published in the same year as the Crisis of Property. Outside these two classes he did nothing, save prefaces and introductions, which can fairly be regarded as serious prose, since, despite their titles, the Account of the state of the Roman-Catholick Religion, 1715, and the Romish Ecclesiastical History of late Years 1714, are little more than pamphlets overgrown. From a passage in the Reader, it seems that he did at one time contemplate the task which, rejected by Glover and Mallet, ultimately fell to Archdeacon Coxe,-the history of the War in Flanders; but the project, like many others which emanated from his restless Irish brain, never got beyond the proposal stage. This is perhaps to be regretted. Although he at no time showed any special aptitude for labours de longue haleine, and although he never served abroad, he was not without qualifications as a military historian. He had a genuine enthusiasm for military exploits; and- as is proved by the well-known story of "Valentine and Unnion," and by the episode of Sergeant Hall of the Foot Guards in Tatler, No. 87, -a practical sympathy with the rank and file which augured well for his success as a military annalist. Had he done no more for the campaigns of Marlborough, than_Carleton's Memoirs did for those of Peterborough, the result had still been welcome.

In the meantime, the strongest believer in Steele's personal loyalty and political integrity can scarcely, at this date, speak with approval, of his excursions into faction. Even if one allows to them the fullest measure of sincerity, of common sense, and of that stubborn form of gallantry which never knows when it is worsted, it is equally clear that they were lamentably deficient in logical power, in sustained argument, and in controversial tenacity. Moreover, he had the ill-fortune to enter the lists against an adversary who was conspicuously strong in these very respects the terrible author of the Battle of the Books. Upon Steele's Importance of Dunkirk consider'd, followed Swift's remorselessly contemptuous Importance of the “Guardian” consider'd; and after the hasty patchwork of his Crisis, came Swift's second best political pamphlet, the famous Publick Spirit of the Whigs. Before Swift's withering irony, Steele's straggling patriotism fared no better than an oldfashioned bell-mouthed blunderbuss might be supposed to fare when opposed to a close-throwing modern mitrailleuse. If any one of his efforts in this direction be worth the serious consideration

of the student, it is his Apology for Himself and his Writings, in which when the death of Anne had once more restored the reins to the hands of the Whigs—he reviewed and defended

his past course of action. But even this is more interesting for its disclosure of his personality than for its political import, and it includes besides several autobiographical particulars which have been of no small service to his biographers. In sum, however, Swift's sneer in the Examiner that he (Steele) had "oblig'd his party with a very awkward pamphleteer in the room of an excellent droll," must be held to express with practical truth, though with needless directness, his position as a political writer.

But if the phrase "awkward pamphleteer" be a not inexact definition of the writer of the Crisis, the expression "excellent droll" is certainly a wholly inadequate description of the founder of the Tatler, and the father of the English essay. The fashion which so long prevailed of making him the mere umbra or shadow of the distinguished colleague whose inestimable aid he so loyally and generously acknowledged has, it is true, now passed away. But if the collaboration of Addison was useful to him in one respect, it was, and still is, disastrous to him in another. He suffered the fate- not. uncommon with forerunning and inventive minds-of seeing his crude and half-considered ideas become, in other hands, the stepping stones to higher things. When out of his labours as Gazetteer in Lord Sunderland's office, suddenly upsprang that larger idea of a "Letter of Intelligence," or "Journal of News," which so rapidly developed into the Tatler, he probably had no more serious purpose than to criticise life in such a way "as (he tells us) might gratify the curiosity of persons of all conditions, and of each sex.” Literature he scarcely intended; he claimed, and he took, the right to be "incorrect" if he liked, and to use 66 common speech," if he preferred to do so. "The elegance, purity, and correctness," which Addison imported into the enterprise, were not part of his design; nor, though they undoubtedly stimulated and elevated his own efforts, were they quite within his range. Hence, though he profited immensely by Addison's inimitable art, he lost, by comparison, something of the credit he might have enjoyed, had he worked alone. would be idle to contend that, at any moment, he really rivalled Addison in any of his more individual qualities,—his delicate irony,

It

his keen observation, his finished and leisurely expression. Moreover Steele had certain disadvantages of circumstance which intensified his other shortcomings. He had started, and -if we except the hints and occasional contributions of Swifthad maintained for some time without assistance, the periodical to which his old friend eventually became a regular contributor. These relations were continued 'to the end of the chapter. Upon Steele fell the labour of keeping the paper going, while Addison remained an assistant only, indispensable, as it turned out, to the success of the enterprise, but still an assistant and no

more.

