of foreigners, either slyly to undermine her, or 
 boldly to invade and ravish her ; and immediately flies 
 to his sovereign, and the whole legislative body, to pro- 
 tect her. 
 
 15 The merchants are like so many sentinels placed in all 
 the nations of the world to watch over and defend her. 
 And will not this city choose such as these for her 
 representatives t Will she, who subsists wholly by trade, 
 rather choose such who are unacquainted with it even in 
 
 20 theory ? No, I dare not think so meanly of that wise and 
 honourable body ; but promise myself that in this Parlia- 
 ment, where matters of trade seem to be the most im- 
 portant affairs that will be the subject of its debates, the 
 greatest and most trading city in the universe will be 
 
 25 represented by traders, that is, merchants ; for no others 
 properly deserve that appellation, or can be esteemed 
 proper representatives of the port of London. 
 
 While these things are duly considered, and the subjects 
 of England maintain their property and wealth, under a 
 
 30 sovereign that is their darling and benefactor, our neigh- 
 bours in nakedness and penury may tell us as long as 
 they please of the magnificence and grandeur of their 
 mighty monarch and the gorgeous attire of his domestic 
 vassals, without raising our envy or admiration. 
 
THE ENGLISHMAN. 139 
 
 [No. 26.] 
 
 Talia monstrabat relegens errata RETRORSUM. Vieg. 
 
 From Saturday, November 28, to Tuesday, December i, 1713- 
 
 Under the title of this paper, I do not think it foreign 
 to my design to speak of a man born in Her Majesty's 
 dominions, and relate an adventure in his life so un- 5 
 common that it 's doubtful whether the like has happened 
 to any other of human race. The person I speak of is 
 Alexander Selkirk, whose name is familiar to men of 
 curiosity, from the fame of his having lived four years 
 and four months alone in the Island of Juan Fernandez. 10 
 I had the pleasure frequently to converse with the man 
 soon after his arrival in England, in the year 1711. It 
 was matter of great curiosity to hear him, as he is a man 
 of good sense, give an account of the different revolutions 
 in his own mind in that long solitude. When we consider 15 
 how painful absence from company, for the space of but 
 one evening, is to the generality of mankind, we may 
 have a sense how painful this necessary and constant 
 solitude was to a man bred a sailor, and ever accustomed 
 to enjoy and suffer, eat, drink, and sleep, and perform all 20 
 offices of life in fellowship and company. He was put 
 ashore from a leaky vessel, with the captain of which he 
 had had an irreconcilable difference ; and he chose rather 
 to take his fate in this place than in a crazy vessel, under 
 a disagreeable commander. His portion were a sea-chest, 25 
 his wearing clothes and bedding, a fire-lock, a pound of 
 gunpowder, a large quantity of bullets, a flint and steel, 
 a few pounds of tobacco, an hatchet, a knife, a kettle, 
 a Bible and other books of devotion, together with 
 pieces that concerned navigation and his mathematical 30 
 instruments. Resentment against his officer, who had 
 ill used him, made him look forward on this change of 
 
140 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 life as the more eligible one till the instant in which he 
 saw the vessel put off ; at that moment his heart yearned 
 within him, and melted at the parting with his comrades 
 and all human society at once. He had in provisions 
 5 for the sustenance of life but the quantity of two meals, 
 the island abounding only with wild goats, cats, and rats. 
 He judged it most probable that he should find more 
 immediate and easy relief by finding shell-fish on the 
 shore than seeking game with his gun. He accordingly 
 
 10 found great quantities of turtles, whose flesh is extremely 
 delicious, and of which he frequently ate very plentifully 
 on his first arrival, till it grew disagreeable to his stomach, 
 except in jellies. The necessities of hunger and thirst 
 were his greatest diversions from the reflection on his 
 
 IS lonely condition. When those appetites were satisfied, 
 the desire of society was as strong a call upon him, and 
 he appeared to himself least necessitous when he wanted 
 everything ; for the supports of his body were easily 
 attained, but the eager longings for seeing again the face 
 
 2o of man, during the interval of craving bodily appetites, 
 were hardly supportable. He grew dejected, languid, 
 and melancholy, scarce able to refrain from doing him- 
 self violence, till by degrees, by the force of reason, and 
 frequent reading of the Scriptures, and turning his 
 
 25 thoughts upon the study of navigation, after the space 
 of eighteen months, he grew thoroughly reconciled to his 
 condition. When he had made this Conquest, the vigour 
 of his health, disengagement from the world, a constant, 
 cheerful, serene sky, and a temperate air, made his life 
 
 30 one continual feast, and his being much more joyful than 
 it had before been irksome. He, now taking delight in 
 everything, made the hut in which he lay, by ornaments 
 which he cut down from a spacious wood, on the side of 
 which it was situated, the most delicious bower, fanned 
 
THE ENGLISHMAl^. 141 
 
 with continual breezes and gentle aspirations of wind, 
 that made his repose after the chase equal to the most 
 sensual pleasures. 
 
 I forget to observe that, during. the time of his dissatis- 
 faction, monsters of the deep, which frequently lay on the 5 
 shore, added to the terrors of his solitude; the dreadful 
 bowlings and voices seemed too terrible to be made for 
 human ears : but upon the recovery of his temper, he 
 could with pleasure not only hear their voices but 
 approach the monsters themselves with great intrepidity. 10 
 He speaks of sea-lions whose jaws and tails were capable 
 of seizing or breaking the limbs of a man, if he ap- 
 proached them. But at that time his spirits and life were 
 so high that he could act so regularly and unconcerned 
 that, merely from being unruffled in himself, he killed 15 
 them with the greatest ease imaginable ; for, observing 
 that though their jaws and tails were so terrible, yet the 
 animals being mighty slow in working themselves round, 
 he had nothing to do but place himself exactly opposite 
 to their middle, and as close to them as possible, and he 20 
 dispatched them with his hatchet at will. 
 
 The precautions which he took against want, in case of 
 sickness, was to lame kids when very young, so as that 
 they might recover their health but never be capable of 
 speed. These he had in great numbers about his hut ; 25 
 and when he was himself in full vigour, he could take at 
 full speed the swiftest goat running up a promontory, 
 and never failed of catching them but on a descent. 
 
 His habitation was extremely pestered with rats, which 
 gnawed his clothes and feet when sleeping. To defend 30 
 himself against them, he fed and tamed numbers of 
 young kitlings, who lay about his bed, and preserved him 
 from the enemy. When his clothes were quite worn out, 
 he dried and tacked together the skins of goats, with 
 
142 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 which he clothed himself, and was inured to pass through 
 woods, bushes, and brambles, with as much carelessness 
 and precipitance as any other animal. It happened once 
 to him that, running on the summit of a hill, he made a 
 5 stretch to seize a goat, with which under him he fell down 
 a precipice, and lay senseless for the space of three days, 
 the length of which time he measured by the moon's 
 growth since his last observation. This manner of life 
 grew so exquisitely pleasant that he never had a moment 
 
 lo heavy upon his hands ; his nights were untroubled and 
 his days joyous, from the practice of temperance and 
 exercise. It was his manner to use stated hours and 
 places for exercises of devotion, which he performed 
 aloud, in order to keep up the faculties of speech and to 
 
 1 5 utter himself with greater energy. 
 
 When I first saw him, I thought, if I had not been let 
 into his character and story, I should have discerned that 
 he had been much separated from company, from his 
 aspect and gesture; there was a strong but cheerful 
 
 20 seriousness in his look, and a certain disregard to the ordi- 
 nary things about him, as if he had been sunk in thought. 
 When the ship which brought him off the island came in, 
 he received them with the greatest indifference, with rela- 
 tion to the prospect of going off with them, but with great 
 
 25 satisfaction in an opportunity tp refresh and help them ; 
 the man frequently bewailed his return to the world, 
 which could not, he said, with all its enjo)m[ients, restore 
 him to the tranquillity of his solitude. Though I had 
 frequently conversed with him, after a few months' 
 
 30 absence, he met me iti the street ; and though he spoke 
 to me, I could not recollect that I had seen him : familiar 
 converse in this town had taken off the loneliness of his 
 aspect, and quite altered the air of his face. 
 
 This plain man's story is a memorable example that he 
 
THE CRISIS. 143 
 
 is happiest who confines his wants to natural necessities ; 
 and he that goes ,£ urther in his desires increases his wants 
 in proportion to his acquisitions ; or, to use his own 
 expression, " I am now worth eight hundred pounds, but 
 shall never be so happy as when I was not worth a 5 
 farthing." 
 
 XVII. 
 
 [The Dedication of the Crisis, 1714.] 
 
 TO THE CLERGY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 It is with a just deference to your great power and 
 influence in this kingdom that I lay before you the 10 
 following comment upon the laws which regard the 
 settlement of the imperial crown of Great Britain. My 
 purpose in addressing these matters to you is to conjure 
 you, as heaven has blessed you with proper talents and 
 opportunities, to recommend them, in your writings and 15 
 discourses, to your fellow-subjects. 
 
 In the character of pastors and teachers you have an 
 almost irresistible power over us of your congregations ; 
 and by the admirable institution of our laws, the tenths 
 of our lands, now in your possession, are destined to 20 
 become the property of such others as shall by learning 
 and virtue qualify themselves to succeed you. These 
 circumstances of education and fortune place the minds 
 of the people from age to age under your direction. As, 
 therefore, it would be the highest indiscretion in ministers 25 
 of state of this kingdom to neglect the care of being 
 acceptable to you in their administration, so it would be 
 the greatest impiety in you to inflame the people com- 
 mitted to your charge with apprehensions of danger to 
 you and your constitution, from men innocent of any 30 
 such designs. 
 
144 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 Give me leave, who have in all my words and actions, 
 from my youth upwards, maintained an inviolable respect 
 to you and your order, to observe to you, that all the 
 dissatisfactions which have been raised in the minds of 
 5 the people owe their rise to the cunning of artful men, 
 who have introduced the mention of you and your 
 interest (which are sacred to all good men) to cover and 
 sanctify their own practices upon the affections of the 
 people, for ends very different from the promotion of 
 
 10 religion and virtue. Give me leave also to take notice 
 that these suggestions have been favoured by some few 
 unwary men in holy orders, who have made the consti- 
 tution of their own country a very little part of their 
 study, and yet made obedience and government the 
 
 15 frequent subjects of their discourses. 
 
 These men, from the pompous ideas of imperial 
 greatness and submission to absolute emperors, which 
 they imbibed in their earlier years, have from time 
 to time inadvertently uttered notions of power and 
 
 20 obedience abhorrent from the laws of this their native 
 country. 
 
 I will take the further liberty to say that if the acts 
 of Parliament mentioned in the following treatise had 
 been from time to time put in a fair and clear light, 
 
 25 and been carefully recommended to the perusal of young 
 gentlemen in colleges, with a preference to all other 
 civil institutions whatsoever, this kingdom had not been 
 in its present condition, but the constitution would have 
 had, in every member the universities have sent into the 
 
 30 world ever since the revolution, an advocate for our 
 rights and liberties. 
 
 There is one thing which deserves your most serious 
 consideration. You have bound yourselves by the 
 strongest engagements that religion can lay upon men 
 
THE CRISIS. 145 
 
 to support that succession which is the subject of the 
 following papers ; you have tied down your souls by an 
 oath to maintain it as it is settled in the house of 
 Hanover ; nay, you have gone much further than is usual 
 •in cases of this nature, as you have personally abjured 5 
 the pretender to this crown, and that expressly, without 
 any equivocations or mental reservations whatsoever, 
 that is, without any possible escapes, by which the 
 subtlety of temporizing casuists might hope to elude the 
 force of these solemn obligations. You know much 10 
 better than I do, whether the calling God to witness to 
 the sincerity of our intentions in these cases, whether 
 the swearing upon the holy evangelists in the most 
 solemn manner, whether the taking of an oath before 
 multitudes of fellow-subjects and fellow-Christians in 15 
 our public courts of justice, do not lay the greatest 
 obligations that can be laid on the consciences of men. 
 This I am sure of, that if the body of a clergy who con- 
 siderately and voluntarily entered into these engagements, 
 should be made use of as instruments and examples to 20 
 make the nation break through them, not only the 
 succession to our crown but the very essence of our 
 religion is in danger. What a triumph would it furnish 
 to those evil men among us who are enemies to your 
 sacred order ? What occasion would it administer to 25 
 atheists and unbelievers, to say that Christianity is 
 nothing else but an outward show and pretence among 
 the most knowing of its professors ? What could we 
 afterwards object to Jesuits ? What would be the scandal 
 brought upon our holy church, which is at present the 30 
 glory and bulwark of the Reformation ? How would our 
 present clergy appear in the eyes of their posterity and 
 even to the successors of their own order, under a 
 government introduced and established by a conduct so 
 
146 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 directly opposite to all the rules of honour and precepts 
 of Christianity ? 
 
 As I always speak and think of your holy order with 
 the utmost deference and respect, I do not insist upon 
 S this subject to insinuate that there is such a disposition 
 among your venerable body, but to show how much your 
 own honour and the interest of religion is concerned 
 that there should be no cause given for it. 
 
 Under colour of a zeal towards you, men may some- 
 10 times act not only with impunity but popularity, what 
 would render them, without that hypocrisy, insufferably 
 odious to their fellow-subjects. 
 
 Under this pretence men may presume to practise 
 such arts for the destruction and dishonour of their 
 15 country, as it would be impious to make use of even for 
 its glory and safety ; men may do in the highest pros- 
 perity what it would not be excusable to attempt under 
 the lowest necessity ! 
 
 The laws of our country, the powers of the legislature, 
 20 the faith of nations, and the honour of God, may be 
 too weak considerations to bear up against the popular 
 though groundless cry of "the church." This fatal pre- 
 possession may shelter men in raising the French name 
 and Roman Catholic interest in Great Britain, and con- 
 25 sequently in all Europe. 
 
 It behooves you, therefore, gentlemen, to consider 
 whether the cry of the church's danger may not at length 
 become a truth ; and as you are men of sense and men of 
 honour, to exert yourselves in undeceiving the multitude, 
 30 whenever their affectionate concern for you may prove 
 fatal to themselves. 
 
 You are surrounded by a learned, wealthy, and know- 
 ing gentry, who can distinguish your merit and do 
 honour to your characters. They know with what firm- 
 
THE CRISIS. 147 
 
 ness as Englishmen, with what self-denial as prelates, 
 with what charity as Christians, the lords the bishops, 
 fathers of the church, have behaved themselves in the 
 public cause ; they know what contumelies the rest of 
 the clergy have undergone, what discountenance they 5 
 have laboured under, what prejudice they have suffered 
 in their ministry who have adhered to the cause of 
 truth. But it is certain that the face of things is now 
 too melancholy to bear any longer false appearances ; 
 and common danger has united men, who not long ago 10 
 were artfully inflamed against each other, into some 
 regard of their common safety. 
 
 When the world is in this temper, those of our pastors 
 whose exemplary lives and charitable dispositions both 
 adorn and advance our holy religion, will be the objects 15 
 of our love and admiration ; and those who pursue the 
 gratifications of pride, ambition, and avarice, under the 
 sacred character of clergymen, will not fail to be our 
 contempt and derision. 
 
