"can." It is the same letter in which he tells Ambrose that the "triumvirate" of Addison, Steele, and himself, come together as seldom as the sun, moon, and earth; though he often sees each of them, and each of them as often him and each other; but, when he is of their number, justice is done to Ambrose as he would desire.

No doubt, when the triumvirate were thus together, Swift could do justice also, in his dry way, to the pretty little opera of Rosamund which Mr. Addison had permitted to be represented, and which, though it brought him no repute, added another member to the circle who surrounded him-the "senate," as Pope afterwards called them in the person of that young Mr. Tickell of Oxford who addressed to him a poem in admiration of it. One may imagine, too, that while Swift bore with much equanimity Mr. Addison's failure on that occasion, he might be even disposed to make merry at a certain contemporaneous failure of the other member of the triumvirate, who, having proposed to give a dramatic form to Jeremy Collier's Short View, and to introduce upon the stage itself that slashing divine's uncompromising strictures of it, produced his Lying Lover; and had the honour to inform the House of Commons some years later, that he alone, of all English dramatists, had written a comedy which was damned for its piety. This surprising incident closed for the present Captain Steele's dramatic career; and when the Muse's Mercury next introduced his name to its readers, it was to say that, as for comedies, there was no great expectation of anything of that kind since Mr. Farquhar's death, for "the two gentlemen who would "probably always succeed in the comic vein, Mr. Congreve and Captain Steele, have affairs of much greater "importance at present to take up their time and "thoughts."

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Soon after his pious failure, in truth, he had received from the gift of Harley what he calls the lowest office in the State, that of Gazetteer, and with it the post of Gentleman-Usher in the household of Prince George. It

VOL. II.

I

was not long before Harley's own resignation that he had to thank him for this service; and it was at the very time when the old Whigs were to all appearance again firmly established, and Addison was Under-Secretary of State, that heavings of no distant change became again perceptible. Writers themselves were beginning to sway from side to side as preferments fell thick. There was Rowe coming over from the Tories, and there was Prior going over from the Whigs; and there was the "mad parson of the St. James's coffee-house talking his Tract on Civil Discords to alarm the Tories, or his Tale of a Tub to alarm the Whigs, according as either side for the time inclined. And in the midst of these portents, as we have said, Mr. Harley quitted office; and the Whig phalanx little dreamed what he went to plan and meditate in his compelled retirement.

1

But in other than political ways the current of life was moving on with Steele, and matters of private as well as public concern had to do with his secession from the theatre. Some little time before this, he had received a moderate fortune in West India property with his first wife, the sister of a planter in Barbados; and he had been left a widower not many months after the marriage. Just before Harley left the ministry, he married again; and, of every letter or note he addressed to his second wife during the twelve years of their union, that lady proved herself so curiously thrifty, whether for her own comfort in often reading his words or for his plague in often repeating them, that the public curiosity was gratified at the commencement of the century by the publication of

upwards of four hundred such compositions; and thus the most private thoughts, the most familiar and unguarded expressions, weaknesses which the best men pass their lives in concealing, self-reproaches that only arise to the most generous natures, everything, in short, that Richard Steele uttered in the confidence of an intimacy the most sacred, and which repeatedly he had begged "might be "shown to no one living," became the property of all the world. It will be seen, as we proceed, how he stands a test such as never was applied, within our knowledge, to any other man on earth.

"Happy is the wooing that is not long a-doing," and Steele's does not seem to have been prolonged beyond a month. But his letters are such masterpieces of ardour and respect, of tender passion and honest feeling, of good sense and earnestness as well as of playful sweetness, that the lady may fairly be forgiven for having so soon surrendered. Instead of saying he shall die for her, he protests he shall be glad to lead his life with her; and on those terms she accepts, to use the phrase she afterwards applied to him, " as agreeable and pleasant a man "as any in England." Once accepted, his letters are incessant. He writes to her every hour, as he thinks of her every moment, of the day. He cannot read his books, he cannot see his friends, for thinking of her. While Addison and he are together at Chelsea, he steals a moment, while his friend is in the next room, to tell the charmer of his soul that he is only and passionately hers. In town, he seems to have shared Addison's lodgings at this time; for, not many weeks afterwards, he tells her "Mr. "Addison does not remove till to-morrow, and therefore "I cannot think of moving my goods out of his lodgings." Thus early she seems to have contracted that habit of calling Addison her "rival," which he often charges on her in subsequent years; and who will doubt that the UnderSecretary, rigid moralist as he was, formed part of the very good company," who not many days before the marriage drank Mrs. Mary Scurlock's health (such was

