The reader is chiefly concerned with Steele as an essayist, and it is unnecessary to follow his career in the House of Commons and out of it. Yet there is one anecdote too characteristic to be omitted in the briefest notice of his life. Lady Charlotte Finch had been attacked in the Examiner 'for knotting in St. James's Chapel during divine service, in the immediate presence both of God and her Majesty, who were affronted together.' Steele denounced the calumny in the Guardian. Upon taking his seat as member for Stockbridge, he was attacked by the Tories on account of The Crisis, which they deemed an inflammatory libel, and defended himself in a speech which occupied three hours. When he left the House, Lord Finch, who, like Steele, was a new member, rose to make his maiden speech in defence of the man who had defended his sister; a nervous feeling caused him to hesitate, and he sat down, exclaiming, 'It is strange I cannot speak for this man, though I could readily fight for him.' The House cheered these generous words, and Lord Finch rising again, made an able speech. The effort was a vain one, and Steele lost his seat. A few months later, after the death of Queen Anne, he entered the House again as member for Boroughbridge, and having been placed in the commission of peace for Middlesex, on presenting an address from the county, he received the honour of knighthood.
Meanwhile he had not renounced his vocation of essayist. The Guardian was followed by the Englishman (1713), the Englishman by the Lover (1714), and the Lover by the Reader (1714), a journal strongly political in character. Of this only nine numbers were issued. Then came Town Talk, the Tea Table, Chit-chat, and the Theatre. Sir Richard appears to have been always in a hurry to break new ground, a foible not confined to literature. He was continually starting new projects, and never doubted, in spite of numberless failures, that his latest effort to make a fortune would be successful.
Notwithstanding his appointments as manager of Drury Lane and as a Commissioner in Scotland to inquire into the Estates of Traitors, Steele's money difficulties did not lessen as he advanced in life; worse still, he had the misfortune to quarrel with his oldest and dearest friend. For this he and Addison were alike to blame, and Addison dying a few months later, there was no time for reconciliation. In 1718 Steele had lost his wife, and some years afterwards his only remaining son. Ultimately, broken in health and fortune, Sir Richard retired to Carmarthen, and there, in 1729, he died.
'I was told,' says Victor, 'he retained his cheerful sweetness of temper to the last; and would often be carried out in a summer's evening, when the country lads and lasses were assembled at their rural sports, and with his pencil give an order on his agent, the mercer, for a new gown to the best dancer.'[41]
All literature worthy of the name is the expression of the writer's life, of his aspirations, and of his ultimate aims; and since man is a moral being, it cannot be severed from morality. To point a moral, if it be within the scope of imaginative art, is subordinate to its main purpose. To delight by stimulating the imagination, to give a new beauty to existence by widening the realm of thought,—these are some of the noblest purposes of literature; and while men and women of creative genius are among our wisest teachers, the wisdom we gain from them comes to us without direct enforcement. In the last century, however, authors of good character, and authors who had no character to boast of, were equally impressed with the necessity of adorning their pages with moral maxims, and if this moral was not inserted in the body of the work, it was inevitable that it should be tacked on to the end of it like a tail to a kite. Steele in his artless way had a moral end in view, though his method of reaching it was not always wise or even discreet. Addison had his moral also. It pervades everything he wrote, but so artfully does he make use of it, that the reader is not unpleasantly conscious of a purpose. His allegories belong to an obsolete form of literature, but one of them at least The Vision of Mirza, may be still read with pleasure. His Saturday essays, which are nearly always serious in character, are the sermons of a layman, expressed in the most lucid style and in the purest English. His tales, like his allegories, have lost much of their flavour, but the humorous essays, in which he depicts the manners of the time, as well as the numbers devoted to the Spectator Club and to Addison's beloved Sir Roger, have a perennial charm. There is a felicity in the essayist's touch which is beyond imitation, although a reader might give, as Johnson suggested, days and nights to the study. The style is the man, and to write as Addison wrote it would be necessary to reach his moral and intellectual level, to see with his shrewd but kindly eyes, and to have his fine sense of humour. His faults, too, must be shared by his imitator—the somewhat too delicate refinement of a nature that never yields to impulse—the feminine sensitiveness that is allied to jealousy. Addison, in the judgment of his admirers, comes very near to perfection, and that is an irritating quality in a fellow mortal. It is, if it be not paradoxical to say so, the defect of his essays. There is nothing definite to find fault with in them, but we feel that strength is wanting. The clear and silent stream is a beautiful object, but after awhile it becomes monotonous, and we long for the swift and impetuous movement of a mountain torrent. It would be a thankless task, however, to dwell insistently on the deficiencies of a writer who has done so much for literature, and so much, too, for what is better than literature. We may wish that he had more warmth in him, somewhat more of energy and passion, yet such merits would be scarcely consonant with the graceful charm which gives to the prose writings of Addison an unrivalled position in Pope's age, and, it might be added, in the eighteenth century, were it not for the priceless literary gift bestowed upon Oliver Goldsmith.