 Noise and wrath cannot always pass for zeal ; and if 20 
 we see but little of the public spirit of Englishmen or 
 the charity of Christians in others, it is certain we can 
 feel but little of the pleasure of love and gratitude, and 
 but faint emotions of respect and veneration in our- 
 selves. 25 
 
 It will be an action worthy the ministers of the Church 
 of England, to distinguish themselves for the love of 
 their country ; and as we have a religion that wants no 
 assistance from artifice or enlargement of secular power, 
 but is well supported by the wisdom and piety of its 30 
 preachers, and its own native truth, to let mankind see 
 that we have a clergy who are of the people, obedient to 
 the same laws, and zealous not only of the supremacy 
 and prerogative of our princes, but of the liberties of 
 
148 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 their fellow-subjects. This will make us who are your 
 flock burn with joy to see, and with zeal to imitate, 
 your lives and actions. It cannot be expected but that 
 there will be, in so great a body, light, superficial, vain, 
 5 and ambitious men, who, being untouched with the sub- 
 lime force of the gospel, will think it their interest to 
 insinuate jealousies between the clergy and laity, in 
 hopes to derive from their order a veneration which 
 they know they cannot deserve from their virtue. But 
 10 while the most worthy, conspicuous, learned, and power- 
 ful of your sacred function are moved by the noble and 
 generous incentives of doing good to the souls of men, 
 we will not doubt of seeing by your ministry the love of 
 our country, due regard for our laws and liberties, and 
 15 resentment for the abuse of truth, revive in the hearts 
 of men. And as there are no instruments under heaven 
 so capable of this great work, that God would make you 
 such to this divided nation, is the hearty prayer of, 
 Gentlemen, 
 20 Your most dutiful, 
 
 and most obedient 
 
 humble servant, 
 
 Richard Steele. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 [From the Lover., February 25, to May 27, 1714.] 
 
 [No. 7.] Habet et sua castra cupido. Ov. 
 
 25 Thursday, March 11 [1^14}. 
 
 It has been always my opinion that a man in love 
 
 should address himself to his mistress with passion and 
 
 sincerity ; and that if this method fails, it is in vain for 
 
 him to have recourse to artifice or dissimulation, in which 
 
 30 he will always find himself worsted, unless he be a much 
 
THE LOVER, i 149 
 
 better proficient in the art than any man I have yet been 
 acquainted with. 
 
 The following letter is a very natural exemplification 
 of what I have here advanced. I have called it " The 
 Battle of Eyes,'' as it brought to my mind several combats 5 
 of the same nature, which I have formerly had with Mrs. 
 Ann Page. 
 
 Sweet Mr. Myrtle, 
 
 I have for some time been sorely smitten by Mrs. 
 Lucy, who is a maiden lady in the twenty-eighth year of lo 
 her age. She has so much of the coquette in her that it 
 supplies the place of youth, and still keeps up the girl in 
 her aspect and behaviour. She has found out the art 
 of making me believe that I have the first place in her 
 affection, and yet so puzzles me by a double tongue and 15 
 an ambiguous look that about once a fortnight I fancy I 
 have quite lost her. I was the other night at the opera, 
 where, seeing a place in the second row of the Queen's 
 Box kept by Mrs. Lucy's livery, I placed myself in the 
 pit directly over against her footman, being determined 20 
 to ogle her most passionately all that evening. I had not 
 taken my stand there above a quarter of an hour when 
 enter Mrs. Lucy. At her first coming in I expected she 
 would have cast her eye upon her humble servant ; but, 
 instead of that, after having dropped curtsy after curtsy 25 
 to her friends in the boxes, she began to deal her salutes 
 about the pit in the same liberal manner. Although I 
 stood in the full point of view, and, as I thought, made a 
 better figure than anybody about me, she slid her eye 
 over me, curtsied to the right and to the left, and would 30 
 not see me for the space of three minutes. I fretted 
 inwardly to find myself thus openly affronted on every 
 side, and was resolved to let her know my resentments 
 
150 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 by the first opportunity. This happened soon after ; for 
 Mrs. Lucy looking upon me, as though she had but just 
 discovered me, she begun to sink in the first offer to a 
 curtsy ; upon which, instead of making her any return, 
 S I cocked my nose, and stared at the upper gallery, and 
 immediately after, raising myself on tiptoe, stretched out 
 my neck, and bowed to a lady who sat just behind her. 
 I found by my coquette's behaviour that she was not a 
 little nettled at this my civility, which passed over her 
 
 10 head. She looked as pale as ashes, fell a-talking with 
 one that sat next her, and broke out into several forced 
 smiles and fits of laughter, which I dare say there was 
 no manner of occasion for. Being resolved to push 
 my success, I cast my eye through the whole circle of 
 
 IS beauties, and made my bow to every one that I knew, 
 and to several whom I never saw before in my life. 
 Things were thus come to an open rupture, when, the 
 curtain rising, I was forced to face about. I had not sat 
 down long but my heart relented, and gave me several 
 
 20 girds and twitches for the barbarous treatment which I 
 had shewn to Mrs. Lucy. I longed to see the act ended, 
 and to make reparation for what I had done. At the 
 first rising of the audience, between the acts, our eyes 
 met ; but as mine begun to offer a parley, the hard- 
 
 25 hearted slut conveyed herself behind an old lady in 
 such a manner that she was concealed from me for 
 several moments. This gave me new matter of indig- 
 nation, and I begun to fancy I had lost her forever. 
 While I was in this perplexity of thought, Mrs. Lucy 
 
 30 lifted herself up from behind the lady who shadowed 
 her, and peeped at me over her right shoulder. " Nay, 
 Madam," thinks I to myself, " if those are your tricks, I 
 will give you as good as you bring " ; upon which I with- 
 drew, in a great passion, behind a tall broad-shouldered 
 
THE LOVER. 151 
 
 fellow, who was very luckily placed before me. I here 
 lay incog, for at least three seconds ; snug was the 
 word ; but being very uneasy in that situation, I again 
 emerged into open candlelight, when, looking for Mrs. 
 Lucy, I could see nothing but the old woman, who s 
 screened her for the remaining part of the interlude. I 
 was then forced to sit down to the second act, being 
 very much agitated and tormented in mind. I was 
 terribly afraid that she had discovered my uneasiness, 
 as well knowing that, if she caught me at such an ad- lo 
 vantage, she would use me like a dog. For this reason 
 I was resolved to play the indifferent upon her at my 
 next standing up. The second act, therefore, was no 
 sooner finished but I fastened my eye upon a young 
 woman who sat at the further end of the boxes, whis- 15 
 pering at the same time, to one who was near me, with 
 an air of pleasure and admiration. I gazed upon her a 
 long time, when, stealing a glance at Mrs. Lucy, with a 
 design to see how she took it, I found her face was 
 turned another way, and that she was examining, from 20 
 head to foot, a young well-dressed rascal who stood 
 behind her. This cut me to the quick, and notwith- 
 standing I tossed back my wig, rapped my snuff-box, 
 displayed my handkerchief, and at last cracked a jest 
 with an orange wench to attract her eye, she persisted 25 
 in her confounded ogle, till Mrs. Robinson came upon 
 the stage to my relief. I now sat down sufficiently 
 mortified, and determined, at the end of the opera, to 
 make my submission in the most humble manner. Ac- 
 cordingly, rising up, I put on a sneaking, penitential 30 
 look, but, to my unspeakable confusion, found her back 
 turned upon me. 
 
 I had now nothing left for it but to make amends for 
 all by handing her to her chair. I bustled through the 
 
152 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 crowd, and got to her box-door as soon as possible, when, 
 to my utter confusion, the young puppy I have been 
 telling you of before, bolted out upon me with Mrs. 
 Lucy in his hand. I could not have started back with 
 5 greater precipitation if I had met a ghost. The malicious 
 gipsy took no notice of me, but, turning aside her head, 
 said something to her dog of a gentleman-usher, with a 
 smile that went to my heart. I could not sleep all night 
 for it, and the next morning writ the following letter to 
 10 her. 
 
 Madam, 
 
 I protest I meant nothing by what passed last night, 
 and beg you will put the most candid interpretation upon 
 my looks and actions ; for however my eyes may wander, 
 I s there is none but Mrs. Lucy who has the entire posses- 
 sion of my heart. i am, Madam, 
 
 With a passion that is not to be expressed either by 
 looks, words or actions. 
 
 Your most unalienable 
 20 and most humble servant, 
 
 Tom. Whiffle. 
 
 And now. Sir, what do you think was her answer? 
 Why, to give you a true notion of her, and that you may 
 guess at all her cursed tricks by this one — • here it is. 
 
 25 Mr. Whiffle, 
 
 I am very much surprised to hear you talk of anything 
 that passed between us last night, when to the best of 
 my remembrance I have not seen you these three days. 
 
 Your servant, 
 3° L. T. 
 
THE LOVER. 1S3 
 
 [No. 30.] 
 
 Despicere unde queas alios passimque videre 
 Errare, atque viam palanteis quaerere vitae. 
 
 Luc. 
 To Mr. Myrtle. 
 gjj- Tuesday, May 4., iyi4. 
 
 There is a young woman in our neighbourhood that S 
 makes it her business to disturb everybody that passes 
 by with her beauty. She runs to the window when she 
 has a mind to do mischief, and then when a body looks 
 up at her, she runs back, as though she had not a mind 
 to be seen, though she came there on purpose. Her 10 
 hands and arms, you must know, are very fine ; for that 
 reason she never lets them be unemployed, but is feeding 
 a squirrel, and catching people that pass by all day 
 long. She has a way of heaving out of the window to 
 see something, so that one who stands in the street just 15 
 over against her is taken with her side face ; one that is 
 coming down fixes his eyes at the pole of her neck till 
 he stumbles ; and one coming up the street is fixed 
 stockstill by her eyes. She won't let anybody go by in 
 peace. I aiii confident if you went that way yourself, zo 
 she would pretend to get you from Mrs. Page. As for 
 my own part, I fear her not ; but there are several of our 
 neighbours whose sons are taken in her chains, and 
 several good women's husbands are always talking of 
 her, and there is no quiet. I beg of you, Sir, to take 25 
 some course with her, for she takes a delight in doing all 
 this mischief. It would be right to lay down some rules 
 against her ; or if you please to appoint a time to come 
 and speak to her, it would be a great charity to our 
 street, especially to, 30 
 
 Sir, 
 
 Your most humble servant, 
 
 Anthony Eyelid. 
 
154 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 Here is a young gentlewoman in our street that I do 
 
 not know at all, who looked full in my face, and then 
 
 looked as if she was mistaken, but looked so pretty that 
 
 5 I can't forget her ; she does something or other to every 
 
 one that passes by. I thought I would tell you of her. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 Ch. Busy. 
 
 Sir, 
 10 Here is a young woman in our street that looks often 
 melancholy out of the window, as L£ she saw nobody 
 and nobody saw her, she is so intent. But she can give 
 an account of everything that passes, and does it to 
 waylay young men. Pray say something about her. 
 15 Yours, unknown. 
 
 Tall-boy Gapeseed. 
 Sir, 
 
 There is a young woman in our neighbourhood that 
 
 makes people with bundles on their back stand as if 
 
 20 they had none, and those who have none stand as if they 
 
 had too heavy ones. Pray take her to your end of the 
 
 town, for she interrupts business. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 Ralph Doodle. 
 
 XIX. 
 [From the Reader, April 22 to May 10, 1714.] 
 [No. 8.] 
 25 The following letter, written in that style, the praise of 
 which is simplicity, may be useful to that part of the 
 world who are never quite drunk or sober, but go to bed 
 mellow every night. I believe, as it is written by a 
 
THE READER. ISS 
 
 vintner, he designed it particularly for the use of some 
 good club that use his house, and whom he fears might 
 be succeeded by a more temperate generation, if they 
 should drop off ; besides that, it is remarkable, sets of 
 tipplers go fast one after another when one of their 5 
 number is taken from among them. 
 
 „• To the Reader. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 The love which, by your paper, you seem to have for 
 your country, gives a good example for others to follow, 
 and prompts me, in particular, to represent to you a con- 10 
 versation I have had of late, in which some things passed, 
 which, I think, are not improper to be communicated to 
 the English reader. 
 
 I live in a part of Great Britain which has formerly 
 traded much to France, Spain, and Portugal, and in a 15 
 town where we have (notwithstanding all the contrasts 
 occasioned by elections) still so much humanity left 
 among some of us as to meet now and then at a tavern. 
 
 Not long since some of our merchants, having their 
 doctor with them, meeting there, the master of the house, 20 
 according to order, brought up one bottle of claret, and 
 one of red port, and assured the company, upon his 
 honour, they were both neat, and flowers in their kind. 
 
 You know. Sir, the honour of this sort of men is very 
 great when they are vending their own goods ; and that 25 
 'tis common with some of them to pawn their salvation, 
 after such a manner as if they thought we had reason to 
 doubt them. 
 
 Well, Sir, a glass of each sort was drunk round to the 
 Queen. The French merchants in the company liked the 30 
 flavour of a wine they had formerly, with much pleasure, 
 drank in that country ; but at the same time owned it was 
 
156 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 somewhat low, and not so cordial as heretofore in France. 
 To which it was replied, that this was the effect of their 
 age (which wanted a stronger liquor) and not of the wine 
 which they now drank ; and that, to take off this incon- 
 
 5 veniency, the quantity should be enlarged, and instead of 
 one bottle apiece they should drink two. 
 
 The vintner, who stood by, smiled at this, and could 
 not forbear saying, " That gentleman was much in the 
 right, and he was of the same opinion." 
 
 10 The doctor (who all this while seemed to amuse him- 
 self with his pipe), being observed to prefer the port, was 
 desired to give his opinion of these two sorts of wine in 
 general ; upon which he replied, " Gentlemen, I will do it 
 readily ;, but must, by way of preface to my discourse, 
 
 IS desire only to know, whether you would drink wine for 
 pleasure or for health ? If you say for pleasure, I shall 
 be apt to reply, you are then better friends to the men of 
 my profession than to yourselves and your own families. 
 I think it would be unpardonable in me to advise any 
 
 20 man to drink or eat to his prejudice. Which of these 
 two sorts of wine, port or Bordeaux, is fittest for the 
 common draught of England will evidently appear from 
 the following considerations. Let a man drink of port, it 
 shall in a small quantity answer the design of wine, and 
 
 25 neither injure his pocket nor his constitution. One, two, 
 or three glasses, at or after dinner, and the like quantity 
 before he goes to bed, makes him digest his meat well, 
 
 sleep kindly, and wake refreshed the next morning 
 
 "" And now, gentlemen (to go on a little further in the 
 
 30 way of my profession, and build upon the foundation I 
 have laid), as you cannot but have heard that many 
 chronical distempers, and not a few of the acute, do, in 
 the opinion of the best physicians, take -their rise, in a 
 great degree, from indigestion ; you cannot but allow 
 
THE READER. 157 
 
 that where there is so much indigestion, as of course must 
 follow from the drinking of French wine habitually, the 
 ill effects of it must be very great. And accordingly we 
 find among the topers of greatest reputation, who survive 
 those who have been long dead-drunk, and are troubled 5 
 with the gout, stone, rheumatism, much more of these 
 diseases may, upon a fair computation be imputed to 
 French, than to Portugal wine." 
 
 " But," says a French merchant then in company, " do 
 we not find by experience that French wine exhilarates 10 
 beyond all other sorts imported into this island ? Do not 
 our great wits, and men of the best conversation, prefer 
 it to all others ? Are not deep councils and great dis- 
 patches owing to this wine ? and is not the best society 
 chiefly kept up by it ? " 15 
 
 " Sir," replied the doctor, with something of warmth, 
 " I do not find but that men among us who have drunk 
 little or none of the French wines, have had as much wit, 
 and wisdom too, as any of those who have drunk most of 
 them. Mr. Shakspeare, I dare say, drank but little 20 
 claret ; old Ben's wine was Canary ; Mr. Waller was not 
 fond of any wine, only now and then (as I am credibly 
 informed) enough to wash his head. and temples with. 
 There is no manner of doubt but that Spain, Italy, and 
 Greece have produced as great wits as any nation in 25 
 Europe ; and is this owing to French claret .' Did Homer, 
 Aristophanes, Horace, Virgil, and Miguel de Cervantes 
 drink French claret ? 
 