46

her name she was the daughter and sole heiress of Jonathan Scurlock, Esq. of the county of Carmarthen) by the title of the woman Dick Steele loves best, to an extent it would hardly be decorous now to mention? The last few days before the wedding are the least tolerable of all. If he calls at a friend's house, he must borrow the means of writing to her. If he is at a coffee-house, the waiter is despatched to her. If a minister at his office asks him what news from Lisbon, he answers she is exquisitely handsome. If Mr. Elliott desires at the St. James's to know when he has been last at Hampton-court, he replies it will be Tuesday come se'ennight. For the happy day was fixed at last; and on "Tuesday come se'ennight," the 9th of September 1707, the adorable Molly Scurlock became Mrs. Richard Steele.

It does not fall within our purpose to dwell in much detail upon so large a subject as this lady's merits and defects, but some circumstances attended the marriage of a nature to make some of its early results less surprising. In her fortune of 4007 a-year her mother had a lifeinterest, and she does not seem to have regarded favourably any of the plans the newly-married couple proposed. On the other hand, Steele had certainly over-estimated his own income; and a failure in his Barbados estate made matters worse in this respect. Eager meanwhile to show all distinction to one he loved so tenderly, and believing, as he wrote to her mother, that the desire of his friends in power to serve him more than warranted the expectations he had formed, his establishment was larger than prudence should have dictated. Mrs. Steele had a town-house in Bury-street, St. James's; and within six weeks of the marriage, her husband had bought her a pretty little house at Hampton-court which he furnished handsomely, and pleasantly called, by way of contrast to the Palace by the side of which it stood, the Hovel. In the neighbourhood lived Lord Halifax; between whom and Steele as well as Addison there was such frequent intercourse at the time, that this probably led to Steele's first unwise

outlay, which Addison helped to make up by a loan of a thousand pounds. In something less than a year (the 20th of August 1708) the whole of this loan was repaid; but soon after, the same sort of thing re-appears in the correspondence; and not until some eight or nine years. later does it entirely disappear, after a manner to be related hereafter, and very needlessly mis-related hitherto. Thus established at Hampton-court, Mrs. Steele drives her chariot and pair; upon occasion, even her four horses. She has a little saddle-horse of her own, which costs her husband five shillings a week for his keep, when in town. She has also Richard the footman, and Watts the gardener, and Will the boy, and her "own" women, and an additional boy who can speak Welsh when she goes down to Carmarthen. But also, it must be confessed, she seems to have had a frequent and alarming recurrence of small needs and troubles which it is not easy to account for. If it be safe to take strictly the notes she so carefully preserved, she was somewhat in the position pleasantly described by Madame Sévigné, in her remark to the Countess Calonne and Madame Mazarine when they visited her on their way through Arles: "My dears, you are like the heroines of romances; jewels in abundance, but scarce a shift to 66 your backs!"

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In the fifth month after their marriage, Steele writes to her from the Devil Tavern at Temple-bar (Ben Jonson's house), to tell her he cannot be home to dinner, but that he has partly succeeded in his business, and that he incloses two guineas as earnest of more, languishes for her welfare, and will never be a moment careless again. Next month, he is getting Jacob Tonson to discount a bill for him, and he desires that the man who has his shoemaker's bill should be told that he means to call on him as he goes home. Three months later, he finds it necessary to sleep away from home for a day or two, and orders the printer's boy to be sent to him with his night-gown, slippers, and clean linen, at the tavern where he is. But, in a few days, all seems prosperous again: she calls for him in her coach