His life was so. Jack the drawer was always interrupting it, bringing him a bottle from the "Rose", or inviting him over to a bout there with Sir Plume and Mr. Diver; and d.i.c.k wiped his eyes, which were whimpering over his papers, took down his laced hat, put on his sword and wig, kissed his wife and children, told them a lie about pressing business, and went off to the "Rose" to the jolly fellows.
While Mr. Addison was abroad, and after he came home in rather a dismal way to wait upon Providence in his shabby lodging in the Haymarket, young Captain Steele was cutting a much smarter figure than that of his cla.s.sical friend of Charterhouse Cloister and Maudlin Walk. Could not some painter give an interview between the gallant captain of Lucas"s, with his hat c.o.c.ked, and his lace, and his face too, a trifle tarnished with drink, and that poet, that philosopher, pale, proud, and poor, his friend and monitor of schooldays, of all days? How d.i.c.k must have bragged about his chances and his hopes, and the fine company he kept, and the charms of the reigning toasts and popular actresses, and the number of bottles that he and my lord and some other pretty fellows had cracked overnight at the "Devil", or the "Garter"! Cannot one fancy Joseph Addison"s calm smile and cold grey eyes following d.i.c.k for an instant, as he struts down the Mall, to dine with the Guard at St. James"s, before he turns, with his sober pace and threadbare suit, to walk back to his lodgings up the two pair of stairs? Steele"s name was down for promotion, d.i.c.k always said himself, in the glorious, pious, and immortal William"s last table-book. Jonathan Swift"s name had been written there by the same hand too.
Our worthy friend, the author of the _Christian Hero_, continued to make no 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, in which there is some delightful farcical writing, and of which he fondly owned in after-life, and when Addison was no more, that there were "many applauded strokes" from Addison"s beloved hand.(100) Is it not a pleasant partnership 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 sits in 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 moral and religious, as poor d.i.c.k insisted, so dull the town thought, that the _Lying Lover_ was d.a.m.ned.
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 of keeping that poor tipsy champion upon his legs, his fortune was safe, and his competence a.s.sured. Steele procured the place of Commissioner of Stamps: he wrote so richly, so gracefully often, so kindly always, with such a pleasant wit and easy frankness, with such a gush of good spirits and 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 equal pleasure.(101)
After the _Tatler_, in 1711, the famous _Spectator_ made its appearance, and this was followed, at various intervals, by many periodicals under the same editor-the _Guardian_-the _Englishman_-the _Lover_, whose love was rather insipid-the _Reader_, of whom the public saw no more after his second appearance-the _Theatre_, under the pseudonym of Sir John Edgar, which Steele wrote, while Governor of the Royal Company of Comedians, to which post, and to that of Surveyor of the Royal Stables at Hampton Court, and to the Commission of the Peace for Middles.e.x, and to the honour of knighthood, Steele had been preferred soon after the accession of George I, whose cause honest d.i.c.k had n.o.bly fought, through disgrace and danger, against the most formidable enemies, against traitors and bullies, against Bolingbroke and Swift in the last reign. With the arrival of the King, that splendid conspiracy broke up; and a golden opportunity came to d.i.c.k Steele, whose hand, alas, was too careless to grip it.
Steele married twice; and outlived his places, his schemes, his wife, his income, his health, and almost everything but his kind heart. That ceased to trouble him in 1729, when he died, worn out and almost forgotten by his contemporaries, in Wales, where he had the remnant of a property.