 " But, Sir (because I will be easy to you in the argu- 
 ment), grant that French wine will make an Englishman 30 
 cheerful and pleasant, and fit him to write a song, a poem, 
 or a play ; or to tell his story, and make his address with 
 an air extraordinary ; is this an argument why this wine 
 should be made a national drink .? Let the men of wit 
 
158 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 have their proportion of this wine (if they must have it) 
 and take the inconveniences of it ; but shall we set up for 
 a nation of wit's ? Let us endeavour at a little discretion, 
 and drink of such wines, in such proportions and at such 
 
 5 times as shall answer the design of this great blessing to 
 mankind ; that is, so as to make it most conducive to our 
 health, which, I positively aver, in English constitutions, 
 generally speaking, is better preserved by a proper use of 
 Portugal than of French wines." 
 
 10 This argument of the doctor's made the greater 
 impression on the company, for that we knew him to be 
 no way concerned in merchandise ; and that, as his age 
 and profession had given him opportunity to make 
 observations of the matter he spoke of, so the entire love 
 
 1 5 he has for his country will not suffer him to advance any 
 proposition which he thinks is not for the good of it. 
 
 Sir, Pam the more ready to communicate to you the 
 sum of this conversation, for that I remember about thirty 
 years since, when London claret (as it was then called) 
 
 20 was in fashion, the master with whom I then lived in the 
 city, with many others, made that wine by mixing Bor- 
 deaux with red of the Spanish grape, which gave a com- 
 position more grateful to the palate, and less injurious to 
 the stomach, than the French wine was of itself. These 
 
 2 5 hands of mine have thus brewed many a ton. 
 
 I hope it may not be amiss, if I endeavour, as far as in 
 me lies, to set forth in a proper light this great error in 
 our liquors, and from good and undeniable arguments 
 beat down that impetuous, humoursome, unreasonable, 
 
 30 overweening love for claret, which, to the great prejudice 
 of the English nation, does so much prevail among us ; 
 and show that we act in this, as in too many other 
 particulars, as if our welfare and happiness were the least 
 part of our care. 
 
TO A MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT. 159 
 
 I have heard a very experienced vintner say that he 
 had observed great difference between the tempers of his 
 claret and port customers. The old age of the claret- 
 drinker is generally peevish and fretful ; that of him who 
 uses port calm, and, at the worst, dull. The blood of a 5 
 claret-drinker grows vinegar, that of your port man mum. 
 The effect of claret is to make men restless, of port to 
 make them sleepy. But port, moderately used, had all 
 the good effects which can come from the best claret, and 
 none of the ill effects which flow from the immoderate lo 
 use of itself. 
 
 I am. Sir, 
 
 Your most humble servant, 
 
 RuBURB Hearty. 
 
 XX. 
 
 [From A Letter to u Member of Parliament concerning the 
 Bill for Preventing the Growth of Schism. '\ 
 
 London, May, 28, 1714. 15 
 Sir, 
 
 Though I have had the misfortune to appear an 
 Unworthy member of your house, and am expelled, ac- 
 cordingly, from my seat in Parliament, I am not by that 
 vote (which was more important to the people of England 20 
 than I shall at this time explain) deprived of the common 
 benefits of life, liberty, or any other enjoyment of a 
 rational being. And I do not think I can better bestow 
 my time, or employ these advantages, than in doing all 
 in my power to preserve them to others as well as myself, 25 
 and in asserting the right of my fellow-subjects against 
 anything which I apprehend to be an encroachment 
 upon what they ought to enjoy as men and what they 
 are legally possessed of as Englishmen, or, if you will, 
 as Britons. 30 
 
160 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 This, sir, is all the apology I shall make to you for 
 addressing to you in this public manner my thoughts 
 concerning the bill now making its way with all con- 
 venient expedition through your house and the whole 
 5 legislature. . . 
 
 But to use force is not the way to subdue them ; it 
 is against nature and common sense to think they are 
 to be gained by such methods. Good-will opens the way 
 to men's hearts, and the Toleration has thinned Presby- 
 
 10 terian assemblies more than any rigid means could ever 
 have done. No man is persuaded by him who hates him, 
 but all are easily prevailed upon by those who love 'em. 
 The Dissenters are quite another kind of people than 
 they were before the Toleration. By this indulgence to 
 
 IS them, it is a known observation that they are brought 
 into the methods of life in common with the best and 
 most polite people, and crowds of the generations which 
 have grown up under the Toleration have conformed to 
 the Church, from the humanity of that law. The fathers 
 
 20 of families have, perhaps, found some pain in retracting 
 their errors and in going into new communities and 
 conversations, but we see thousands connive at the 
 conformity of their children : the parents have been 
 secretly pleased at their sliding into that economy for 
 
 25 which the fear of the imputation of self-interest or 
 apostasy prevented them in their persons to declare. 
 
 And yet all of a sudden, without any manner of prov- 
 ocation, a million of her Majesty's subjects are to have 
 the law by which they enjoy the dearest blessings of life 
 
 30 taken from them : an act that will certainly gain to us 
 all that are not worth having, and make those who are 
 animated by virtue and piety more averse to us. They 
 will have a juster exception against us from this very 
 act than they had before. Kind treatment every day 
 
ro A MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT. 161 
 
 brought new proselytes amongst us, and they were 
 insensibly wrought into our sentiments, but either as 
 men or as Christians they must abhor the thought of 
 adhering to us out of fear. This motive is in itself a 
 faulty one for resigning not only any tenet of religion but s 
 of common obligation. Passive obedience is said to be 
 a doctrine of the Church of England, but it is a terrible 
 article to be made the first in the catechisin, as it would 
 be to those who are to come in upon compulsion. 
 
 When we consider the putting this law in execution, lo 
 there cannot be a more pleasant image presented to the 
 imagination than a poor schismatic schoolmistress brought 
 before a zealous, angry squire for transgressing this act, 
 and teaching one Presbyterian, yet little more than an 
 animal, in what the letter D differed from the letter B ; 15 
 maliciously insinuating to another schismatic aged five 
 years old, without license from the ordinary, that O is 
 round ; and not contenting herself with merely showing to 
 the said schismatics the letters of a certain book covered 
 with horn but instructing the said heretics to put them 20 
 together and make words of them, as appears by the 
 affidavit of one who heard one infant schismatic say o -f, 
 of, another, o-b, ob. Prodigious, that a church adorned 
 with so many excellent and learned members, supplied by 
 two famous universities, both endowed with ample reve- 25 
 nues, immunities, and jurisdictions, should be affronted 
 with the offer of being reinforced with penal laws against 
 the combination of women and children ! You might with 
 the same propriety provide against schismatic nurses. 
 
162 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 [The Dedication, to Mrs. Steele, of the third volume of the 
 Ladies' Library^ 
 
 July 21, 1714. 
 Madam, 
 
 If great obligations received are just motives for 
 addresses of this kind, you have an unquestionable 
 S pretension to my acknpwledgments, who have conde- 
 scended to give me your very self. I can make no return 
 for so inestimable a favour but in acknowledging the 
 generosity of the giver. To have either wealth, wit, or 
 beauty, is generally a temptation to a woman to put an 
 
 10 unreasonable value upon herself ; but with all these, in 
 a degree which drew upon you the addresses of men of 
 the amplest fortunes, you bestowed your person where 
 you could have no expectations but from the gratitude 
 of the receiver, though you knew he could exert that 
 
 15 gratitude in no other returns but esteem and love. For 
 which must I first thank you ? for what you have denied 
 yourself, or for what you have bestowed on me ? 
 
 I owe to you that for my sake you have overlooked 
 the prospect of living in pomp and plenty, and I have 
 
 20 not been circumspect enough to preserve you from care 
 and sorrow. I will not dwell upon this particular ; you 
 are so good a wife that I know you think I rob you of 
 more than I can give, when I say anything in your favour 
 to my own disadvantage. 
 
 25 Whoever should see or hear you, would think it were 
 worth leaving all the world for you ; while I, habitually 
 possessed of that happiness, have been throwing away 
 impotent endeavours for the rest of mankind, to the 
 neglect of her for whom any other man, in his senses, 
 
 30 would be apt to sacrifice everything else. 
 
THE LADIES' LIBRARY. 163 
 
 I know not by what unreasonable prepossession it is, 
 but . methinks there must be something austere to give 
 authority to wisdom ; and I cannot account for having 
 only rallied many seasonable sentiments of yours but 
 that you are too beautiful to appear judicious. 5 
 
 One may grow fond, but not wise, from what is said by 
 so lovely a counsellor. Hard fate, that you have been 
 lessened by your perfections, and lost power by your 
 charms ! 
 
 That ingenuous spirit in all your behaviour, that lo 
 familiar grace in your words and actions, has for this 
 seven years only inspired admiration and love ; but 
 experience has taught me, the best counsel I ever have 
 received has been pronounced by the fairest and softest 
 lips ; and convinced me that I am in you blest with a 1 5 
 wise friend as well as a charming mistress. 
 
 Your mind shall no longer suffer by your person ; nor 
 shall your eyes, for the future, dazzle me into a blindness 
 towards your understanding. I rejoice in this public 
 occasion to shew my esteem for you ; and must do you 20 
 the justice to say, that there can be no virtue represented 
 in all this collection for the female world, which I have 
 not known you exert, as far as the opportunities of your 
 fortune have given you leave. Forgive me, that my heart 
 overflows with love and gratitude for daily instances of 25 
 your prudent economy, the just disposition you make 
 of your little affairs, your cheerfulness in dispatch of 
 them, your prudent forbearance of any reflections that 
 they might have needed less vigilance had you disposed 
 of your fortune suitably ; in short, for all the arguments 30 
 you every day give me of a generous and sincere affection. 
 
 It is impossible for me to look back on many evils and 
 pains which I have suffered since we came together, with- 
 out a pleasure which is not to be expressed, from the 
 
164 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 proofs I have had, in those circumstances, of your 
 unwearied goodness. How often has your tenderness 
 removed pain from my sick head ! How often anguish 
 from my afflicted heart ! With how skilful patience have 
 5 I known you comply with the vain projects which pain 
 has suggested, to have an aching limb removed by 
 journeying from one side of a room to another ! How 
 often, the next instant, travelled the same ground again, 
 without telling your patient it was to no purpose to 
 
 10 change his situation ? If there are such beings as 
 Guardian Angels, thus they are employed. I will no 
 more believe one of them more good in its inclinations, 
 than I can conceive it more charming in its form, than 
 my Wife. 
 
 1 5 But I offend ; and forget that what I say to you is to 
 appear in public. You are so great a lover of home that 
 I know it will be irksome to you to go into the world 
 even in an applause. I will end this without so much as 
 mentioning your little flock, or your own amiable figure 
 
 20 at the head of it. That I think them preferable to all 
 other children, I know, is the effect of passion and 
 instinct. That I believe you the best of wives, I know 
 proceeds from experience and reason. 
 I am. Madam, 
 
 25 Your most obliged husband 
 
 and most obedient humble servant, 
 
 Richard Steele. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 [From Mr. Steele's Apology for Himself and his 
 Writings; Occasioned by his Expulsion from the House 
 of Commons, 1714.1 
 
 But I flatter myself that I shall convince all my fellow- 
 subjects of my innocence from the following circumstances. 
 
APOLOGY FOR HIMSELF. 165 
 
 allowed to be of weight in all trials of this nature : from 
 the general character of the offender, the motive to his 
 offence, and the character of the persons who appear for 
 him, opposed to those who are against him. There are 
 some points to be allowed which bear hard against the 5 
 prisoner at the bar, and we must grant this by way of 
 confessing and avoiding, and give it up, that the, defend- 
 ant has been as great a libertine as a confessor. We 
 will suppose, then, a witness giving an account of him, 
 who, if he spoke true, would say as follows. lo 
 
 " I have been long acquainted with Mr. Steele, who is 
 accused as a malicious writer, and can give an account 
 of him (from what he used to confess to us his private 
 friends) what was the chief motive of his first appearing 
 in print. Besides this, I have read everything he has 15 
 writ or published. He first became an author when an 
 ensign of the Guards, a way of life exposed to much 
 irregularity, and, being thoroughly convinced of many 
 things of which he often repented and which he more 
 often repeated, he writ, for his own private use, a littlfe 20 
 book called the Christian Hero, with a design principally 
 to fix upon his own mind a strong impression of virtue 
 and religion, in opposition to a stronger propensity 
 toward unwarrantable pleasures. This secret admonition 
 was too weak ; he therefore printed the book with his 25 
 name, in hopes that a standing testimony against himself, 
 and the eyes of the world (that is to say, of his acquaint- 
 ance) upon him in a new light, might curb his desires 
 and make him ashamed of understanding and seeming 
 to feel what was virtuous and living so quite contrary a 30 
 life. This had no other good effect but that from being 
 thought no undelightful companion he was soon reckoned 
 a disagreeable fellow. One or two of his acquaintance 
 thought fit to misuse him and try their valour upon him. 
 
166 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 and everybody he knew measured the least levity in his 
 words and actions with the character of a Christian hero. 
 Thus he found himself slighted, instead of being encour- 
 aged, for his declarations as to religion, and it was now 
 5 incumbent upon him to enliven his character, for which 
 reason he writ the comedy called The Funeral, in which 
 (though full of incidents that move laughter) virtue and 
 vice appear just as they ought to do. Nothing can make 
 the town so fond of a man as a successful play, and this, 
 
 10 with some particulars enlarged upon to his advantage 
 (for princes never hear good or evil in the manner others 
 do), obtained him the notice of the King, and his name, 
 to be provided for, was in the last table-book ever worn 
 by the glorious and immortal William the Third. 
 
 15 "His next appearance as a writer was in the quality 
 of the lowest minister of state, to wit, in the office of 
 Gazetteer, where he worked faithfully according to order, 
 without ever erring against the rule observed by all 
 ministries, to keep that paper very innocent and very 
 
 20 insipid. 
 
 " It is believed it was to the reproaches he heard every 
 Gazette-day against the writer of it that the defendant 
 owes the fortitude of being remarkably negligent of what 
 people say, which he does not deserve, except in so great 
 
 25 cases as that now before us. His next productions were 
 still plays, then the Tatkr, then the Spectator, then the 
 Guardian, then the Englishman. And now, though he 
 has published and scribbled so very much, he may defy 
 any man to find one leaf in all these writings which is 
 
 30 not, in point, a defence against this imputation, to find 
 a leaf which does not mediately or immediately tend to 
 the honor of the Queen or the service of the nobility and 
 gentry, or which is not particularly respectful to the 
 universities. Farther this witness sayeth not.'' 
 
. THE THEATRE. 167 
 
 xxni. 
 
 [No. 12.] [From the Theatre.] 
 
 January 2 to April ^, 1^20. 
 
 There never was more strict friendship than between 
 those gentlemen ; nor had they ever any difference but 
 what proceeded from their different way of pursuing the 
 same thing. The one with patience, foresight, and s 
 temperate address, always waited and stemmed the 
 torrent ; while the other often plunged himself into it, 
 and was as often taken out by the temper of him who 
 stood weeping on the brink for his safety, whom he could 
 not dissuade from leaping into it. Thus these two men lo 
 lived for some years last past, shunning each other, but 
 still preserving the most passionate concern for their 
 mutual welfare. But when they met, they were as 
 unreserved as boys, and talked of the greatest affairs, 
 upon which they saw they differed, without pressing 15 
 (what they knew impossible) to convert each other. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 [From Act IV., Scene i, of The Conscious Lovers, a suc- 
 cessful sentimental drama, first played November 7, 1 722. The 
 priggish hero, Belvil, Junior, the model of all filial and humane 
 virtues, thus nobly avoids a duel with his friend Myrtle, who 
 wrongly imagines him the accepted suitor of Lucinda.] 
 
