his mind to that of his fortune. Soon, however, the qualities which made him the delight of his comrades, obtained him a cornetcy in the regiment; and not long after, through the interest of its colonel, Lord Cutts, to whom he had acted as private secretary, he got a company in Lord Lucas's fusiliers, and became Captain Steele. Then began the experiences and temptations he has himself described. He found it, he says, a way of life exposed to much irregularity; and, being thoroughly convinced of many things, of which he often repented and which he more often repeated, he writ, for his own private use, a little book called the Christian Hero. Nevertheless, this little book is not exactly what the good Dr. Drake, and many before him and since, appear to have thought it. You would suppose, from what is said of it, that it was "a valuable little manual" of religious exercises for use in" the intervals snatched from the orgies of voluptuous"ness." But it is by no means this, nor anything else that would amount to such sheer fooling and face-making. Steele had too humble and pious a faith in religion to expose it to ridicule from the unscrupulous companions he lived with. How large and longing is the mind of man, compared with the shortness of his life and the frailty of his desires, he knew; and that his own thoughts were better than his practice, it was no discredit to him also to know. But it was not to set up the one either as a cloak or a contrast to the other that he wrote the Christian Hero. It was not book of either texts or prayers. There was nothing in it that a man conscious of all infirmities might not write; but there was also that in it which must have made its writer more conscious of his powers than he had been till then, and which influenced his future perhaps more than any one has supposed."

1 Apology, p. 296.

2 Perhaps Steele has no where so beautifully expressed the spirit in which he wrote this book, than by that fine paper (No. 27) of the Spectator, in which he says: "There is scarce

"a thinking man in the world, who "is involved in the business of it, "but lives under a secret impatience "of the hurry and fatigue he suffers, "and has formed a resolution to fix "himself, one time or another, in

At the outset of it he tells you that men of business, whatever they may think, have not nearly so much to do with the government of the world as men of wit; but that the men of wit of that age had made a grave mistake in disregarding religion and decency. He attributes it to classical associations, that, being scholars, they are so much more apt to resort to Heathen than to Christian examples; and to correct this error he proposes to show, by a series of instances, how inadequate to all the great needs of life is the Heathen, and how sufficient the Christian morality. Anticipating and answering Gibbon, he

"since the duration of life is so un"certain, and that this has been a common topic of discourse ever "since there was such a thing as life "itself, how is it possible that we "should defer a moment the begin"ning to live according to the rules "" of reason?

selves, cannot give satisfaction แ enough to reward them for half the 66 anxiety they undergo in the pur"suit or possession of them. While 26 men are in this temper (which happens very frequently), how in"consistent are they with them"selves! They are wearied with "the toil they bear, but cannot find "in their hearts to relinquish it; "retirement is what they want, but "they cannot betake themselves to "it; while they pant after shade "and covert, they still affect to "appear in the most glittering scenes "of life: but sure this is only just as "reasonable as if a man should call "for more lights, when he has a "mind to go to sleep.

66 Since, then, it is certain that our own hearts deceive us in the love "of the world, and that we cannot "command ourselves enough to resign "though we every day wish our"selves disengaged from its allure"ments, let us not stand upon a "formal taking of leave, but wean "ourselves from these, while we are "in the midst of them.

"It is certainly the general inten"tion of the greater part of mankind "to accomplish this work, and live "according to their own approbation,

"The man of business has ever some one point to carry, and then "he tells himself he'll bid adieu to "all the vanity of ambition; the man of pleasure resolves to take "his leave at last, and part civilly "with his mistress. But the am"bitious man is entangled every "moment in a fresh pursuit, and the "lover sees new charms in the object 'he fancied he could abandon. It is, "therefore, a fantastical way of think"ing, when we promise ourselves an "alteration in our conduct from "change of place, and difference of "circumstances. The same passions "will attend us wherever we are, till "they are conquered; and we can

never live to our satisfaction in the "deepest retirement, unless we are "capable of so living in some measure "amidst the noise and business of the "world."

And so, when that problem is solved as the kindly philosopher would have solved it, we shall have men at last living really in the day that is present, and not putting life continually off until to-morrow, or to that some other time which is so little likely, for any of us, ever to arrive.

