Lecture The Third. Steele
What do we look for in studying the history of a past age? Is it to learnthe political transactions and characters of the leading public men? Is itto make ourselves acquainted with the life and being of the time? If weset out with the former grave purpose, where is the truth, and whobelieves that he has it entire? What character of what great man is knownto you? You can but make guesses as to character more or less happy. Incommon life don't you often judge and misjudge a man's whole conduct,setting out from a wrong impression? The tone of a voice, a word said injoke, or a trifle in behaviour--the cut of his hair or the tie of hisneckcloth may disfigure him in your eyes, or poison your good opinion; orat the end of years of intimacy it may be your closest friend sayssomething, reveals something which had previously been a secret, whichalters all your views about him, and shows that he has been acting onquite a different motive to that which you fancied you knew. And if it isso with those you know, how much more with those you don't know? Say, forexample, that I want to understand the character of the Duke ofMarlborough. I read Swift's history of the times in which he took a part;the shrewdest of observers and initiated, one would think, into thepolitics of the age--he hints to me that Marlborough was a coward, and evenof doubtful military capacity: he speaks of Walpole as a contemptibleboor, and scarcely mentions, except to flout it, the great intrigue of theQueen's latter days, which was to have ended in bringing back thePretender. Again, I read Marlborough's life by a copious archdeacon, whohas the command of immense papers, of sonorous language, of what is calledthe best information; and I get little or no insight into this secretmotive which, I believe, influenced the whole of Marlborough's career,which caused his turnings and windings, his opportune fidelity andtreason, stopped his army almost at Paris gate, and landed him finally onthe Hanoverian side--the winning side; I get, I say, no truth, or only aportion of it, in the narrative of either writer, and believe that Coxe'sportrait or Swift's portrait is quite unlike the real Churchill. I takethis as a single instance, prepared to be as sceptical about any other,and say to the Muse of History, "O venerable daughter of Mnemosyne, Idoubt every single statement you ever made since your ladyship was a Muse!For all your grave airs and high pretensions, you are not a whit moretrustworthy than some of your lighter sisters on whom your partisans lookdown. You bid me listen to a general's oration to his soldiers: Nonsense!He no more made it than Turpin made his dying speech at Newgate. Youpronounce a panegyric of a hero: I doubt it, and say you flatteroutrageously. You utter the condemnation of a loose character: I doubt it,and think you are prejudiced and take the side of the Dons. You offer mean autobiography: I doubt all autobiographies I ever read except those,perhaps, of Mr. Robinson Crusoe, Mariner, and writers of his class._These_ have no object in setting themselves right with the public ortheir own consciences; these have no motive for concealment orhalf-truths; these call for no more confidence than I can cheerfully give,and do not force me to tax my credulity or to fortify it by evidence. Itake up a volume of Dr. Smollett, or a volume of the _Spectator_, and saythe fiction carries a greater amount of truth in solution than the volumewhich purports to be all true. Out of the fictitious book I get theexpression of the life of the time; of the manners, of the movement, thedress, the pleasures, the laughter, the ridicules of society--the old timeslive again, and I travel in the old country of England. Can the heaviesthistorian do more for me?"
As we read in these delightful volumes of the _Tatler_ and _Spectator_,the past age returns, the England of our ancestors is revivified. TheMaypole rises in the Strand again in London; the churches are throngedwith daily worshippers; the beaux are gathering in the coffee-houses; thegentry are going to the Drawing-room; the ladies are thronging to thetoy-shops; the chairmen are jostling in the streets; the footmen arerunning with links before the chariots, or fighting round the theatredoors. In the country I see the young Squire riding to Eton with hisservants behind him, and Will Wimble, the friend of the family, to see himsafe. To make that journey from the Squire's and back, Will is a week onhorseback. The coach takes five days between London and Bath. The judgesand the bar ride the circuit. If my lady comes to town in herpost-chariot, her people carry pistols to fire a salute on CaptainMacheath if he should appear, and her couriers ride ahead to prepareapartments for her at the great caravanserais on the road; Bonifacereceives her under the creaking sign of the "Bell" or the "Ram", and heand his chamberlains bow her up the great stair to the state-apartments,whilst her carriage rumbles into the courtyard, where the Exeter "Fly" ishoused that performs the journey in eight days, God willing, havingachieved its daily flight of twenty miles, and landed its passengers forsupper and sleep. The curate is taking his pipe in the kitchen, where theCaptain's man--having hung up his master's half-pike--is at his bacon andeggs, bragging of Ramillies and Malplaquet to the townsfolk, who havetheir club in the chimney-corner. The Captain is ogling the chambermaid inthe wooden gallery, or bribing her to know who is the pretty youngmistress that has come in the coach? The pack-horses are in the greatstable, and the drivers and ostlers carousing in the tap. And in Mrs.Landlady's bar, over a glass of strong waters, sits a gentleman ofmilitary appearance, who travels with pistols, as all the rest of theworld does, and has a rattling grey mare in the stables which will besaddled and away with its owner half an hour before the "Fly" sets out onits last day's flight. And some five miles on the road, as the Exeter"Fly" comes jingling and creaking onwards, it will suddenly be brought toa halt by a gentleman on a grey mare, with a black vizard on his face, whothrusts a long pistol into the coach window, and bids the company to handout their purses.... It must have been no small pleasure even to sit inthe great kitchen in those days, and see the tide of humankind pass by. Wearrive at places now, but we travel no more. Addison talks jocularly of adifference of manner and costume being quite perceivable at Staines, wherethere passed a young fellow "with a very tolerable periwig", though, to besure, his hat was out of fashion, and had a Ramillies cock. I would haveliked to travel in those days (being of that class of travellers who areproverbially pretty easy _coram latronibus_) and have seen my friend withthe grey mare and the black vizard. Alas! there always came a day in thelife of that warrior when it was the fashion to accompany him as hepassed--without his black mask, and with a nosegay in his hand, accompaniedby halberdiers and attended by the sheriff,--in a carriage without springs,and a clergyman jolting beside him to a spot close by Cumberland Gate andthe Marble Arch, where a stone still records that here Tyburn turnpikestood. What a change in a century; in a few years! Within a few yards ofthat gate the fields began: the fields of his exploits, behind the hedgesof which he lurked and robbed. A great and wealthy city has grown overthose meadows. Were a man brought to die there now, the windows would beclosed and the inhabitants keep their houses in sickening horror. Ahundred years back, people crowded to see that last act of a highwayman'slife, and make jokes on it. Swift laughed at him, grimly advising him toprovide a Holland shirt and white cap crowned with a crimson or blackribbon for his exit, to mount the cart cheerfully--shake hands with thehangman, and so--farewell. Gay wrote the most delightful ballads, and mademerry over the same hero. Contrast these with the writings of our presenthumourists! Compare those morals and ours--those manners and ours!