 Bevil, jun. I put on a serenity while my fellow was 
 present, but I have never been more thoroughly disturbed. 
 This hot man, to write me a challenge, on supposed 
 artificial dealing, when I professed myself his friend 1 20 
 I can live contented without glory ; but I cannot suffer 
 shame. What 's to be done ? But first let me consider 
 Lucinda's letter again. {Reads. 
 
168 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 Sir, I hope it is consistent with the laws a woman ought 
 to impose upon herself, to acknowledge that your manner 
 of declining a treaty of marriage in our family and 
 desiring the refusal may come from me, has something 
 S more engaging in it than the courtship of him who, I 
 fear, will fall to my lot, except your friend exerts himself 
 for our common safety and happiness. I have reasons 
 for desiring Mr. Myrtle may not know of this letter till 
 hereafter, and am your most obliged humble servant, 
 
 1° LUCINDA SeALAND. 
 
 Well, but the postscript. \_Reads. 
 
 I won't, upon second thoughts, hide anything from 
 you ; but my reason for concealing this is that Mr. Myrtle 
 has a jealousy in his temper which gives me some terrors ; 
 1 5 but my esteem for him inclines me to hope that only an 
 ill effect which sometimes accompanies a tender love and 
 what may be cured by a careful and unblamable conduct. 
 
 Thus has this lady made me her friend and confidant, 
 and put herself, in a kind, under my protection ; I cannot 
 
 20 tell him immediately the purport of her letter, except I 
 could cure him of the violent and untractable passion of 
 jealousy, and to serve him and her by disobeying her in 
 the article of secrecy more than I should by complying 
 with her directions. But then this duelling, which custom 
 
 25 has imposed upon every man who would live with reputa- 
 tion and honour in the world. How must I preserve 
 myself from imputations there ? He '11, forsooth, call it, 
 or think it, fear, if I explain without fighting. But his 
 letter — I '11 read it again. 
 
 30 Sir, You have used me basely, in corresponding and 
 carrying on a treaty where you told me you were indif- 
 
THE CONSCIOUS LOVERS. 169 
 
 ferent. I have changed my sword since I saw you, which 
 advertisement I thought proper to send you, against the 
 next meeting between you and the injured 
 
 Charles Myrtle. 
 
 Enter Tom. 
 
 Tom. Mr. Myrtle, sir. Would your honour please to 5 
 see him ? 
 
 Bevil, jun. Why you stupid creature ! Let Mr. Myrtle 
 wait at my lodgings ! Show him up. \Exit Tom.] Well, 
 I am resolved upon my carriage to him. He is in love, 
 and in every circumstance of life a little distrustful, which 10 
 I must allow for. But here he is. 
 
 Enter Tom introducing Myrtle. 
 
 Sir, I am extremely obliged to you for this honour. — 
 But, sir, you, with your very discerning face, leave the 
 room. \_Exit Tom.] Well, Mr. Myrtle, your commands 
 with me. 15 
 
 Myrtle. The time, the place, our long acquaintance, 
 and many other circumstances which affect me on this 
 occasion, oblige me without farther ceremony or confer- 
 ence to desire you would not only, as you already have, 
 acknowledge the receipt of my letter, but also comply 20 
 with the request in it. I must have farther notice taken 
 of my message than these half lines — "I have yours" — 
 "I shall be at home." 
 
 Bevil, jun. Sir, I own I have received a letter from 
 you, in a very unusual style ; but as I design everything 25 
 in this matter shall be your own action, your own seek- 
 ing, I shall understand nothing but what you are pleased • 
 to confirm face to face, and I have already forgot the 
 contents of your epistle. 
 
170 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 Myr. This cool manner is very agreeable to the abuse 
 
 you have already made of my simplicity and frankness ; 
 
 and I see your moderation tends to your own advantage, 
 
 and not mine ; to your own safety, not consideration of 
 
 5 your friend. 
 
 Bevil, jun. My own safety, Mr. Myrtle ! 
 
 Myr. Your own safety, Mr. Bevil. 
 
 Bevil, jun. Look you, Mr. Myrtle, there's no disguis- 
 ing that I understand what you would be at ; but, sir, 
 10 you know I have often dared to disapprove of the 
 decisions a tyrant custom has introduced, to the breach 
 of all laws both divine and human. 
 
 Myr. Mr. Bevil, Mr. Bevil, it would be a good first 
 
 principle in those who have so tender a conscience that 
 
 15 way, to have as much abhorrence of doing injuries as — 
 
 Bevil, jun. As what ? 
 
 Myr. As fear of answering for 'em. 
 
 Bevil, jun. As fear of answering for 'em ! But that 
 
 apprehension is just or blamable according to the object 
 
 20 of that fear. I have often told you, in confidence of 
 
 heart, I abhorred the daring to offend the Author of life 
 
 and rushing into His presence. I say, by the very same 
 
 act, to commit the crime against Him and immediately to 
 
 urge on to His tribunal. 
 
 25 Myr. Mr. Bevil, I must tell you this coolness, this 
 
 gravity, this show of conscience, shall never cheat me of 
 
 my mistress. You have, indeed, the best excuse for life, 
 
 the hopes of possessing Lucinda: but, consider, sir, I 
 
 have as much reason to be weary of it, if I am to lose 
 
 30 her ; and my first attempt to recover her, shall be to let 
 
 her see the dauntless man who is to be her guardian and 
 
 protector. 
 
 Bevil, jun. Sir, show me but the least glimpse of 
 argument, that I am authorized by my own hand to vindi- 
 
THE CONSCIOUS LOVERS. 171 
 
 cate any lawless insult of this nature, and I will show 
 thee — to chastise thee hardly deserves the name of 
 courage — slight, inconsiderate man ! There is, Mr. 
 Myrtle, no such terror in quick anger ; and you shall, you 
 know not why, be cool, as you have, you know not why, 5 
 been warm. 
 
 Myr. Is the woman one loves so little an occasion of 
 anger ? You, perhaps, who know not what it is to love, 
 who have your ready, your commodious, your foreign 
 trinket, for your loose hours, and from your fortune, your 10 
 specious outward carriage, and other lucky circumstances, 
 as easy a way to the possession of a woman of honour ; 
 you know nothing of what it is to be alarmed, to be 
 distracted, with anxiety and terror of losing more than 
 life. Your marriage, happy man, goes on like common 15 
 business, and in the interim you have your rambling 
 captive, your Indian princess, for your soft moments of 
 dalliance, your convenient, your ready Indiana. 
 
 Bevil, jun. You have touched me beyond the patience 
 of a man ; and I 'm excusable in the guard of innocence, 20 
 or from the infirmity of human nature, which can bear no 
 more, to accept your invitation, and observe your letter. 
 Sir, I '11 attend you. 
 
 Enter Tom. 
 
 Tom. Did you call, sir ? I thought you did. I heard 
 you speak aloud. 25 
 
 Bevil, jun. Yes, go call a coach. 
 
 Tom. Sir — master — Mr. Myrtle — friends — gen- 
 tlemen — What d' ye mean ? I am but a servant, or — 
 
 Bevil, jun. Call a coach. \_Exit Tom. 
 
 \A long pause, walking sullenly by each other. 
 \_Aside.'\ Shall I, though provoked to the uttermost, 3° 
 recover myself at the entrance of a third person, and that 
 
172 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 my servant too, and not have respect enough to all I have 
 ever been receiving from infancy, the obligation to the 
 best of fathers, to an unhappy virgin too, whose life 
 depends on mine ? \_Shutting the door. 
 
 5 \To Myrtle.] I have, thank heaven, had time to 
 recollect myself, and shall not, for fear of what such a 
 rash man as you think of me^ keep longer unexplained 
 the false appearances under which your infirmity of 
 temper makes you suffer, when, perhaps, too much 
 
 10 regard to a false point of honour makes me prolong that 
 suffering. 
 
 Myr. I am sure Mr. Bevil cannot doubt but I had 
 rather have satisfaction from his innocence than his 
 sword. 
 
 15 Bevil, jun. Why, then, would you ask it first that way? 
 Myr. Consider, you kept your temper yourself no 
 longer than till I spoke to the disadvantage of her you 
 loved. 
 
 Bevil, jun. True. But, let me tell you, I have saved 
 
 20 you from the most exquisite distress, even though you 
 had succeeded in the dispute. I know you so well that 
 I am sure to have found this letter about a man you had 
 killed would have been worse than death to yourself. 
 Read it. {Aside.'\ When he -is thoroughly mortified, 
 
 25 and shame has got the better of jealousy, he will 
 deserve to be assisted towards obtaining Lucinda. 
 
 Myr. With what a superiority has he turned the 
 injury on me, as the aggressor ! I begin to fear I have 
 been too far transported. " A treaty in our family ! " 
 
 30 Is not that saying too much ? I shall relapse. But I 
 find (on the postscript) something like " jealousy.'' With 
 what face can I see my benefactor, my advocate, whom 
 I have treated like a betrayer. ■ — Oh, Bevil I with what 
 words shall I — 
 
THE CONSCIOUS LOVERS. 173 
 
 Bevil, jun. There needs none ; to convince is much 
 more than to conquer. 
 
 Myr. But can you — 
 
 Bevil, jun. You have o'erpaid the inquietude you ' 
 gave me in the change I see in you towards me. Alas, 5 
 what machines are we ! Thy face is altered to that of 
 another man ; to that of my companion, my friend. 
 
 Myr. That I could be such a precipitate wretch ! 
 
 Bevil, jun. Pray, no more. 
 
 Myr. Let me reflect how many friends have died by 10 
 the hands of friends for want of temper ; and you must 
 give me a leave to say again and again how much I am 
 beholden to that superior spirit you have subdued me 
 with. What had become of one of us, or perhaps both, 
 had you been as weak as I was and as incapable of 15 
 reason ? 
 
 Bevil, jun. I congratulate to us both the escape from 
 ourselves, and hope the memory of it will make us dearer 
 friends than ever. 
 
 Myr. Dear Bevil, your friendly conduct has convinced 20 
 me that there is nothing manly but what is conducted by 
 reason and agreeable to the practice of virtue and jus- 
 tice ; and yet how many have been sacrified to that idol, 
 the unreasonable opinion of men ! Nay, they are so 
 ridiculous in it that they often use their swords against 25 
 each other, with dissembled anger and real fear. 
 
 Betrayed by honour, and compelled by shame, 
 They hazard being, to preserve a name, 
 Nor dare inquire into the dread mistake 
 Till plunged in sad eternity they wake. 30 
 
 \_Exeunt. 
 
174 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 {Letters, 171 6-17.] 
 
 1. 
 Dearest Prue 
 
 This is only to ask how you do. 
 I am 
 Y'--Betty-Dick-Eugene Mollys 
 S Humble Servant 
 
 Richard Steele. 
 
 Dear Prue ^• 
 
 Molly's distemper proves the Small Pox, which she 
 
 has very favourably and a good kind. Mrs. Evans is 
 
 10 very good and Nurse Jevase very diligent ; Sarah has 
 
 every good Quality and the whole family are in Health 
 
 beside the dear infant. 
 
 I am very Close at my Papers not having been two 
 
 hours out of the House since I parted with You. Pray 
 
 '5 take care of yourself. I Love You to distraction for I 
 
 cannot be angry at any thing you do, let it be never so 
 
 odd and unexpected to the Tenderest of Husbands. 
 
 Richard Steele. 
 
 Saturday, JVovir lyth, iyi6. 
 
 20 We had not when you left us an Inch of Candle a 
 pound of Coal or a bit of Meat, in the House. But we 
 do not want now. R. S. 
 
 Dear Prue Christmas-Day. 
 
 I went the other day to see Betty at Chelsea who 
 
 25 represented to Me in Her pretty language that she seemed 
 
 helplesse, and Freindlesse without any bodye's taking 
 
LETTERS. 175 
 
 notice of Her at Christmas, when all the Children but she 
 
 and two more were with their Relations. I have invited 
 
 Her to dinner to day, with one of the Teachers, and they 
 
 are here now in the room Betty and Moll very Noisy and 
 
 Pleased together. Besse goes back again as soon as s 
 
 she has dined to Chelsea. I have stay'd in to get a 
 
 very advantageous affair dispatched, for I assure you I 
 
 Love money at present as well as y"' Lp and am Intirely 
 
 Yours 
 
 Richard Steele. io 
 
 I told Betty I had writ to You and she Made me open 
 My letter again and give Her Humble Duty to Her 
 Mother, and desire to Know when she shall have the 
 Honour to see Her in Town. She gives Her Love to Mrs. 
 Bevans and all Her Cousins. 15 
 
 Dear Prue ^' 
 
 I am very well pleased with the behavior of David 
 at Oxford, who has render'd Himself very agreeable to 
 all the Whigg World on a very proper occasion, at Oxon. 
 He spoke contemptibly of the pretender in a publick 20 
 Speech and the Proctor thought fitt to reprove Him there- 
 upon. The Bishop of Bangor takes occasion to espouse 
 him in this juncture. 
 
 Your Daughter Moll is noisy, Betty very Grave, and 
 Eugene very Strong and Lusty. We are not yet paid a 25 
 farthing : when We are I shall send you down a receipt 
 for Betty's Scooling. 
 
 Ever Yours, 
 
 Richard Steele. 
 
 Feb. 28i^, 17 1\. 30 
 
176 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 S- 
 
 Hampton-Court, 
 Dear Prue March idfi, 171^. 
 
 If you have written anything to me which I should 
 have received last night I begg Your pardon that I can- 
 not answer till the next post. The House of Commons 5 
 will be very busie the next Week and I had many things 
 publick and private for which I wanted four and twenty 
 Hours retirement and therefore came to visit your Son. 
 I came out of Town yesterday being Friday and shall 
 return to-morrow. Your Son at the present writing is 10 
 mighty well employed in Tumbling on the Floor of the 
 room, and Sweeping the sand with a Feather. He grows 
 a most delightful! Child, and very full of Play and Spiritt. 
 He is also a very great Scholar. He can read His 
 Primer, and I have brought down my Virgil. He makes 15 
 most shrewd remarks upon the Pictures. We are very 
 intimate Friends and Play fellows. He begins to be 
 very ragged and I hope I shall be pardoned if I equip 
 Him with new Cloaths and Frocks or what Mrs. Evans 
 and I shall think for His Service. 20 
 
 I am. Dear Prue, Ever Yours 
 
 Richard Steele. 
 
 6. 
 Dear Prue ^"y ^^'^' ^7^7- 
 
 Your Son is now with Me very Merry in Rags, which 
 Condition I am going to better ; For He shall have new 25 
 things immediately. He is extremely pretty and has his 
 face sweetened with something of the Venus His Mother, 
 which is no small delight to the Vulcan who begott Him. 
 Ever yours, 
 
 Richard Steele. 3° 
 
LETTERS. 177 
 
 7- 
 Dear Prue 
 
 I have Yours of the 14* and am infinitly obliged to 
 You for the length of it. I do not know another whome 
 I could commend for that Circumstance, but where we 
 intirely Love the continuance of any thing they do to 5 
 please us is a pleasure. As for your relations ; once for 
 all pray take it for granted that my regard and conduct 
 towards all and singular of them shall be as You direct. 
 
