JOSEPH ADDISON--SIR RICHARD STEELE.
As essayists, the writings of Addison and of Steele are familiar to all
readers of eighteenth-century literature. Their work in other
departments may be neglected without much loss; but the student who
disregards the _Tatler_, the _Spectator_, the _Guardian_, and some of
the essay-volumes which follow in their wake, will be blind to one of
the most significant literary features of the period.
The alliance between Addison and Steele was so intimate, that to judge
of one apart from the other, would be fair to neither. It may be well,
therefore, after giving the leading facts in the lives of the two
friends, to bring them together again while considering the work they
accomplished in their literary partnership. One point, I think, will
come out clearly in this examination, namely, that while Steele might,
under very inferior conditions, have produced the _Tatler_ and
_Spectator_ without Addison, it is highly improbable that Addison, as an
essayist, would have existed without Steele.
[Sidenote: Joseph Addison (1672-1719).]
Addison lives on the reputation of his prose works, but he thought that
he was a poet, and was regarded as a poet by his contemporaries. It was
by verse that he won his earliest reputation, and it was on his Pegasus
that he rose to be Secretary of State. He was born on May 1st, 1672, at
Milston, in Wiltshire, a parish of which his father was the rector, and
was educated at the Charterhouse, where he contracted his memorable
friendship with Steele. Thence, in 1687, at the boyish age of fifteen,
he went up to Queen's College, Oxford, and in a few months, thanks to
his Latin verses, gained a scholarship at Magdalen, of which college ten
years later he became a fellow.
While at Oxford he acquired, after the fashion of the day, what Johnson
calls 'the trade of a courtier.' His Latin poem on the _Peace of
Ryswick_ was dedicated to Montague, and two years later a pension of
£300 a year, gained through Somers and Montague, enabled him to travel,
in order that by gaining a knowledge of French and Italian, he might be
fitted for the diplomatic service. Some time after his return to England
he published his _Remarks on Several Parts of Italy_ (1705), and
dedicated the volume to Swift, 'the most agreeable companion, the truest
friend, and the greatest genius of his age.'
Addison's patrons had now lost their power, and he was left to his own
exertions. His difficulties did not last long. In 1704 the battle of
Blenheim called forth several weak efforts from the poetasters, and as
the Government required verse more worthy of the occasion, the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the recommendation of Montague, now Earl
of Halifax, applied to Addison, who, in answer to the appeal, published
_The Campaign_, in 1705. The poem contains the well-known similitude of
the angel, and also an apt allusion to the great storm that had lately
destroyed fleets and devastated the country.
'So when an angel by divine command
With rising tempests shakes a guilty land,
Such as of late o'er pale Britannia past,
Calm and serene he drives the furious blast;
And, pleased the Almighty's orders to perform,
Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm.'
_The Campaign_, which has no other passage worth quoting, proved a happy
hit, and was of such service to the Ministry, that Addison found the way
to fame and fortune. He was appointed Commissioner of Appeals, and not
long after Under Secretary of State. In 1707 he accompanied his friend
and patron, Halifax, on a mission to Hanover, and two years later he was
appointed Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. In Dublin
he gained golden opinions. 'I am convinced,' Swift writes, 'that
whatever Government come over, you will find all marks of kindness from
any parliament here with respect to your employment; the Tories
contending with the Whigs which should speak best of you. In short, if
you will come over again when you are at leisure, we will raise an army
and make you king of Ireland.' When the Whig Ministry fell in 1710, and
Addison lost his appointment, he must have gained a fortune, for he was
able to purchase an estate for £10,000.
In the early years of the century the Italian opera, which had been
brought into England in the reign of William and Mary, excited the mirth
and opposition of the wits. Lord Chesterfield, who called it 'too absurd
and extravagant to mention,' said, 'Whenever I go to the opera I leave
my sense and reason at the door with my half-guinea, and deliver myself
up to my eyes and ears.' Steele, Gay, and Pope ridiculed the new-fangled
entertainment, and Colley Cibber, too, pointed his jest at these
'poetical drams, these gin-shops of the stage that intoxicate its
auditors, and dishonour their understanding with a levity for which I
want a name.' Addison, who has some lively papers on the subject in the
_Spectator_, undertook to give a faithful account of the progress of
the Italian opera on the English stage, 'for there is no question,' he
writes, 'but our great grandchildren will be very curious to know why
their forefathers used to sit together like an audience of foreigners in
their own country; and to hear whole plays acted before them in a tongue
which they did not understand.'
