Richard Steele / Edited, with an Introduction and Notes by G. A. Aitken

by Sir Richard Steele

III.

Steele says that The Funeral, "with some particulars enlarged upon to his advantage," had obtained for him the notice of the king, and that "his name, to be provided for, was in the last table-book ever worn by the glorious and immortal William the Third." He was, however, disappointed, for King William died in March, 1702. But about that time Steele was made a Captain of Foot in a new regiment whose Colonel was Lord Lucas, whom Steele had known at the Tower. Each officer raised a company, and Steele was sent to Landguard Fort, opposite Harwich, where he did everything in his power for the good of the men under him. At the end of the year, or at the beginning of 1703, he agreed to sell to Christopher Rich a comedy, which was nearly finished, called The Election of Gotham. Of that play nothing further is known; but Steele obtained £72 from Rich, to be repaid in March.[4] Rich said that Steele was in want of money and in danger of arrest, and it is a fact that the first of a long series of actions for debt had some time before been commenced against him. Steele, however, said that the money was paid to induce him to write more, and upon condition that he should bring his next play to Rich, whom he charged with oppression and extortion. We shall hear more of this quarrel.

Complaints against the immorality of the stage increased in number. In 1702 Queen Anne directed that certain actors at Lincoln's Inn Fields should be prosecuted, and they were found guilty of "uttering impious, lewd, and immoral expressions." Collier wrote A Dissuasive from the Play House, which was answered by Dennis, and the Lord Chamberlain ordered that all plays must be licensed by the Master of the Revels, who was not to pass anything not strictly agreeable to religion and good manners. At that time, it should be remembered, the play began about five, and ended at eight, "for the convenience of the Qualities resorting to the Park after." Such was the condition of affairs when Steele's second comedy, The Lying Lover, or the Ladies' Friendship, was produced, in December, 1703, to run for six nights.

In his Apology Steele afterwards wrote of the Lying Lover:—"Mr. Collier had, about the time wherein this was published, written against the immorality of the stage. I was (as far as I durst for fear of witty men, upon whom he had been too severe) a great admirer of his work, and took it into my head to write a comedy in the severity he required. In this play I make the spark or hero kill a man in his drink, and finding himself in prison the next morning, I give him the contrition which he ought to have on that occasion.... I can't tell, sir, what they would have me do to prove me a Churchman; but I think I have appeared one even in so trifling a thing as a comedy; and considering me as a comic poet, I have been a martyr and confessor for the Church; for this play was damned for its piety." In the Dedication of the play to the Duke of Ormond, he says, "The design of it is to banish out of conversation all entertainment which does not proceed from simplicity of mind, good nature, friendship, and honour;" and in the Preface he again refers to the manner in which the English stage had offended against the laws of morals and religion; "I thought, therefore, it would be an honest ambition to attempt a comedy which might be no improper entertainment in a Christian commonwealth." He admits that the anguish and sorrow in the prison scene "are, perhaps, an injury to the rules of comedy; but I am sure they are a justice to those of morality." It was to be hoped that wit would now recover from its apostacy, for the Queen had "taken the stage under her consideration."

The play was based upon Corneille's Le Menteur, but the latter and more serious portion is entirely Steele's. Alarcon, from whom Corneille borrowed, made his liar marry a girl he did not care for instead of the one he loved; Corneille made the liar's love change, so that his marriage met his wishes; while Steele represents Bookwit's inveterate love of romancing, generally in self-glorification, as leading to a duel with Penelope's lover, and to his own imprisonment in Newgate. This trouble teaches him the necessary lesson, and the hope is held out to him, at the end, of the hand of Penelope's friend, Victoria. "There is no gallantry in love but truth," are his last words.

There are many amusing passages in the Lying Lover, and young Bookwit is very entertaining in the earlier acts, especially in his boastful account to the ladies of his imaginary campaigns:—"There's an intimate of mine, a general officer, who has often said, 'Tom, if thou would'st but stick to any one application, thou might'st be anything.' 'Tis my misfortune, madam, to have a mind too extensive." In the second act there is a pleasant account of "the pretty merchants and their dealers" at the New Exchange, where Bookwit was bewildered by the darts and glances against which he was not impregnable; and in the third act, Penelope and Victoria, who are both fascinated by the young liar, be-patch and be-powder each other in the hope of making their rival ugly, while they profess—like their maids—to be on the closest terms of friendship. In the fourth act, after the duel, the constable remarks, "Sir, what were you running so fast for? There's a man killed in the garden, and you're a fine gentleman, and it must be you—for good honest people only beat one another." And there is an admirable scene in Newgate, where Bookwit is received with respect by highwaymen and others because he is supposed to have killed a man. An alchemist—"the ignorant will needs call it coining"—who is about to be hung, says, "Yet let me tell you, sir, because by secret sympathy I'm yours, I must acquaint you, if you can obtain the favour of an opportunity and a crucible, I can show projection—directly Sol, sir, Sol, sir, more bright than that high luminary the Latins called so—wealth shall be yours; we'll turn every bar about us into golden ingots.—Sir, can you lend me half-a-crown?"

It is only in the last act that art is sacrificed to the moral purpose that Steele had in his view. The ladies repent of their mutual plottings; and Bookwit, who believes that he has killed his opponent, looks forward to death, and makes many solemn speeches, printed in blank verse, which will to a great extent account for the failure of the piece. Bookwit's father is broken-hearted; and a friend heroically declares that it was he, and not Bookwit, who killed Lovemore; whereupon Lovemore says, "I can hold out no longer," and brings matters to a happy ending by explaining that he had in reality been only slightly wounded. Hazlitt's words respecting Steele's plays are truer of the Lying Lover than of the rest: "It is almost a misnomer to call them comedies; they are rather homilies in dialogues." But even in this piece there is, as we have seen, nothing that can properly be called homily except at the close. Ward has described the play more accurately, as "the first instance of sentimental comedy proper. It is attempted to produce an effect, not by making vice and folly ridiculous, but by moving compassion."

It was Steele, rather than young Bookwit, who says in the first scene, "I don't know how to express myself—but a woman, methinks, is a being between us and angels. She has something in her that at the same time gives awe and invitation; and I swear to you, I was never out in't yet, but I always judged of men as I observed they judged of women: there is nothing shows a man so much as the object of his affections."