 I hope by the Grace of God to continue what you wish 
 Me, every way, an Honest man. My Wife and my Chil- lo 
 dren are the objects that have wholly taken up my 
 Heart, and as I am not invited, or encouraged in any 
 thing which regards the publick, I am easy under that 
 neglect, or envy of my past actions, and Chearfully con- 
 tract that diffusive spirit within the interests of my own 15 
 family. You are the Head of Us and I stoop to a female 
 reign as being naturally made the Slave of Beauty. But 
 to prepare for our manner of living when we are again 
 together. Give me leave to say, while I am here at Leisure 
 and come to lye at Chelsea, what I think may contribute 20 
 to our better way of Living. I very much approve Mrs. 
 Evans and Her Husband, and if you would take my 
 advice I would have them have a being in Our House, 
 and Mrs. Clark the care and inspection of the Nursery. 
 I would have You, intirely at Leisure to passe your time 25 
 with Me in diversions, in Books, in Entertainments, and 
 no manner of Businesse intrude upon Us but at stated 
 times ; for, tho' you are made to be the delight of my 
 Eyes, and food of all my Senses and faculties Yet a Turn 
 of Care and Huswifry, and I know not what prepossession 30 
 against conversation pleasures, robbs Me of the Witty 
 and the Handsome Woman to a degree not to be 
 expressed. I will work my brains and fingers to procure 
 
178 RICHARD STEELE. 
 
 us plenty of all things, and demand nothing of you but to 
 take delight in agreeable dresses, Chearfull discourses, 
 and Gay sights attended by Me. This may be done by 
 putting the Kitchen and the nursery in the hands I 
 
 5 propose, and I shall have nothing to do but to passe as 
 much time at home as I possibly can, in the best Com- 
 pany in the World. We cannot tell Here what to think 
 of the Tryall of my Lord Oxford ; if the Ministry are in 
 Earnest in that, and I should see it will be extended to a 
 
 10 length of time I will leave them to themselves and Wait 
 upon You. Miss Moll grows a mighty Beauty, and she 
 shall be very prettily dressed, as likewise shall Betty and 
 Eugene, and if I throw away a little money in adorning 
 my Brats, I hope you v\;ill forgive Me. They are, I thank 
 
 15 God, all very well, and the Charming Form of their 
 mother has temper'd the likenesse they bear to their 
 rough Sire, who is. With the greatest fondnesse 
 V most oblig'd and most Obedient Husband 
 
 Richard Steele. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 I., II. LETTERS. 
 
 Throughout the volume Steele's letters have in every case been 
 reprinted from the text employed, after a careful examination of the 
 originals, by Mr. Aitkin in his Life of Sir Richard Steele, rather than 
 from the modernized text as published in Nichols's Epistolary Corre- 
 spondence. 
 
 A good idea of university life in the eighteenth century may be ob- 
 tained from Christopher Wordsworth's Scholae Academicae: some 
 account of the studies at the English universities in the eighteenth century 
 (1877) ; and his Social Life at the English Universities in the Eighteenth 
 Century (iZt^). See also L&dny, England in the Eighteenth Century, 
 
 ii. 534 sq. 
 
 1 6 Dr. Henry Aldrich, Dean of Christ Church from 1689 to 17 10. 
 For his famous catch, " Hark I the bonny Christ Church bells," alluded 
 to in the Tailer, No. 34, see Ashton, Social Life in the Reign of Queen 
 Anne, p. 454. 
 
 2 7 Dr. John Hough (1650-1743), whom the Fellows of Magdalen 
 appointed president of the college in 1687, rejecting a mandamus from 
 James II. He was removed from oflSce by the Ecclesiastical Commis- 
 sioners, but reinstated in 1688. In 1690 he had been made Bishop of 
 Oxford, retaining the presidentship of Magdalen. See Macaulay, 
 History of England, chap. vii. 
 
 III., IV. THE CHRISTIAN HERO. 
 
 The text follows the first edition, excepting in the case of a few 
 familiar eighteenth-century contractions (e.g., 'em for them), which 
 would have given to modern readers a false conception of the easy but 
 dignified style of the composition. For the Christian Hero, see Intro- 
 duction, pages xi and xlviii. Steele's style, in his moral writings, 
 reminds one strongly of that of Dr. Tillotson, whom he seems to have 
 been fond of reading. 
 
180 NOTES. 
 
 3 19 Two opposing contemporary conceptions of Lord Cutts's 
 character may be found in Swift's coarse verses, The Description of a 
 Salamander, and in Addison's Latin poem, Pax Gulielmi. See also the 
 Tatler, No. 5. In later years Steele thought he had reason to be dis- 
 satisfied with Cutts's treatment of him. See the correspondence 
 printed in Aitkin's Life of Sir Richard Steele, vol. i., pages 135, 136. 
 
 4 9-ia Buda. The citadel of Buda (now Budapest) was wrested 
 from the hands of the Turks in 1686, after a series of brilliant successes. 
 Lord Cutts served in the crusading army, which was made up in part of 
 volunteers from all the European powers, under the Duke of Lorraine. 
 Limerick and Namur. The capture of Limerick, in October, 1691, put 
 an end to the power of the Jacobite party in Ireland. The taking of 
 Namur (1695) '^^^ '^^ 'i'^s' success of William III. in the war of the 
 allies against Louis XIV. 
 
 " The king in person directed the attack. . . . Conspicuous in bravery 
 even among those brave English was Cutts. In that bulldog courage 
 which flinches from no danger, however terrible, he was unrivalled. 
 There was no difficulty in finding hardy volunteers, German, Dutch, and 
 British, to go on a forlorn hope : but Cutts was the only man who 
 appeared to consider such an expedition as a party of pleasure. He 
 was so much at his ease in the hottest fire of the French batteries that 
 his soldiers gave him the honorable nickname of the Salamander." — 
 Macaulay, History of England, chap. xxi. 
 
 5 14 This seems to contradict Machiavelli's general conception of 
 the function of religion in a state. See the translation that Steele may 
 well have used, E(dward) D(acres)'s Machiavelli's Discourses upon the 
 First Decade of T. Livius, second edition, London, 1674, bk. i., chaps, 
 xi.— XV. , 
 
 6 23 Sallust has transmitted to us. In his Catiline, chap. liii. 
 10 1 Two great rivals. William III. and Louis~XIV. 
 
 V. THE FUNERAL. 
 
 The text used for Steele's plays is that of 1761, corrected by com- 
 parison with that of Mr. Aitkin, who has collated the chief earlier 
 editions, in the Mermaid Series. For the main facts concerning The 
 Funeral, see Introduction, pages xi, xlix-lii. 
 
 12 12 Richard Lucas,' D.D. {1648-1715), author of the Enquiry 
 after Happiness and Practical Christianity. See the Guardian, No. 63. 
 
 14 19 Tringham, trangham: usually '" trangram,'' z>., trumpery. 
 
NOTES. 181 
 
 14 26 Daniel Purcell's music for the song may be found in Appen- 
 dix iv. of Aitkin's Life of Steele. 
 
 15 22 Henry Lawes (1595-1662), Milton's friend. 
 
 18 22 Closet. A small private apartment; not, of course, in the 
 modern sense of a place for putting clothes, etc. 
 
 18 25 Pantofles, slippers. Probably Lady Harriot had lost her loose 
 slippers in running round the room (page 16, line 21). 
 
 VI. THE TENDER HUSBAND. 
 
 The title imitates Gibber's The Careless Husband, which had been 
 produced a few months before, Dec. 7, 1704. Sir Humphrey Gubbin, 
 Humphrey Gubbin, and Biddy Tipkin are supposed to have been the 
 originals of Fielding's Squire Western, Goldsmith's Tony Lumpkin, 
 and Sheridan's Lydia Languish. For references to the play, see Intro- 
 duction, pages xii, xlix-lii. 
 
 21 21 Annuities. Under the act of 1692 the national debt of Eng- 
 land was begun by borrovring a million pounds, which was raised by life 
 annuities. " As the annuitants dropped oflE, their annuities were to be 
 divided among the survivors, till the number of survivors was reduced 
 to seven. After that time, whatever fell in was to go to the public. 
 It was therefore certain that the eighteenth century would be far ad- 
 vanced before the debt would be finally extinguished ; and, in fact, long 
 after King George the Third was on the throne, a few aged men were 
 receiving large incomes from the State, in return for a little money 
 which had been advanced to King William on their account when they 
 were children. The rate of interest was to be ten per cent until the year 
 1700, and after that year seven per cent." — Macaulay, History of Eng- 
 land, chap. xix. Annuities were naturally the object of much business 
 speculation, especially when the Government transferred part of its 
 obligations to the famous South Sea Company (1720). 
 
 22 32 For an account of these idle romances, pastoral and heroic, 
 see Jusserand's English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare, chaps, v. 
 and vii., and Rawleigh's The English Novel, chap. iv. 
 
 23 7 The names were familiar ones in the popular romances. 
 Urganda (27 19) was the enchantress in Amadis of Gaul and its sequels. 
 Pamela (27 95) and Musidorus (27 26) are from Sir Philip Sidney's 
 Arcadia. Parthenissa (29 5) was the heroine of Boyle's romance of the 
 same name (1651). Oroondates and Satira (30 8) were the principal 
 personages in La Calprenide's Cassandra. 
 
182 NOTES. 
 
 23 28 Sisly, i-e.. Cicely, formerly a familiar feminine name in Eng- 
 land. The daughter of William the Conqueror had been named C^cile. 
 
 25 5 Lombard Street, for centuries associated with banking and 
 iinance, was in the eighteenth century still a place of residence as well 
 as of business. See the description of London in the third chapter of 
 Macaulay's History of England. 
 
 25 32 Liberties. " By the city of London we are to comprehend 
 no more than the part encompassed formerly by the wall of the city. 
 The liberties, or those parts of this great city which are subject to its 
 jurisdiction, and lie without the wall or walls of London." Entick, A 
 New and Accurate Survey of London, etc., London, 1766, vol. iii., p. 303. 
 
 VII. PROLOGUE TO THE MISTAKE. 
 
 Steele's good-humored complaints in regard to the taste of theatre- 
 goers are fully borne out by contemporary writers. See, for instance, 
 Gibber's Apology, chap. x. In the prologue to The Funeral Steele had 
 made a similar charge : — 
 
 " Nature's deserted, and dramatic art, 
 To dazzle now the eye, has left the heart ; 
 Gay lights and dresses, long-extended scenes. 
 Demons and angels moving in machines. 
 All that can now or please or fright the fair 
 May be performed without a writer's care. 
 And is the skill of carpenter, not player." 
 
 30 26 Du Ruel was a French dancer who was at the time perform- 
 ing at the Theatre Royal. 
 
 VIII. LETTERS, 1707-8. 
 
 See Introduction, pages xix, xlviii. (i) was, according to Nichols, 
 written August 14, and was Steele's third letter to Mary Scurlock ; (2) 
 and (6) were published, somewhat altered, in No. 142 of the Spectator. 
 
 33 7 Ld. Sunderland's Office. Steele's duties as Gazetteer (see 
 page xiii) made the office of the Secretary of the State his headquarters. 
 
 33 21 Mrs. Respectable women, whether married or single, were 
 addressed as Mistress. 
 
 34 20 Saint James's Coffee-house. See note on page 44, 1. 2. 
 
 34 28 Hampton-Court. William III. removed the court thither. 
 See Macaulay's History, chap. xi. 
 
NOTES. 183 
 
 35 25 Husband. The marriage probably took place on Sept. 9, 
 1707, though Mrs. Steele would not live with her husband until some 
 weeks later, when her mother, who was in Wales, had consented to the 
 match. 
 
 36 29 West-Indian businesse refers to certain property in Barbados, 
 which Steele had inherited through his first wife. 
 
 37 7 Devil Tavern. Either there were three taverns of the same 
 name, or that here referred to was one of the two near Temple Bar, 
 called respectively " The Old Devil Tavern " and the " Young Devil 
 Tavern." The name originated from the painted sign of the older 
 house, which, in honor of the neighboring church of St. Dunstan's, 
 represented the saint as pulling the devil by the nose. 
 
 37 24 Aitkin notes that " Edward Ash, Esq., M. P. for Heytesbury, 
 was made storekeeper of the ordnance in April, 1710 (Luttrell's Diary, 
 vi., 566)," and that Mr. Lumley was " perhaps Lieut.-General Lumley, 
 who, like ' R. Edgecomb, Esq.,' was a subscriber to the collected edition 
 of the Tatler." 
 
 38 5 Tonson, " the bookseller in Gray's-Inn." — Aitkin. 
 
 38 27 The Coach. The household of the Steeles was early set 
 up on an extravagant basis. 
 
 41 11 The Beauties in the Garden were obviously Mrs. Steele and 
 her companion. Steele had taken, in 1708, an expensive country house 
 at Hampton Wick. Lord Halifax lived near Hampton Court. 
 
 42 6 Bohee, bohea, the name given in the beginning of the 
 eighteenth century to the finest kinds of black tea. 
 
 IX. THE TATLER. 
 
 The text of the extracts from Steele's periodical writings is that of 
 the original papers themselves, except in cases where important modi- 
 fications were made by Steele or his representatives in the early collected 
 editions. All necessary information in regard to the Tatler will be found 
 in Aitkin. The first annotated edition was that of Nichols, 1786, to 
 which all subsequent editions, including the present one, are deeply in- 
 debted. Our knowledge in regard to the authorship of the papers in the 
 Tatler is thus concisely stated by Aitkin (i., 257) : " None of the papers in 
 the Tatler, as originally issued, bore any indication of their author's name, 
 and it is occasionally difficult and even impossible to determine who 
 wrote a paper or a portion of a paper. The reliable information that 
 we have is furnished, firstly, by Steele's preface to the Tatler, in which 
 
184 NOTES. 
 
 he announced the authorship of certain papers ; and, secondly, by the 
 list of papers by Addison which Steele supplied to Tickell. But that 
 list was not complete, because, as Steele says in the Preface to the 
 second edition of the Drummer, ' what I never did declare was Mr. 
 Addison's, I had his direct injunctions to hide.'(. . . Many of the writings 
 now published as his I have been very patiently traduced and calum- 
 niated for, as they were pleasantries and oblique strokes upon certain of 
 the wittiest men of the age.' It is well known, too, that Swift would not 
 confess all that he wrote. There are, therefore, a few papers respecting 
 which a doubt remains." 
 
 42 so Quicquid agunt, etc. Juvenal, Satires, i., 86 : " What man- 
 kind does shall my collections fill." This and succeeding translations 
 of mottoes, unless otherwise stated, are taken from The Mottoes of the 
 Spectators, Tatlers, and Guardians, translated into English, by Rev. 
 J. Broughton, second edition, London, 1737. 
 
 43 13 For the convenience of the post. It was on those days that 
 the important inland posts left London. 
 
 43 33 White's Chocolate-house, in St. James's Street, became 
 notorious very early in the eighteenth century as a fashionable gam- 
 bling-house. See Hogarth's Rake's Progress, Pt. iv. 
 
 43 33 Will's Cofiee-house, on Russell Street, so called from William 
 Urwin, who kept it, was " sacred to polite letters." See Macaulay, 
 History, chap, iii., Pepys, Diary, Feb. 3, 1 663-4, Prior, City and Courts 
 try Mouse. 
 
 44 1 Grecian. " In Devereux "Court, Strand, and named from a 
 Greek, Constantine, who kept it. Close to the Temple, it was a place 
 of resort for lawyers." — Morley's Spectator. 
 
 44 2 Saint James's Coffee-house. " The last house but one on the 
 south-west- corner of Saint James's Street; closed about 1806. Near 
 St. James's Palace, it was a place of resort for Whig officers of the 
 Guards and men of fashion. It was famous also in Queen Anne's 
 reign, and long after, as the house most favored by Whig statesmen and 
 members of Parliament, who could there privately discuss their party 
 tactics." — Morley. 
 
 44 9 Plain Spanish, wine. 
 