Before writing thus in the _Spectator_, Addison, in order to oppose the
Italian opera, by what he regarded as a more rational pastime, produced
his English opera of _Rosamond_, which was acted in 1706, and proved a
failure on the stage. The music is said to have been bad, and the poetry
is the work of a writer destitute of lyrical genius. Lord Macaulay, who
finds a merit in almost everything produced by Addison, praises 'the
smoothness with which the verses glide, and the elasticity with which
they bound,' and considers that if he 'had left heroic couplets to Pope,
and blank verse to Rowe, and had employed himself in writing airy and
spirited songs, his reputation as a poet would have stood far higher
than it now does.' The gliding movement of the verse may be admitted;
but lyric poetry demands the higher qualities of music and imaginative
treatment, and Addison's 'smoothness,' so far from being a poetical
gift, is a mechanical acquisition.
In 1713 his _Cato_, with its stately rhetoric and cold dignity, received
a very different reception. The prologue, written by Pope, is in
admirable accordance with the spirit of the play. Addison's purpose is
to exhibit a great man struggling with adversity, and Pope writes:
'He bids your breasts with ancient ardour rise,
And calls forth Roman drops from British eyes;
Virtue confessed in human shape he draws,
What Plato thought, and God-like Cato was:
No common object to your sight displays,
But what with pleasure Heaven itself surveys;
A brave man struggling in the storms of fate,
And greatly falling with a falling state!
While Cato gives his little senate laws,
What bosom beats not in his country's cause?'
Addison has proved that he could draw a life-like character in his
representation of Sir Roger de Coverley, but the _dramatis personæ_, who
act a part, or are supposed to act one, in _Cato_, are mere dummies,
made to express fine sentiments. There is no flesh and blood in them,
and owing to the dramatist's regard for unity of place, the play is full
of absurdities. Yet _Cato_ was received with immense applause. It was
regarded from a political aspect, and both Whig and Tory strove to turn
the drama to party account. 'The numerous and violent claps of the Whig
party,' Pope writes, 'on the one side of the theatre, were echoed back
by the Tories on the other; while the author sweated behind the scenes
with concern to find their applause proceeding more from the hand than
the head.'
In another letter he says: 'The town is so fond of it, that the orange
wenches and fruit women in the parks offer the books at the side of the
coaches, and the prologue and epilogue are cried about the streets by
the common hawkers.' It would be interesting to ascertain what there was
in the state of public affairs in the spring of 1713, which created this
enthusiasm. Swift, writing to Stella, alludes to a rehearsal of the
play, but makes no criticism upon it; and Berkeley, who was in London at
the time, and had a seat in Addison's box on the first night, is also
silent about it. In a letter written, as it happens, by Bolingbroke, on
the day that _Cato_ was produced, he indicates the signs of the time, as
they appeared to a Tory statesman: 'The prospect before us,' he writes,
'is dark and melancholy. What will happen no man is able to foretell.'
It was this sense of doubt and insecurity in the nation that gave
significance to trifles. The political atmosphere was charged with
electricity. The Tories, though in office, were far from feeling
themselves secure, and both Harley and Bolingbroke were in
correspondence with the Pretender. Atterbury, who was heart and soul
with him, had just been made a bishop, Protestant ascendancy was in
danger, the security of the country seemed to hang on the frail life of
the Queen, and the strong party spirit of the time was easily fanned
into a flame. We cannot now place ourselves in the position of the
spectators whose passions gave such popularity to _Cato_. Its mild
platitudes and rhetorical periods, its coldness and sobriety, seem ill
fitted to arouse the fervour of playgoers, but Addison, whose good luck
rarely failed him, was especially fortunate in the moment chosen for the
representation of the play. Had _Cato_ exhibited genius of the highest
order, it could not have been more successful. Cibber writes that it was
acted in London five times a week for a month to constantly crowded
houses, and when the tragedy was acted at Oxford, 'Our house,' he says,
'was in a manner invested, and entrance demanded by twelve o'clock at
noon, and before one it was not wide enough for many who came too late
for places.'[36]
_Cato_ had the good fortune to run in London for thirty-five nights, and
gained also some reputation on the continent. It is formed on the French
model, and Addison was therefore praised by Voltaire as 'the first
English writer who composed a regular tragedy.' He added that _Cato_ was
'a masterpiece.' If so, it is one of the masterpieces that has long
ceased to be read. Little could its author have surmised that his
tragedy, received with universal praise, had but a brief life to live,
while the Essays which he had already contributed to the _Tatler_ and
_Spectator_ would make his name familiar to future generations.
Addison's poetry may now be regarded as extinct, and most of the poems
he wrote are probably unknown to the present generation of readers even
by name. His Latin verses are pronounced excellent by all competent
critics, but when a man writes verses in a dead language he does so
generally to show his scholarship, and not to express his inspiration.