We can't tell--you would not bear to be told the whole truth regardingthose men and manners. You could no more suffer in a British drawing-room,under the reign of Queen Victoria, a fine gentleman or fine lady of QueenAnne's time, or hear what they heard and said, than you would receive anancient Briton. It is as one reads about savages, that one contemplatesthe wild ways, the barbarous feasts, the terrific pastimes, of the men ofpleasure of that age. We have our fine gentlemen, and our "fast men";permit me to give you an idea of one particularly fast nobleman of QueenAnne's days, whose biography has been preserved to us by the lawreporters.
In 1691, when Steele was a boy at school, my Lord Mohun was tried by hispeers for the murder of William Mountford, comedian. In Howell's _Stat
eTrials_, the reader will find not only an edifying account of thisexceedingly fast nobleman, but of the times and manners of those days. Mylord's friend, a Captain Hill, smitten with the charms of the beautifulMrs. Bracegirdle, and anxious to marry her at all hazards, determined tocarry her off, and for this purpose hired a hackney-coach with six horses,and a half-dozen of soldiers, to aid him in the storm. The coach with apair of horses (the four leaders being in waiting elsewhere) took itsstation opposite my Lord Craven's house in Drury Lane, by which door Mrs.Bracegirdle was to pass on her way from the theatre. As she passed incompany of her mamma and a friend, Mr. Page, the Captain seized her by thehand, the soldiers hustled Mr. Page and attacked him sword in hand, andCaptain Hill and his noble friend endeavoured to force Madam Bracegirdleinto the coach. Mr. Page called for help: the population of Drury Lanerose: it was impossible to effect the capture; and bidding the soldiers goabout their business, and the coach to drive off, Hill let go of his preysulkily, and he waited for other opportunities of revenge. The man of whomhe was most jealous was Will Mountford, the comedian; Will removed, hethought Mrs. Bracegirdle might be his: and accordingly the Captain and hislordship lay that night in wait for Will, and as he was coming out of ahouse in Norfolk Street, while Mohun engaged him in talk, Hill, in thewords of the Attorney-General, made a pass and run him clean through thebody.
Sixty-one of my lord's peers finding him not guilty of murder, while butfourteen found him guilty, this very fast nobleman was discharged: andmade his appearance seven years after in another trial for murder--when he,my Lord Warwick, and three gentlemen of the military profession wereconcerned in the fight which ended in the death of Captain Coote.
This jolly company were drinking together at Lockit's in Charing Cross,when angry words arose between Captain Coote and Captain French; whom myLord Mohun and my lord the Earl of Warwick(96) and Holland endeavoured topacify. My Lord Warwick was a dear friend of Captain Coote, lent him ahundred pounds to buy his commission in the Guards; once when the captainwas arrested for 13_l_. by his tailor, my lord lent him five guineas,often paid his reckoning for him, and showed him other offices offriendship. On this evening the disputants, French and Coote, beingseparated whilst they were upstairs, unluckily stopped to drink ale againat the bar of Lockit's. The row began afresh--Coote lunged at French overthe bar, and at last all six called for chairs, and went to LeicesterFields, where they fell to. Their lordships engaged on the side of CaptainCoote. My Lord of Warwick was severely wounded in the hand, Mr. Frenchalso was stabbed, but honest Captain Coote got a couple of wounds--oneespecially, "a wound in the left side just under the short ribs, andpiercing through the diaphragma," which did for Captain Coote. Hence thetrials of my Lords Warwick and Mohun: hence the assemblage of peers, thereport of the transaction, in which these defunct fast men still live forthe observation of the curious. My Lord of Warwick is brought to the barby the Deputy Governor of the Tower of London, having the axe carriedbefore him by the gentleman gaoler, who stood with it at the bar at theright hand of the prisoner, turning the edge from him; the prisoner, athis approach, making three bows, one to his grace the Lord High Steward,the other to the peers on each hand; and his grace and the peers returnthe salute. And besides these great personages, august in periwigs, andnodding to the right and left, a host of the small come up out of the pastand pass before us--the jolly captains brawling in the tavern, and laughingand cursing over their cups--the drawer that serves, the bar-girl thatwaits, the bailiff on the prowl, the chairmen trudging through the blacklampless streets, and smoking their pipes by the railings, whilst swordsare clashing in the garden within. "Help there! a gentleman is hurt": thechairmen put up their pipes, and help the gentleman over the railings, andcarry him, ghastly and bleeding, to the bagnio in Long Acre, where theyknock up the surgeon--a pretty tall gentleman--but that wound under theshort ribs has done for him. Surgeon, lords, captains, bailiffs, chairmen,and gentleman gaoler with your axe, where be you now? The gentlemanaxeman's head is off his own shoulders; the lords and judges can wagtheirs no longer; the bailiff's writs have ceased to run; the honestchairmen's pipes are put out, and with their brawny calves they havewalked away into Hades--all as irrecoverably done for as Will Mountford orCaptain Coote. The subject of our night's lecture saw all thesepeople--rode in Captain Coote's company of the Guards very probably--wroteand sighed for Bracegirdle, went home tipsy in many a chair, after many abottle, in many a tavern--fled from many a bailiff.
