'But be them honest, firm, impartial;
Let neither love, nor hate, nor faction move thee;
Distinguish words from things, and men from crimes.'
King William, perhaps, had he lived, could fairly have recognized in Steele the social form of that sound mind which in Defoe was solitary. In a later day it was to Steele a proud recollection that his name, to be provided for, 'was in the last table-book ever worn by the glorious and immortal William III.'
The
Funeral
, first acted with great success in 1702, was followed in the next year by
The Tender Husband
, to which Addison contributed some touches, for which Addison wrote a Prologue, and which Steele dedicated to Addison, who would 'be surprised,' he said, 'in the midst of a daily and familiar conversation, with an address which bears so distant an air as a public dedication.' Addison and his friend were then thirty-one years old. Close friends when boys, they are close friends now in the prime of manhood. It was after they had blended wits over the writing of this comedy that Steele expressed his wish for a work, written by both, which should serve as
The Monument
to their most happy friendship. When Addison and Steele were amused together with the writing of this comedy, Addison, having lost his immediate prospect of political employment, and his salary too, by King William's death in the preceding year, had come home from his travels. On his way home he had received, in September, at the Hague, news of his father's death. He wrote from the Hague, to Mr. Wyche,
'At my first arrival I received the news of my father's death, and ever since have been engaged in so much noise and company, that it was impossible for me to think of rhyming in it.'