Latin verse is, as M. Taine says, a faded flower. Now and then, indeed,
a poem has been written with merits apart from its latinity--witness the
_Epitaphium Damonis_ of Milton--but Addison, who lacked poetic fire in
his native language, was not likely to find it in a dead tongue. His
English poems are generally dull, and sometimes, as in his earliest
poem, the _Account of the greatest English Poets_ (1694), the tameness
of the verse is matched by the ignorance of the criticism. The student
will observe how differently the theme is treated by a true poet like
Drayton in his _Epistle to Reynolds_; or, like Ben Jonson, in the many
allusions that he makes to his country's poets. Compare, too, Addison's
_Letter from Italy_ (1701) with the lovely lines on a like theme in
Goldsmith's _Traveller_, and the contrast between a verseman and a poet
is at once apparent. Addison, it may be added, is remembered for his
hymns, which may be found in most selections of sacred verse, and
deserve a place in the best of them. As the forerunner of Isaac Watts
(1674-1748) and of Charles Wesley (1708-1788), he struck upon what at
that time might, in our country, be almost called a new department of
literature; and it is remarkable that an age which so dreaded enthusiasm
should have originated verse which gives utterance to the most emotional
form of spiritual aspiration. As hymn-writers, Englishmen were more
than a century behind the best sacred poets of Germany. Luther had
taught the German people the power of hymnody, but it was during the
Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), and after its conclusion, that the spirit
of devotion found full expression in religious verse. Just before the
engagement at Leipzic, Gustavus Adolphus wrote his well-known battle
hymn, and the peace was celebrated in a noble hymn by Martin Rinkart. He
was followed by a succession of sacred singers whose devout utterances
influenced and in some degree inspired the Wesleys.
"A verse may find him whom a sermon flies,"
says George Herbert, and the enormous power wielded by Methodism owes a
large portion of its strength to song.
Amidst much in their writings that is questionable in taste and weak in
expression, both Watts and Charles Wesley have written hymns which prove
their incontestible right to a place among the poets, and the influence
they have exerted over the English-speaking race is beyond the power of
the literary historian to estimate. The external divisions of the
Christian Church are numerous; its unity is to be seen in the Hymn Book.
'Men whose theological views contrast most strongly,' says Mr. Abbey in
his essay on _The English Sacred Poetry of the Eighteenth Century_,
'meet on common ground when they express in verse the deeper aspirations
of the heart and the voice of Christian praise.'
In 1714, on the death of the Queen, Addison was once more in office, and
held his old position of Irish Secretary. In the following year he
defended the Whig Government and Whig principles in the _Freeholder_, a
paper published twice weekly. In it he gives no niggard praise to the
Government of George I., and to the King himself, for his 'civil
virtues,' and for his martial achievements. Addison's praise disagrees,
it need scarcely be said, with the more minute and veracious description
of the King given by Thackeray, but a party politician in those days
could scarcely be a faithful chronicler. He could see what he wished to
see, but found it necessary to shut his eyes when the prospect became
unpleasant. George was a heartless libertine, but Addison observes with
great satisfaction that the women most eminent for virtue and good sense
are in his interest. 'It would be no small misfortune,' he says, 'to a
sovereign, though he had all the male part of the nation on his side, if
he did not find himself king of the most beautiful half of his subjects.
Ladies are always of great use to the party they espouse, and never fail
to win over numbers to it. Lovers, according to Sir William Petty's
computation, make at least the third part of the sensible men of the
British nation, and it has been an uncontroverted maxim in all ages,
that though a husband is sometimes a stubborn sort of a creature, a
lover is always at the devotion of his mistress. By this means it lies
in the power of every fine woman to secure at least half-a-dozen
able-bodied men to his Majesty's service. The female world are likewise
indispensably necessary in the best causes to manage the controversial
part of them, in which no man of tolerable breeding is ever able to
refute them. Arguments out of a pretty mouth are unanswerable.'
The essayist thinks it fortunate for the Whigs 'that their very enemies
acknowledge the finest women of Great Britain to be of that party;' and
in an amusing but rather absurd way he discourses to maids, wives, and
widows on the advantages of adhering to the Hanoverian Government. It is
characteristic of Addison that a political paper like the _Freeholder_
should be flavoured with the humour and badinage he found so effective
in the _Spectator_. To the ladies he appeals again and again, but not to
their reason. He gives them mirth instead of argument, and thinks it
more likely to prevail with the 'Fair Sex.' The _Freeholder_ has several
papers worthy of the author in his best moods, the best of them,
perhaps, being the 'Tory Fox-hunter,' with which, to quote Johnson's
words, 'bigotry itself must be delighted.' In the year which gave birth
to the _Freeholder_, _The Drummer_, a comedy, was acted at Drury Lane,
and ran three nights. The play was not acknowledged by Addison, neither
was it printed in Tickell's edition of his works; but Steele, who
published an edition of the play, with a dedication to Congreve, never
doubted, and there is no reason to doubt, that Addison was the author.
