On the morning of the 12th of April, 1709, there was laid upon all the
coffee-house tables of London the first number of a double-column sheet
in small folio, entitled _The Tatler, or the Lucubrations of Isaac
Bickerstaff_. _The Tatler_ was to be issued thrice a week, on Tuesdays,
Thursdays, and Saturdays, and could be bought for the moderate price
of one penny. The pseudonym Isaac Bickerstaff had been made familiar
all over London, some months before, by an admirable jest played by
Dr. Swift upon a notorious almanac maker and quack astrologer, one
Partridge. Swift, writing over the signature of Bickerstaff, had
gravely predicted that Partridge would infallibly die at a certain
day and hour, and in another pamphlet had given a circumstantial
account of his decease; while poor Partridge convulsed the town with
frantic protestations that he was still alive. But the editor of _The
Tatler_ who now assumed this name of Bickerstaff was not Swift, but
Richard Steele. It seems to have been Steele's intention to keep, for
a time, his editorship a secret; but his disguise was soon penetrated
by at least one of his friends. Joseph Addison, who was in Ireland
when _The Tatler_ appeared, detected the hand of his friend in the
sixth number. He furnished Steele, it is said, with many hints and
suggestions for the early numbers of the paper, and after his return
from Ireland in 1710 became himself a regular contributor. In January,
1711, _The Tatler_ came suddenly to an end, with the 271st number.
Steele, however, had no thought of abandoning this form of literary
effort, and on the first of the following March he started that now
more famous journal, _The Spectator_. _The Spectator_ was similar in
form and purpose to _The Tatler_, but it was to be issued daily. It
is usually spoken of as Addison's _Spectator_; but it was no more
Addison's than Steele's. The two men were associated in the conduct
of it from the start, and their contributions were about equal in
number--Addison writing 274 papers, and Steele 236. The second number
of _The Spectator_, written by Steele, contains the account of that
club, of which Sir Roger de Coverley was the most famous member; and
the Coverley papers followed at intervals through the next year and a
half.
The friendship of Steele and Addison was not of recent growth. They
had been boys together in the Charterhouse School, London. Dick Steele
at that time was a fatherless,[1] and almost friendless, lad who had
been recommended to the Charterhouse by a distant relative, the Duke
of Ormond. Addison was the son of the Dean of Lichfield, and came
up to the Charterhouse from a home of culture and learning. The two
young fellows formed here one of those school friendships that last
a lifetime. Addison, though a little the younger, was doubtless a
good deal the wiser of the two; and there may have been in his regard
a touch of that patronizing temper which in later life he sometimes
showed in too superior a fashion. But for Steele the acquaintance was
certainly very fortunate. There are pleasant glimpses of the young
Irish lad invited for a holiday to the home of his friend Addison, the
quiet deanery under the trees at Lichfield. Good Dean Addison, Steele
said many years after, loved him as one of his own sons; and in that
home the fatherless boy saw how domestic love and purity lend a charm
to manners that all the wit and fashion of the town can never give.
In one of the most delightful of the _Tatler_ papers[2] he gives a
portrait of a father, dignified and decorous yet affectionate, which is
evidently drawn from his recollections of the Lichfield household.
[1] Read the touching account of his father's death. _The Tatler_, No.
181.
[2] No. 235.
Addison was entered at Queen's College, Oxford, in 1687, at the early
age of fifteen, and next year obtained a scholarship at Magdalen, where
he continued in residence, as undergraduate, Master, and Fellow, until
1699. Steele, whose scholarship was probably not brilliant, though he
had been in the Charterhouse two years longer than Addison, did not
follow him to Oxford until 1690, when he was matriculated at Christ
Church. He did not remain there, however, long enough to take any
degree. He never had the retiring and scholarly tastes of his friend
Addison, and after three years in the university could resist the
attractions of the great outside world no longer. Looking about for a
career, he not unnaturally decided for the army; and in 1694 he left
Oxford to enlist as a private in the Horse Guards. He soon received a
commission as ensign in the regiment of Lord Cutts, and before 1700 is
mentioned as Captain Steele.
Steele's soldiering, which was nearly all done in London and served
chiefly to make him acquainted with the town, might be passed over
were it not for one thing that came of it. His life in the Guards
was doubtless not so irregular as that of most soldiers; but it was
more irregular than his conscience could approve. In the sincerity
of his heart the young Captain of the Guards bethought himself of
strengthening his moral and religious principles by writing them down
in black and white, judging, as he said, that he might thereby be led
to think about them the more and by his desire of consistency make his
life conform to them the better. The result was the first--if we except
some verses printed at the death of Queen Mary in 1695--of Steele's
ventures in authorship, _The Christian Hero, An Argument to prove that
No Principles save those of Religion are sufficient to make a Great
Man_. _The Christian Hero_ is by no means a piece of priggery, but a
sensible and wise little book. It shows, moreover, on almost every
page, some flavour of Steele's engaging ingenuousness and humour. It is
of historic interest, too, as introducing a new style of writing. For
it may be called the first attempt to enlist the charm of wit and good
breeding in the service of religion; it contains the germs of scores of
essays Steele afterward wrote with that intent.
