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.

15

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.

[From Mr. Steele's Apology for Himself and his Writings; Occasioned by his Expulsion from the House of Commons, 1714.]

But I flatter myself that I shall convince all my fellowsubjects of my innocence from the following circumstances,

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 defendant 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.

IO

"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 little 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 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 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,

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 encouraged, 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 Tatler, 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."

[No. 12.]

XXIII.

[From the Theatre.]

January 2 to April 5, 1720.

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 5 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 10 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 1, of The Conscious Lovers, a successful sentimental drama, first played November 7, 1722. 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 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.

ΙΟ

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 5 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, LUCINDA SEALAND.

15

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; 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 reputation and honour in the world. How must I preserve myself from imputations there? He'll, forsooth, call it,

30

or think it, fear, if I explain without fighting. But his letter - I'll read it again.

Sir, You have used me basely, in corresponding and carrying on a treaty where you told me you were indif