In 1709, when the publication of the _Tatler_ began, ourgreat-great-grandfathers must have seized upon that new and delightfulpaper with much such eagerness as lovers of light literature in a laterday exhibited when the Waverley novels appeared, upon which the publicrushed, forsaking that feeble entertainment of which the Miss Porters, theAnne of Swanseas, and worthy Mrs. Radcliffe herself, with her drearycastles and exploded old ghosts, had had pretty much the monopoly. I havelooked over many of the comic books with which our ancestors amusedthemselves, from the novels of Swift's coadjutrix, Mrs. Manley, thedelectable author of the _New Atlantis_, to the facetious productions ofTom Durfey, and Tom Brown, and Ned Ward, writer of the _London Spy_ andseveral other volumes of ribaldry. The slang of the taverns andordinaries, the wit of the bagnios, form the strongest part of the farragoof which these libels are composed. In the excellent newspaper collectionat the British Museum, you may see, besides the _Craftsman_ and _PostBoy_, specimens, and queer specimens they are, of the higher literature ofQueen Anne's time. Here is an abstract from a notable journal bearingdate, Wednesday, October 13th, 1708, and entitled _The British Apollo; or,Curious Amusements for the Ingenious, by a Society of Gentlemen_. The_British Apollo_ invited and professed to answer questions upon allsubjects of wit, morality, science, and even religion; and two out of itsfour pages are filled with queries and replies much like some of theoracular penny prints of the present time.
One of the first querists, referring to the passage that a bishop shouldbe the husband of one wife, argues that polygamy is justifiable in thelaity. The society of gentlemen conducting the _British Apollo_ are posedby this casuist, and promise to give him an answer. Celinda then wishes toknow from "the gentlemen", concerning the souls of the dead, whether theyshall have the satisfaction to know those whom they most valued in thistransitory life. The gentlemen of the _Apollo_ give but cold comfort topoor Celinda. They are inclined to think not: for, say they, since everyinhabitant of those regions will be infinitely dearer than here are ournearest relatives--what have we to do with a partial friendship in thathappy place? Poor Celinda! it may have been a child or a lover whom shehad lost, and was pining after, when the oracle of _British Apollo_ gaveher this dismal answer. She has solved the question for herself by thistime, and knows quite as well as the society of gentlemen.
From theology we come to physics, and Q. asks, "Why does hot water freezesooner than cold?" Apollo replies, "Hot water cannot be said to freezesooner than cold, but water once heated and cold, may be subject to freezeby the evaporation of the spirituous parts of the water, which renders itless able to withstand the power of frosty weather."
The next query is rather a delicate one. "You, Mr. Apollo, who are said tobe the God of Wisdom, pray give us the reason why kissing is so much infashion: what benefit one receives by it, and who was the inventor, andyou will oblige Corinna." To this queer demand the lips of Phoebus,smiling, answer: "Pretty, innocent Corinna! Apollo owns that he was alittle surprised by your kissing question, particularly at that part of itwhere you desire to know the benefit you receive by it. Ah! madam, had youa lover, you would not come to Apollo for a solution; since there is nodispute but the kisses of mutual lovers give infinite satisfaction. As toits invention, 'tis certain nature was its author, and it began with thefirst courtship."
After a column more of questions, follow nearly two pages of poems, signedby Philander, Armenia, and the like, and chiefly on the tender passion;and the paper wound up with a letter from Leghorn, an account of the Dukeof Marlborough and Prince Eugene before L
ille, and proposals forpublishing two sheets on the present state of Aethiopia, by Mr. Hill; allof which is printed for the authors by J. Mayo, at the Printing Pressagainst Water Lane in Fleet Street. What a change it must have been--howApollo's oracles must have been struck dumb, when the _Tatler_ appeared,and scholars, gentlemen, men of the world, men of genius, began to speak!
Shortly before the Boyne was fought, and young Swift had begun to makeacquaintance with English Court manners and English servitude, in SirWilliam Temple's family, another Irish youth was brought to learn hishumanities at the old school of Charterhouse, near Smithfield; to whichfoundation he had been appointed by James Duke of Ormond, a governor ofthe House, and a patron of the lad's family. The boy was an orphan, anddescribed, twenty years after, with a sweet pathos and simplicity, some ofthe earliest recollections of a life which was destined to be chequered bya strange variety of good and evil fortune.
I am afraid no good report could be given by his masters and ushers ofthat thick-set, square-faced, black-eyed, soft-hearted little Irish boy.He was very idle. He was whipped deservedly a great number of times.Though he had very good parts of his own, he got other boys to do hislessons for him, and only took just as much trouble as should enable himto scuffle through his exercises, and by good fortune escape the floggingblock. One hundred and fifty years after, I have myself inspected, butonly as an amateur, that instrument of righteous torture still existing,and in occasional use, in a secluded private apartment of the oldCharterhouse School; and have no doubt it is the very counterpart, if notthe ancient and interesting machine itself, at which poor Dick Steelesubmitted himself to the tormentors.
Besides being very kind, lazy, and good-natured, this boy went invariablyinto debt with the tart-woman; ran out of bounds, and entered intopecuniary, or rather promissory, engagements with the neighbouringlollipop-vendors and piemen--exhibited an early fondness and capacity fordrinking mum and sack, and borrowed from all his comrades who had money tolend. I have no sort of authority for the statements here made of Steele'searly life; but if the child is father of the man, the father of youngSteele of Merton, who left Oxford without taking a degree, and entered theLife Guards--the father of Captain Steele of Lucas's Fusiliers, who got hiscompany through the patronage of my Lord Cutts--the father of Mr. Steelethe Commissioner of Stamps, the editor of the _Gazette_, the _Tatler_, and_Spectator_, the expelled Member of Parliament, and the author of the_Tender Husband_ and the _Conscious Lovers_; if man and boy resembled eachother, Dick Steele the schoolboy must have been one of the most generous,good-for-nothing, amiable little creatures that ever conjugated the verb_tupto_, I beat, _tuptomai_, I am whipped, in any school in Great Britain.
Almost every gentleman who does me the honour to hear me will rememberthat the very greatest character which he has seen in the course of hislife, and the person to whom he has looked up with the greatest wonder andreverence, was the head boy at his school. The schoolmaster himself hardlyinspires such an awe. The head boy construes as well as the schoolmasterhimself. When he begins to speak the hall is hushed, and every little boylistens. He writes off copies of Latin verses as melodiously as Virgil. Heis good-natured, and, his own masterpieces achieved, pours out othercopies of verses for other boys with an astonishing ease and fluency; theidle ones only trembling lest they should be discovered on giving in theirexercises, and whipped because their poems were too good. I have seengreat men in my time, but never such a great one as that head boy of mychildhood: we all thought he must be Prime Minister, and I wasdisappointed on meeting him in after-life to find he was no more than sixfeet high.