Posterity has been kinder to this amiable creature; all women especially are bound to be grateful to Steele, as he was the first of our writers who really seemed to admire and respect them. Congreve the Great, who alludes to the low estimation in which women were held in Elizabeth"s time, as a reason why the women of Shakespeare make so small a figure in the poet"s dialogues, though he can himself pay splendid compliments to women, yet looks on them as mere instruments of gallantry, and destined, like the most consummate fortifications, to fall, after a certain time, before the arts and bravery of the besieger, man. There is a letter of Swift"s, ent.i.tled "Advice to a very Young Married Lady", which shows the Dean"s opinion of the female society of his day, and that if he despised man he utterly scorned women too. No lady of our time could be treated by any man, were he ever so much a wit or Dean, in such a tone of insolent patronage and vulgar protection. In this performance, Swift hardly takes pains 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 one gentleman"s daughter in a thousand has been brought to read or understand her own natural tongue". Addison laughs at women equally; but, with the gentleness and politeness of his nature, smiles at them and watches them, as if they were harmless, halfwitted, amusing, pretty creatures, only made to be men"s playthings. It was Steele who first began to pay a manly homage to their goodness and understanding, as well as to their tenderness and beauty.(102) In his comedies, the heroes do not rant and rave about the divine beauties of Gloriana or Statira, as the characters were made to do in the chivalry romances and the high-flown dramas just going out of vogue, but Steele admires women"s virtue, acknowledges their sense, and adores their purity and beauty, with an ardour and strength which should win the goodwill of all women to their hearty and respectful champion. It is this ardour, this respect, this manliness, which makes his comedies so pleasant and their heroes such fine gentlemen. He paid the finest compliment to a woman that perhaps ever was offered. Of one woman, whom Congreve had also admired and celebrated, Steele says, that "to have loved her was a liberal education". "How often," he says, dedicating a volume to his wife, "how often has your tenderness removed pain from my sick head, how often anguish from my afflicted heart! If there are such beings as guardian angels, they are thus employed. I cannot believe one of them to be more good in inclination, or more charming in form than my wife." His breast seems to warm and his eyes to kindle when he meets with a good and beautiful woman, and it is with his heart as well as with his hat that he salutes her. About children, and all that relates to home, he is not less tender, and more than once speaks in apology of what he calls his softness. He would have been nothing without that delightful weakness. It is 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, like that, by his sweet and compa.s.sionate nature.
We possess of poor Steele"s wild and chequered life some of the most curious memoranda that ever were left of a man"s biography.(103) Most men"s letters, from Cicero down to Walpole, or down to the great men of our own time, if you will, are doctored compositions, and written with an eye suspicious towards posterity. That dedication of Steele"s to his wife is an artificial performance, possibly; at least, it is written with that degree of artifice which an orator uses in arranging a statement for the House, or a poet employs in preparing a sentiment in verse or for the stage. But there are some 400 letters of d.i.c.k Steele"e to his wife, which that thrifty woman preserved accurately, and which could have been written but for her and her alone. They contain details of the business, pleasures, quarrels, reconciliations of the pair; they have all the genuineness of conversation; they are as artless as a child"s prattle, and as confidential as a curtain-lecture. Some are written from the printing-office, where he is waiting for the proofsheets of his _Gazette_, or his _Tatler_; some are written from the tavern, whence he promises to come to his wife "within a pint of wine", and where he has given a rendezvous to a friend, or a money-lender: some are composed in a high state of vinous excitement, when his head is fl.u.s.tered with burgundy, and his heart abounds with amorous warmth for his darling Prue: some are under the 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 poor fellow"s career in these letters. In September, 1707, from which day she began to save the letters, he married the beautiful Mistress Scurlock. You have his pa.s.sionate protestations to the lady; his respectful proposals to her mamma; his private prayer to Heaven when the union so ardently desired was completed; his fond professions of contrition and promises of amendment, when, immediately after his marriage, there began to be just cause for the one and need for the other.
