daughter and heiress of Jonathan Scurlock, Esq.; and he appears to have lived partly at Tylgewyn (the White House) —a clean farm-house half way between Caermarthen and Llangunnor church, which is situate on a hill commanding one of the most pleasing views in Wales. A field near the house is pointed out as the site of Steele's garden, in the bower of which he was accustomed to write. In Steele's three years' retirement in Wales, his two little daughters were his greatest solicitude; amid failing health and growing infirmities he was never tired of superintending their lessons, or of writing them gay and entertaining letters, as from friend or playfellow. Mr. Forster concludes his delightful essay with this graceful sketch of the closing scenes of Steele's earthly pilgrimage: He had survived much, but neither his cheerful temper nor his kind philosophy. He would be carried out in a summer's evening, where the country lads and lasses were at their rural sports, and with his pencil give an order on his agent for a new gown to the best dancer. That was the last thing seen of Richard Steele. And the youths and maidens who so saw him in his invalid chair, enfeebled and dying, saw him still as the wits and fine ladies and gentlemen had seen him in his gaiety and youth, when he sat in the chair of Mr. Bickerstaff, creating pleasure for himself by the communication of pleasure to others, and in proportion to the happiness he distributed increasing his own. What a touching picture does this scene afford of the artless simplicity of rustic life contrasted with the waste of existence the wear and tear of reckless dissipation—which embitter whole years as a fitful fever. Our painters love to transfer to their canvas such scenes of enjoyment as the dance upon the village green and kindred pleasures of pastoral life; when to these is added man returning to the simplicity he had long outlived-as we see in Steele among his humble neighbours in Wales-how is the moral pointed and the tale adorned! DEATH OF STEELE.-HIS BURIAL-PLACE. Before Steele had carried into effect his honest intentions, death overtook his frame, enfeebled by dissipation and excess. He died September 1, 1729, at the age of fifty-eight, it is said, in the house now the Ivy Bush Hotel, the principal inn in Caermarthen. (See Cliff's trustworthy Book of South Wales, p. 237.) His funeral, according to his own desire, was strictly private. The entry stands thus in the Register: 1729 Sep. 4, Sr Richard Steel. He is buried in the chancel of St. Peter's Church, at Caermarthen, in a vault belonging to the Scurlock family. The church is visited for its monuments: there are effigies of a warrior in plate-armour, with knightly insignia and heraldic honours; there are grotesque figures and other memorials, but none so suggestive as the church being the burial-place of Richard Steele. A more fitting resting-place for his remains would have been in Westminster Abbey, beside his wife "Prue;" his genius and his conjugal love would then have been together commemorated. Dr. Hoadly, the Bishop of Bangor, was a steady friend of Steele's, and consented ultimately to act as executor and guardian to his children. MONUMENT TO STEELE. There is no monument to Steele's memory in St. Peter's Church; but in Llangunnor Church there is a plain monumental tablet, with the following inscription: This stone was erected at the instance of William Williams, of Ivy Tower, owner of Penddaylwn Vawr, in Llangunnor; part of the estate there once belonging to the deservedly celebrated Sir Richard Steele, Knight, chief author of the essays named Tatlers, Guardians, and Spectators; and he wrote the Christian Hero, the Englishman and the Crisis, The Conscious Lovers, and other fine plays. He represented several places in Parliament; was a staunch and able patriot; finally an incomparable writer on morality and Christianity. Hence the ensuing lines in a poem called the Head of the Rock : Behold Llangunnor, leering o'er the vale, Communication of W. Spurrell, Caermarthen; CHARACTERISTICS, PERSONAL TRAITS, STEELE was famed as a wit before Pope came upon the town, and in those days a young poet who could say he had dined with him was not without claims to consideration. The reader of Pope will remember his laugh at Ambrose Philips : "When simple Macer, now of high renown, Steele had a real love and reverence for virtue, Pope told Spence. He had the best nature in the world, and was a man of almost boundless benevolence, said Young. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu lived much with all the wits, and knew no one with the kind nature of Steele. "It is his admitted weakness to have yielded to the temptation which yet he never lost the strength to condemn; but we know who has said that, if at all times to do were as easy as to teach what is good to be done, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces."-Forster's Essays. Dr. Young said: "Sir Richard Steele was the best-natured creature in the world: even in his worst state of health, he seemed to desire nothing but to please and be pleased." Mr. Forster's life of Steele is a protest against Lord Macaulay's somewhat contemptuous pity. Mr. Forster presents him to us as a man who, with some irregularities-which have, as he thinks, been exaggerated-was possessed of a far more fearless and disinterested temper, and of a genius not much less admirable than that of his great contemporary Addison, whom Lord Macaulay and Mr. Thackeray agree in representing as having been his kind, watchful, and somewhat depreciatory monitor. There is great generosity and kindness in Mr. Forster's views on the subject; but the old objection always recurs-there is evidence both ways. Steele may have been a scamp, or he may not. It is a question of fact which no one now can really settle.