'The piece,' Mr. Courthope writes, 'is like _Cato_, a standing proof of
Addison's deficiency in dramatic genius. The plot is poor and trivial,
nor does the dialogue, though it shows in many passages traces of its
author's peculiar vein of humour, make amends by its brilliancy for the
tameness of the dramatic situation.'[37]
After the _Freeholder_ Addison wrote nothing of importance, unless we
except the essay published after his death _On the Evidences of
Christianity_. Of this essay it will suffice to quote the judgment of
his most distinguished eulogist. After observing that the treatise shows
the narrow limits of Addison's classical knowledge, Lord Macaulay adds:
'It is melancholy to see how helplessly he gropes his way from blunder
to blunder. He assigns as grounds for his religious belief stories as
absurd as that of the Cock Lane Ghost, and forgeries as rank as
Ireland's Vortigern; puts faith in the lie about the Thundering Legion;
is convinced that Tiberius moved the senate to admit Jesus among the
gods, and pronounces the letter of Agbarus, King of Edessa, to be a
record of great authority. Nor were these errors the effects of
superstition, for to superstition Addison was by no means prone. The
truth is, that he was writing about what he did not understand.'
In 1716, after having been made one of the Commissioners for Trades and
Colonies, he married the Countess Dowager of Warwick, with whom he had
been acquainted for some years. The marriage, according to the doubtful
authority of Pope, was not a happy one, and is said to have driven
Addison to the consolations of the tavern. He did not need them long. In
1717 Sunderland became Prime Minister, and made Addison a Secretary of
State, an appointment which he resigned eleven months afterwards; and in
1719 he died at Holland House at the age of forty-seven, leaving one
daughter as the memorial of the union. He lies, as is fitting, in the
great Abbey of which he has written so beautifully.
Tickell's noble tribute to his friend's memory belongs to the undying
poetry which neither age nor fresher forms of verse can render obsolete.
It must suffice to quote here a few lines from a poem which, despite
some conventional expressions common to the time, is worthy of its theme
throughout:
'If pensive to the rural shades I rove,
His shape o'ertakes me in the lonely grove;
'Twas there of Just and Good he reasoned strong,
Cleared some great truth, or raised some serious song;
There patient showed us the wise course to steer,
A candid censor, and a friend severe;
There taught us how to live; and (oh! too high
The price for knowledge) taught us how to die.'
There are few men of literary eminence in the eighteenth century of whom
we know so little as of Addison. His own _Spectator_, who never opened
his lips but in his club, is scarcely more silent than the essayist's
biographers, so trifling are the details they have to record beyond the
bare facts of his official and literary career. Steele knew him better,
and, in spite of an unhappy estrangement at the last, probably loved him
more than anyone else, and had he written his story, as he once proposed
doing, the narrative might have been charming; but, alas for Steele's
resolutions!
That Addison was a shy man we know--Lord Chesterfield said he was the
most timid man he ever knew--and it speaks well for his resolution and
strength of purpose that he should have risen notwithstanding this
timidity to so high a position in public affairs. His want of oratorical
power was a drawback to his efficiency, and Sir James Macintosh was
probably right in saying that Addison as Dean of St. Patrick's, and
Swift as Secretary of State, would have been a happy stroke of fortune,
putting each into the place most fitted for him. The essayist's reserve,
while it closed his lips in general society, did not prevent him from
being one of the most fascinating of companions in the freedom of
conversation with a few intimate friends. Swift, Steele, and even Pope,
testify to Addison's irresistible charm in the select society that he
loved. Young said he could chain the attention of every hearer, and Lady
Mary Montagu declared that he was the best company in the world.
[Sidenote: Richard Steele (1672-1729).]
Richard Steele was born in Dublin, 1672, of English parents, and
educated at the Charterhouse, where, as we have said, Addison was at the
same time a pupil. In 1690 he matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford,
Addison being then demy at Magdalen. Steele left college without taking
a degree, and entered the army as a cadet. After a time he obtained the
rank of captain in Lord Lucas's fusiliers, and wrote his treatise, _The
Christian Hero_ (1701), with the design, he says, 'principally to fix
upon his own mind a strong impression of virtue and religion in
opposition to a stronger propensity towards unwarrantable pleasure.'
Steele was an honest lover of the things most worthy of love, but his
frailty too often proved stronger than his virtue, and the purpose of
_The Christian Hero_ was not answered.