 44 11 Kidney, one of the waiters at St. James's Coffee-house. Cf. 
 in the same number : " Mr. Kidney, who has the ear of the greatest 
 politicians that come hither, tells me,'' etc. See also Nos. 10 and 26. 
 
 44 26 The death of Mr. Partridge. Partridge, whose real name was 
 Hewson, was a well-known quack. His almanac for 1708 suggested to 
 Swift his clever practical joke, Predictions for the year 1708, " wherein 
 
NOTES. 185 
 
 the month and day of the month are set down, the persons named, and 
 the great actions and events of next year particularly related, as they 
 will come to pass. Written to prevent the people of England from being 
 further imposed upon by vulgar almanac -makers. By Isaac Bicker- 
 staif, Esq." Swift predicted Partridge's death, and in a subsequent 
 pamphlet gave a detailed account of it. Partridge protested in his 
 almanac for 1709, but Swift carried on his jest, in which other wits now 
 joined, until Isaac Bickerstaff was so familiar a character that Steele 
 saw his way to making him responsible for the opinions of the Tatler. 
 Swift's Predictions is reprinted in Arber's English Garner, vol. vi. 
 
 44 32 In another place, i.e., in Swift's second pamphlet. 
 
 45 23 A common sharper. Steele justly prided himself on his 
 vigorous and successful attacks on " gamesters and duellists." See his 
 preface to the octavo edition of 17 10 : " As for this point, never hero 
 in romance was carried away with a more furious ambition to conquer 
 giants and tyrant? than I have been in extirpating gamesters and duel- 
 lists. And indeed, like one of those knights, too, though I was calm 
 before, I am apt to fly out again when the thing that first disturbed me 
 is presented to my imagination. I shall therefore leave off when I 
 am well, and fight with windmills no more ; only shall be so arrogant 
 as to say of myself, that, in spite of all the force of fashion and preju- 
 dice, in the face of all the world, I alone bewailed the condition of an 
 English gentleman, whose fortune and life are at this day precarious, 
 while his estate is liable to the demands of gamesters through a false 
 sense of justice, and to the demands of duellists through a false sense 
 of honour. As to the first of these orders of men, I have not one word 
 more to say of them : as to the latter, I shall conclude all I have more 
 to offer against them, with respect to their being prompted by the fear 
 of shame, by applying to the duellist what I think Dr. South says some- 
 where of the liar, ' He is a coward to man, and a bravo to God.' " 
 
 46 15 Peter's order to the keeper, in the Tale of a Tub. This 
 passage, the profanity of which Steele softens, concludes a letter (in 
 section iv.) from Emperor Peter (the pope), who directed all the author- 
 ities of the law to release, under the penalty which Steele mentions, 
 such persons, whatever might be their guilt, as had previously pre- 
 sented him with a sufficient bribe. 
 
 48 10 Bedlam. The Bethlehem Hospital for the insane, founded 
 in 1547. From the early part of the seventeenth century it was one of 
 the sights of London. See Webster, Westward Ho, iv., 3 ; Jonson, Silent 
 Woman, iv., ;;. It was regularly open as an exhibition to the public, for 
 a small fee, and hundreds of people sometimes came in a day to behold 
 
186 NOTES. 
 
 the whimsical and often shameful sight, and divert themselves by mak- 
 ing sport of the inmates, who, if violent, were chained in cells covered 
 with straw. See Tatler, No. 127 ; The World, No. 23, June 7, 1753 ; 
 and Plate 8 of Hogarth's Rake's Progress. 
 
 51 7 Knights of the Industry {cf. "chevaliers d'industrie "), men 
 living by their wits, 2.1?., gamblers. 
 
 51 15 By the conversation of, by associating with. 
 
 51 16 Myrmidons. See No. 56: "The rise and fall of the family 
 of Sharpers in all ages has been my contemplation. I find all times 
 have had of this people : Homer in his excellent heroic poem calls them 
 Myrmidons, who were a body that kept among themselves, and had 
 nothing to lose ; therefore spared neither Greek nor Trojan, when they 
 fell in their way, upon a party." 
 
 54 13 Ubi idem, etc. Valerius Maximus, iii., vi., 3 : " Where there 
 is at once the greatest and most honorable love, it is sometimes better 
 to be joined by death than to be parted by life." 
 
 55 9 Shoulder-knot. The fashion of wearing a knot of ribbon on 
 the shoulder was introduced from France at the Restoration. 
 
 56 26 Si non errasset, etc. Martial, iv., i : " Had he not erred his 
 glory had been less." 
 
 58 9 That memorable night. In 1689 (April 29) the opera house 
 at Copenhagen was burnt, and " above two hundred persons, chiefly of 
 the best quality, lost their lives." (See Lord Molesworth's Account of 
 Denmark in ibgs, etc., fourth edition.) — Dobson. 
 
 59 32 Quae gratia, etc. ySneid, vi., 653, 655. 
 
 60 5 Interea dulces, etc. Virgil, Georgics, ii., 523 : " Meantime his 
 children hang upon his lips, his faithful bed is crowned with chaste delight." 
 
 61 13 Xeraminta. The artificial names of the older Italianized 
 poetry lingered even into Steele's time. 
 
 63 6 Her baby, i.e., her doll. 
 
 63 7 Gossiping, christening. 
 
 63 29 Open-breasted. With the waistcoat open. See Tatler, No. 
 246 : " There is a fat fellow, whom I have long remarked wearing his 
 breast open in the midst of winter, out of an affectation of youth. I 
 have therefore sent him just now the following letter in my physical 
 capacity : — 
 
 " ' Sir, — From the twentieth instant to the first of May next, both 
 days inclusive, I beg you to button your waistcoat from your collar to 
 your waistband. I am 
 
 Your most humble servant, 
 
 Isaac Bickerstaff, Philomath.^" 
 
NOTES. 187 
 
 64 3 Front box. In Queen Anne's time ladies occupied the front 
 and gentlemen the side boxes. 
 64 12 Point of war, alarum. 
 
 64 24 Don Belianis of Greece was an extravagant Spanish romance 
 of the sixteenth century by Jeronimo Fernandez, which attained popu- 
 larity in England. See Ticknor, History of Spanish Literature, i., 216. 
 A bulky companion romance, Felixmate of Hircania, Dr. Johnson is 
 said to have read quite through one summer while at Bishop Percy's 
 parsonage-house, and Don Belianis was counted among Burke's favorite 
 reading. Guy of Warwick was the tale of a legendary English hero, 
 whose great exploit was the slaying in single combat of a Danish giant. 
 The story appeared in many forms and lofig continued a popular romance. 
 See Jusserand, English Novel in the time of Shakespeare. The Famous 
 History of the Seven Champions of Christendom was the title of a long 
 Euphuistic romance by Richard Johnson, published in 1 596-1616, 
 based on much earlier material, dealing with the exploits of seven 
 national saints, St. George of England, St. Andrew of Scotland, St. 
 Patrick of Ireland, St. David of Wales, etc. fohn {or Tom) Hickathrift, 
 like Jack the Giant Killer, was a mythical man of prowess, greatly be- 
 loved in English nurseries. See Halliwell, Popular Rhymes, and Ashton, 
 Chap-books of the Eighteenth Century (the latter book gives an excellent 
 idea of the reading of which Steele's young friend was so fond). The 
 adventures of Bevis of Southampton, the French Beuve d'Hanstone, 
 drawn from an old English poem, were turned into a prose romance in 
 the sixteenth century. St. George, the mediaeval "Christian hero," was 
 an oriental saint, of obscure history, popular during the early crusades 
 and adopted as the patron of England in the fourteenth century. His 
 most famous feat in mediaeval legend was the slaying of the dragon (the 
 devil) and the rescue from it of the maiden who typified the Church. 
 
 65 20 Habeo senectuti, etc. Cicero, De Senectute, 46 : " I hold myself 
 obliged to old age, which has improved my desire after knowledge, and 
 taken it away from eating and drinking." 
 
 66 10 The Trumpet. " This was a public house in Shire or Sheer 
 Lane, by Temple Bar, upon the site of the New Law Courts, and still 
 existed as the ' Duke of York ' in Leigh Hunt's time (v. ^The Town, 
 1848, i., 148)." — Dobson. 
 
 67 21 Jack Ogle, " said to have been descended from a decent family 
 in Devonshire, was a man of some genius and great extravagance, but 
 artful rather than witty. The extensive knowledge which he is reported 
 to have had of gaming must have been built on the ruins of his moral 
 character. ... It is said that [by the interest of his sister, the Duke of 
 
188 NOTES. 
 
 York's mistress] Ogle was placed as a private gentleman in the first 
 troop of foot-guards, at that time under the command of the Duke of 
 Monmouth. To this era of Ogle's life the story of the red petticoat 
 refers. He had pawned his trooper's cloak, and to save appearances at 
 a review, had borrowed his landlady's red petticoat, which he carried 
 rolled up en croupe behind him ; the Duke of Monmouth smoked it, and 
 willing to enjoy the confusion of a detection, gave order to cloak all, 
 with which Ogle, after some hesitation, was obliged to comply ; although 
 he could not cloak, he said he could petticoat with the best of them." — 
 Nichols. 
 
 67 34 What day of the month it was then in Holland. The Gre- 
 gorian Calendar, adopted pretty generally In Europe on its promulgation 
 in 1582, was not made legal in England until 1752. 
 
 68 10 The couplet, etc. Hudibras, Part i.. Canto i., 11. 11, 12. 
 
 69 3 With a lantern : the streets were still very imperfectly 
 lighted. 
 
 69 34 "His tongue dropped manna." Paradise Lost, ii., 113. 
 
 70 2 Quod si in hoc erro, etc. Cicero, De Senectute, last chapter : 
 " What if I err in this, when I think that the souls of men are immortal, 
 I err willingly ; nor will I be undeceived in this error I so much delight 
 in, while I live ; if when I am dead I shall be sensible of nothing (as 
 some obscure philosophers think), I do not fear the dead philosophers 
 deriding my mistake." 
 
 70 11 Free-thinker. In Steele's time Rationalism, fostered by 
 Locke's influence, was making strenuous claims for a fair hearing, 
 especially through CoUius's A Discourse of Free-thinking, occasioned by 
 the Rise and Growth of a Sect called Freethinkers (1713), Lyons's The 
 Infallibility of Human Judgment, and Toland's Christianity not Myste- 
 rious (1696). Steele's position was that of a bitter opponent. See 
 also Guardian, No. 9 : "As for my part, I cannot see any possible in- 
 terpretation to give this work [that of Collins, mentioned above] but a 
 design to subvert and ridicule the authority of scripture. The peace 
 and tranquillity of the nation, and regards even above those, are so 
 much concerned in this matter, that it is difficult to express sufficient 
 sorrow for the offender, or indignation against him. But if ever man 
 deserved to be denied the common benefits of air and water, it is the 
 author of A Discourse of Free-thinking," See Lecky's History of the 
 Rise of Rationalism in Europe ; England in the Eighteenth Century, 
 chap. ix. ; Leslie Stephen, History of English Thought in the Eighteenth 
 Century, by index, under the names mentioned above ; and Hettner's 
 Geschichte der englischen Literatur, pages 168-187. 
 
NOTES. 189 
 
 71 12 The favorite charge of the Deists, due to their ignorance in 
 regard to the growth of religions, was that all religious systems were 
 developed through priestcraft, — fraud practised for personal advantage 
 on a superstitious populace. 
 
 71 27 Certain minute philosophers. Cf. the passage quoted at the 
 head of the paper. 
 
 7130 In another passage. Tusculanae Disputationes,'\., i-j. 
 
 73 6 Segnius irritant, etc. Horace, Ars poetica, i8o : — 
 
 " Things only told, though of the same degree, 
 Do raise our passions less than what we see." 
 
 73 17 Betterton. See Nos. i, 71, and 157. 
 
 74 2 The cloisters. Betterton was buried in the east cloister of 
 Westminster Abbey. 
 
 74 20 Othello. The services of the Tatter and Spectator in defend- 
 ing Shakspere's fame in a somewhat unappreciative age and Steele's 
 hearty admiration for Shakspere are well known. 
 
 74 34 The unhappy woman he has left behind him. Mrs. Better- 
 ton (Miss Saunderson) had been scarcely less eminent as an actor than 
 her husband. 
 
 75 12 A certain great spirit. Possibly Queen Anne, who settled a 
 pension of a hundred pounds on the unhappy widow ; more probably 
 Lady Elizabeth Hastings, " the divine Aspasia," " the illustrious pattern 
 to all who love things praiseworthy," of Nos. 42 and 49. 
 
 75 25 Dies, ni fallor, etc. Mneid, v., 49 : — 
 
 " And now the rising day renews the year 
 (A day forever sad, forever dear)." 
 
 78 29 A brown woman, a brunette. 
 
 81 10 Posnet, a small basin. 
 
 81 21 Two leather forehead-cloths, etc. " Into these armentaria 
 of the middle-age toilet it does not become an annotator to pry too 
 closely. The cloths and gloves were to soften the skin and remove 
 wrinkles ; the Spanish wool and Portugal dishes for " complexions ' ; 
 the plumpers for the cheeks. The black-lead combs were for darkening 
 the hair ; the fashionable eyebrows explain themselves. By ivory and 
 box teeth, tooth-combs are probably intended." — Dobson. Teeth may, 
 liovvever, be artificial teeth, which were frequently advertised at the time. 
 
 81 24 Plumpers, balls for distending the cheeks. 
 
 82 5 Turkey stone, turquois. 
 
 82 6 Jacobuses. A Jacobus, or broad-piece, was a beautiful gold 
 coin, worth twenty shillings, of the reign of James I. 
 
190 NOTES. 
 
 82 9. Crown-piece with the breeches. The shilling of Cromwell's 
 issue, the two shields on which resembled a pair of breeches. 
 
 82 10 Lilly. William Lilly (i6o2-8i), a notorious astrologer, at 
 times the political agent of the royalists and the party of Parliament. 
 In 1644 he published his first almanac, Merlinus Anglicus Junior, the 
 English Merlin Revived, and from that time he gave out an almanac 
 each year, as well as many pamphlets of vague but pretentious 
 prophecy. 
 
 82 10 Langteraloo, a fashionable game of cards. 
 
 82 13 Cashu, cachou, for sweetening the breath. 
 
 82 26 Hungary water, a popularscent {aqua Reginae Hungariae), a 
 compound of lavender and rosemary. 
 
 82 32 White-pots. Whitepot was a sort of spiced custard pudding. 
 
 82 32 Water of talc, a famous cosmetic. 
 
 83 10 minima contentos nocte Britannos. Juvenal, ^'flfeV^j, ii., 161 : 
 "The Britains satisfied with little night." — It is interesting to notice 
 that in regard to hours of dining and supping, as in many other respects, 
 English habits in Steele's time were much like those of a small German 
 city to-day. See Traill's Social England, iv., pages 592 if., Sidney's 
 England and the English in the Eighteenth Century, the chapters on 
 manners and customs in Macaulay's and Lecky's histories, Malcolm's 
 Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London during the Eighteenth 
 Century, Ashton's Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne, etc. 
 
 85 16 The following extracts from Gay's The Present State of Wit, 
 in a Letter to a Friend in the Country (1711), reprinted in Arber's 
 English Garner, vol. vi., are interesting in connection with Steele's 
 valedictory : " Before I proceed further in the account of our Weekly 
 Papers, it will be necessary to inform you that at the beginning of the 
 winter, to the infinite surprise of all men, Mr. Steele flang up his Tatler; 
 and instead of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, subscribed himself Richard 
 Steele to the last of those papers, after a handsome compliment to the 
 Town for their kind acceptance of his endeavours to divert them. 
 
