"conduct of life, and, after all, the man so qualified shall "hesitate in his speech to a good suit of clothes, and

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want common sense before an agreeable woman."

The remark opportunely takes us back to those earlier Tatlers which contain it, and to the purpose for which we have referred to them; nor will its hints as to college life render less appropriate the single additional reference we shall make before resuming what waits us still of Mr. Macaulay's censure. In his 39th Tatler, Mr. Bickerstaff visits Oxford: not in search of popular preachers to criticise, of pretty faces to compliment, or of youthful follies to pasquinade; but to refresh his imagination in a scene sacred to civilisation and learning, where so far his own social philosophy prevails that not the fortunes but the understandings of men exact distinction and precedence, and you shall see an Earl walk bareheaded to the son of the meanest artificer, in respect to seven years' more worth and knowledge than the nobleman is possessed of. "The magnificence of their palaces," adds Steele," the greatness of their revenues, the sweetness "of their groves and retirements, seem equally adapted "for the residence of princes and philosophers; and a familiarity with objects of splendour, as well as places "of recess, prepares the inhabitants with an equanimity "for their future fortunes, whether humble or illustrious." We think, as we read the paper, of some of the most pleasing turns of Addison.

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But, alas! what would be said to such a remark by Mr. Macaulay, who, taking up the project of the Tatler at the low design we have seen him attribute to it, proceeds drily to describe its editor as "not ill-qualified" to give effect to such a plan? Steele was not ill-qualified, that is, to compile news, to give an account of a theatrical representation, to collect literary gossip at Will's and the Grecian, to remark on fashionable topics, to compliment a beauty, to pasquinade a sharper, or to criticise a popular preacher. For, Mr. Macaulay continues, his public intelligence he drew from the best sources; he not only knew

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the town, but had paid dear for his knowledge; "he had "read much more" (now, do not let the sanguine reader expect too much) "than the dissipated men of that time were in the habit of reading;" if he was a rake among scholars, he was a scholar among rakes; nay, his style was even easy and not incorrect; and though his wit and humour were of no high order, his gay animal spirits imparted to his compositions an air of vivacity which ordinary readers could hardly distinguish from comic genius. "His writings have been well compared to those "light wines which, though deficient in body and flavour, are yet a pleasant small drink, if not kept too long, or "carried too far." It is sufficiently clear, at least, that they have survived too long for Mr. Macaulay. Vinegar is not more sour than the pleasant small drink, kept now too long by nearly a century and a half, is become to him.

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We must accept it, we suppose, as among the chances and vicissitudes to which old reputations are subject. Steele was famed as a wit before Pope came upon the town, and in those days a young poet who could say he had dined with him was not without claims to consideration. In the succeeding age, this opinion went on gathering strength; and it was enough for a man to have merely written a single paper in one of the works he conducted, to be thought entitled to unquestioned celebrity. "For example," said Murphy to Johnson," "there is Mr. "Ince, who used to frequent Tom's Coffee-house; he has "obtained considerable fame merely from having written a paper in the Spectator." "But," interposed Johnson, you must consider how highly Steele speaks of Mr. "Ince." The dull Dr. Hurd followed, and brayed Steele down loudly enough; but afterwards came a reaction, the

1 The reader of Pope will remember his laugh at Ambrose Philips: "When simple Macer, now of high

renown,

"First sought a poet's fortune in the town:

"Twas all the ambition his high soul could feel,

"To wear red stockings, and to dine with Steele."

2 Boswell's Life, 10th April, 1776.

laborious and industrious Nichols produced careful editions of his writings, and he resumed his admitted rank as a humourist of the first order, the most pathetic of story-tellers, the kindest of wits and critics, and, of all the fathers of English Essay, the most natural and the most inventive. Charles Lamb, Hazlitt, and Leigh Hunt, no inconsiderable authorities, even placed him above his friend, on an eminence where we cannot and need not follow them. What now has befallen him in the other extreme we see, and that more than two hundred Tatlers, nearly two hundred and fifty Spectators, and some eighty Guardians, to say nothing of Englishmen, Lovers, Readers, Theatres, Town Talks, Plebeians, Chit Chats, and what not, have failed to win from Mr. Macaulay as much kindly recognition, as the good old Samuel Johnson was ready to reward Mr. Ince with for one Spectator.