Captain Steele took a house for his lady upon their marriage, "the third door from Germain Street, left hand of Berry Street," and the next year he presented his wife with a country house at Hampton. It appears she had a chariot and pair, and sometimes four horses: he himself enjoyed a little horse for his own riding. He paid, or promised to pay, his barber fifty pounds a year, and always went abroad in a laced coat and a large black-buckled periwig, that must have cost somebody fifty guineas. He was rather a well-to-do gentleman, Captain Steele, with the proceeds of his estates in Barbadoes (left to him by his first wife), his income as a writer of the _Gazette_, and his office of gentleman waiter to his Royal Highness Prince George. His second wife brought him a fortune too. But it is melancholy to relate, that with these houses and chariots and horses and income, the Captain was constantly in want of money, for which his beloved bride was asking as constantly. In the course of a few pages we begin to find the shoemaker calling for money, and some directions from the Captain, who has not thirty pounds to spare. He sends his wife, "the beautifullest object in the world," as he calls her, and evidently in reply to applications of her own, which have gone the way of all waste paper, and lighted d.i.c.k"s pipes, which were smoked a hundred and forty years ago-he sends his wife now a guinea, then a half-guinea, then a couple of guineas, then half a pound of tea; and again no money and no tea at all, but a promise that his darling Prue shall have some in a day or two: or a request, perhaps, that she will send over his night-gown and shaving-plate to the temporary lodging where the nomadic captain is lying, hidden from the bailiffs. Oh that a Christian hero and late captain in Lucas"s should be afraid of a dirty sheriff"s officer! That the pink and pride of chivalry should turn pale before a writ! It stands to record in poor d.i.c.k"s own handwriting; the queer collection is preserved at the British Museum to this present day; that the rent of the nuptial house in Jermyn Street, sacred to unutterable tenderness and Prue, and three doors from Bury Street, was not paid until after the landlord had put in an execution on Captain Steele"s furniture. Addison sold the house and furniture at Hampton, and, after deducting the sum in which his incorrigible friend was indebted to him, handed over the residue of the proceeds of the sale to poor d.i.c.k, who wasn"t in the least angry at Addison"s summary proceeding, and I dare say was very glad of any sale or execution, 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 a country house at Hampton on which he had borrowed money, nothing must content Captain d.i.c.k but the taking, in 1712, a much finer, larger, and grander house, in Bloomsbury Square; where his unhappy landlord got no better satisfaction than his friend in St. James"s, and where it is recorded that d.i.c.k, giving a grand entertainment, had a half-dozen queer-looking fellows in livery to wait upon his n.o.ble guests, and confessed that his servants were bailiffs to a man. "I fared like a distressed prince," the kindly prodigal writes, generously complimenting Addison for his a.s.sistance in the _Tatler_,-"I fared like a distressed prince, who calls in a powerful neighbour to his aid. I was undone by my auxiliary; when I had once called him in, I could not subsist without dependence on him." Poor, needy Prince of Bloomsbury! think of him in his palace, with his allies from Chancery Lane ominously guarding him.
All sorts of stories are told indicative of his recklessness and his good humour. One narrated by Dr. Hoadly is exceedingly characteristic; it shows the life of the time: and our poor friend very weak, but very kind both in and out of his cups.
"My father" (says Dr. John Hoadly, the bishop"s son)-"when Bishop of Bangor, was, by invitation, present at one of the Whig meetings, held at the "Trumpet", in Shire Lane, when Sir Richard, in his zeal, rather exposed himself, having the double duty of the day upon him, as well to celebrate the immortal memory of King William, it being the 4th of November, as to drink his friend Addison up to conversation pitch, whose phlegmatic const.i.tution was hardly warmed for society by that time. Steele was not fit for it. Two remarkable circ.u.mstances happened. John Sly, the hatter 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 a tankard of ale in his hand to drink off to the _immortal memory_, and to return in the same manner. Steele, sitting next my father, whispered him-"_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, late as 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 theatrical affairs, built himself a pretty private theatre, and, before it was opened to his friends and guests, was anxious to try whether the hall was well adapted for hearing. Accordingly he placed himself in the most remote part of the gallery, and begged the carpenter who had built the house to speak up from the stage. The man at first said that he was unaccustomed to public speaking, and did not know what to say to his honour; but the good-natured knight called out to him to say whatever was uppermost; and, after a moment, the carpenter began, in a voice perfectly audible: "Sir Richard Steele!" he said, "for three months past me and my men has been a-working in this theatre, and we"ve never seen the colour of your honour"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 that his friend"s elocution was perfect, but that he didn"t like his subject much.
