In 1710 Sir Richard was made a Commissioner of the Stamp Duties, which office he resigned in 1713; and from a placeman he became a violent oppositionist. He took his seat in the House of Commons as Member for Stockbridge, in Hampshire, but was expelled thence in a few days after for writing several seditious libels. From this time till the death of Queen Anne his attention was wholly engrossed in writing and publishing political tracts. [107]
On the accession of George I. he was again taken into favour; was appointed Surveyor to the Royal Stables at Hampton Court, had the honour of knighthood conferred upon him, and during the whole of this reign continued to receive many marks of the royal bounty.
It might now naturally be imagined that, taught by ample experience, Sir Richard would pay some attention to economy: such, however, was the power of habit, and such was his thoughtless profusion, that scarcely a twelvemonth had passed before he was obliged to sell his share in a theatre to relieve the oppressive exigencies of want. In 1725 he surrendered the whole of his property to his creditors, and retired to Wales, where, in the following year, he was seized with a paralytic stroke, which rendered him incapable of any further literary effort.
By the indulgence of the mortgagee he resided on his estate, near Carmarthen, which he had formerly acquired on his marriage with his second wife. After lingering nearly two years in this secluded situation, he died September 21, 1729. Such was the chequered life of Steele, at one time exulting on the wing of prosperity; at another depressed by all the evils of the most embittered poverty. His frailties were not the offspring of vice, but the effects of habitual carelessness and the want of prudence. Compassionate in his heart; unbounded in his benevolence; no object of distress that he could relieve ever left him with a murmur; and in the hour of prosperity he was ever ready, both with his influence and property, to promote the views of literature and science, and to assist the efforts of unprotected genius. Mental wealth, however poor and humble the possessor, was esteemed by him to be of invaluable worth. [108]
Don Saltero’s Coffee House.
This well known coffee-house was first opened in the year 1695, by one Salter, who had been a servant to Sir Hans Sloane, and had accompanied him on his travels. The collection of curiosities, which were principally the gift of his master, being the duplicates of his various curious collections, drew from London a multitude of spectators. It existed for more than a century, and was at length sold by public auction in the year 1799.
In “The Tatler,” No. 34, Sir Richard Steele has given the following humorous description of this once far-famed collection of rarities, and of its eccentric proprietor:—
“Being of a very spare and hective constitution, I am forced to make frequent journies of a mile or two for fresh air; and indeed by this last, which was no further than the village of Chelsea, I am farther convinced of the necessity of travelling to know the world; for, as it is usual with young voyagers, as soon as they land upon a shore, to begin their accounts of the nature of the people, their soil, their government, their inclinations, and their passions, so really I fancied I could give you an immediate description of this village from the Five Fields, where the robbers lie in wait, to the coffee-house, where the literati sit in council. A great ancestor of ours, by the mother’s side, Mr. Justice Overdo, (whose history is written by Ben Johnson,) met with more enormities by walking incognito than he was capable of correcting; and found great mortifications in observing, also, persons of eminence, whom he before knew nothing of: thus it fared with me, even in a place so near the town as this. When I came into the coffee-house, I had not time to salute the company, before my eye was diverted by 10,000 gimcracks round the room, and on the ceiling. When my first astonishment was over, comes to me a sage, of thin and meagre countenance, which aspect made me doubt whether reading or fretting had made it so philosophic; but I very soon perceived him to be of that sect which the ancients call Gingivistæ, in our language, tooth-drawers. I immediately had a respect for the man; for these practical philosophers go upon a very rational hypothesis, not to cure, but to take away the part affected. My love of mankind made me very benevolent to Mr. Salter; for such is the name of this eminent barber and antiquary. Men are usually, but unjustly, distinguished rather by their fortunes than their talents, otherwise their patronage would make a great figure in that class of men which I distinguish under the title of Odd Fellows; but it is the misfortune of persons of great genius to have their faculties dissipated by attention to too many things at once. Mr. Salter is an instance of this; if he would wholly give himself up to the string, instead of playing twenty beginnings to tunes, he might, before he dies play Roger de Caubly quite out. I heard him go through his whole round; and, indeed, I think he does play the Merry Christ Church Bells pretty justly; but he confessed to me, he did that rather to show he was orthodox than that he valued himself upon the music itself. Or if he did proceed in his anatomy, why might he not hope in time to cut off legs, as well as draw teeth?
“The particularity of this man put me into a deep thought, whence it should proceed that, of all the lower order, barbers should go further in hitting the ridiculous than any other set of men: watermen brawl, cobblers sing; but why must a barber be for ever a politician, a musician, an anatomist, a poet, and a physician. The learned Vossius says, his barber used to comb his hair in iambics; and indeed in all ages, one of this useful profession, this order of cosmetic philosophers, has been celebrated by the most eminent hands. You see the barber, in Don Quixote, is one of the principal characters in the history, which gave me satisfaction in the doubt, why Don Saltero writ his name with a Spanish termination; for he is descended in a right line, not from John Tradescant, as he himself asserts, but from that memorable companion of the Knight of Mancha; and I hereby certify, to all the worthy citizens who travel to see his rarities, that his double-barrelled pistols, targets, coats of mails, his sclopeta, and sword of Toledo, were left to his ancestor, by the said ancestor to all his progeny down to Don Saltero. Though I go thus far in favour of Don Saltero’s merit, I cannot allow a liberty he takes of imposing several names (without my licence) on the collections he has made, to the abuse of the good people of England, one of which is particularly calculated to deceive religious persons, to the great scandal of the well-disposed, and may introduce heterodox opinions: he shows you a straw hat, which I know to be made by Madge Peskad, within three miles of Bedford, and tells you it is Pontius Pilate’s wife’s chambermaid’s sister’s hat. To my knowledge of this very hat, it may be added, that the covering of straw was never used among the Jews, since it was demanded of them to make bricks without it.
“Therefore this is really nothing, but, under the specious pretence of learning and antiquity, to impose upon the world. There are other things which I cannot tolerate among his rarities, as the china figure of a lady in the glass case, the Italian engine for the imprisonment of those who go abroad with it; both of which I hereby order to be taken down, or else he may expect to have his letters-patent for making punch superseded, be debarred wearing his muff next winter, or ever coming to London without his wife.
“It may be thought, perhaps, I have dwelt too long upon the affairs of this operator; but I desire the reader to remember that it is my way to consider men as they stand in merit, and not according to their fortune or figure; and if he is in a coffee-house at the reading hereof, let him look round, and he will find there may be more characters drawn in this account than that of Don Saltero; for half the politicians about him, he may observe, are, by their place in nature, of the class of tooth-drawers.”
The curiosities of this collection were deposited in glass-cases, and consisted of a great variety of petrifactions, corals, chrystals, ores, shells, animals preserved in spirits, stuffed animals from various parts of the world, idols, curious Chinese manuscripts, missals, birds, snakes, butterflies, medals, models, fire-arms, fishes, portraits, prints, &c.
A catalogue of the whole was printed, with the names of the donors affixed; and under the management of skilful hands this collection could not have failed to produce ample remuneration and profit.