Dick Steele, the Charterhouse gownboy, contracted such an admiration inthe years of his childhood, and retained it faithfully through his life.Through the school and through the world, whithersoever his strangefortune led this erring, wayward, affectionate creature, Joseph Addisonwas always his head boy. Addison wrote his exercises. Addison did his bestthemes. He ran on Addison's messages: fagged for him and blacked hisshoes: to be in Joe's company was Dick's greatest pleasure; and he took asermon or a caning from his monitor with the most boundless reverence,acquiescence, and affection.(97)
Steele found Addison a stately college Don at Oxford, and himself did notmake much figure at this place. He wrote a comedy, which, by the advice ofa friend, the humble fellow burned there; and some verses, which I daresay are as sublime as other gentlemen's composition at that age; but beingsmitten with a sudden love for military glory, he threw up the cap andgown for the saddle and bridle, and rode privately in the Horse Guards, inthe Duke of Ormond's troop--the second--and, probably, with the rest of thegentlemen of his troop, "all mounted on black horses with white feathersin their hats, and scarlet coats richly laced," marched by King William,in Hyde Park, in November, 1699, and a great show of the nobility, besidestwenty thousand people, and above a thousand coaches. "The Guards had justgot their new clothes," the _London Post_ said: "they are extraordinarygrand, and thought to be the finest body of horse in the world." ButSteele could hardly have seen any actual service. He who wrote abouthimself, his mother, his wife, his loves, his debts, his friends, and thewine he drank, would have told us of his battles if he had seen any. Hisold patron, Ormond, probably got him his cornetcy in the Guards, fromwhich he was promoted to be a captain in Lucas's Fusiliers, getting hiscompany through the patronage of Lord Cutts, whose secretary he was, andto whom he dedicated his work called the _Christian Hero_. As for Dick,whilst writing this ardent devotional work, he was deep in debt, in drink,and in all the follies of the town; it is related that all the officers ofLucas's, and the gentlemen of the Guards, laughed at Dick.(98) And intruth a theologian in liquor is not a respectable object, and a hermit,though he may be out at elbows, must not be in debt to the tailor. Steelesays of himself that he was always sinning and repenting. He beat hisbreast and cried most piteously when he _did_ repent: but as soon ascrying had made him thirsty, he fell to sinning again. In that charmingpaper in the _Tatler_, in which he records his father's death, hismother's griefs, his own most solemn and tender emotions, he says he isinterrupted by the arrival of a hamper of wine, "the same as is to be soldat Garraway's, next week," upon the receipt of which he sends for threefriends, and they fall to instantly, "drinking two bottles apiece, withgreat benefit to themselves, and not separating till two o'clock in themorning."
His life was so. Jack the drawer was always interrupting it, bringing hima bottle from the "Rose", or inviting him over to a bout there with SirPlume and Mr. Diver; and Dick wiped his eyes, which were whimpering overhis papers, took down his laced hat, put on his sword and wig, kissed hiswife and children, told them a lie about pressing business, and went offto the "Rose" to the jolly fellows.
While Mr. Addison was abroad, and after he came home in rather a dismalway to wait upon Providence in his shabby lodging in the Haymarket, youngCaptain Steele was cutting a much smarter figure than that of hisclassical friend of Charterhouse Cloister and Maudlin Walk. Could not somepainter give an interview between the gallant captain of Lucas's, with hishat cocked, and his lace, and his face too, a trifle tarnished with drink,and that poet, that philosopher, pale, proud, and poor, his friend andmonitor of schooldays, of all days? How Dick must have bragged about hischances and his hopes, and the fine company he kept, and the charms of thereigning toasts and popular actresses, and the number of bottles that heand my lord and some other pretty fellows had cracked overnight at the"Devil", or the "Garter"! Cannot one fancy Joseph Addison's calm smile andcold grey eyes following Dick for an instant, as he struts down the Mall,to dine with the Guard at St. James's, before he turns, with his soberpace and threadbare suit, to walk back to his lodgings up the two pair ofstairs? Steele's name was down for promotion, Dick always said himself, inthe glorious, pious, and immortal William's last table-book. JonathanSwift's name had been written there by the same hand too.
Our worthy friend, the author of the _Christian Hero_, continued to makeno small figure about town by the use of his wits.(99) He was appointed
Gazetteer: he wrote, in 1703, _The Tender Husband_, his second play, inwhich there is some delightful farcical writing, and of which he fondlyowned in after-life, and when Addison was no more, that there were "manyapplauded strokes" from Addison's beloved hand.(100) Is it not a pleasantpartnership to remember? Can't one fancy Steele full of spirits and youth,leaving his gay company to go to Addison's lodging, where his friend sitsin the shabby sitting-room, quite serene, and cheerful, and poor? In 1704,Steele came on the town with another comedy, and behold it was so moraland religious, as poor Dick insisted, so dull the town thought, that the_Lying Lover_ was damned.
Addison's hour of success now came, and he was able to help our friend,the _Christian Hero_, in such a way, that, if there had been any chance ofkeeping that poor tipsy champion upon his legs, his fortune was safe, andhis competence assured. Steele procured the place of Commissioner ofStamps: he wrote so richly, so gracefully often, so kindly always, withsuch a pleasant wit and easy frankness, with such a gush of good spiritsand good humour, that his early papers may be compared to Addison's own,and are to be read, by a male reader at least, with quite an equalpleasure.(101)
After the _Tatler_, in 1711, the famous _Spectator_ made its appearance,and this was followed, at various intervals, by many periodicals under thesame editor--the _Guardian_--the _Englishman_--the _Lover_, whose love wasrather insipid--the _Reader_, of whom the public saw no more after hissecond appearance--the _Theatre_, under the pseudonym of Sir John Edgar,which Steele wrote, while Governor of the Royal Company of Comedians, towhich post, and to that of Surveyor of the Royal Stables at Hampton Court,and to the Commission of the Peace for Middlesex, and to the honour ofknighthood, Steele had been preferred soon after the accession of GeorgeI, whose cause honest Dick had nobly fought, through disgrace and danger,against the most formidable enemies, against traitors and bullies, againstBolingbroke and Swift in the last reign. With the arrival of the King,that splendid conspiracy broke up; and a golden opportunity came to DickSteele, whose hand, alas, was too careless to grip it.
Steele married twice; and outlived his places, his schemes, his wife, hisincome, his health, and almost everything but his kind heart. That ceasedto trouble him in 1729, when he died, worn out and almost forgotten by hiscontemporaries, in Wales, where he had the remnant of a property.