The great charm of Steele"s writing is its naturalness. He wrote so quickly and carelessly, that he was forced to make the reader his confidant, and had not the time to deceive him. He had a small share of book-learning, but a vast acquaintance with the world. He had known men and taverns. He had lived with gownsmen, with troopers, with gentleman ushers 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 all the clubs and coffee-houses in the town. He was liked in all company because he liked it; and you like to see his enjoyment as you like to see the glee of a box full of children at the pantomime. He was not of those lonely ones of the earth whose greatness obliged them to be solitary; on the contrary, he admired, I think, more than any man who ever wrote; and full of hearty applause and sympathy, wins upon you by calling you to share his delight and good humour. His laugh rings through the whole house. He must have been invaluable at a tragedy, and have cried as much as the most tender young lady in the boxes. He has a relish for beauty and goodness wherever he meets it. He admired Shakespeare affectionately, and more than any man of his time; and, according to his generous expansive nature, called upon all his company to like what he liked himself. He did not d.a.m.n with faint praise: he was in the world and of it; and his enjoyment of life presents the strangest contrast to Swift"s savage indignation and Addison"s lonely serenity.(105) Permit me to read to you a pa.s.sage from each writer, curiously indicative of his peculiar humour: the subject is the same, and the mood the very gravest. We have said that upon all the actions of man, the most trifling and the most solemn, the humourist takes upon himself to comment. All readers of our old masters know the terrible lines of Swift, in which he hints at his philosophy and describes 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 d.a.m.n"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 d.a.m.n 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):-"For my own part, though I am always serious, I do not know what it is to be melancholy, and can therefore take a view of nature in her deep and solemn scenes with the same pleasure as in her most gay and delightful ones. When I 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 goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents on a tombstone, my heart melts with compa.s.sion; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those we must quickly follow." (I have owned that I do not think Addison"s heart melted very much, or that he indulged very inordinately in the "vanity of grieving".) "When," he goes on, "when I see kings lying by those who deposed them: when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes,-I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little compet.i.tions, factions, and debates of mankind. And, when I read the several dates on the tombs of some that died yesterday and some 600 years ago, I consider that Great Day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together."
Our third humourist comes to speak upon the same subject. You will have observed in the previous extracts the characteristic humour of each writer-the subject and the contrast-the fact of Death, and the play of individual thought, by which each comments on it, and now hear the third writer-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_, "was upon the death of my father, at which time I was not quite five years of age: but was rather amazed at what all the house meant, than possessed of a real understanding why n.o.body would play with us. I remember I went into the room where his body lay, and my mother sat weeping alone by it. I had my 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. My mother caught me in her arms, and, transported beyond all patience of the silent 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 play with me no more: for they were going to put him under ground, whence he would never come to us again." She was a very beautiful woman, of a n.o.ble spirit, and there was a dignity in her grief amidst all the wildness of her 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 has made pity the weakness of my heart ever since."
Can there be three more characteristic moods of minds and men? "Fools, do you know anything of this mystery?" says Swift, stamping on a grave and carrying his scorn for mankind actually beyond it. "Miserable, purblind wretches, how dare you to pretend to comprehend the Inscrutable, and how can your dim eyes pierce the unfathomable depths of yonder boundless heaven?" Addison, in a much kinder language and gentler voice, utters much the same sentiment: and speaks of the rivalry of wits, and the contests of holy men, with the same sceptic placidity. "Look what a little vain dust we are;" he says, smiling over the tombstones, and catching, as is his wont, quite a divine effulgence as he looks heavenward, he speaks in words of inspiration almost, of "the Great Day, when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together".
The third, whose theme is Death, too, and who will speak his word of moral as Heaven teaches him, leads you up to his father"s coffin, and shows you his beautiful mother weeping, and himself an unconscious little boy wondering at her side. His own natural tears flow as he takes your hand and confidingly asks your sympathy. "See how good and innocent and beautiful women are," he says, "how tender little children! Let us love these and one another, brother-G.o.d knows we have need of love and pardon."
So it is each man looks with his own eyes, speaks with his own voice, and prays his own prayer.
When Steele asks your sympathy for the actors in that charming scene of Love and Grief and Death, who can refuse it? One yields to it as to the frank advance of a child, or to the appeal of a woman. A man is seldom more manly than when he is what you call unmanned-the source of his emotion is championship, pity, and courage; the instinctive desire to cherish those who are innocent and unhappy, and defend those who are tender and weak. If Steele is not our friend he is nothing. He is by no means the most brilliant of wits nor the deepest of thinkers: but he is our friend: we love him, as children love their love with an A, because he is amiable. Who likes a man best because he is the cleverest or the wisest of mankind; or a woman because she is the most virtuous, or talks French; or plays the piano better than the rest of her s.e.x? I own to liking d.i.c.k Steele the man, and d.i.c.k Steele the author, much better than much better men and much better authors.
The misfortune regarding Steele is, that most part of the company here present must take his amiability upon hearsay, and certainly can"t make his intimate acquaintance. Not that Steele was worse than his time; on the contrary, a far better, truer, and higher-hearted man than most who lived in it. But things were done in that society, and names were named, which would make you shudder now. What would be the sensation of a polite youth of the present day, if at a ball he saw the young object of his affections taking a box out of her pocket and a pinch of snuff: or if at dinner, by the charmer"s side, she deliberately put her knife into her mouth? If she cut her mother"s throat with it, mamma would scarcely be more shocked. I allude to these peculiarities of bygone times as an excuse for my favourite, Steele, who was not worse, and often much more delicate than his neighbours.
