Progress in attacking prevailing and fashionable Vices, which Mr. Bickerstaff has done with a Freedom of Spirit, that would have lost both its Beauty and Efficacy, had it been pretended to by Mr. Steele' This, if it signifies anything at all, must be taken to imply that some of Steele's contemporaries, as in the case of the Christian Hero, had been too narrowly contrasting 'the least Levity in his Words and Actions' with the admirable precepts of the Shire Lane philosopher. But other and more urgent motives for the cessation of Mr. Bickerstaff's Lucubrations have been suggested. After the accession of the Tories in August, 1710, Steele lost his post as Gazetteer, and it became more difficult to continue the paper on the old lines when the sources of privileged information were sealed. Then again Addison had returned from his Irish Secretaryship; and his assistance, already so valuable in developing its social and literary side, was more intimately available. In these circumstances, it would be better to begin afresh with a new venture, in which the new characteristics would be retained, while the old ones were wholly abandoned. There was already, the printer reported, material for four volumes; and Steele took leave of his subscribers. In his general preface to the collected edition, he inserted an oftquoted compliment to his friend and ally. 'I have only one Gentleman, who will be nameless, to thank for any frequent Assistance to me, which indeed it would have been barbarous in him to have denied to one with whom he has lived in an Intimacy from Childhood, considering the great Ease with which he is able to dispatch the most entertaining pieces of this Nature. This good Office he performed with such Force of Genius, Humour, Wit, and learning, that I fared 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 Dependance on him”. In this passage Steele gives an example of that generous self-suppression, to which Fielding refers in his Journey from this World to the Next. There can be no doubt of the fine qualities of Addison's contributions, and of the material aid which they afforded to Steele in determining his original design. Tatler, No. 271. 2 Preface to Vol. iv, 1711. But his own part in the enterprise was by no means contemptible. In the first place, he had invented it, for it is idle, as some would, to transfer the credit of this to Swift, merely because he had contrived the lay-figure of Bickerstaff. Nor is it necessary, except as an exercise in ingenuity, to connect it very closely with the somewhat similar productions of Defoe. Secondly, by far the larger proportion of papers are Steele's own; and, in nearly every case, the new departure, the fresh extension, comes from him. Often Addison's most brilliant efforts are built upon a chance hint thrown off at random by Steele's hurrying pen. In this conjunction, in short, Steele seems to have been the originating and Addison the elaborating intellect. What Steele with his keen sympathy and 'veined humanity' found in 'conversation '-to use the eighteenth-century term for commerce with the world-the delicate lapidary skill of his more placid and introspective companion turned in the study into those gems of graceful irony, which, if only by reason of their style and polish, must outlive more ambitious performances. They are faultless in their art, and in this way achieve an excellence which was beyond the range of Steele's quicker and more impulsive nature. But 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. In the Nothing so clearly illustrates the relations of the two writers as the conception and progress of the Club, to whose members we are introduced in No. 2 of the new paper, which, a few weeks later, took the place of the concluded Tatler. In No. 1, Addison, embodying some of his own characteristics, had carefully delineated the portrait of the taciturn and contemplative 'looker-on,' from whom the journal borrowed its name. essay that followed, Steele threw off his sketch of that famous friendly gathering, which, to most people, is the most memorable thing in the Spectator. The foremost of the group is Sir Roger de Coverley. Tickell, Addison's protégé and biographer, says that these two papers were 'projected [by Addison] in concert with Steele.' This may be true; but it is also probable that each writer took to himself those parts of the scheme which he held to be most peculiarly his own. The picture of Mr. Spec tator is just such a finished study as might have originated with the creator of Tom Folio or Ned Softly in the Tatler, while the 'conversation-piece' of the Club is equally characteristic of the broader and hastier hand which drew Sir Jeoffrey Notch and the little knot of notables, who assembled nightly at the Trumpet'. But Addison saw in Steele's kit-cat of Sir Roger the occasion for a full-length after his own heart. The plan of the periodical permitted either writer to exhibit any of the members of the society; and Addison was thus enabled to build upon Steele's foundation that inimitable reproduction of the Tory country-gentleman of his day which ranks beside the best creations of the school of fiction which it preceded and anticipated. Will Honeycomb, Captain Sentry, Sir Andrew Freeport, the Templar, the Clergyman, all Steele's other conceptions pale before this central figure; and Steele's best social papers, and Addison's best literary criticisms, would have had far less currency if Sir Roger de Coverley had never existed. The first number of the Spectator was issued on March 1, 1711. Until December 6, 1712, it was continued daily with increased success, and an indomitable vitality which survived even the baleful Stamp Act of August in that year. While the Medleys and Flying Posts of Grub Street sank under the deadly half-penny tax to rise no more, the little leaflet of Addison and Steele audaciously doubled its price (a penny) and yet retained its readers. Towards the close of its career the sale must have reached 10,000 copies, and we have Steele's own authority 2 for saying that in volume form it acquired a further circulation of 9000. Of the two colleagues, Addison was, in this instance, the larger contributor. Out of a total of 555, his papers numbered 274 to Steele's 236, leaving only 45 for Budgell, Hughes, and (with exception of Pope) the other comparatively undistinguished occasional assistants. As in the concluding Tatler, Steele does not omit, when winding up its successor, to make admiring reference to his still anonymous auxiliary. 