Jeremy Collier's _Short View of the Immorality and Profanity of the
English Stage_, published in 1698, had made, as it well might, a
powerful impression, and Steele, who was always ready to inculcate
morality on other people, wrote four comedies with a moral purpose. _The
Funeral; or Grief à-la-Mode_ was acted with success at Drury Lane in
1701, and when published passed through several editions. _The Lying
Lover_ followed two years later, and was, in the comfortable judgment of
the author, 'damned for its piety.' This was followed, in 1705, by _The
Tender Husband_, a play suggested by the _Sicilien_ of Molière, as _The
Lying Lover_ had been founded on the _Menteur_ of Corneille. Many years
later Steele's last play, _The Conscious Lovers_ (1722), completed his
performances as a dramatist. It was dedicated to the King, who is said
to have sent the author £500. The modern reader will find little worthy
of attention in the dramas of Steele. His sense of humour enlivens some
of the scenes, and is, perhaps, chiefly visible in _The Funeral_; but
for the most part dulness is in the ascendant, and the sentiment is
frequently mawkish. _The Conscious Lovers_, said Parson Adams, contains
'some things almost solemn enough for a sermon.' This may be true, but
we do not desire a sermon in a play, and Steele, who is always a lively
essayist, loses his liveliness in writing for the stage. It has been
observed by Mr. Ward that, taking a hint from Colley Cibber, he 'became
the real founder of that sentimental comedy which exercised so
pernicious an influence upon the progress of our dramatic literature.'
'It would be unjust,' he adds, 'to hold him responsible for the
feebleness of successors who were altogether deficient in the comic
power which he undoubtedly even as a dramatist exhibits; but in so far
as their aberrations were the result of his example, he must be held to
have contributed, though with the best of motives, to the decline of the
English drama.'[38] One of the prominent offenders who followed in
Steele's wake was George Lillo (1693-1739), whose highly moral
tragedies, written for the edification of playgoers, have the kind of
tragic interest which is called forth by any commonplace tale of crime
and misery. In Lillo's two most important dramas, _George Barnwell_
(1731), a play founded on the old ballad, and _The Fatal Curiosity_
(1736), there is a total absence of the elevation in character and
language which gives dignity to tragedy. His plays are like tales of
guilt arranged and amplified from the Newgate Calendar. The author wrote
with a good purpose, and the public appreciated his work, but it is not
dramatic art, and has no pretension to the name of literature.
Throughout his life Steele was at war with fortune. His hopefulness was
inexhaustible, but he learnt no lessons from experience, and escaped
from one slough to fall into another. He was as unthrifty as Goldsmith,
whom in many respects he resembles, and his warm, impulsive nature was
allied to a combativeness and jealousy which sometimes led him to
quarrel with his best friends. Of his passion for the somewhat exacting
lady whom he married,[39] and of the 400 and odd notelets addressed by
the lover-husband to his 'dear, dearest Prue,' and 'absolute Governess,'
it is enough to say here, that the story told offhand in his own words,
shows how lovable the man was in spite of the faults which he never
attempted to conceal. Only about a week before the marriage the lady had
fair warning of one probable drawback to her happiness as a wife.[40] On
the morning of August 30th, 1707, Steele advised his 'fair one' to look
up to that heaven which had made her so sweet a companion, and in the
evening of that day he wrote:
'DEAR LOVELY MRS. SCURLOCK,
'I have been in very good company, where your health, under the
character of _the woman I loved best_, has been often drunk, so
that I may say I am dead drunk for your sake, which is more than
I _die for you_.
'RICH. STEELE.'
After marriage Steele's extravagance and impecuniosity must have proved
a severe trial to Prue. At times he would live in considerable style,
and Berkeley, who writes, in 1713, of dining with him frequently at his
house in Bloomsbury Square, praises his table, servants, and coach as
'very genteel.' At other times the family were without common
necessaries, and on one occasion there was not 'an inch of candle, a
pound of coal, or a bit of meat in the house.'
On the 12th April, 1709, Steele issued the first number of the
_Tatler_, its supposed author being the Isaac Bickerstaff, whose name,
thanks to Swift, had been 'rendered famous through all parts of Europe.'
The essays appeared every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, for the
convenience of the post, and at the outset contained political news,
which Steele, by his government appointment of Gazetteer, was enabled to
supply. After awhile, however, much to the advantage of the _Tatler_,
this news was dropped. The articles are dated from White's
Chocolate-house, from Will's Coffee-house, from the Grecian, and from
the St. James's. It is probable that the column in Defoe's _Review_,
containing _Advice from the Scandal Club_, suggested his 'Lucubrations'
to Steele. If so, it does not detract from his originality of treatment,
for Defoe's town gossip is poor stuff. Addison, who knew nothing of the
project beforehand, came, ere long, to his friend's assistance; but it
was not until about eighty numbers had appeared, that he became a
frequent contributor, and before that time Steele had made his mark.
When the essays were afterwards reprinted in four volumes, Steele, who
was never wanting in gratitude, generously acknowledged the help he had
received. 'I fared,' he says, 'like a distressed prince who calls in a
powerful neighbour to his aid. I was undone by my auxiliary. When I had
once called him in, I could not subsist without dependence on him.' The
_Tatler_ still supplies delightful entertainment, and in the almost
total absence of amusing and wholesome reading in Steele's time, must
have proved a welcome companion. Readers who are inundated by what is
called 'light literature' can with difficulty imagine the dearth
suffered in Pope's day, when the interminable romances of Calprenède, of
Mdlle. de Scuderi and her brother, and of Madame la Fayette, were the
liveliest books considered fit for a modest woman to read. A novel,
however, in ten volumes, like the _Grand Cyrus_ or _Clélie_, had one
advantage over the cheap fictions of our time, its interest was not soon
exhausted.