There exists a curious doc.u.ment descriptive of the manners of the last age, which describes most minutely the amus.e.m.e.nts and occupations of persons of fashion in London at the time of which we are speaking; the time of Swift, and Addison, and Steele.
When Lord Sparkish, Tom Neverout, and Colonel Alwit, the immortal personages of Swift"s polite conversation, came to breakfast with my Lady Smart, at eleven o"clock in the morning, my Lord Smart was absent at the Levee. His lordship was at home to dinner at three o"clock to receive his guests; and we may sit down to this meal, like the Barmecide"s, and see the 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, my Lady Answerwell helped the fish, and the gallant colonel cut the shoulder of veal. All made a considerable inroad on the sirloin and the shoulder of veal with the exception of Sir John, who had no appet.i.te, having already partaken of a beefsteak and two mugs of ale, besides a tankard of March beer as soon as he got out of bed. They drank claret, which the master of the house said should always be drunk after fish; and my Lord Smart particularly recommended some excellent cider to my Lord Sparkish, which occasioned some brilliant remarks from that n.o.bleman. When the host called for wine, he nodded to one or other of his guests, and said, "Tom Neverout, my service to you."
After the first course came almond pudding, fritters, which the colonel took with his hands out of the dish, in order to help the brilliant Miss Notable; chickens, black puddings, and soup; and Lady Smart, the elegant mistress of the mansion, finding a skewer in a dish, placed it in her plate with directions that it should be carried down to the cook and dressed for the cook"s own dinner. Wine and small beer were drunk during this second course; and when the colonel called for beer, he called the butler, Friend, and asked whether the beer was good. Various jocular remarks pa.s.sed from the gentlefolks to the servants; at breakfast several persons had a word and a joke for Mrs. Betty, my lady"s maid, who warmed the cream and had charge of the canister (the tea cost thirty shillings a pound in those days). When my Lady Sparkish sent her footman out to my Lady Match to come at six o"clock and play at quadrille, her ladyship warned the man to follow his nose, and if he fell by the way not to stay to get up again. And when the gentlemen asked the hall-porter if his lady was at home, that functionary replied, with manly waggishness, "She was at home just now, but she"s not gone out yet."
After the puddings, sweet and black, the fritters and soup, came the third course, of which the chief dish was a hot venison pasty, which was put before Lord Smart, and carved by that n.o.bleman. Besides the pasty, there was a hare, a rabbit, some pigeons, partridges, a goose, and a ham. Beer and wine were freely imbibed during this course, the gentlemen always pledging somebody with every gla.s.s which they drank; and by this time the conversation between Tom Neverout and Miss Notable had grown so brisk and lively, that the Derbyshire baronet began to think the young gentlewoman was Tom"s sweetheart; on which Miss remarked, that she loved Tom "like pie". After the goose, some of the gentlemen took a dram of brandy, "which was very good for the wholesomes," Sir John said; and now having had a tolerably substantial dinner, honest Lord Smart bade the butler bring up the great tankard full of October to Sir John. The great tankard was pa.s.sed from hand to hand and mouth to mouth, but when pressed by the n.o.ble host upon the gallant Tom Neverout, he said, "No faith, my lord, I like your wine, and won"t put a churl upon a gentleman. Your honour"s claret is good 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, of which the ladies were invited to partake before they went to their tea.
When they withdrew, the gentlemen promised to join them in an hour; fresh bottles were brought, the "dead men", meaning the empty bottles, removed; and "D"you hear, John? bring clean gla.s.ses", my Lord Smart said. On which the gallant Colonel Alwit said, "I"ll keep my gla.s.s; for wine is the best liquor to wash gla.s.ses in."
After an hour the gentlemen joined the ladies, and then they all sat and played quadrille until three o"clock in the morning, when the chairs and the flambeaux came, and this n.o.ble company went to bed.