_The Christian Hero_ did not correct all of Steele's irregularities;
but it did reveal to him where his best ability lay. He said
complacently, later in life, that when he put on his jack-boots and
mounted his horse as a dragoon he wasn't acquainted with his own
parts, and didn't know that he could handle a pen better than a sword;
_The Christian Hero_ taught him that. As soon as the book was through
the press he tried his hand at a comedy, finding it necessary, as he
said, to "enliven his character." He might seem to have been careful,
however, not to overdo this enlivening of his character, for his comedy
was entitled _The Funeral, or Grief à la Mode_. But in spite of its
lugubrious title, it contained some genuinely humorous scenes, and by
grace of very good acting and the applause of Steele's fellow soldiers
of the Guards--who packed the house--it scored a satisfactory stage
success. Two other comedies followed this in the next three years,
_The Lying Lover_ in 1703, and _The Tender Husband_ in 1705. By this
time Steele's reputation as a wit was assured. Always what Doctor
Johnson used to call "a clubbable man," his easy gayety and rather too
convivial habits made him a typical man about town; and Captain Steele
began to be spoken of as a man who talked charmingly, and who could
write as well as he talked.
In 1705 he married a widow, one Mrs. Stretch, who died a year and a
half later and left him a snug estate in the Barbadoes. Thus secured
against the chance of adverse fortune, he sold his commission in the
army, and set up as man of letters. Like all the writers of his time,
however, he considered his pen to be at the service of his political
party, and expected a reward in some civil office. In 1706 he was
appointed Gentleman Usher to Prince George of Denmark, the stupid
husband of Queen Anne, and in the following year was given the more
lucrative position of Gazetteer. This office he held when, in 1709, he
started _The Tatler_.
About a year after the death of his first wife, Steele had married
again, this time a "Welsh beauty," Miss Mary Scurlock. The letters of
Steele to this lady, during the few weeks of acquaintance that preceded
the marriage and for years thereafter, are the most delightful domestic
correspondence in our language. They are most of them mere notelets,
written in his office, at the club, in a tavern, anywhere whence he
may send her a kind word. Steele never had any mastery of business,
and it is probable that the bailiffs had something to do with the
frequent absences from home that these letters record. Mrs. Steele, on
the other hand, was a woman of unusually thrifty and methodical habit,
to whom the carelessness and extravagance of her husband must have
been very trying. It is evident from his letters that she sometimes
gave him quite as much advice as he felt himself able to use. After
the first few months, he has dropped the "Molly," and the letters are
uniformly addressed to his "Dear Prue"; and once or twice he goes so
far as to remonstrate with her quietly for an unendurable interference
with his "business." Yet nothing disturbs his constant affection, and
the letters are filled with the same playful, tender prettinesses to
the last. That was a truthful signature with which he once signed a
midnight letter when he could not come home: "I am, my dear Prue, a
little in drink, but at all times, Your Own Faithful Husband, Richard
Steele." There was no other man of letters in the Queen Anne time, I am
sure, whose domestic life would bear turning wrong side out so well.
Indeed, no other writer of that age appreciated so well the character
of woman, or has given us such pictures of the beauty and charm of
home. It was Steele who paid to Lady Elizabeth Hastings that best
compliment ever offered to a lady, "To love her is a liberal education."
It was in these happy, early years of his married life, when his
fortunes, though always precarious, were hopeful, when he was enjoying
the friendship of Halifax and Addison and Swift, when his own humor
and invention were at their brightest, that Steele had the one great
inspiration of his life--he conceived the idea of _The Tatler_.
Meantime, Addison had begun his career both in politics and in
letters. He had not been in haste--Mr. Addison was never in haste. In
1698, some three years after his friend Steele left Oxford, he had
been elected Fellow of Magdalen College, and seemed well satisfied
with the retired and scholarly life there. He had some modest literary
aspirations. In 1697 he published some verses entitled _An Account
of the English Poets_, which make it evident that he had no relish
for Chaucer and Spenser, and which do not mention Shakespeare at all.
In Latin poetry his taste was happier. He made a translation of the
Georgics of Virgil, prefaced by an essay that won compliments from the
great Dryden, and he wrote Latin verses of his own that were thought to
be of quite surprising excellence. His classical studies may not have
broadened his taste or his intellect very much, but they doubtless did
something to cultivate that smoothness and nicety of phrase for which
he was afterward to be so noted. In those years at Magdalen everybody
supposed he would go into the church. He seemed a parson born and
bred. And he doubtless would have taken orders, had it not been for a
piece of signal good fortune that befell him. Dryden had introduced
young Addison to Mr. Congreve, and Mr. Congreve had introduced him to
Montague, afterward Lord Halifax. Montague it was worth while to know.