Yet when everything is allowed to Addison that can reasonably be conceded to him, and when everything has been said, that can be said, of Steele's slap-dash method, impulsive judgment, and careless style, it must be admitted that Steele brought some gifts to his work for which one may seek in vain in the work of his coadjutor. If he was less literary, he was more earnest ; if he was more hasty, he was sometimes more happy. The very energy of his indignation, pity, or enthusiasm frequently taught him those short cuts to his reader's sympathy, which neither art nor artifice can teach; and he often becomes eloquent by the sheer force and sincerity of his emotion. Like Addison, he is occasionally hortatory and didactic; but his sermons, though at times excellent, are not his best work. His true school is human nature. As a genial and kindly commentator upon the men and women about him; as a humane and an indulgent interpreter of their frailties; as a generous and an ungrudging sympathiser with their feeblest better impulse-he belongs to the great race of English humourists.

AUSTIN DOBSON.

MR. BICKERSTAFF VISITS A FRIEND

THERE are several persons who have many pleasures and entertainments in their possession which they do not enjoy. It is therefore a kind and good office to acquaint them with their own happiness, and turn their attention to such instances of their good fortune as they are apt to overlook. Persons in the married state often want such a monitor; and pine away their days by looking upon the same condition in anguish and murmur, which carries with it in the opinion of others a complication of all the pleasures of life, and a retreat from its inquietudes.

I am led into this thought by a visit I made an old friend, who was formerly my schoolfellow. He came to town last week with his family for the winter, and yesterday morning sent me word his wife expected me to dinner. I am, as it were, at home at that house, and every member of it knows me for their wellwisher. I cannot indeed express the pleasure it is to be met by the children with so much joy as I am when I go thither. The boys and girls strive who shall come first when they think it is I that am knocking at the door; and that child which loses the race to me runs back again to tell the father it is Mr. Bickerstaff. This day I was led in by a pretty girl, that we all thought must have forgot me; for the family has been out of town these two years. Her knowing me again was a mighty subject with us, and took up our discourse at the first entrance. After which they began to rally me upon a thousand little stories they heard in the country about my marriage to one of my neighbour's daughters. Upon which the gentleman, my friend, said, "Nay, if Mr. Bickerstaff marries a child of any of his old companions, I hope mine shall have the preference; there is Mrs. Mary is now sixteen, and would make him as fine a widow as the best of them. But I know him too well; he is so enamoured with the very memory of those who flourished in our youth, that he will

not so much as look upon the modern beauties.

I remember, old gentleman, how often you went home in a day to refresh your countenance and dress when Teraminta reigned in your heart. As we came up in the coach, I repeated to my wife some of your verses on her." With such reflections on little passages which happened long ago, we passed our time, during a cheerful and elegant meal. After dinner his lady left the room, as did also the children. As soon as we were alone, he took me by the hand. “Well, my good friend,” says he, “I am heartily glad to see thee; I was afraid you would never have seen all the company that dined with you to-day again. Do not you think the good woman of the house a little altered since you followed her from the playhouse, to find out who she was, for me?" I perceived a tear fall down his cheek as he spoke, which moved me not a little. But, to turn the discourse, said I, "She is not indeed quite that creature she was, when she returned me the letter I carried from you; and told me, she hoped as I was a gentleman I would be employed no more to trouble her, who had never offended me; but would be so much the gentleman's friend as to dissuade him from a pursuit which he could never succeed in. You may remember I thought her in earnest; and you were compelled to employ your cousin Will, who made his sister get acquainted with her, for you. You cannot expect her to be for ever fifteen." "Fifteen!" replied my good friend: "Ah! you little understand, you that have lived a bachelor, how great, how exquisite a pleasure there is in being really beloved! It is impossible that the most beauteous face in nature should raise in me such pleasing ideas as when I look upon that excellent woman. That fading in her countenance is chiefly caused by her watching with me in my fever. This was followed by a fit of sickness, which had like to have carried her off last winter. I tell you sincerely, I have so many obligations to her that I cannot, with any sort of moderation, think of her present state of health. But as to what you say of fifteen, she gives me every day pleasures beyond what I ever knew in the possession of her beauty, when I was in the vigour of youth. Every moment of her life brings me fresh instances of her complacency to my inclinations, and her prudence in regard to my fortune. Her face is to me much more beautiful than when I first saw it; there is no decay in any feature which I cannot trace from the very instant it was occasioned by some anxious concern for my welfare