looks upon it as the special design of Providence that the time when the world received the best news it ever heard, was also that when the warriors and philosophers whose virtues are most pompously arrayed in story should have been performing, or just have finished, their parts. He then introduces, with elaborate portraiture of their greatness, Cato, the younger Brutus, and other characters of antiquity; that he may also display them, in their mo ments of highest necessity, deprived of their courage, and deserted by their gods. By way of contrast he next exhibits, "from a certain neglected Book, which is called, and from "its excellence above all other books deservedly called, "The Scripture," what the Christian system is; handling with no theological pretension, but as the common inheritance vouchsafed to us all. He finds in the Sermon on the Mount "the whole heart of man discovered by Him "that made it, and all our secret impulses to ill, and false appearances of good, exposed and detected;" he shows through what storms of want and misery it had been able to bear unscathed the early martyrs and apostles; and, in demonstration of the world's present inattention to its teaching, he tells them that, after all they can say of a man, let them but conclude that he is rich, and they have made him friends, nor have they utterly overthrown him till they have said he is poor. In other words, a sole consideration to prosperity had taken, in their imaginations, the place of Christianity; and what is there that is not lost, pursues kind-hearted Steele, in that which is thus displaced? For Christianity has that in it which "makes men pity, not scorn, the wicked; and, by a "beautiful kind of ignorance of themselves, think those "wretches their equals." It aggravates all the benefits and good offices of life by making them seem fraternal, and its generosity is an enlarged self-love. The Christian so feels the wants of the miserable, that it sweetens the pain of the obliged; he gives with an air that has neither oppression nor superiority in it, "and is always a benefactor "with the mien of a receiver."

66

In an expression already quoted from the Tatler we have seen a paraphrase of these last few words; but indeed Mr. Bickerstaff's practical and gentle philosophy, not less than his language, is anticipated by Captain Steele. The spirit of both is the same. The leading purpose in both is a hearty sympathy with humanity: a belief, as both express it, that "it is not possible for a human heart to "be averse to anything that is human;" a desire to link the highest associations to the commonest things; a faith in the compatibility of mirth with virtue; the wish to smooth life's road by the least acts of benevolence as well as by the greatest; and the lesson so to keep our understandings balanced, that things shall appear to us "great or little as they are in nature, not as they are gilded or "sullied by accident and fortune." The thoughts and expressions, as may be seen in these quoted, are frequently the same; each has the antithetical turns and verbal contrasts, "the proud submission, the dignified "obedience," which is a peculiarity of Steele's manner;. in both we have the author aiming far less to be author than to be companion; and there is even a passage in this Christian Hero which brings rustling about us the hoops and petticoats of Mr. Bickerstaff's Chloes and Clarissas. He talks of the coarseness and folly, the alternate rapture and contempt, with which women are treated by the wits; he desires to see the love they inspire taken out of that false disguise, and put in its own gay and becoming dress of innocence; and he tells us that "in their tender frame "there is native simplicity, groundless fear, and little "unaccountable contradictions, upon which there might "be built expostulations to divert a good and intelligent young woman, as well as the fulsome raptures, guilty "impressions, senseless deifications, and pretended deaths, "that are every day offered her." Captain Steele dedicates his little book to Lord Cutts, dates it from the Tower Guard, and winds it up with a parallel between the French and the English king, not unbecoming a Christian soldier. But surely, as we read it on to its close, the cocked hat,

66

the shoulder-belt, the jack-boots disappear; and we have before us, in gown and slippers, the Editor of the Tatler. Exit the soldier, and enter the wit.

The publication of the Christian Hero, in 1701, is certainly the point of transition. He says himself that after it he was not thought so good a companion, and that he found it necessary to enliven his character by another kind of writing. The truth is that he had discovered, at last, what he best could do; and where in future he was to mount guard was not at the Tower, or under command of my Lord Cutts, but at the St. James's coffee-house, or Will's, in waiting on Mr. Congreve. The author of the Old Bachelor and Love for Love now sat in the chair just vacated by Dryden; and appears to have shown unusual kindness to his new and promising recruit. In a letter of this date he talks of Dick Steele with an agreeable air of cordiality; and such was then Mr. Congreve's distinction, that his mere notice was no trifling feather in the cap of an ex-captain of Fusileers. "I hope I may have leave to "indulge my vanity," says Steele, "by telling all the "world that Mr. Congreve is my friend." The Muse's Mercury not only told the world the same thing, but published verses of the new Whig wit, and threw out hints of a forthcoming comedy.

The Funeral, or Grief à la Mode, Steele's first dramatic production, was played at Drury Lane in 1702. Very sprightly and pleasant throughout, it was full of telling hits at lawyers and undertakers; and, with a great many laughable incidents, and no laugh raised at the expense of virtue or decency, it had one character (the widow on whom the artifice of her husband's supposed death is played off) which is a masterpiece of comedy. Guardsmen and Fusileers mustered strong on the first night; in the prologue, "a fellow soldier" made appeal to their soldierly sympathies; Cibber, Wilks, Norris, and Mrs. Oldfield were in the cast; and the success was complete. One can imagine the enjoyment of the scene where the undertaker reviews his regiment of mourners, and singles