Posterity has been kinder to this amiable creature; all women especiallyare bound to be grateful to Steele, as he was the first of our writers whoreally seemed to admire and respect them. Congreve the Great, who alludesto the low estimation in which women were held in Elizabeth's time, as areason why the women of Shakespeare make so small a figure in the poet'sdialogues, though he can himself pay splendid compliments to women, yetlooks on them as mere instruments of gallantry, and destined, like themost consummate fortifications, to fall, after a certain time, before thearts and bravery of the besieger, man. There is a letter of Swift's,entitled "Advice to a very Young Married Lady", which shows the Dean'sopinion of the female society of his day, and that if he despised man heutterly scorned women too. No lady of our time could be treated by anyman, were he ever so much a wit or Dean, in such a tone of insolentpatronage and vulgar protection. In this performance, Swift hardly takespains to hide his opinion that a woman is a fool: tells her to read books,as if reading was a novel accomplishment; and informs her that "not onegentleman's daughter in a thousand has been brought to read or understandher own natural tongue". Addison laughs at women equally; but, with thegentleness and politeness of his nature, smiles at them and watches them,as if they were harmless, halfwitted, amusing, pretty creatures, only madeto be men's playthings. It was Steele who first began to pay a manlyhomage to their goodness and understanding, as well as to their tendernessand beauty.(102) In his comedies, the heroes do not rant and rave aboutthe divine beauties of Gloriana or Statira, as the characters were made todo in the chivalry romances and the high-flown dramas just going out ofvogue, but Steele admires women's virtue, acknowledges their sense, andadores their purity and beauty, with an ardour and strength which shouldwin the goodwill of all women to their hearty and respectful champion. Itis this ardour, this respect, this manliness, which makes his comedies sopleasant and their heroes such fine gentlemen. He paid the finestcompliment to a woman that perhaps ever was offered. Of one woman, whomCongreve had also admired and celebrated, Steele says, that "to have lovedher was a liberal education". "How often," he says, dedicating a volume tohis wife, "how often has your tenderness removed pain from my sick head,how often anguish from my afflicted heart! If there are such beings asguardian angels, they are thus employed. I cannot believe one of them tobe more good in inclination, or more charming in form than my wife." Hisbreast seems to warm and his eyes to kindle when he meets with a good andbeautiful woman, and it is with his heart as well as with his hat that hesalutes her. About children, and all that relates to home, he is not lesstender, and more than once speaks in apology of what he calls hissoftness. He would have been nothing without that delightful weakness. Itis that which gives his works their worth and his style its charm. It,like his life, is full of faults and careless blunders; and redeemed, likethat, by his sweet and compassionate nature.
We possess of poor Steele's wild and chequered life some of the mostcurious memoranda that ever were left of a man's biography.(103) Mostmen's letters, from Cicero down to Walpole, or down to the great men ofour own time, if you will, are doctored compositions, and written with aneye suspicious towards posterity. That dedication of Steele's to his wifeis an artificial performance, possibly; at least, it is written with thatdegree of artifice which an orator uses in arranging a statement for theHouse, or a poet employs in preparing a sentiment in verse or for thestage. But there are some 400 letters of Dick Steele'e to his wife, whichthat thrifty woman preserved accurately, and which could have been writtenbut for her and her alone. They contain details of the business,pleasures, quarrels, reconciliations of the pair; they have all thegenuineness of conversation; they are as artless as a child's prattle, andas confidential as a curtain-lecture. Some are written from theprinting-office, where he is waiting for the proofsheets of his _Gazette_,or his _Tatler_; some are written from the tavern, whence he promises tocome to his wife "within a pint of wine", and where he has given arendezvous to a friend, or a money-lender: some are composed in a highstate of vinous excitement, when his head is flustered with burgundy, andhis heart abounds with amorous warmth for his darling Prue: some are underthe influence of the dismal headache and repentance next morning: some,alas, are from the lock-up house, where the lawyers have impounded him,and where he is waiting for bail. You trace many years of the poorfellow's career in these letters. In September, 1707, from which day shebegan to save the letters, he married the beautiful Mistress Scurlock. Youhave his passionate protestations to the lady; his respectful proposals toher mamma; his private prayer to Heaven when the union so ardently desiredwas completed; his fond professions of contrition and promises ofamendment, when, immediately after his marriage, there began to be justcause for the one and need for the other.
Captain Steele took a house for his lady upon their marriage, "the thirddoor from Germain Street, left hand of Berry Street," and the next year hepresented his wife with a country house at Hampton. It appears she had achariot and pair, and sometimes four horses: he himself enjoyed a littlehorse for his own riding. He paid, or promised to pay, his barber fiftypounds a year, and always went abroad in a laced coat and a largeblack-buckled periwig, that must have cost somebody fifty guineas. He wasrather a well-to-do gentleman, Captain Steele, with the proceeds of hisestates in Barbadoes (left to him by his first wife), his income as awriter of the _Gazette_, and his office of gentleman waiter to his RoyalHighness Prince George. His second wife brought him a fortune too. But itis melancholy to relate, that with these houses and chariots and horsesand income, the Captain was constantly in want of money, for which hisbeloved bride was asking as constantly. In the course of a few pages webegin to find the shoemaker calling for money, and some directio
ns fromthe Captain, who has not thirty pounds to spare. He sends his wife, "thebeautifullest object in the world," as he calls her, and evidently inreply to applications of her own, which have gone the way of all wastepaper, and lighted Dick's pipes, which were smoked a hundred and fortyyears ago--he sends his wife now a guinea, then a half-guinea, then acouple of guineas, then half a pound of tea; and again no money and no teaat all, but a promise that his darling Prue shall have some in a day ortwo: or a request, perhaps, that she will send over his night-gown andshaving-plate to the temporary lodging where the nomadic captain is lying,hidden from the bailiffs. Oh that a Christian hero and late captain inLucas's should be afraid of a dirty sheriff's officer! That the pink andpride of chivalry should turn pale before a writ! It stands to record inpoor Dick's own handwriting; the queer collection is preserved at theBritish Museum to this present day; that the rent of the nuptial house inJermyn Street, sacred to unutterable tenderness and Prue, and three doorsfrom Bury Street, was not paid until after the landlord had put in anexecution on Captain Steele's furniture. Addison sold the house andfurniture at Hampton, and, after deducting the sum in which hisincorrigible friend was indebted to him, handed over the residue of theproceeds of the sale to poor Dick, who wasn't in the least angry atAddison's summary proceeding, and I dare say was very glad of any sale orexecution, the result of which was to give him a little ready money.Having a small house in Jermyn Street for which he couldn't pay, and acountry house at Hampton on which he had borrowed money, nothing mustcontent Captain Dick but the taking, in 1712, a much finer, larger, andgrander house, in Bloomsbury Square; where his unhappy landlord got nobetter satisfaction than his friend in St. James's, and where it isrecorded that Dick, giving a grand entertainment, had a half-dozenqueer-looking fellows in livery to wait upon his noble guests, andconfessed that his servants were bailiffs to a man. "I fared like adistressed prince," the kindly prodigal writes, generously complimentingAddison for his assistance in the _Tatler_,--"I fared like a distressedprince, who calls in a powerful neighbour to his aid. I was undone by myauxiliary; when I had once called him in, I could not subsist withoutdependence on him." Poor, needy Prince of Bloomsbury! think of him in hispalace, with his allies from Chancery Lane ominously guarding him.
