him? and that the bankers in Lombard-street, not less than the ladies at Court, were now verily persuaded "that Captain Steele is the greatest scholar and best "casuist of any man in England?"

One bitter drop there was, nevertheless, in the cup thus overflowing. Even the Tories, says Gay, "in respect to 'his other good qualities, had almost forgiven his "unaccountable imprudence in declaring against them." There is much virtue in an almost. Here it means that Steele would certainly have been forgiven his first unaccountable imprudence, if he had not gone on committing a vast many more.

The Tatler had not been half a year in existence when uneasy symptoms of weakness had broken out among the Ministry. In the autumn Addison returned to London, and the first result of the conference of the friends was a letter from Steele to Swift, who remained in Ireland. It enclosed a letter from Lord Halifax. It also told Swift that no man could have said more in praise of another than Addison had said last Wednesday in praise of him at Lord Halifax's dinner-table. It assured him that among powerful men no opportunity was now omitted to upbraid the Ministry for his stay in Ireland, and that there was but one opinion among the company at the dinner in question, which included Lord Edward Russell, Lord Essex, Mr. Maynwaring, Mr. Addison, and himself. Finally, it wonders that Swift does not oftener write to him, reminds him of the town's eagerness to listen to the real Mr. Bickerstaff, and tells him how his substitute longs to usher him and his into the world. "Not that there can be anything added by me "to your fame," says the good-hearted writer, "but to "walk bare-headed before you." In this letter may be read the anxiety of the Whigs, conceived too late, as so many of their good purposes have been, to secure the services of Jonathan Swift. The reply was a first-rate Tatler,' but nothing satisfactory in regard to the Whigs.

1 I have said in a previous paper that Swift's tone jars now and then upon the

mirth of his friends as having something too much of condescension in it, but

Soon after broke out the Sacheverell trial, and with it the opportunity Harley had planned and waited for. He saw the Whig game was up, and that he had only to present himself and claim the spoil. Steele saw it too, and made vain attempts in the Tatler to turn the popular current. The promise made him before Addison's first departure for Dublin was now redeemed; and a Commissionership of Stamps testified, tardily enough, the Whig sense of the services he was rendering, and the risks he was running, in their behalf. From all sides poured in upon him, at the same time, warnings which he bravely disregarded. From Ireland, under the name of Aminadab, he was prudently counselled to consider what a day might bring forth, and to "think of that as he took tobacco;" nor could he, in accordance with such advice, have taken many whiffs, when Swift followed his letter. By the time he arrived in London, at the close of August 1710, the Whig overthrow was complete; Harley and St. John were in power; his friend Prior, who had gone over to them and was expelled from the Kit-Katt, was abusing his old associate Steele in a new paper called the Examiner ; and the first piece of interesting news he had to write to Stella was, that Steele would certainly lose his place of Gazetteer. This was after an evening (the 10th of Sep

66

the humour of all his contributions to the Tatler is of the most rare and exquisite kind. Generally of course he wrote as a correspondent; but occasionally Steele surrendered Mr. Bickerstaff's chair to him, and observe how slily he can use it to have a friendly laugh at everybody concerned. "No man," he begins (No. 67) can "conceive, until he comes to try it, "how great a pain it is to be a public"spirited person. I am sure I am "unable to express to the world "what great anxiety I have suffered, "to see of how little benefit my Lucu"brations have been to my fellow"subjects. Men will go on in their

own way, in spite of all my labour. "I gave Mr. Didapper a private re

"primand for wearing red-heeled "shoes, and at the same time was so "indulgent as to connive at him for "fourteen days, because I would give "him the wearing of them out; but, "after all this, I am informed he "appeared yesterday with a new pair "of the same sort. I have no better

success with Mr. What-D'ye-call, "as to his buttons; Stentor still roars; and box and dice rattle as "loud as they did before I writ "against them. Partridge walks "about at noon-day, and Æsculapius "thinks of adding a new lace to his "livery. However, I must still go

on in laying these enormities before "men's eyes, and let them answer for "going on in their practice."

tember) passed in company with him and Addison. They met again, at the dinner-table of Lord Halifax, on the 1st of October, when Swift refused to pledge with them the resurrection, unless they would add the reformation, of the Whigs; but he omitted to mention that on that very day he had been busy lampooning the ex-whig-premier. Three days after he was dining with Harley, having cast his fortunes finally against his old friends; and before the same month was closed, the Gazette had been taken from Steele.