* CHARACTER OF DICK EASTCOURT. Eastcourt, the comedian, was a man of wit as well as a mimic; he was caterer of the Beef-steak Club, and, as a badge of his office, wore a small gridiron of gold about his neck fastened to a green ribbon. He was a great favourite with Steele, who thus introduces him in the Spectator, No. 358: The best man that I know of for heightening the real gaiety of a company is Eastcourt, whose jovial humour diffuses itself from the highest person at an entertainment to the meanest waiter. Merry tales, accompanied with apt gestures and lively representations of circumstances and persons, beguile the gravest mind into a consent to be as humorous as himself. Add to this, that when a man is in his good graces, he has a mimicry that does not debase the person he represents, but which, taken from the gravity of the character, adds to the agreeableness of it. And in the Spectator, No. 468, August 27, 1712, we find: I am very sorry that I have at present a circumstance before me, which is of very great importance to all who have a relish for gaiety, wit, mirth, or humour; I mean the death of poor Dick Eastcourt. I have been obliged to him for so many hours of jollity, that it is but a small recompence, though all I can give him, to pass a moment or two in sadness for the loss of so agreeable a man. Poor Eastcourt! the last time I saw him we were plotting to show the town his great capacity for acting in its full light, by introducing him as dictating to a set of young players, in what manner to speak this sentence, and utter t'other passion. He had so exquisite a discerning of what was defective in any object before him, that in an instant he could show you the ridiculous side of what would pass for beautiful and just, even to men of no ill judgment, before he had pointed out the failure. He was no less skilful in the knowledge of beauty; and, I dare say, there is no one who knew him well but can repeat more well-turned compliments, as well as smart repartees of Mr. Eastcourt's, than of any other man in England. This was easily to be observed in his inimitable faculty of telling a story, in which he would throw in natural and unexpected incidents to make his court to one part, and rally the other part of the company. Then he would vary the usage he gave them, according as he saw them bear kind or sharp language. He had the knack to raise up a pensive temper, and mortify an impertinently gay one, with the most agreeable skill imaginable. It is an insolence natural to the wealthy, to affix, as much as in them lies, the character of a man to his circumstances. Thus it is ordinary with them to praise faintly the good qualities of those below them, and say, it is very extraordinary in such a man as he is, or the like, when they are forced to acknowledge the value of him whose lowness upbraids their exaltation. It is to this humour only, that it is to be ascribed, that a quick wit, in conversation, a nice judgment upon any emergency that could arise, and a most blameless inoffensive behaviour, could not raise this man above being received only upon the foot of contributing to mirth and diversion. But he was as easy under that con dition as a man of so excellent talents was capable; and since they would have it, that to divert was his business, he did it with all the seeming alacrity imaginable, though it stung him to the heart that it was his business. Men of sense, who could taste his excellences, were well satisfied to let him lead the way in conversation, and play after his own manner; but fools, who provoked him to mimicry, found he had the indignation to let it be at their expense who called for it; and he would show the form of conceited heavy fellows to the company at their own request, in revenge for interrupting him from being a companion, to put on the character of a jester. What was peculiarly excellent in this memorable companion, was, that in the accounts he gave of persons and sentiments, he did not only hit the figure of their faces, and manner of their gestures, but he would in his narration fall into their very way of thinking, and this when he recounted passages wherein men of the best wit were concerned, as well as such wherein were represented men of the lowest rank of understanding. It is certainly as great an instance of self-love to a weakness, to be impatient of being mimicked, as any can be imagined. There were none but the vain, the formal, the proud, or those who were incapable of amending their faults, that dreaded him; to others, he was in the highest degree pleasing; and I do not know any satisfaction of any indifferent kind I ever tasted so much, as having got over an impatience of my seeing myself in the air he could put me in when I displeased him. It is indeed to his exquisite talent this way, more than any philosophy I could read on the subject, that my person is very little of my care; and it is indifferent to me what is said of my shape, my air, my manner, my speech, or my address. It is to poor Eastcourt I chiefly owe that I am arrived at the happiness of thinking nothing a diminution to me, BUT WHAT ARGUES A DEPRAVITY OF MY WILL. * Poor Eastcourt! Let the vain and proud be at rest, thou wilt no more disturb their admiration of their dear selves; and thou art no longer to drudge in raising the mirth of stupids, who know nothing of thy merit, for thy maintenance. * * * * But I must grow more succinct, and, as a Spectator, give an account of this extraordinary man, who, in his way, never had an equal in any age before him, or that wherein he lived. I speak of him as a companion, and a man qualified for conversation. His fortune exposed him to an obsequiousness towards the worst sort of company, but his excellent qualities rendered him capable of making the best figure in the most refined. I have been present with him among men of the most delicate taste a whole night, and have known him (for he saw it was desired) keep the discourse to himself the most part of it, and maintain his good humour with a countenance or a language so delightful, without offence to any person or thing upon earth, still preserving the distance his circumstances obliged him to; I say, I have seen him do all this in such a charming manner, that I am sure none of those I hint at will read this, without giving him some sorrow for their abundant mirth, and one gush of tears for so many bursts of laughter. I wish it were any honour to the pleasant creature's memory, that my eyes are too much suffused to let me go on |