 " The chief reason he thought fit to give for his leaving off writing 
 was, that having been so looked on in all public places and companies 
 as the author of those papers, he found that his most intimate friends 
 and acquaintance were in pain to speak or act before him. . . . How- 
 ever that were, his disappearance seemed to be bewailed as some gen- 
 eral calamity. Every one wanted so agreeable an amusement, and the 
 coffee-houses began to be sensible that the Esquire's Lucubrations alone 
 had brought them more customers than all their other newspapers put 
 together. . . . 
 
NOTES. 191 
 
 " To give you my own thoughts of this gentleman's writings, I shall, 
 in the first place, observe, that there is a noble difference between him 
 and all the rest of our polite and gallant authors. The latter have 
 endeavoured to please the age by falling in with them and encouraging 
 them in their fashionable vices and false notions of things. It would 
 haye been a jest, sometime since, for a, man to have asserted that any- 
 thing witty could be said in praise of a married state, or that devotion 
 and virtue were any way necessary to the character of a fine gentleman. 
 Bickerstaff ventured to tell the town that they were a parcel of fops, 
 fools, and coquettes ; but in such a. manner as even pleased them, and 
 made them more than half inclined to believe that he spoke truth. 
 
 " Instead of complying with the false sentiments or vicious tastes of 
 the age — either in morality, criticism, or breeding — he has boldly as- 
 sured them that they were altogether in the wrong ; and commanded 
 them, with an authority which perfectly well became him, to surrender 
 themselves to his arguments for virtue and good sense." [Then follows 
 the paragraph quoted on page Iv.] 
 
 " He has indeed rescued it [learning] out of the hands of pedants and 
 fools, and discovered the true method of making it amiable and lovely 
 to all mankind. In the dress he gives it, it is a most welcome guest at 
 tea-tables and assemblies, and is relished and caressed by the merchants 
 on the Change. Accordingly there is not a lady at Court, nor a banker 
 in Lombard Street, who is not verily persuaded that Captain Steele is 
 the greatest scholar and best casuist of any man in England." 
 
 X. THE SPECTATOR. 
 
 " You may remember," said Gay in the letter quoted above, " that 
 one cause assigned for the laying down of the Tatler was want of 
 matter ; and, indeed, this was the prevailing opinion in town : when we 
 were surprised all at once by a paper called the Spectator, which was 
 promised to be continued every day ; and was written in so excellent a 
 style, with so nice a judgment, and such a noble profusion of wit and 
 humour, that it was not difficult to determine it could come from no 
 other hands but those which had penned the Lucubrations [the Tatler^ 
 .... We had, at first, indeed, no manner of notion how a diurnal paper 
 could be continued in the spirit and style of our present Spectators ; 
 but, to our no small surprise, we find them still rising upon us, and can 
 only wonder from whence so prodigious a run of wit and learning can 
 proceed; since some of our best judges seem to think that they have 
 hitherto, in general, outshone even the Esquire's first Tatters, 
 
192 NOTES. 
 
 " Most people fancy, from their frequency, that they must be com- 
 posed by a society : I withal assign the first places to Mr. Steele and 
 his friend." — See also Swift's comments in his Journal to Stella, March 
 i6 and April 28, and Defoe's in the Review for Oct. 2, 171 1 : " There is 
 not a man in this nation that pays a greater veneration to the writings 
 of the inimitable Spectator than the author of the Review ; and that not 
 only for his learning and wit, but especially for his applying that learn- 
 ing and wit to the true ends for which they were given, viz., the establish- 
 ing virtue in, and the shaming vice out of, the world." 
 
 The range of the Spectator was not larger than that of the Tatler ; 
 the aims were substantially identical, the subjects treated were much 
 the same. The greater success of the second periodical was due to the 
 exclusion of politics, to the previous experience of the authors, to 
 their rare unanimity and concord on all essential matters, and to the 
 degree to which each allowed the other freedom of conception and exe- 
 cution. " The plan of the Spectator" says Tickell in his Preface to Ad- 
 dison's Works (1721), "as far as regards the feigned person of the 
 author, and of the several characters that compose his Club, was pro- 
 jected in concert with Sir Richard Steele. ... As for the distinct 
 papers, they were seldom or never shewn to each other by their respec- 
 tive authors, who fully answered the promise they had made, and far out- 
 went the expectation they had raised, of pursuing their labour in the same 
 spirit and strength with which it was begun." Full details in regard to 
 the circulation of the Spectator will be found in Aitkin, i., pages 309 fE. 
 and in Drake's Essays Illustrative of the Tatler, etc. See also Ricken, 
 Bemerkungen iiber Anlage und Erfolg der wichtigsten Zeitschriften 
 Steeles und den Einfluss Addisons auf die Entwicklung derselben. 
 
 86 26 Ast alii, etc. Juvenal, Satires, vii„ 166 : " One mind inspires 
 the whole fraternity." 
 
 86 30 Sir Roger de Coverley. The student will find it interesting 
 to follow out the whole series of papers dealing with this, the most 
 famous of Steele's creations, and to compare Steele's papers with 
 Addison's. 
 
 87 1, 2 That famous country-dance whicli is called after him. For 
 the music, see Ashton's Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne, The 
 dance seems to have been named after a knight of the time of Richard I. 
 The word country-dance, long regarded as due to the vulgarization 
 of the French contre-danse, was in reality the origin of the French 
 term. 
 
 87 12 Sobo Square, then a new and fashionable part of the 
 town, 
 
NOTES. 193 
 
 87 17 John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1648-80), and Sir George 
 Etherege (1636-94) were famous "wits" and courtiers of the Restora- 
 tion period, the former a poet, the latter a dramatist. 
 
 87 19 Bully Dawson, a well-known sharper of the time. 
 
 88 18 Longinus. The treatise On Sublimity, — or better, on " ele- 
 vation " of style, — the best of the classical treatises on aesthetics and 
 rhetoric, was ascribed, without complete proof, to Longinus, the Greek 
 philosopher and critic, whose name is so closely associated with that of 
 Zenobia. Unlike Aristotle's Poetics, which had a strong influence on 
 the renaissance drama, the treatise On Sublimity does not touch particu- 
 larly on matters pertaining to the stage, but it was regarded, especially 
 in the eighteenth century, as an authority of the first rank on the artistic 
 qualities of style. 
 
 89 4 The time of the play. Several hours earlier than at present. 
 89 8 The Rose. Near Will's, in Russell Street, Covent Garden. 
 
 91 9 Humourists. In the older sense of the word, whimsical char- 
 acters. 
 
 92 4 Tom Mirabell. Steele apparently makes up this name, which 
 has a flavor of the fop and the rake about it. There had been several 
 Mirabels or Mirabells in English plays. See Beaumont and Fletcher, 
 The Wild-goose Chase, Farquhar, The Inconstant, and Congreve, The 
 Way of the World. 
 
 93 1 Quid domini, etc. Virgil, Eclogues, iii., 16 : " What will the 
 masters do, when thus the servants dare .' " 
 
 93 29 Frequent robberies. Through a good part of the eighteenth 
 century footpads and highwaymen plied their trade almost unmolested 
 in London and its vicinity. In 1744 the Lord Mayor presented George II. 
 with a memorial, stating that " divers confederacies of evil-disposed per- 
 sons, armed with bludgeons, pistols, cutlasses, and other dangerous 
 weapons, infested not only the private lanes and passages, but likewise 
 the public streets and places of usual concourse, committing most dar- 
 ing outrages upon his Majesty's subjects." In the same year Shenstone 
 wrote to a friend that he was sometimes deterred from going to the 
 theatre by the fear of " the pickpockets [who] make no scruple to knock 
 people down with bludgeons in Fleet Street and the Strand, and that 
 at no later hour than eight o'clock at night. But in the Piazzas, Covent 
 Garden, they come in large bodies, armed with couteaux, and attack 
 whole parties." In 1749 Horace Walpole was attacked by highwaymen 
 in Hyde Park, by moonlight, and nearly lost his life (Walpole's Letters, 
 ed. Cunningham, i., 67). 
 
 94 18 Licentiousness, disorderly conduct in general. Cf. p. 95, 1. 30. 
 
194 NOTES. 
 
 94 21 Board -wages, w ages including, or consisting of, an allowance 
 for board. 
 
 97 11 Ab normis sapiens. Horace, Satires, ii., 3 : " Irregularly wise." 
 
 98 11 A prize in the Tilt Yard. " In Fisher's Ground Plan of 
 Whitehall, the Tilt yard is shown facing the Banqueting House, and 
 extending to the right (towards Charing Cross). Jenny Mann's Tilt 
 Yard Coffee-House, to which Sir Roger refers [line 25], is said to have 
 stood on the site at present [1885] occupied by the Paymaster General's 
 Office, and still existed in 1819." — Dobson. 
 
 98 29 Bass-viol. Fondness for music, which we do not now think 
 characteristic of Englishmen, was once as common in England as it is 
 at present in Germany. 
 
 101 18 Haerent infixi, etc. Virgil, Mneid, iv., 4 : " His Jooks were 
 deep imprinted in her mind." 
 
 106 5 " There is a certain female ornament by some called a tucker, 
 and by others the neck-piece, being a slip of fine linen or muslin that 
 used to run in a small kind of ruffle round the uppermost verge of the 
 women's stays, and by that means covered a great part of the shoulders 
 and bosom." — Guardian, No. 100. 
 
 106 11 Tansy, a pudding flavored with tansy. 
 
 106 26 Martial, bk. i., 69. 
 
 107 9 Hoc maxime, etc. Cicero, De Officiis, i., 26 : " It is truly to 
 do a good office, to assist another chiefly in that in which consists his 
 greatest Tvant," i.e., a friend in need is a friend indeed. 
 
 110 13 Bencher of the Temple, one of the senior members of the 
 Inns of Court, who have the privilege of calling to the bar. 
 
 111 1 curvae, etc. Persius, Satires, ii., 61 : " O bestial souls, 
 devoid of heavenly flame." 
 
 Ill 11 Mohock Club. Steele's description of the outrages of the 
 Mohocks is borne out by other contemporary accounts. See Lecky, 
 History of England in the Eighteenth Century, i., 482. The name was 
 adopted from the American Mohawks. 
 
 Ill 29 Corbonadoed, grilled. See Winter's Tale, iv., iv., 268. 
 
 113 10 Ninth Speculation. The ninth Spectator mentions a club 
 of duellists, '" to which none was to be admitted that had not killed his 
 man. . . . This club, consisting only of men of honour, did not continue 
 long, most of the members of it being put to the sword, or hanged, a 
 little after its institution." 
 
 114 16 Good. After this word the original paper added a dash and 
 concluded abruptly with "the rest, is tbrn off; and posterity must be 
 contented to know that Mrs. Margaret Clark was very pretty, but are 
 
NOTES. 195 
 
 left in the dark as to the name of her lover." In No, 328, however, 
 Steele repeated the letter, adding the sentences which we print. 
 
 115 1 Sine me, etc. Terence, Hauton Timorumenos, i., i., 38 : 
 " Ah ! let me alone that I may indulge myself one minute." 
 
 116 19 Our voyage. The details of Steele's voyage and even those 
 of his subsequent peregrinations can, for the most part, be followed on 
 the modern map of London. The following precise indications of spots 
 which the student would have difficulty in identifying are taken from 
 Mr. Dobson's notes. The old Stocks Market (116 18) "stood on the 
 site of the present Mansion House." Strand Bridge (116 20) "was at 
 the foot of Strand Lane, between King's College and Surrey Street." 
 " There was a Darkhouse (116 26) mentioned at Billingsgate, mentioned 
 in Hogarth's Five Days' Peregrination, but it can scarcely be the one 
 here referred to." "James Street (117 21) is James Street, Covent 
 Garden, turning out of the Great Piazza." Robin's (120 6) was a 
 stock-jobbing coffee-house in Exchange Alley. 
 
 118 9 Discovered, made known the fact that. 
 
 121 4 Prue, Steele's pet name for his wife. 
 
 121 9 Mr. Nutt's. Mr. Nutt was the printer of the Tatler. 
 
 121 10 Gazette, the London Gazette, which Steele still wrote. 
 
 122 3 Berry-Street. Steele had a house in Berry Street, St. 
 James's. This letter is addressed " To Mrs. Steele, at Mrs. Bradshaw's 
 house, at Sandy-end, over against the Bull Alehouse in Fulham Road." 
 
 122 14 Cockpitt, a part of Whitehall Palace. 
 122 IS At the Savoy, at Mr. Nutt's. 
 
 122 28 My grand-daughter, evidently Steele's natural daughter. 
 
 123 11 The paper, referring to an article of Addison's on Pope's 
 Art of Criticism, in the Spectator, No. 253. For Steele's relations with 
 Pope, see Introduction, page xxxviii. 
 
 123 17 Bloomsbury Square, where Steele now had a house. 
 
 124 1 In April, 17 13, a quarrel arose between the Guardian and 
 the Examiner, in the course of which Steele referred. May 12, to an 
 " estranged friend," meaning Swift, as the author of the attacks made 
 on him by the Examiner. On May 13, Swift wrote to Addison, declar- 
 ing that he had no longer any relations with the Examiner, and reproach- 
 ing Steele, " who knows very well that my Lord Treasurer has kept him 
 in his employment [the office of stamp commissioner] upon my intreaty 
 and intercession." See Introduction, page xli. Addison evidently 
 sent the letter to Steele. 
 
196 NOTES. 
 
 XII. THE ENGLISHMAN'S THANKS. 
 
 The Tory conception of Marlborough's character was a very different 
 one. See Swift's History of the Four Last Years of Queen Anne, from 
 which the following passage is taken : — 
 
 " The ^ Duke of Marlborough's character hath been so variously 
 drawn, and is indeed of so mixed a nature in itself, that it is hard to 
 pronounce on either side without the suspicion of flattery or detraction. 
 I shall say nothing of his military accomplishments, which the opposite 
 reports of his friends and his enemies among the soldiers have rendered 
 problematical ; but if he be among those who delight in war, it is 
 agreed to be not for the reasons common with other generals. Those 
 maligners who deny him personal valour seem not to consider that this 
 accusation is charged at a venture, since the person of a wise general 
 is too seldom exposed to form any j udgment in the matter ; and that 
 fear, which is said to have sometimes disconcerted him before an action, 
 might probably be more for his army than for himself. He was bred 
 in the height of what is called the Tory principle, and continued with a 
 strong bias that way, until the other party had bid higher for him than 
 his friends could afford to give. His want of literature is in some sort 
 supplied by a good understanding, a degree of natural elocution, and 
 that knowledge of the world which is learned in armies and courts. We 
 are not to take the height of his ambition from his soliciting to be 
 General for life. I am persua ded his chief motive was the pay and the 
 perquisites, by continuing the war ; and that he had then no intentions 
 of settling the crown in his family, his only son having been dead some 
 years before. He is noted to be master of great temper, able to govern 
 or very well to disguise his passions, which are all melted down or ex- 
 tinguished in his love of wealth. That liberality which nature has 
 denied him, with respect of money, he makes up by a great profusion of 
 promises ; but this perfection, so necessary in courts, is not very success- 
 ful in camps among soldiers, who are not refined enough to understand 
 and relish it." 
 
 XIII. PROLOGUE TO THE DISTRESSED MOTHER. 
 
 Steele's lines bear witness to the authority then exercised in England 
 by the dogma of the three unities (time, place, and action) which had 
 been slowly making its way into England from France. Addison's Cato, 
 the most famous of the few English plays constructed on the French 
 
NOTES. 197 
 
 model, was produced in 17 13. An interesting account of the move- 
 ment is given in Perry's English Literature in the Eighteenth Century, 
 chap. V. 
 