Such were manners six or seven score years ago. I draw no inference from this queer picture-let all moralists here present deduce their own. Fancy the moral condition of that society in which a lady of fashion joked with a footman, and carved a great shoulder of veal, and provided besides a sirloin, a goose, hare, rabbit, chickens, partridges, black-puddings, and a ham for a dinner for eight Christians. What-what could have been the condition of that polite world in which people openly ate goose after almond pudding, and took their soup in the middle of dinner? Fancy a colonel in the Guards putting his hand into a dish of _beignets d"abricot_, and helping his neighbour, a young lady _du monde_! Fancy a n.o.ble 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 Swift used 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 of poor Steele, and thus depicts him,-"Sir John Edgar, of the county of -- in Ireland, is of a middle stature, broad shoulders, thick legs, a shape like the picture of somebody over a farmer"s chimney-a short chin, a short nose, a short forehead, a broad, flat face, and a dusky countenance. Yet with such a face and such a shape, he discovered at sixty that he took himself for a beauty, and appeared to be more mortified at being told that he was ugly, than he was by any reflection made upon his honour or understanding.
"He is a gentleman born, witness himself, of very honourable family; certainly of a very ancient one, for his ancestors flourished in Tipperary long before the English ever set foot in Ireland. He has testimony of this more authentic than the Heralds" Office, or any human testimony. For G.o.d has marked him more abundantly than he did Cain, and stamped his native country on his face, his understanding, his writings, his actions, his pa.s.sions, and, above all, his vanity. The Hibernian brogue is still upon all these, though long habit and length of days have worn it off his tongue."(107)
Although this portrait is the work of a man who was neither the friend of Steele nor of any other man alive, yet there is a dreadful resemblance to the original in the savage and exaggerated traits of the caricature, and everybody who knows him must recognize d.i.c.k Steele. d.i.c.k set about almost all the undertakings of his life with inadequate means, and, as he took and furnished a house with the most generous intentions towards his friends, the most tender gallantry towards his wife, and with this only drawback, that he had not wherewithal to pay the rent when quarter-day came,-so, in his life he proposed to himself the most magnificent schemes of virtue, forbearance, public and private good, and the advancement of his own and the national religion; but when he had to pay for these articles-so difficult to purchase and so costly to maintain-poor d.i.c.k"s money was not forthcoming: and when Virtue called with her little bill, d.i.c.k made a shuffling excuse that he could not see her that morning, having a headache from being tipsy overnight; or when stern Duty rapped at the door with his account, d.i.c.k was absent and not ready to pay. He was shirking at the tavern; or had some particular business (of somebody"s else) at the ordinary; or he was in hiding, or worse than in hiding, in the lock-up house. What a situation for a man!-for a philanthropist-for a lover of right and truth-for a magnificent designer and schemer! Not to dare to look in the face the Religion which he adored and which he had offended; to have to shirk down back lanes and alleys, so as to avoid the friend whom he loved and who had trusted him-to have the house which he had intended for his wife, whom he loved pa.s.sionately, and for her ladyship"s company which he wished to entertain splendidly, in the possession of a bailiff"s man, with a crowd of little creditors,-grocers, butchers, and small-coal men, lingering round the door with their bills and jeering at him. Alas! for poor d.i.c.k Steele! For n.o.body else, of course. There is no man or woman in _our_ time who makes fine projects and gives 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 our promise, and are never angry, or idle, or extravagant any more. There are no chambers in _our_ hearts, destined for family friends and affections, and now occupied by some Sin"s emissary and bailiff in possession. There are no little sins, shabby peccadilloes, importunate remembrances, or disappointed holders of our promises to reform, hovering at our steps, or knocking at our door! Of course not. We are living in the nineteenth century, and poor d.i.c.k Steele stumbled and got up again, and got into jail and out again, and sinned and repented; and loved and suffered; and lived and died scores of years ago. Peace be with him! Let us think gently of one who was so gentle: let us speak kindly of one whose own breast exuberated with human kindness.
