At the outset of it he tells you that men of business, whatever they may think, have not nearly so much to do with the government of the world as men of wit; but that the men of wit of that age had made a grave mistake in disregarding religion and decency. He attributes it to classical associations, that, being scholars, they are so much more apt to resort to Heathen than to Christian examples; and to correct this error he proposes to show, by a series of instances, how inadequate to all the great needs of life is the Heathen, and how sufficient the Christian morality. Anticipating and answering Gibbon, he

men are in this temper (which "happens very frequently), how in"consistent are they with them"selves! They are wearied with "the toil they bear, but cannot find "in their hearts to relinquish it; "retirement is what they want, but 66 they cannot betake themselves to "it; while they pant after shade "and covert, they still affect to 66 'appear in the most glittering scenes "of life but sure this is only just as "reasonable as if a man should call "for more lights, when he has a "mind to go to sleep.

"Since, then, it is certain that our "own hearts deceive us in the love "of the world, and that we cannot "command ourselves enough to resign "though we every day wish our"selves disengaged from its allure

ments, let us not stand upon a "formal taking of leave, but wean "ourselves from these, while we are "in the midst of them.

"It is certainly the general inten"tion of the greater part of mankind "to accomplish this work, and live "according to their own approbation, 66 as soon as they possibly can; but

"The man of business has ever

some one point to carry, and then "he tells himself he'll bid adieu to "all the vanity of ambition; the 66 man of pleasure resolves to take "his leave at last, and part civilly "with his mistress. But the am"bitious man is entangled every "moment in a fresh pursuit, and the "lover sees new charms in the object "he fancied he could abandon. It is, "therefore, a fantastical way of think"ing, when we promise ourselves an "alteration in our conduct from 'change of place, and difference of "circumstances. The same passions "will attend us wherever we are, till "they are conquered; and we can

never live to our satisfaction in the "deepest retirement, unless we are "capable of so living in some measure "amidst the noise and business of the "world."

And so, when that problem is solved as the kindly philosopher would have solved it, we shall have men at last living really in the day that is present, and not putting life continually off until to-morrow, or to that some other time which is so little likely, for any of us, ever to arrive.

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looks upon it as the special design of Providence that the time when the world received the best news it ever heard, was also that when the warriors and philosophers whose virtues are most pompously arrayed in story should have been performing, or just have finished, their parts. He then introduces, with elaborate portraiture of their greatness, Cato, the younger Brutus, and other characters of antiquity; that he may also display them, in their mo ments of highest necessity, deprived of their courage, and deserted by their gods. By way of contrast he next exhibits, "from a certain neglected Book, which is called, and from "its excellence above all other books deservedly called, "The Scripture," what the Christian system is; handling it with no theological pretension, but as the common inheritance vouchsafed to us all. He finds in the Sermon on the Mount "the whole heart of man discovered by Him “that made it, and all our secret impulses to ill, and false appearances of good, exposed and detected;" he shows through what storms of want and misery it had been able to bear unscathed the early martyrs and apostles; and, in demonstration of the world's present inattention to its teaching, he tells them that, after all they can say of a man, let them but conclude that he is rich, and they have made him friends, nor have they utterly overthrown him till they have said he is poor. In other words, a sole consideration to prosperity had taken, in their imaginations, the place of Christianity; and what is there that is not lost, pursues kind-hearted Steele, in that which is thus displaced? "For Christianity has that in it which "makes men pity, not scorn, the wicked; and, by a "beautiful kind of ignorance of themselves, think those "wretches their equals." It aggravates all the benefits and good offices of life by making them seem fraternal, and its generosity is an enlarged self-love. The Christian so feels the wants of the miserable, that it sweetens the pain of the obliged; he gives with an air that has neither oppression nor superiority in it," and is always a benefactor "with the mien of a receiver."

