... Fuit Ilium, et ingens
Gloria.
Steele's
Christian Hero
obtained many readers. Its fifth edition was appended to the first collection of the
Tatler
into volumes, at the time of the establishment of the
Spectator
. The old bent of the English mind was strong in Steele, and he gave unostentatiously a lively wit to the true service of religion, without having spoken or written to the last day of his life a word of mere religious cant. One officer thrust a duel on him for his zeal in seeking to make peace between him and another comrade. Steele, as an officer, then, or soon afterwards, made a Captain of Fusiliers, could not refuse to fight, but stood on the defensive; yet in parrying a thrust his sword pierced his antagonist, and the danger in which he lay quickened that abiding detestation of the practice of duelling, which caused Steele to attack it in his plays, in his
Tatler
, in his