 XIV. A LETTER TO SIR MILES WHARTON. 
 
 Sir Miles Wharton had declined being made a peer, a year before, 
 when twelve new peers were created, in order to give th,e Tories a 
 majority in the House of Lords. Steele's broadside pointed out, with 
 great effect, the absurdity of such a high-handed procedure. 
 
 XV. THE GUARDIAN. 
 
 See page liv. The names of the periodicals in which Steele was 
 engaged, from the Tatler to the Englishman, mark the gradual deepen- 
 ing of his interest in contemporary political issues. 
 
 127 15 Mores multorum vidit. Horace, Ars Poetica, 142 : " He's 
 various manners seen." 
 
 128 16 Toast and ale. An old-fashioned English breakfast. 
 
 129 10 The idea ... of a fine gentleman. Compare the ideals 
 which Chesterfield tried to inculcate in his son, the good sense of most 
 of which our century has, on the whole, failed properly to appreciate. 
 
 131 4 A private man to intermeddle in matters which regard the 
 state. Steele's telling protest against the non-fulfillment of one of the 
 most important articles of the Treaty of Utrecht brought down on him 
 a, storm of abuse from his Tory antagonists, and involved him in what 
 seemed to be the ruin of his fortunes and personal disgrace. See pages 
 xiv, XV, xlvii, xlviii. 
 
 131 SO The principal figure in the Guardian was Mr. Nestor Iron- 
 side, who thus declares his creed in the first number : " I am, with 
 relation to the government of the church, a Tory, with regard to the 
 state, a Whig. ... I am past all the regards of this life, and have 
 nothing to manage with any person or party but to deliver myself as 
 becomes an old man with one foot in the grave." 
 
 132 27 0. S., old style. 
 134 9 Letter, type. 
 
 134 30 English Tory. Steele's reason for signing the letter thus 
 was obviously to show that both parties should be at one in a matter 
 so vital to the interests of the country. 
 
198 NOTES. 
 
 XVI. THE ENGLISHMAN. 
 
 Steele was now a member of Parliament and the most influential 
 writer on the Whig side. His reason for suspending the publication of 
 the Guardian and beginning the Englishman was plainly his devotion 
 to the welfare of the country at a critical moment. Addison was more 
 discreet. See page xxxv. 
 
 135 7 The lion. A letter box in the shape of a lion's head for 
 contributions to the Guardian. See Guardian, Nos. 98 and 1 14. 
 
 135 28 " Sly's hunting cock." See Spectator, No. 532, where are 
 described the various " cocks " which Sly the hatter gave to his wares. 
 
 137 15 The most trading city in the universe. The characteristic 
 British pride in commercial success which is so simply and nobly ex- 
 pressed by many eighteenth-century writers. " Next to the purity of 
 our religion," says Chamberlayne's Angliae notitia, the WAitaker's 
 Almanac of the time, " we are the most considerable of any nation in 
 the world for the greatness and extensiveness of our trade " (21st edition, 
 1704, chap. viii). 
 
 138 1 Blaclrwell Hall. The London exchange for woolen cloths. 
 
 139 1 Talia monstrabat relegens errata retrorsum. Virgil, jSneid, 
 iii., 690 : " Tracing the course which he before had run." — Dryden. 
 
 139 8 Alexander Selkirk. Selkirk reached England m 1711. The 
 buccaneer who rescued him, Captain Rogers, Steele's friend, published 
 in 17 1 2 A Cruising Voyage round the World . . . containing . . an 
 account of Alexander Selkirk's living alone four years and four months 
 on an island. Defoe's famous romance appeared anonymously in 1719. 
 Two of the French translations attributed the authorship to Steele. It 
 will be noticed that Steele was the first to bring Selkirk's striking ad- 
 ventures to the general attention of the public. 
 
 XVII. THE CRISIS. 
 
 The Crisis was published Jan. 19, 1714, at a period of great popular 
 excitement. The idea was suggested to Steele by William Moore, 
 of the Inner Temple, who prepared a brief of the whole pamphlet. 
 Addison and other prominent men had also a share in the work, which 
 was one of the most effective tracts of the time in favor of the endan- 
 gered Protestant succession. It appeared under Steele's name, and the 
 clever Dedication, with its appeal to the Established Church to range 
 itself on the Whig side, was evidently Steele.'s own production. The 
 
NOTES. 199 
 
 papiphlet called forth a stinging rejoinder from an even cleverer hand, 
 that of Swift, in The First Ode of the Second Book of Horace para- 
 phrased ; and Addressed to Richard St — le, Esq. See page xlii. 
 
 XVIII. THE LOVER. 
 
 The Lover, whiqi bore the title, " Written in Imitation of the Taller, 
 by Marmaduke Myrtle, Gent.," returned, for the most part, to the style 
 of Steele's earliest periodicals. 
 
 148 24 Habet et [et habet] sua castra cupido. Ovid, Amores, 
 1., ix., I : "All lovers war, and Cupid hath his tent." — Marlowe. 
 
 149 6 Mrs. Ann Page. The " incomparable " mistress of Mr. 
 Myrtle's affections. See No. 2, which is entirely devoted to her praise. 
 
 151 25 An orange wench. It was characteristic of the informal 
 and, at times, disorderly nature of the English theatre, down to the 
 present century, that orange girls passed in and out among the audience, 
 hawking their wares. 
 
 151 26 Mrs. Robinson came on the stage. Anastasia Robinson, 
 the most celebrated vocalist at the Haymarket Theatre from the arrival 
 of Handel in England until 1720. For her romantic history, see Dr. 
 Bumey's History of Music, or Edwards's History of the Opera, i., 134. 
 
 152 7 Gentleman-usher. Technically, an attendant upon a person 
 of rank, but here, obviously, merely an attentive admirer. 
 
 XIX. THE READER. 
 
 The airn of the Reader, as the second paper states, was " to disabuse 
 those readers who are imposed upon by the licentious writers of this 
 degenerate age. The greatest offender in this kind is the Examiner," 
 the Tory organ, with which Swift was long connected. Of the nine 
 numbers Addison wrote two. All nine, with the exception of the one 
 here quoted, treat of political matters. 
 
 XX. A LETTER OF A MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT. 
 
 The bill which Steele here renders absurd was " to prevent the growth 
 of schism, and for the further security of the Church of England, as by 
 law established." By its provisions all teachers, whether public or private, 
 were liable to imprisonment if they gave instruction before having sub- 
 scribed to a declaration of conformity to the liturgy of the Church of 
 England. 
 
200 NOTES. 
 
 XXI. DEDICATION: THE LADIES' LIBRARY. 
 
 The fine praise which Steele here bestows on his wife is consonant 
 with the tone of his letters to her from their courtship to her death. 
 That she had her faults, however, and that she caused Steele much 
 needless unhappiness during the last years of her life, will be evident 
 to any one who reads with care his correspondence with her during that 
 period. See, for instance, her letter received Feb. 22, 1717 (Aitkin, ii., 
 119). 
 
 XXII. MR. STEELE'S APOLOGY. 
 
 Steele's Apology, especially the passage here quoted, is an important 
 document in its bearing on our knowledge of his character. See Intro- 
 duction, pages XX ff. 
 
 XXIII. THE THEATRE. 
 
 See Introduction, page xvi. The passage quoted is important in its 
 bearing on Steele's relations with Addison in the last few years of the 
 latter's life. See pages xxxiv-xxxvii. 
 
 XXIV. THE CONSCIOUS LOVERS. 
 
 The Conscioits Lovers was " the last blaze of Sir Richard's glory," as 
 Victor says, — his last, best, and most successful play. See Introduc- 
 tion, page lii. It was frequently reproduced throughout the remainder 
 of the century, and was translated into French, Italian, and German. 
 Parson Adams's criticism on it is familiar to all readers of Fielding. 
 Underneath all the priggishness and sentimental ethics of the play lies 
 a vein of genuine admiration for high-minded and noble action. 
 
 XXV. LETTERS. 
 
 174 4 Elizabeth, Richard, Eugene, and Mary were his children. 
 
 174 20 We had not, etc. This may refer to Mrs. Steele's lack of 
 forethought or to Steele's lack of ready money. Mrs. Steele had gone 
 to Wales to settle her mother's estates there. 
 
 175 17 David, i-e., David Scurlock, Mrs. Steele's cousin. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 [References are to pages. Words and allusions explained in the notes are printed in 
 
 italics. Matter concerning Steele's life and works has been so carefully arranged 
 
 under the various headings of the Introduction that no attempt at a 
 
 more minute classification is attempted in the Index.] 
 
 Addison, ix, x, xiv, xv, xxi-xxvi, 
 xxviii-xxix, xxxi, xxxiv-xli, xlv- 
 xlvi, liii, liv, Ivii, Ixi, 179, 180, 
 184, 192, 195, ig6, 198, 199, 200. 
 
 Aldrich, Dr. Henry, 179. 
 
 Annuities, 181. 
 
 Ash, Edward, 183. 
 
 Baby, 186. 
 
 Bacon, liii. 
 
 Bass-viol, 194. 
 
 Bedlam, 185. 
 
 Bencher of the Temple, 194. 
 
 Berkeley, xxix. 
 
 Berry-Street, 195. 
 
 Betterton, 188. 
 
 Bevis of Southampton, 187. 
 
 Bickerstaff, Isaac, liv, 185, 194. 
 
 Blackmore, Sir Richard, xxxiv, 1. 
 
 Blackwell Hall, 198. 
 
 Board-wages, 194. 
 
 Bohee, 183. 
 
 Brown woman, 189. 
 
 Buda, 180. 
 
 Bully Dawson, 193. 
 
 Carbonadoed, 194. 
 
 Caryll, John, xxxviii, xxxix. 
 
 Cashu, 190. 
 
 Gibber, x, xvi, li, 181, 182. 
 Closet, 181. 
 Cockpit, 195. 
 Collier, Jeremy, 1. 
 Congreve, xii, xlix, 1. 
 Conversation, 186. 
 Coverley, Sir Roger de, 192. 
 Country-dance, 192. 
 Crown-piece, 190. 
 Cutts, Lord, xii, xxiv, 180. 
 
 Defoe, xliii, xliv, liii, 192, 198. 
 Dennis, John, xviii. 
 Devil Tavern, 183. 
 Discovered, 195. 
 Don Belianis, 187. 
 Du Ruel, 182. 
 
 Edgecomb, R., 183. 
 Etheredge, li, 193. 
 
 Fielding, xxxiii, 181, 200. 
 Forehead-cloths, 189. 
 Freethinker, 188. 
 Front box, 187. 
 Franklin, Ivi, Ivii. 
 
 Gay, John, Iv. 
 Gazette, 195. 
 
202 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Gentleman, 197. 
 Gentleman-usher, 199. 
 Goldsmith, 181. 
 Gossiping, 186. 
 Gottsched, Iviii. 
 Gozzi, Ix. 
 Grecian, the, 184. 
 Guy of Warwick, 187. 
 
 Hampton-Court, 182. 
 
 Hastings, Lady Elizabeth, xxix, 
 
 189. 
 Hearne, Thomas, xiii, xx, xxi. 
 Hickathrift, John, 187. 
 Hoadley, Bishop, xxvi. 
 Hough, Dr. John, 179. 
 Hughes, John, xxxv. 
 Humourists, 193. 
 Hungary Water, 190. 
 
 Ironside, Nestor, 197. 
 Irving, Washington, Ivii. 
 
 Jacobus, 189. 
 
 Johnson, ix, xxvii, xxxvi, xxxvii, 
 Iv. 
 
 Kidney, 184. 
 
 Knights of the Industry, 186. 
 
 La Bruyere, liii. 
 Langteraloo, 190. 
 Lawes, Henry, 181. 
 Letter, 197. 
 Liberties, 182. 
 Licentiousness, 193. 
 ZzV/y, William, 190. 
 Limerick, 180. 
 ZzV'K, 198. 
 
 Lombard Street, 182. 
 Longinus, 193. 
 Lucas, Dr. Richard, 180. 
 Lumley, Mr., 183. 
 
 Macaulay, ix, xxii, xxv. 
 
 Machiavelli, 180. 
 
 Manley, Mrs., xii, xviii, xxv. 
 
 Marlborough, 196. 
 
 Milton, xlvii. 
 
 Mirabell, Tom, 193. 
 
 Mohock Club, 194. 
 
 Moliere, 1. 
 
 Montague, Lady Mary Wortley, 
 
 xxxiii, xlviii. 
 Montaigne, liii. 
 jI/>-j., 182. 
 Musidorus, 181. 
 Myrmidons, 186. 
 
 Namur, 180. 
 jVart, Richard, 195. 
 
 Ogle, Jack, 187. 
 Open-breasted, 186. 
 Orange wench, 199. 
 Oroondates, 181. 
 O. .5"., 197. 
 
 /"rt^^, Mrs. Ann, 199. 
 
 Pamela, 181. 
 
 Pantofles, 181. 
 
 Parthenissa, 181. 
 
 Partridge, Mr., xl, 184. 
 
 Perceval, Sir John, xxix. 
 
 Phillips, Ambrose, xxvii, xxxviii, 
 
 xli. 
 Plumpers, 189. 
 Point of war, 187. 
 Pope, xxix, xxxiii, xxxiv, xxxv, 
 
 xxxvii, xxxviii, xxxix, xl, xlvi, 
 
 xlvii, xlix, 195. 
 Posnet, 189. 
 /'oj/, 184. 
 Prevost, Iviii. 
 /V?«, 195. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 203 
 
 Prior, xii. 
 
 Purcell, Daniel, i8i. 
 
 Robberies, 193. 
 Robinson, Mrs., 199. 
 Rochester, Earl of, 193. 
 Romances, 181. 
 Rose, the, 193. 
 Rousseau, Ivii. 
 
 Sallust, iSo. 
 Satira, 181. 
 Savage, xxvii. 
 Savoy, the, 194. 
 Scurlock, David, 200. 
 Selkirk, Alexander, 198. 
 Seven Champions, 187. 
 Shakspere, xl, 189. 
 Sharper, 185. 
 Sheridan, 181. 
 Shoulder-knot, 186. 
 Sisly, 182. 
 Sly, John, xxvi, 198. 
 Soho Square, 192. 
 Spanish, 184. 
 
 Spence's Anecdotes, xxxiii. 
 Spenser, xlvii. 
 5'/. George, 187. 
 
 St. James's Coffee-house, 182, 184. 
 Sunderland, Lord, 182. 
 Swift, X, xiv, XX, xxi, xxv, xxvi, 
 xxix, xxxii-xxxiv, xl, xliii, xlv, 
 
 xlvi, xlix, 180, 183,- 185, 191, 195, 
 196, 199. 
 
 Tansy, 194. 
 Teraminta, 186. 
 Thackeray, xxii, xxiii-xxv. 
 Tickell, xxxvi, 184, 192. 
 Tillotson, Dr., 179. 
 Tilt Yard, 194. • 
 Toast and ale, 197. 
 Tonson, xxxvi, 183. 
 Tory, 197. 
 
 Tringham, trangham, 180. 
 Trumpet, the, 187. 
 Tucker, 194. 
 Turkey stone, 189. 
 
 Urganda, i8i. 
 
 Vanbrugh, xviii, xlix, 1. 
 
 Victor; Benjamin, xxxii, xxxvii, 
 
 200. 
 
 Voltaire, Ivii. 
 
 Water of talc, 190. 
 
 West Indian business, 183. 
 
 Wharton, Sir Miles, 197. 
 
 White-pot, 190. 
 
 White's Chocolate-house, 184. 
 
 Wilks, Robert, xvi, xxx. 
 
 Will's Coffee-house, 184. 
 
 Wycherley, xlix, li. 
 
 Young, Dr., xxxii. 
 
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