But we cannot unresistingly surrender the fame of Steele even to Mr. Macaulay's well-merited fame. To a reputation which time has made classical there belongs what no new reputation can have till it shall in turn become old; and in the attempt to reverse, by a few contemptuous sentences, a verdict of nearly two centuries, it is the assailant who is most in peril. The disadvantage doubtless is great in having to meet a general attack by detailed assertion of the claims denied, but already we have not shrunk from that detail; and still, before entering on such a sketch of Steele's personal career as may best perhaps fix those claims, and ascertain his real place among the men of his time, more of the same kind awaits us. But we will not be tempted into comparisons that would have given pain to his own generous nature. There was no measure to Steele's affection for Addison. Even Fielding's wit could not exaggerate the eagerness with which on all occasions he depreciated his own writings to exaggerate those of his friend. He was above all men in the talent we call humour, he exclaimed again and again; he had it in a form more exquisite and delightful than any other man ever possessed. He declared, in the last

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number of the Tatler, that its finest strokes of wit and humour had been Addison's. He avowed himself, in the last number of the Spectator, more proud of Addison's long-continued friendship than he should be of the fame of being thought even the author of his writings. "I fared like a distressed prince," he said again, speaking of him in the preface to the Tatler's last volume," 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." That Addison had changed the design of the paper he never said; but he never tired of saying that his genius had elevated and enriched it. Again, and still again, at various times, he reasserts this with all the hearty warmth of his unselfish and unmisgiving nature. "I rejoiced in being excelled," he exclaims, remarking on Mr. Tickell's not very generous doubts; " and made those "little talents, whatever they are, which I have, give way, "and be subservient to the superior qualities of a friend "whom I loved." Replying to a more savage attack by Dennis, he still contrives occasion to refer to "that excel"lent man whom Heaven made my friend and superior." Nor had that friend been many weeks in his grave, when, forgetful of all that had clouded their latter intercourse, and having a necessity to mention their joint connection with the Tatler and Spectator, he describes himself as not merely the inventor of those papers, but the introducer into them of " a much better writer than himself who is now immortal." Such a feeling we are bound to respect, we think, out of respect to him who entertained it; even while we see that he suffers no disadvantage from such a noble modesty.

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1

We take therefore a specific statement made by Mr. Macaulay, not necessarily involving a comparison, though made to justify the contempt which would sacrifice one reputation to the other; and we shall meet it by some

1 The Theatre, No. 8, Jan. 26, 1719-20.

additional references to Tatlers written by Steele, so made as also to include some means of judgment upon them. After stating that at the close of 1709 the work was more popular than any periodical paper had ever been, and that Addison's connexion with it was generally known, Mr. Macaulay adds that it was not however known that almost everything good in it was his; and that his fifty or sixty numbers were not merely the best, but so decidedly the best that any five of them were more valuable than all the two hundred numbers in which he had no share. In mere extent, we may pause to remark, the participation was not so large; for, of the sixty numbers printed by Tickell, not much fewer than twenty were joint compositions, and Steele bore his full and equal part in those humorous proceedings before the court of honour, where even Bishop Hurd is fain to admit that "Sir Richard "hath acquitted himself better than usual.” But to dwell further upon this would involve what we wish to avoid. What is absolutely good, or absolutely bad, is not matter of relation or comparison: and if, upon the examples of Steele's Tatlers which now we are about to add to those already named, any question or doubt can be raised of their wit, feeling, or truth; of their invention, their observation of life and of the shades of character; of their humour, or the high moral tendency of their satire; nay, even of their sweetness, facility, and grace of style; the verdict will pass which determines, not this or that degree of inferiority to his friend, but the issue specifically raised by Mr. Macaulay, of whether or not, independently of such considerations, Steele's title as an English humourist is to be conceded any longer. The statue has been flung down from its pedestal, but its features remain yet undefaced, and upon an honest and impartial judgment of them must rest its claim to be restored.

Our first example shall be a domestic picture, drawn by Steele in two Tatlers of within a few weeks' date of each other (Nos. 95 and 114), which to our thinking includes in itself almost every quality enumerated, and