In an expression already quoted from the Tatler we have seen a paraphrase of these last few words; but indeed Mr. Bickerstaff's practical and gentle philosophy, not less than his language, is anticipated by Captain Steele. The spirit of both is the same. The leading purpose in both is a hearty sympathy with humanity: a belief, as both express it, that "it is not possible for a human heart to "be averse to anything that is human;" a desire to link the highest associations to the commonest things; a faith in the compatibility of mirth with virtue; the wish to smooth life's road by the least acts of benevolence as well as by the greatest; and the lesson so to keep our understandings balanced, that things shall appear to us "great "or little as they are in nature, not as they are gilded or "sullied by accident and fortune." The thoughts and expressions, as may be seen in these quoted, are frequently the same; each has the antithetical turns and verbal contrasts, "the proud submission, the dignified "obedience," which is a peculiarity of Steele's manner; in both we have the author aiming far less to be author than to be companion; and there is even a passage in this Christian Hero which brings rustling about us the hoops and petticoats of Mr. Bickerstaff's Chloes and Clarissas. He talks of the coarseness and folly, the alternate rapture and contempt, with which women are treated by the wits; he desires to see the love they inspire taken out of that false disguise, and put in its own gay and becoming dress of innocence; and he tells us that "in their tender frame "there is native simplicity, groundless fear, and little "unaccountable contradictions, upon which there might "be built expostulations to divert a good and intelligent young woman, as well as the fulsome raptures, guilty "impressions, senseless deifications, and pretended deaths, "that are every day offered her." Captain Steele dedicates his little book to Lord Cutts, dates it from the Tower Guard, and winds it up with a parallel between the French and the English king, not unbecoming a Christian soldier. But surely, as we read it on to its close, the cocked hat,

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the shoulder-belt, the jack-boots disappear; and we have before us, in gown and slippers, the Editor of the Tatler. Exit the soldier, and enter the wit.

The publication of the Christian Hero, in 1701, is certainly the point of transition. He says himself that after it he was not thought so good a companion, and that he found it necessary to enliven his character by another kind of writing. The truth is that he had discovered, at last, what he best could do; and where in future he was to mount guard was not at the Tower, or under command of my Lord Cutts, but at the St. James's coffee-house, or Will's, in waiting on Mr. Congreve. The author of the Old Bachelor and Love for Lore now sat in the chair just vacated by Dryden; and appears to have shown unusual kindness to his new and promising recruit. In a letter of this date he talks of Dick Steele with an agreeable air of cordiality; and such was then Mr. Congreve's distinction, that his mere notice was no trifling feather in the cap of an ex-captain of Fusileers. "I hope I may have leave to 'indulge my vanity," says Steele, "by telling all the "world that Mr. Congreve is my friend." The Muse's Mercury not only told the world the same thing, but published verses of the new Whig wit, and threw out hints of a forthcoming comedy.

The Funeral, or Grief à la Mode, Steele's first dramatic production, was played at Drury Lane in 1702. Very sprightly and pleasant throughout, it was full of telling hits at lawyers and undertakers; and, with a great many laughable incidents, and no laugh raised at the expense of virtue or decency, it had one character (the widow on whom the artifice of her husband's supposed death is played off) which is a masterpiece of comedy. Guardsmen and Fusileers mustered strong on the first night; in the prologue, "a fellow soldier" made appeal to their soldierly sympathies; Cibber, Wilks, Norris, and Mrs. Oldfield were in the cast; and the success was complete. One can imagine the enjoyment of the scene where the undertaker reviews his regiment of mourners, and singles

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out for indignant remonstrance one provokingly hale, well-looking mute. "You ungrateful scoundrel, did not "I pity you, take you out of a great man's service, and "show you the pleasure of receiving wages? Did not I "give you ten, then fifteen, now twenty shillings a week, "to be sorrowful. And the more I give you, I think the gladder you are!" But this was a touch that should have had for its audience a company of Addisons rather than of gay Fusileers and Guardsmen. Sydney Smith, indeed, who delighted in it, used to think it Addison's; but certainly Steele's first comedy had no insertion from that masterly hand. When it was written Addison was in Italy, when it was acted he was in Geneva; and he did not return to England, after an absence of more than four years, till towards the close of the following autumn.

He found his friend not only established among the wits, but enrolled in that most select body of their number who drank Whig toasts at the Kit-Katt, with the prudent Mr. Tonson at one end of the table and the proud Duke of Somerset at the other. For the comedy had brought him repute in high Whig quarters, and even the notice of the King. He was justly proud of this. It was much to say, from experience, that nothing could make the town so fond of a man as a successful play; but more to have it to remember that "his name to be provided for, was in "the last table-book ever worn by the glorious and immor"tal William III." Yes, the last. Between the acting of his comedy and the arrival of his friend, their great sovereign had ceased to be mortal. Somewhat sad were Whig prospects, therefore, when Addison again grasped Steele by the hand; but the Kit-Katt opened its doors eagerly to the new comer, the first place at Will's and the St. James's was conceded to him, and the Noctes Conæque Deorum began Many have described and glorified them; and Steele coupled them in later years with a yet rarer felicity, when he had to tell of "nights spent with him apart from all

1 Apology, p. 227.