Steele's fame as a writer has been overshadowed by the more exquisite genius of Addison, and his reputation has suffered partly from his own frailties and partly from the contemptuous way in which he has been treated by the panegyrists and critics of Addison. Pity is closely allied to contempt, and Sir Richard has come to be regarded as a scapegrace whose chief honour in life was the friendship of the accomplished essayist. Yet it was Steele who created the form of literature in which Addison earned his laurels, and without which he would in the present day be utterly forgotten. Steele was the discoverer of a new country, and if Addison took possession of its fairest portion, it was after his friend had pointed out the path and made the way easy. It would be very unjust, however, to treat of Steele solely as a pioneer. His own work, though less perfect than that of Addison, a consummate master of composition, is rich in variety and spirit, in pathos and in knowledge of the world. Steele is often careless, but he is never dull, and writes with a glow of enthusiasm that excites the reader's sympathy. Truly does Mr. Dobson say that while Addison's essays are faultless in their art and beyond the range of his friend's more impulsive nature, 'for words which the heart finds when the head is seeking; for phrases glowing with the white heat of a generous emotion; for sentences which throb and tingle with manly pity or courageous indignation, we must go to the essays of Steele.'[42]
Sir Richard's pathetic touches and artless turns of expression come from the heart. He is the most natural of writers, but does not seem to be aware that nature, in order to be converted into good literature, needs a little clothing. His essays have often a looseness or negligence of aim unpardonable in a man who can write so well. A conspicuous illustration of this defect may be seen in No. 181 of the Tatler, one of the most beautiful pieces from Steele's pen.
'The first sense of sorrow,' he writes, 'I ever knew 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 with a real understanding why nobody was willing to play with me. 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 slight idea that he was locked up there. My mother catched 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 could never come to us again." She was a very beautiful woman of a noble 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 of what it was to grieve, seized my very soul, and has made pity the weakness of my heart ever since.'
Later on in the essay, and still looking back on the past, Steele recalls the untimely death of the first object his eyes ever beheld with love, and then abruptly dismissing his regrets he carelessly finishes the paper with this characteristic passage: 'A large train of disasters were coming on to my memory when my servant knocked at my closet door, and interrupted me with a letter, attended with a hamper of wine of the same sort with that which is to be put to sale on Thursday next at Garraway's Coffee-house. Upon the receipt of it I sent for three of my friends. We are so intimate that we can be company in whatever state of mind we meet, and can entertain each other without expecting always to rejoice. The wine we found to be generous and warming, but with such a heat as moved us rather to be cheerful than frolicsome. It revived the spirits, without firing the blood. We commended it until two of the clock this morning, and having to-day met a little before dinner, we found that though we drank two bottles a man, we had much more reason to recollect than forget what had passed the night before.'
Steele, to quote Johnson's phrase, was 'the most agreeable rake that ever trod the rounds of indulgence,' but he had many a fine quality that does not harmonize with the character of a rake; and although he hurt himself by his follies, he did his best to help others by his genial wisdom. If he did not sufficiently regard his own interests, his thoughts, as Addison said, 'teemed with projects for his country's good.' Savage Landor, with an impulse of somewhat extravagant eulogy, exclaimed, 'What a good critic Steele was! I doubt if he has ever been surpassed.' This is one of the sayings that will not bear examination. Steele had doubtless the fine perception of what is noble in art and literature, which some men possess instinctively. He felt what was good, but does not appear either to have reached or strengthened his conclusions by any process of study.