'I am, indeed, much more proud of his long-continued Friendship, than I should be of the Fame of being thought the Author of any Writings which he himself is capable of producing. I remember when I finished the Tender Husband, I told him there was nothing 1 See Tatler, No. 132. 2 Spectator, No. 555 I so ardently wished, as that we might some time or other publish a Work written by us both, which should bear the Name of the Monument in Memory of our Friendship 1.' Why the Spectator was thus brought to an end in the full tide of its success is difficult to understand; and it is nowhere very satisfactorily explained. Weariness of the scheme may have had something to do with it; and it is also not unlikely that, in the high-running strife of Whig and Tory, Steele's eager spirit of partisanship, never entirely held in check by the reticences of the social essay, was beginning to disquiet him, as it had already done in the Tatler. During the progress of the Spectator, his patriotism had broken out in a little pamphlet called The Englishman's Thanks to the Duke of Marlborough, occasioned by the disgrace in December, 1711, of that great Captain2; and, even in the pages of the Spectator itself, there had been indications of his inability to maintain the 'exact Neutrality,' announced at the outset of the paper3. 'He has been mighty impertinent of late,' says Swift, writing to Stella in July, 1712. 'I believe he will very soon lose his employment.' Nevertheless, in the Guardian, with which, on the 12th of March, 1713, he again appeared as a periodical essayist, introducing a fresh plan and a new set of characters, he continues to make profession of abstinence from political questions. While declaring himself, as regards the government of the church, a Tory, and with respect to the State, a Whig, Mr. Nestor Ironside goes on to say '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, and one who thinks he is passing to eternity.' "Matters of state' were, however, too strong for Richard Steele. He was an ardent adherent of King William and the Revolution. air was charged with faction, and rife with rumours of Jacobite plots against the Hanoverian succession. Thus it came about that the Guardian, beginning brilliantly with a staff which, in addition to Addison, included Berkeley and Pope, soon deviated 1 Spectator, No. 555. The * This event, on Swift's side, prompted the rancorous Fable of Midas, February 14, 1712. V. Spectator, No. 1. Cf. also Spectator, No. 262. into controversy. The first manifestation of this was an indignant defence, in No. 41, of Lady Charlotte Finch, afterwards Duchess of Somerset, who, because her father, the Earl of Nottingham, had become obnoxious to the Tory party, was herself assailed, incidentally, by the Tory Examiner. 'No sooner was Dismal [her father] among the Whigs,' said the writer, 'and confirm'd past retrieving, but Lady Char-te is taken knotting1 in Saint James's Chapel, during Divinę Service, in the immediate presence both of God and Her Majesty, who were affronted together, that the Family might appear to be entirely come over.' Steele rightly considered this to be a wholly unwarrantable attack, for political purposes, upon an unoffending young lady, and he expostulated with considerable warmth. The Examiner replied feebly by counter-charges against the personalities of the Tatler; and in May Steele vindicated himself over his own signature. A month later his irrepressible enthusiasm broke into open warfare with the Ministers. He threw up his Commissionership of Stamps in a letter to the Lord Treasurer of June 4, resigned his pension as Prince George's gentleman in waiting, and shortly afterwards attacked the Government upon the burning question of the demolition of the Dunkirk fortifications. This, which had been stipulated in the Treaty of Utrecht, was now, if certain ugly rumours could be credited, to be tacitly set aside. Steele's watchful patriotism took fire. The British nation'—he wrote imperatively in No. 128 of the Guardian-' expects the demolition of Dunkirk.' To this outspoken declaration the Examiner replied by charging him with ingratitude and disloyalty. Steele thereupon followed up the controversy with a pamphlet called The Importance of Dunkirk consider'd, etc., addressed to the Bailiff of Stockbridge, for which borough he had just been returned to the House of Commons3. Meanwhile, upon some ill-explained disagreement This was a fashionable occupation under Anne. Cf. Addison in Spectator, No. 536; and Dorset's poem on Knotting. * V. Examiner, May 8, and Guardian, May 12 (No. 53). The Importance of Dunkirk consider'd, etc., was published September 22, 1713. On October 31 Swift answered it by a bitter and vindictive pamphlet, entitled The Importance of the Guardian consider'd, in which the note of personal animosity is plainly audible. It is impossible, in our brief space, to enter upon the tangled tale of Swift's quarrel with Steele at this period. Political differences had already for с |