All sorts of stories are told indicative of his recklessness and his goodhumour. One narrated by Dr. Hoadly is exceedingly characteristic; it showsthe life of the time: and our poor friend very weak, but very kind both inand out of his cups.
"My father" (says Dr. John Hoadly, the bishop's son)--"when Bishop ofBangor, was, by invitation, present at one of the Whig meetings, held atthe 'Trumpet', in Shire Lane, when Sir Richard, in his zeal, ratherexposed himself, having the double duty of the day upon him, as well tocelebrate the immortal memory of King William, it being the 4th ofNovember, as to drink his friend Addison up to conversation pitch, whosephlegmatic constitution was hardly warmed for society by that time. Steelewas not fit for it. Two remarkable circumstances happened. John Sly, thehatter of facetious memory, was in the house; and John, pretty mellow,took it into his head to come into the company on his knees, with atankard of ale in his hand to drink off to the _immortal memory_, and toreturn in the same manner. Steele, sitting next my father, whisperedhim--'_Do laugh. It is humanity to laugh._' Sir Richard, in the evening,being too much in the same condition, was put into a chair, and sent home.Nothing would serve him but being carried to the Bishop of Bangor's, lateas it was. However, the chairmen carried him home, and got him upstairs,when his great complaisance would wait on them downstairs, which he did,and then was got quietly to bed."(104)
There is another amusing story which, I believe, that renowned collector,Mr. Joseph Miller, or his successors, have incorporated into their work.Sir Richard Steele, at a time when he was much occupied with theatricalaffairs, built himself a pretty private theatre, and, before it was openedto his friends and guests, was anxious to try whether the hall was welladapted for hearing. Accordingly he placed himself in the most remote partof the gallery, and begged the carpenter who had built the house to speakup from the stage. The man at first said that he was unaccustomed topublic speaking, and did not know what to say to his honour; but thegood-natured knight called out to him to say whatever was uppermost; and,after a moment, the carpenter began, in a voice perfectly audible: "SirRichard Steele!" he said, "for three months past me and my men has beena-working in this theatre, and we've never seen the colour of yourhonour's money: we will be very much obliged if you'll pay it directly,for until you do we won't drive in another nail." Sir Richard said thathis friend's elocution was perfect, but that he didn't like his subjectmuch.
The great charm of Steele's writing is its naturalness. He wrote soquickly and carelessly, that he was forced to make the reader hisconfidant, and had not the time to deceive him. He had a small share ofbook-learning, but a vast acquaintance with the world. He had known menand taverns. He had lived with gownsmen, with troopers, with gentlemanushers of the Court, with men and women of fashion; with authors and wits,with the inmates of the spunging-houses, and with the frequenters of allthe clubs and coffee-houses in the town. He was liked in all companybecause he liked it; and you like to see his enjoyment as you like to seethe glee of a box full of children at the pantomime. He was not of thoselonely ones of the earth whose greatness obliged them to be solitary; onthe contrary, he admired, I think, more than any man who ever wrote; andfull of hearty applause and sympathy, wins upon you by calling you toshare his delight and good humour. His laugh rings through the wholehouse. He must have been invaluable at a tragedy, and have cried as muchas the most tender young lady in the boxes. He has a relish for beauty andgoodness wherever he meets it. He admired Shakespeare affectionately, andmore than any man of his time; and, according to his generous expansivenature, called upon all his company to like what he liked himself. He didnot damn with faint praise: he was in the world and of it; and hisenjoyment of life presents the strangest contrast to Swift's savageindignation and Addison's lonely serenity.(105) Permit me to read to you apassage from each writer, curiously indicative of his peculiar humour: thesubject is the same, and the mood the very gravest. We have said that uponall the actions of man, the most trifling and the most solemn, thehumourist takes upon himself to comment. All readers of our old mastersknow the terrible lines of Swift, in which he hints at his philosophy anddescribes the end of mankind:--(106)
Amazed, confused, its fate unknown, The world stood trembling at Jove's throne; While each pale sinner hung his head, Jove, nodding, shook the heavens and said: 'Offending race of human kind, By nature, reason, learning, blind; You who through frailty stepped aside, And you who never err'd through pride; You who in different sects were shamm'd, And come to see each other damn'd (So some folk told you, but they knew No more of Jove's designs than you). The world's mad business now is o'er, And I resent your freaks no more; _I_ to such blockheads set my wit, I damn such fools--go, go, you're bit!'
Addison, speaking on the very same theme, but with how different a voice,says, in his famous paper on Westminster Abbey (_Spectator_, No. 26):--"Formy own part, though I am always serious, I do not know what it is to bemelancholy, and can therefore take a view of nature in her deep and solemnscenes with the same pleasure as in her most gay and delightful ones. WhenI look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies within me;when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goesout; when I meet with the grief of parents on a tombstone, my heart meltswith compassion; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I considerthe vanity of grieving for those we must quickly follow." (I have ownedthat I do not think Addison's heart melted very much, or that he indulgedvery inordinately in the "vanity of grieving".) "When," he goes on, "whenI see kings lying by those who deposed them: when I consider rival witsplaced side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with theircontests and disputes,--I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on thelittle competitions, factions, and debates of m
ankind. And, when I readthe several dates on the tombs of some that died yesterday and some 600years ago, I consider that Great Day when we shall all of us becontemporaries, and make our appearance together."