Yet Swift affects to feel some surprise that, on going to Addison a few days later to talk over Steele's prospects, and offer his good services with Harley, Addison should have "talked as if he suspected me," and refused to fall in with anything proposed. More strangely still, he complains to Stella the next day that he has never had an invitation to Steele's house since he came over from Ireland, and that during this visit he has not even seen his wife, "by whom he is governed most abominably. "what care I for his wit?" he adds; "for he is the worst

So

company in the world till he has a bottle of wine in his "head." Nevertheless he shows still a strange hankering after both the friends, and not so much indifference as might be supposed to the worst of company: for the next social glimpse we have of him is at our old acquaintance Elliott's, of the St. James's, where the coffeeman has a christening, at which as Vicar of Laracor he officiates; and where "the rogue" had a most noble supper, and Steele and himself sat among some scurvy people over a bowl of punch, until very late indeed. But in truth one has not much difficulty, through any apparent discordancy of statement, in discovering exactly enough in what position recent events had now placed the two friends towards him. On their side, without further faith in his political profession, remained still the same respect for his genius, and still the same desire to have help from his wit; and on his, underlying a real desire to be of service where he could, was displayed too much of a fussy exhibition of his eagerness to serve, and far too exuberant and exulting a sense

of that sudden and unwonted favour at Whitehall which seemed half to have turned the great brain that had condescendingly waited for it so long. At his intercession, Harley was to see Steele; but the ex-Gazetteer did not even keep the appointment which was to save him his. Commissionership. He probably knew better than Swift that Harley had no present intention to remove him. The new Lord Treasurer certainly less surprised his antagonist Steele than his friend Jonathan, by showing no more resentment than was implied in the request that the latter should not give any more help to the Tatler. They hate to think that I should help him," he wrote to Stella, "and so I frankly told them I would do it no more."

66

Already Steele had taken the determination, however, which made this resolve, in so far as the Tatler was concerned, of the least possible importance to him. His loss of the Gazette had entailed a change in the conduct of his paper, which had convinced him of the expediency of re-casting it on a new plan. The town was startled by the announcement, therefore, that the Tatler of the 2nd January, 1710-11, was to be the last; and Swift informs us that Addison, whom he met that night at supper, was as much surprised as himself at the announcement, and quite as little prepared for it. But this may only express the limit of the confidence now reposed in Swift; for there can be little doubt that the friends had acted together in what already was in agitation to replace the Tatler. Nor is there any ground to suppose that Addison was ignorant, or Swift informed, of an interview which Steele had with Harley in the interval before the new design was matured. The Lord Treasurer's weakness was certainly not a contempt or disregard for letters, and, though the object of the meeting was to settle a kind of armed neutrality, he overpassed it so far as to intimate the wish not simply to retain Steele in the Commissionership, but to give him something more valuable.' This

was civilly declined, but the courtesy was not forgotten; and the better feeling it promoted for a time, the sort of armistice it established, the understood abstinence from present hostility involved in it, obtained all the more zealous help from Addison to his friend's new scheme. On Thursday the 1st of March, 1710-11, appeared the first number of the Spectator, with an announcement that it was to be continued daily. Much wonder was raised by so bold a promise, and little hope entertained that it could ever be redeemed. The result showed, nevertheless, with what well-grounded confidence the friends had embarked in an enterprise which men of less rich resource thought extravagant and impossible. From day to day, without a single intermission, the Spectator was continued through 555 numbers, up to the 6th of December 1712. It began with a regular design, which with unflagging spirit was kept up to its close. "It "certainly is very pretty," wrote Swift to Stella, after some dozen numbers had appeared; when, in answer to her question, he had to tell her that it was written by Steele with Addison's help. "Mr. Steele seems to have gathered "new life," he added, " and to have a new fund of wit."

So indeed it might have seemed. Never had he shown greater freshness and invention than in his first sketches of the characters that were to give life to the new design: nor can any higher thing be said of his conception of Sir Roger de Coverley and Will Honeycomb, than that it deserved the noble elaboratation of Addison; or of his humourous touches to the short-faced gentleman,' than that even Addison's invention was enriched by them.

It

brought to a close, and his tacit compact with Addison was at an end.

1 We can give only one out of many masterly strokes; but, in the whole range of Addison's wit, is there anything more perfect than Steele's making the Spectator remember that he was once taken up for a Jesuit, for no other reason than his profound taciturnity?