Lecture The Fourth. Prior, Gay, And Pope
Matthew Prior was one of those famous and lucky wits of the auspicious reign of Queen Anne, whose name it behoves us not to pa.s.s over. Mat was a world-philosopher of no small genius, good nature, and ac.u.men.(108) He loved, he drank, he sang. He describes himself, in one of his lyrics, "in a little Dutch chaise on a Sat.u.r.day night; on his left hand his Horace, and a friend on his right," going out of town from the Hague to pa.s.s that evening and the ensuing Sunday, boozing at a _Spielhaus_ with his companions, perhaps bobbing for perch in a Dutch ca.n.a.l, and noting down, in a strain and with a grace not unworthy of his Epicurean master, the charms of his idleness, his retreat, and his Batavian Chloe. A vintner"s son in Whitehall, and a distinguished pupil of Busby of the Rod, Prior attracted some notice by writing verses at St. John"s College, Cambridge, and, coming up to town, aided Montague(109) in an attack on the n.o.ble old English lion John Dryden, in ridicule of whose work, _The Hind and the Panther_, he brought out that remarkable and famous burlesque, _The Town and Country Mouse_. Aren"t you all acquainted with it? Have you not all got it by heart? What! have you never heard of it? See what fame is made of! The wonderful part of the satire was, that, as a natural consequence of _The Town and Country Mouse_, Matthew Prior was made Secretary of Emba.s.sy at the Hague! I believe it is dancing, rather than singing, which distinguishes the young English diplomatists of the present day; and have seen them in various parts perform that part of their duty very finely. In Prior"s time it appears a different accomplishment led to preferment.
Could you write a copy of Alcaics? that was the question. Could you turn out a neat epigram or two? Could you compose _The Town and Country Mouse_?
It is manifest that, by the possession of this faculty, the most difficult treaties, the laws of foreign nations, and the interests of our own, are easily understood. Prior rose in the diplomatic service, and said good things that proved his sense and his spirit. When the apartments at Versailles were shown to him, with the victories of Louis XIV painted on the walls, and Prior was asked whether the palace of the King of England had any such decorations, "The monuments of my master"s actions," Mat said, of William, whom he cordially revered, "are to be seen everywhere except in his own house." Bravo, Mat! Prior rose to be full amba.s.sador at Paris,(110) where he somehow was cheated out of his amba.s.sadorial plate; and in a heroic poem, addressed by him to her late lamented Majesty Queen Anne, Mat makes some magnificent allusions to these dishes and spoons, of which Fate had deprived him. All that he wants, he says, is her Majesty"s picture; without that he can"t be happy.
Thee, gracious Anne, thee present I adore: Thee, Queen of Peace, if Time and Fate have power Higher to raise the glories of thy reign, In words sublimer and a n.o.bler strain.
May future bards the mighty theme rehea.r.s.e.
Here, Stator Jove, and Phoebus, king of verse, The votive tablet I suspend.
With that word the poem stops abruptly. The votive tablet is suspended for ever like Mahomet"s coffin. News came that the queen was dead. Stator Jove, and Phoebus, king of verse, were left there, hovering to this day, over the votive tablet. The picture was never got any more than the spoons and dishes-the inspiration ceased-the verses were not wanted-the amba.s.sador wasn"t wanted. Poor Mat was recalled from his emba.s.sy, suffered disgrace along with his patrons, lived under a sort of cloud ever after, and disappeared in Ess.e.x. When deprived of all his pensions and emoluments, the hearty and generous Oxford pensioned him. They played for gallant stakes-the bold men of those days-and lived and gave splendidly.
Johnson quotes from Spence a legend, that Prior, after spending an evening with Harley, St. John, Pope, and Swift, would go off and smoke a pipe with a couple of friends of his, a soldier and his wife, in Long Acre. Those who have not read his late excellency"s poems should be warned that they smack not a little of the conversation of his Long Acre friends. Johnson speaks slightingly of his lyrics; but with due deference to the great Samuel, Prior"s seem to me amongst the easiest, the richest, the most charmingly humorous of English lyrical poems.(111) Horace is always in his mind, and his song, and his philosophy, his good sense, his happy easy turns and melody, his loves, and his Epicureanism, bear a great resemblance to that most delightful and accomplished master. In reading his works, one is struck with their modern air, as well as by their happy similarity to the songs of the charming owner of the Sabine farm. In his verses addressed to Halifax, he says, writing of that endless theme to poets, the vanity of human wishes-
So when in fevered dreams we sink, And, waking, taste what we desire, The real draught but feeds the fire, The dream is better than the drink.
Our hopes like towering falcons aim At objects in an airy height: To stand aloof and view the flight, Is all the pleasure of the game.
Would not you fancy that a poet of our own days was singing? and, in the verses of Chloe weeping and reproaching him for his inconstancy, where he says-