The _Tatler_ has claims upon the student's attention, apart from the
entertainment it affords. Steele, who lived from hand to mouth, and
wrote, as he lived, on the impulse of the moment, had unwittingly begun
a work destined to form an epoch in English literature. The _Essay_, as
we now understand the word, dates from the _Lucubrations of Isaac
Bickerstaff_, and Steele and Addison, who may boast a numerous progeny,
have in Charles Lamb the noblest of their sons.
On the 2nd January, 1711, Steele wrote the final number of the _Tatler_,
partly on the plea that the essays would suffice to make four volumes,
and partly because he was known to be the author, and could not, as Mr.
Steele, attack vices with the freedom of Mr. Bickerstaff. Addison, who
had done so much to assist Steele in his first venture, was as ignorant
of his intention to close the work as he was of its initiation. Two
months later _The Spectator_ appeared, and this time the friends worked
in concert. It proved a brilliantly successful partnership. The second
number, in which the characters of the club are introduced, was written
by Steele, and to him we owe the first sketch of the immortal Sir Roger
de Coverley:
'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 his disappointment, Sir Roger
was what you call a fine gentleman, had often supped with my Lord
Rochester and Sir George Etheridge, 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 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 afterwards. He continues to wear a coat and doublet of
the same cut that were in fashion at the time of his repulse, which, in
his merry humours, he tells us has been in and out twelve times since he
first wore it.... 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 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. When he comes into a house he calls the
servants by their names, and talks all the way upstairs 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 by explaining a passage in the Game Act.'
In their daily issue, as well as afterwards in volumes, the essays had
an extensive sale. They were to be found on every breakfast-table, and
so popular did they prove, that when the imposition of a halfpenny tax
destroyed a number of periodicals, Steele found it safe to double the
price of the _Spectator_. The vivacity and humour of the paper were
visible from the beginning. 'Mr. Steele,' Swift wrote, 'seems to have
gathered new life, and to have a new fund of wit.' Of 555 papers,
Addison wrote 274 and Steele 236, while the remaining forty-five were
the work of occasional contributors. In the full tide of its success,
and without any assigned reason, the _Spectator_ was brought to a
conclusion in December, 1712, and in the following spring Steele started
the _Guardian_, which might have been as fortunate as its predecessor,
had not the editor's zeal tempted him to diverge to politics. He had
also a disagreement with his publisher, and the _Guardian_ was allowed
but a short life of 175 numbers. Of these about fifty were due to
Addison, and upwards of eighty to Steele.
Steele's political ardour was irrepressible, and a paper in the
_Guardian_ (No. 128), demanding the abolition of Dunkirk, called forth a
pamphlet from Swift, in which the weaknesses of his former friend are
sneered at and denounced with enough of truthfulness to enhance their
malice. After allowing that Steele has humour, and is no disagreeable
companion 'after the first bottle,' Swift adds, 'Being the most
imprudent man alive, he never follows the advice of his friends, but is
wholly at the mercy of fools and knaves, or hurried away by his own
caprice, by which he has committed more absurdities in economy,
friendship, love, duty, good manners, politics, religion, and writing
than ever fell to one man's share.' A little later, in anticipation of
the Queen's death, Steele published _The Crisis_ (1714), a political
pamphlet, which led to his expulsion from the House of Commons. It was
answered by one of the most masterly of Swift's pamphlets, _The Public
Spirit of the Whigs_, in which it is suggested that Steele might be
superior to other writers on the Whig side 'provided he would a little
regard the propriety and disposition of his words, consult the
grammatical part, and get some information in the subject he intends to
handle.'
The reader is chiefly concerned with Steele as an essayist, and it is
unnecessary to follow his career in the House of Commons and out of it.
Yet there is one anecdote too characteristic to be omitted in the
briefest notice of his life. Lady Charlotte Finch had been attacked in
the _Examiner_ 'for knotting in St. James's Chapel during divine
service, in the immediate presence both of God and her Majesty, who were
affronted together.' Steele denounced the calumny in the _Guardian_.
Upon taking his seat as member for Stockbridge, he was attacked by the
Tories on account of _The Crisis_, which they deemed an inflammatory
libel, and defended himself in a speech which occupied three hours. When
he left the House, Lord Finch, who, like Steele, was a new member, rose
to make his maiden speech in defence of the man who had defended his
sister; a nervous feeling caused him to hesitate, and he sat down,
exclaiming, 'It is strange I cannot speak for this man, though I could
readily fight for him.' The House cheered these generous words, and Lord
Finch rising again, made an able speech. The effort was a vain one, and
Steele lost his seat. A few months later, after the death of Queen Anne,
he entered the House again as member for Boroughbridge, and having been
placed in the commission of peace for Middlesex, on presenting an
address from the county, he received the honour of knighthood.