Our third humourist comes to speak upon the same subject. You will haveobserved in the previous extracts the characteristic humour of eachwriter--the subject and the contrast--the fact of Death, and the play ofindividual thought, by which each comments on it, and now hear the thirdwriter--death, sorrow, and the grave, being for the moment also his theme."The first sense of sorrow I ever knew," Steele says in the _Tatler_, "wasupon the death of my father, at which time I was not quite five years ofage: but was rather amazed at what all the house meant, than possessed ofa real understanding why nobody would play with us. I remember I went intothe room where his body lay, and my mother sat weeping alone by it. I hadmy battledore in my hand, and fell a-beating the coffin, and calling papa;for, I know not how, I had some idea that he was locked up there. Mymother caught me in her arms, and, transported beyond all patience of thesilent grief she was before in, she almost smothered me in her embraces,and told me in a flood of tears, 'Papa could not hear me, and would playwith me no more: for they were going to put him under ground, whence hewould never come to us again.' She was a very beautiful woman, of a noblespirit, and there was a dignity in her grief amidst all the wildness ofher transport, which methought struck me with an instinct of sorrow that,before I was sensible what it was to grieve, seized my very soul, and hasmade pity the weakness of my heart ever since."
Can there be three more characteristic moods of minds and men? "Fools, doyou know anything of this mystery?" says Swift, stamping on a grave andcarrying his scorn for mankind actually beyond it. "Miserable, purblindwretches, how dare you to pretend to comprehend the Inscrutable, and howcan your dim eyes pierce the unfathomable depths of yonder boundlessheaven?" Addison, in a much kinder language and gentler voice, utters muchthe same sentiment: and speaks of the rivalry of wits, and the contests ofholy men, with the same sceptic placidity. "Look what a little vain dustwe are;" he says, smiling over the tombstones, and catching, as is hiswont, quite a divine effulgence as he looks heavenward, he speaks in wordsof inspiration almost, of "the Great Day, when we shall all of us becontemporaries, and make our appearance together".
The third, whose theme is Death, too, and who will speak his word of moralas Heaven teaches him, leads you up to his father's coffin, and shows youhis beautiful mother weeping, and himself an unconscious little boywondering at her side. His own natural tears flow as he takes your handand confidingly asks your sympathy. "See how good and innocent andbeautiful women are," he says, "how tender little children! Let us lovethese and one another, brother--God knows we have need of love and pardon."So it is each man looks with his own eyes, speaks with his own voice, andprays his own prayer.
When Steele asks your sympathy for the actors in that charming scene ofLove and Grief and Death, who can refuse it? One yields to it as to thefrank advance of a child, or to the appeal of a woman. A man is seldommore manly than when he is what you call unmanned--the source of hisemotion is championship, pity, and courage; the instinctive desire tocherish those who are innocent and unhappy, and defend those who aretender and weak. If Steele is not our friend he is nothing. He is by nomeans the most brilliant of wits nor the deepest of thinkers: but he isour friend: we love him, as children love their love with an A, because heis amiable. Who likes a man best because he is the cleverest or the wisestof mankind; or a woman because she is the most virtuous, or talks French;or plays the piano better than the rest of her sex? I own to liking DickSteele the man, and Dick Steele the author, much better than much bettermen and much better authors.
The misfortune regarding Steele is, that most part of the company herepresent must take his amiability upon hearsay, and certainly can't makehis intimate acquaintance. Not that Steele was worse than his time; on thecontrary, a far better, truer, and higher-hearted man than most who livedin it. But things were done in that society, and names were named, whichwould make you shudder now. What would be the sensation of a polite youthof the present day, if at a ball he saw the young object of his affectionstaking a box out of her pocket and a pinch of snuff: or if at dinner, bythe charmer's side, she deliberately put her knife into her mouth? If shecut her mother's throat with it, mamma would scarcely be more shocked. Iallude to these peculiarities of bygone times as an excuse for myfavourite, Steele, who was not worse, and often much more delicate thanhis neighbours.
There exists a curious document descriptive of the manners of the lastage, which describes most minutely the amusements and occupations ofpersons of fashion in London at the time of which we are speaking; thetime of Swift, and Addison, and Steele.
When Lord Sparkish, Tom Neverout, and Colonel Alwit, the immortalpersonages of Swift's polite conversation, came to breakfast with my LadySmart, at eleven o'clock in the morning, my Lord Smart was absent at theLevee. His lordship was at home to dinner at three o'clock to receive hisguests; and we may sit down to this meal, like the Barmecide's, and seethe fops of the last century before us. Seven of them sat down at dinner,and were joined by a country baronet, who told them they kept Court hours.These persons of fashion began their dinner with a sirloin of beef, fish,a shoulder of veal, and a tongue. My Lady Smart carved the sirloin, myLady Answerwell helped the fish, and the gallant colonel cut the shoulderof veal. All made a considerable inroad on the sirloin and the shoulder ofveal with the exception of Sir John, who had no appetite, having alreadypartaken of a beefsteak and two mugs of ale, besides a tankard of Marchbeer as soon as he got out of bed. They drank claret, which the master ofthe house said should always be drunk after fish; and my Lord Smartparticularly recommended some excellent cider to my Lord Sparkish, whichoccasioned some brilliant remarks from that nobleman. When the host calledfor wine, he nodded to one or other of his guests, and said, "TomNeverout, my service to you."
After the first course came almond pudding, fritters, which the coloneltook with his hands out of the dish, in order to help the brilliant MissNotable; chickens, black puddings, and soup; and Lady Smart, the elegantmistress of the mansion, finding a skewer in a dish, placed it in herplate with directions that it should be carried down to the cook anddressed for the cook's own dinner. Wine and small beer were drunk duringthis second course; and when the colonel called for beer, he called thebutler, Friend, and asked whether the beer was good. Various jocularremarks passed from the gentlefolks to the servants; at breakfast severalpersons had a word and a joke for Mrs. Betty, my lady's maid, who warmedthe cream and had charge of the canister (the tea cost thirty shillings apound in those days). When my Lady Sparkish sent her footman out to myLady Match to come at six o'clock and play at quadrille, her ladyshipwarned the man to follow his nose, and if he fell by the way not to stayto get up again. And when the gentlemen asked the hall-porter if his ladywas at home, that functionary replied, with manly waggishness, "She was athome just now, but she's not gone out yet."
