lated by his friends or his surroundings, the master of every conversation in which he took part. Even the envious but wonderfully clever Pope acknowledged that Addison "had something more charming in his conversation than I ever knew in any other man," and the bitter, cynical Swift declared that often as they spent their evenings together he never wished for a third person. "If he had a mind to be chosen king," said that same biting satirist, with an enthusiastic humor quite unlike his usual self, "he would hardly be refused.' 27. Prudent There is another side to the picture, howMr. Addison. ever. Just, kindly, often forbearing in his friendship, he never quite forgot to be prudent. even in behalf of a friend. He was more likely to give a spendthrift good counsel than to lend him his purse in hearty, open fashion. When it was proposed that he let off an old acquaintance from some official fee, he good-humoredly replied: "I have forty friends whose fees may be worth two guineas apiece; I lose eighty guineas and my friends gain but two apiece." He was in truth a bit cold-blooded in his friendships. "I ask no favor of Mr. Secretary Addison," wrote Steele, too proud to solicit from a life-long colleague a kindness which a more generous man than Addison would have proffered off-hand. 28. His Kindly Yet few men in literary life have been Spirit. more considerate; few men have guarded more calmly and steadily against giving unnecessary pain. There is in his wittiest satire something of the same quietness, something of the same placidity, which pervades his familiar evening hymn: 29. Dick Soon as the evening shades prevail, And spread the truth from pole to pole. When the young Addison went up to the famous Charterhouse school in London to finish his preparation for the university, he met among the pupils there a boy, six weeks his senior, who was destined to become his benefactor, his gallant follower, his colleague, his life-long admirer, and except for a sorry political quarrel at the very close of Addison's life, his life-long friend. At this time young Steele was under the care of an uncle, for his father had died when he was but five years old, and his mother had died soon after. "I remember," he writes, speaking of his father's death, "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 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 embrace, 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 underground whence he could never come to us again.” Steele followed Addison to the univer 30. The Details of His Life. sity, but he was so eager to join in the war which was then waging against France that he could not stay to graduate. In 1694, he enlisted as a private gentleman in the second troop of life-guards. A few years later he became a captain. His military ambitions had not kept him from trying his pen in a literary venture or so, and by 1700 he was well known to some of the chief wits of the time. In the same year, one or two of his acquaintances having thought fit to misuse him and try their valor upon him, he fought a duel in Hyde Park with a Captain Kelly, whom he wounded dangerously, though not mortally. "This occurrence laid the foundation of that dislike of dueling which he ever after exhibited." Finding his military life exposed to much irregularity, he wrote his treatise on the Christian Hero, to fix upon his own mind a strong impression of virtue and religion. This treatise he afterwards published "as a standing admonition against himself." He helped purify the stage by writing clean plays, was for a time the editor of the official newspaper of the court, the Gazette, and on the 12th of April, 1709, laid the foundation of his permanent fame by starting a tri-weekly journal of essays, called the Tatler. To this journal Addison then in Ireland, was a frequent and welcome contributor. A little later, the paper gave way to a new undertaking of theirs, the Spectator. In 1713, Steele was elected a member of Parliament. "Expelled from the House of Commons by the insolent and unmanly sanction of a majority," he was again elected to that body in 1715. In 1718, he lost his wife, who was buried in Westminster Abbey. From that time on he engaged in theatrical affairs, wrote his fourth comedy, risked and lost his money in wildcat ventures, and finally withdrew to a small estate in Wales, where he died in 1729.1 The most characteristic thing about Frankness of Steele's face was the "Irish vivacity that 31. His Temper. lighted up his eyes. He was one of the most sanguine of mortals, always active and always confident that his latest venture would make him his fortune. It is said that an alchemist once duped him into believing that he could discover the philosopher's stone which should turn all things into gold. However this may be, so lively were his hopes of winning prosperity that on the strength of them he always ran beyond his income, and was always beset by creditors who somehow did not share his confidence. The cour 1 For the facts of this paragraph and for very much of the phrasing, the editor is indebted to Mr. Austin Dobson's life of Steele in the English Worthies Series. age with which he faced the future made him all the franker to acknowledge the shortcomings of his past. There was never any cowardly attempt on his part to bolster up his reputation. When a correspondent took him to task in the Tatler for letting a piece of grossness slip into one of his comedies, he accepted the correction, dwelt good-humoredly but soundly on its truth, and corrected the fault in the next edition of the play. His modesty was of a brave, outspoken sort. He was never tired of acknowledging the debt he owed to Addison for criticising and correcting his literary work. Any one, he declared of himself, could tell from the quality of his writings when Mr. Addison was at home and when abroad. 32. His Simplicity of Feeling. Steele, however, was high-spirited enough to resent injustice even from Addison. For the estrangement which separated them during the closing days of Addison's life, it is hard to see that Steele was in any sense to blame. Addison had attempted to confute him in a political argument. Not succeeding, perhaps, as well as he had hoped, and no doubt rendered peevish by the fatal illness from which he was suffering, he finally descended into irritating little personalities. At first Steele met. them with great good humor. At last, stung by the changed attitude of his old friend, he replied to them with pathetic but dignified reproaches that did credit. to his own self-respect, as well as to his loyalty toward old memories. In many respects, Steele remained all through his life an overgrown boy; he was apt to act |