Meanwhile he had not renounced his vocation of essayist. The _Guardian_
was followed by the _Englishman_ (1713), the _Englishman_ by the _Lover_
(1714), and the _Lover_ by the _Reader_ (1714), a journal strongly
political in character. Of this only nine numbers were issued. Then came
_Town Talk_, the _Tea Table_, _Chit-chat_, and the _Theatre_. Sir
Richard appears to have been always in a hurry to break new ground, a
foible not confined to literature. He was continually starting new
projects, and never doubted, in spite of numberless failures, that his
latest effort to make a fortune would be successful.
Notwithstanding his appointments as manager of Drury Lane and as a
Commissioner in Scotland to inquire into the Estates of Traitors,
Steele's money difficulties did not lessen as he advanced in life; worse
still, he had the misfortune to quarrel with his oldest and dearest
friend. For this he and Addison were alike to blame, and Addison dying a
few months later, there was no time for reconciliation. In 1718 Steele
had lost his wife, and some years afterwards his only remaining son.
Ultimately, broken in health and fortune, Sir Richard retired to
Carmarthen, and there, in 1729, he died.
'I was told,' says Victor, 'he retained his cheerful sweetness of temper
to the last; and would often be carried out in a summer's evening, when
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.'[41]
All literature worthy of the name is the expression of the writer's
life, of his aspirations, and of his ultimate aims; and since man is a
moral being, it cannot be severed from morality. To point a moral, if it
be within the scope of imaginative art, is subordinate to its main
purpose. To delight by stimulating the imagination, to give a new beauty
to existence by widening the realm of thought,--these are some of the
noblest purposes of literature; and while men and women of creative
genius are among our wisest teachers, the wisdom we gain from them comes
to us without direct enforcement. In the last century, however, authors
of good character, and authors who had no character to boast of, were
equally impressed with the necessity of adorning their pages with moral
maxims, and if this moral was not inserted in the body of the work, it
was inevitable that it should be tacked on to the end of it like a tail
to a kite. Steele in his artless way had a moral end in view, though his
method of reaching it was not always wise or even discreet. Addison had
his moral also. It pervades everything he wrote, but so artfully does
he make use of it, that the reader is not unpleasantly conscious of a
purpose. His allegories belong to an obsolete form of literature, but
one of them at least _The Vision of Mirza_, may be still read with
pleasure. His Saturday essays, which are nearly always serious in
character, are the sermons of a layman, expressed in the most lucid
style and in the purest English. His tales, like his allegories, have
lost much of their flavour, but the humorous essays, in which he depicts
the manners of the time, as well as the numbers devoted to the Spectator
Club and to Addison's beloved Sir Roger, have a perennial charm. There
is a felicity in the essayist's touch which is beyond imitation,
although a reader might give, as Johnson suggested, days and nights to
the study. The style is the man, and to write as Addison wrote it would
be necessary to reach his moral and intellectual level, to see with his
shrewd but kindly eyes, and to have his fine sense of humour. His
faults, too, must be shared by his imitator--the somewhat too delicate
refinement of a nature that never yields to impulse--the feminine
sensitiveness that is allied to jealousy. Addison, in the judgment of
his admirers, comes very near to perfection, and that is an irritating
quality in a fellow mortal. It is, if it be not paradoxical to say so,
the defect of his essays. There is nothing definite to find fault with
in them, but we feel that strength is wanting. The clear and silent
stream is a beautiful object, but after awhile it becomes monotonous,
and we long for the swift and impetuous movement of a mountain torrent.
It would be a thankless task, however, to dwell insistently on the
deficiencies of a writer who has done so much for literature, and so
much, too, for what is better than literature. We may wish that he had
more warmth in him, somewhat more of energy and passion, yet such merits
would be scarcely consonant with the graceful charm which gives to the
prose writings of Addison an unrivalled position in Pope's age, and, it
might be added, in the eighteenth century, were it not for the priceless
literary gift bestowed upon Oliver Goldsmith.
Steele's fame as a writer has been overshadowed by the more exquisite
genius of Addison, and his reputation has suffered partly from his own
frailties and partly from the contemptuous way in which he has been
treated by the panegyrists and critics of Addison. Pity is closely
allied to contempt, and Sir Richard has come to be regarded as a
scapegrace whose chief honour in life was the friendship of the
accomplished essayist. Yet it was Steele who created the form of
literature in which Addison earned his laurels, and without which he
would in the present day be utterly forgotten. Steele was the discoverer
of a new country, and if Addison took possession of its fairest portion,
it was after his friend had pointed out the path and made the way easy.