After the puddings, sweet and black, the fritters and soup, came the thirdcourse, of which the chief dish was a hot venison pasty, which was putbefore Lord Smart, and carved by that nobleman. Besides the pasty, therewas a hare, a rabbit, some pigeons, partridges, a goose, and a ham. Beerand wine were freely imbibed during this course, the gentlemen alwayspledging somebody with every glass which they drank; and by this time theconversation between Tom Neverout and Miss Notable had grown so brisk andlively, that the Derbyshire baronet began to think the young gentlewomanwas Tom's sweetheart; on which Miss remarked, that she loved Tom "likepie". After the goose, some of the gentlemen took a dram of brandy, "whichwas very good for the wholesomes," Sir John said; and now having had atolerably substantial dinner, honest Lord Smart bade the butler bring upthe great tankard full of October to Sir John. The great tankard waspassed from hand to hand and mouth to mouth, but when pressed by the noblehost upon the gallant Tom Neverout, he said, "No faith, my lord, I likeyour wine, and won't put a churl upon a gentleman.
Your honour's claret isgood enough for me." And so, the dinner over, the host said, "Hang saving,bring us up a ha'porth of cheese."
The cloth was now taken away, and a bottle of burgundy was set down, ofwhich the ladies were invited to partake before they went to their tea.When they withdrew, the gentlemen promised to join them in an hour; freshbottles were brought, the "dead men", meaning the empty bottles, removed;and "D'you hear, John? bring clean glasses", my Lord Smart said. On whichthe gallant Colonel Alwit said, "I'll keep my glass; for wine is the bestliquor to wash glasses in."
After an hour the gentlemen joined the ladies, and then they all sat andplayed quadrille until three o'clock in the morning, when the chairs andthe flambeaux came, and this noble company went to bed.
Such were manners six or seven score years ago. I draw no inference fromthis queer picture--let all moralists here present deduce their own. Fancythe moral condition of that society in which a lady of fashion joked witha footman, and carved a great shoulder of veal, and provided besides asirloin, a goose, hare, rabbit, chickens, partridges, black-puddings, anda ham for a dinner for eight Christians. What--what could have been thecondition of that polite world in which people openly ate goose afteralmond pudding, and took their soup in the middle of dinner? Fancy acolonel in the Guards putting his hand into a dish of _beignetsd'abricot_, and helping his neighbour, a young lady _du monde_! Fancy anoble lord calling out to the servants, before the ladies at his table,"Hang expense, bring us a ha'porth of cheese!" Such were the ladies of St.James's--such were the frequenters of White's Chocolate-house, when Swiftused to visit it, and Steele described it as the centre of pleasure,gallantry, and entertainment, a hundred and forty years ago!
Dennis, who ran amuck at the literary society of his day, falls foul ofpoor Steele, and thus depicts him,--"Sir John Edgar, of the county of ---- inIreland, is of a middle stature, broad shoulders, thick legs, a shape likethe picture of somebody over a farmer's chimney--a short chin, a shortnose, a short forehead, a broad, flat face, and a dusky countenance. Yetwith such a face and such a shape, he discovered at sixty that he tookhimself for a beauty, and appeared to be more mortified at being told thathe was ugly, than he was by any reflection made upon his honour orunderstanding.
"He is a gentleman born, witness himself, of very honourable family;certainly of a very ancient one, for his ancestors flourished in Tipperarylong before the English ever set foot in Ireland. He has testimony of thismore authentic than the Heralds' Office, or any human testimony. For Godhas marked him more abundantly than he did Cain, and stamped his nativecountry on his face, his understanding, his writings, his actions, hispassions, and, above all, his vanity. The Hibernian brogue is still uponall these, though long habit and length of days have worn it off histongue."(107)
Although this portrait is the work of a man who was neither the friend ofSteele nor of any other man alive, yet there is a dreadful resemblance tothe original in the savage and exaggerated traits of the caricature, andeverybody who knows him must recognize Dick Steele. Dick set about almostall the undertakings of his life with inadequate means, and, as he tookand furnished a house with the most generous intentions towards hisfriends, the most tender gallantry towards his wife, and with this onlydrawback, that he had not wherewithal to pay the rent when quarter-daycame,--so, in his life he proposed to himself the most magnificent schemesof virtue, forbearance, public and private good, and the advancement ofhis own and the national religion; but when he had to pay for thesearticles--so difficult to purchase and so costly to maintain--poor Dick'smoney was not forthcoming: and when Virtue called with her little bill,Dick made a shuffling excuse that he could not see her that morning,having a headache from being tipsy overnight; or when stern Duty rapped atthe door with his account, Dick was absent and not ready to pay. He wasshirking at the tavern; or had some particular business (of somebody'selse) at the ordinary; or he was in hiding, or worse than in hiding, inthe lock-up house. What a situation for a man!--for a philanthropist--for alover of right and truth--for a magnificent designer and schemer! Not todare to look in the face the Religion which he adored and which he hadoffended; to have to shirk down back lanes and alleys, so as to avoid thefriend whom he loved and who had trusted him--to have the house which hehad intended for his wife, whom he loved passionately, and for herladyship's company which he wished to entertain splendidly, in thepossession of a bailiff's man, with a crowd of little creditors,--grocers,butchers, and small-coal men, lingering round the door with their billsand jeering at him. Alas! for poor Dick Steele! For nobody else, ofcourse. There is no man or woman in _our_ time who makes fine projects andgives them up from idleness or want of means. When Duty calls upon _us_,we no doubt are always at home and ready to pay that grim tax-gatherer.When _we_ are stricken with remorse and promise reform, we keep ourpromise, and are never angry, or idle, or extravagant any more. There areno chambers in _our_ hearts, destined for family friends and affections,and now occupied by some Sin's emissary and bailiff in possession. Thereare no little sins, shabby peccadilloes, importunate remembrances, ordisappointed holders of our promises to reform, hovering at our steps, orknocking at our door! Of course not. We are living in the nineteenthcentury, and poor Dick Steele stumbled and got up again, and got into jailand out again, and sinned and repented; and loved and suffered; and livedand died scores of years ago. Peace be with him! Let us think gently ofone who was so gentle: let us speak kindly of one whose own breastexuberated with human kindness.