Really a great statesman and financier, he had won some reputation as
a poet in his earlier days, and was always ambitious to be accounted
the friend and patron of letters. In those years the leaders of both
political parties were coming to see the need of enlisting the services
of young men of wit and learning; and Montague, whose appreciation
perhaps was quickened by some complimentary verses in excellent Latin,
deemed this Mr. Addison too promising an ally to lose. Accordingly, in
1699, when he was twenty-seven, Addison was given a handsome pension of
three hundred pounds a year, bidden go travel on the continent, keep
his eyes open, and learn French. He remained on the continent about
three years, when, at the death of King William, his pension lapsed,
and at the breaking out of the great war of the Spanish Succession he
was obliged to return to England. His prospects for the next three
years were not bright. He had written some good Latin verses, and some
English verses that were not so good. On his return from his travels he
printed a rather dull account of them, which few people read then and
which nobody reads now. He was known to a little circle of great men,
but he was dangerously near poverty.
Yet good fortune never deserted Mr. Addison for long. In 1704 the
Duke of Marlborough won the famous victory of Blenheim, and forthwith
the little Whig poets began to sing it. But much of their fustian was
so sublimely bad that even the Lord Treasurer, Godolphin, to whom
all poetry was very much alike, began to see that the triumph was
suffering for lack of a worthy poet. In this emergency he applied
to Montague, whom he supposed to know most about such matters, and
Montague recommended his old protégé, Addison. Thus it happened--if
Pope's story be correct--that one day there climbed to Mr. Addison's
lodgings, up three flights in the Haymarket, no less a person than the
Honorable Henry Boyle, Chancellor of the Exchequer, with the request
that Mr. Addison write a poem. _The Campaign_, which Addison produced
in response to this august invitation, will be voted by most readers
to-day a dull poem; but it was much admired then, and one simile in
particular, comparing Marlborough to an avenging angel, is said to have
captivated the imagination of Godolphin. At all events, _The Campaign_
served to introduce Addison to public life. He was shortly after made
Under-Secretary of State, and was never out of office again so long as
he lived. In 1707 he was elected to Parliament; next year was appointed
Under-Secretary of State for Ireland--where he was residing when Steele
started _The Tatler_,--and although he lost that office when the Whigs
went into a minority in 1710, yet he was one of the few Whigs elected
to Parliament that year; after the death of Anne he went to Ireland
again as Chief Secretary, and for a little time before his death
reached his highest office as Secretary of State for England. It was
a career of easy and uninterrupted prosperity. "I believe Mr. Addison
could be elected king if he chose," said Swift with a twinge of envy.
Yet Addison would never have been remembered for his public services.
His title to lasting fame, like that of Steele, rests upon the work
done for _The Tatler_ and _The Spectator_.
The later writings of the two men are of less importance. _The
Spectator_ was discontinued at the end of 1712, and through the
following year Steele conducted a similar periodical, _The Guardian_,
from which political discussion was not to be so rigidly excluded as
it had been from _The Spectator_. In the next five years he attempted
three or four other papers, but they were all short-lived, and of
little interest. Addison revived _The Spectator_ in 1714, issuing it
thrice a week for a year, and in 1715-16 he conducted for some months
a periodical called _The Freeholder_ in the interest of party measures
he was then advocating. But neither Steele nor Addison ever had much
success in managing an enterprise of this sort alone.
In 1713 Addison produced his once famous play of _Cato_. The reader of
to-day will vote the _Cato_ cold and declamatory; but it was vastly
admired then, as the first correct and dignified tragedy upon the
English stage. The critics and the crowd united to praise, and all the
town went to see it. By this time Addison was regarded as the foremost
man of letters in England. He set up a servant of his, one Buttons, as
proprietor of a coffee-house in Great Russell Street, almost opposite
"Will's," where Dryden had reigned as critic twenty years before, and
here he presided over his circle of friends and admirers, and
"Gave his little senate laws."
Perhaps in his later years his happiest hours were passed here. In 1716
he had married the Countess Dowager of Warwick, to whom he had long
paid patient and dignified court; but if rumour is to be trusted, his
domestic life was not a happy one.
"Marrying discord in a noble wife"
was Pope's last thrust at him. He did not long survive his fortune,
good or ill, but died at Holland House, the residence of his Countess,
June 17, 1719, at the early age of forty-seven.
Steele survived his friend more than ten years; but they were years of
inactivity. The great blow of his life fell when his wife died in 1718.
That year was also further embittered by an unfortunate controversy
with Addison, which for the first time in their lives estranged the two
friends. After 1720 Steele retired from London and passed his remaining
years, partly in Hereford and partly in the Welsh town of Carmarthen.
He had succeeded in paying all his debts; he kept the love and esteem
of all his old friends that were left; and his temper was sweet and
gentle to the last. He died at Carmarthen, in September, 1729.