It would be very unjust, however, to treat of Steele solely as a
pioneer. His own work, though less perfect than that of Addison, a
consummate master of composition, is rich in variety and spirit, in
pathos and in knowledge of the world. Steele is often careless, but he
is never dull, and writes with a glow of enthusiasm that excites the
reader's sympathy. Truly does Mr. Dobson say that while Addison's essays
are faultless in their art and beyond the range of his friend's more
impulsive nature, 'for words which the heart finds when the head is
seeking; for phrases glowing with the white heat of a generous emotion;
for sentences which throb and tingle with manly pity or courageous
indignation, we must go to the essays of Steele.'[42]
Sir Richard's pathetic touches and artless turns of expression come
from the heart. He is the most natural of writers, but does not seem to
be aware that nature, in order to be converted into good literature,
needs a little clothing. His essays have often a looseness or negligence
of aim unpardonable in a man who can write so well. A conspicuous
illustration of this defect may be seen in No. 181 of the _Tatler_, one
of the most beautiful pieces from Steele's pen.
'The first sense of sorrow,' he writes, 'I ever knew was upon the 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 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
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 embraces; and told me in a flood of tears, "Papa
could not hear me, and would play with me no more, for they were 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, that before I was sensible of what
it was to grieve, seized my very soul, and has made pity the weakness of
my heart ever since.'
Later on in the essay, and still looking back on the past, Steele
recalls the untimely death of the first object his eyes ever beheld with
love, and then abruptly dismissing his regrets he carelessly finishes
the paper with this characteristic passage: 'A large train of disasters
were coming on to my memory when my servant knocked at my closet door,
and interrupted me with a letter, attended with a hamper of wine of the
same sort with that which is to be put to sale on Thursday next at
Garraway's Coffee-house. Upon the receipt of it I sent for three of my
friends. We are so intimate that we can be company in whatever state of
mind we meet, and can entertain each other without expecting always to
rejoice. The wine we found to be generous and warming, but with such a
heat as moved us rather to be cheerful than frolicsome. It revived the
spirits, without firing the blood. We commended it until two of the
clock this morning, and having to-day met a little before dinner, we
found that though we drank two bottles a man, we had much more reason to
recollect than forget what had passed the night before.'
Steele, to quote Johnson's phrase, was 'the most agreeable rake that
ever trod the rounds of indulgence,' but he had many a fine quality that
does not harmonize with the character of a rake; and although he hurt
himself by his follies, he did his best to help others by his genial
wisdom. If he did not sufficiently regard his own interests, his
thoughts, as Addison said, 'teemed with projects for his country's
good.' Savage Landor, with an impulse of somewhat extravagant eulogy,
exclaimed, 'What a good critic Steele was! I doubt if he has ever been
surpassed.' This is one of the sayings that will not bear examination.
Steele had doubtless the fine perception of what is noble in art and
literature, which some men possess instinctively. He felt what was good,
but does not appear either to have reached or strengthened his
conclusions by any process of study.
As an essayist Steele is careless, rapid, emotional, and disposed to be
on the best terms with himself and with his readers. He makes them sure
that if they could have met him in his rollicking mood at Will's
Coffee-house, he would have treated them all round, even if, like
Goldsmith, he had been forced to borrow the money to do it. But he was
not always in this reckless humour. His heart was expansive in its
sympathies and tender as a woman's; his mind was open to all kindly
influences, and his essays have in them the rich blood and vivid
utterances of a man who has 'warmed both hands before the fire of life.'
Between Steele's _Guardian_ (1713) and the _Rambler_ of Johnson (1750),
a period of thirty-seven years, a swarm of periodicals testify to the
fame of Steele and Addison. The reader curious on the subject will find
in Dr. Drake's essays a minute account of the numerous essayists who
flourished, or who made an effort to live, between the close of the
eighth volume of the _Spectator_ and the beginning of the present
century. Of these a few have still a place on our shelves, but for the
most part they enjoyed a butterfly existence, and serve but to prove the
immeasurable superiority of the writers who created the English Essay.
FOOTNOTES:
[36] Cibber's _Apology_, p. 386.
[37] Courthope's _Addison_, p. 150.
[38] _English Dramatic Literature_, vol. ii., p. 603.
[39] 'It is a strange thing,' he writes, 'that you will not behave
yourself with the obedience people of worse features do, but that I must
be always giving you an account of every trifle and minute of my time.'
[40] Steele had been previously married to Mrs. Stretch, a widow, who
possessed an estate in the West Indies; but the lady did not long
survive the marriage.
[41] Victor's _Original Letters, Dramatic Pieces, and Poems_, vol. i.,
p. 330.
[42] _Selections from Steele_, by Austin Dobson. Introduction, p. xxx.
Clarendon Press.