To

than depravity, but in whose follies and vices. he participated with a freedom for which his conscience frequently reproached him. counteract the force of temptations thus continually presenting themselves, he had recourse to a very singular expedient. He tells us, that, “ "being thoroughly convinced of many things which he often repented and as often repeated, he wrote, for his own private use, a little book, called "The Christian Hero," with a design principally to fix upon his mind a strong impression of virtue and religion, in opposition to a stronger propensity to unwarrantable pleasures."

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In this he appears to have followed, I know not whether intentionally, the example of the Puritans, in their forms of personal covenanting, a practice not uncommon in more modern times with the pious of a certain class, but for which the authority has been thought doubtful, and which in many cases will prove dangerous. A great judge of the human heart has well observed, that a man who proposes schemes of life in a state of abstraction and disengagement, exempt from the enticements of hope, the solicitations of affection, the importunities of appetite, or the depressions of fear, is in the same state with him that teaches upon land the art of navigation, to whom the sea is always smooth, and the wind always prosperous*.

Rambler, N° 14. DENHAM, the poet, was another inst. nce of a man attempting to write himself out of his follies.

STEELE Soon discovered at least one mistake in this experiment; he discovered that the support of this little book was too weak, while his engagement to be virtuous was voluntary and unknown. To render it more binding, he reprinted the book with his name, and endeavoured to live as well as he wrote, appealing boldly to the world for the consistency of his principles and practice. But this, we are told, had no other good effect than that, from being thought a pleasant companion, he was reckoned a disagreeable fellow. "One or

two of his companions thought fit to misuse him, and try their valour upon him, and every body measured the least levity in his words and actions with the character of a Christian Hero."

This little work was printed in 1701, with a dedication to Lord CUTTS, who had not only appointed him his private secretary, but procured for him a company in Lord LUCAS's regiment of fuzileers. It consists chiefly of a review of the characters of some celebrated heathens, contrasted with the life and principles of our blessed Saviour, and of St. Paul, from which it is his object to prove, that none of the heroic virtues, or "true greatness of mind," can be maintained, unless upon Christian principles. The language is far from being regular, and, perhaps, he may seem deficient in

To show that he repented and was reclaimed from gaming, he published an Essay on that vice; but a few years proved that he was not reclaimed, and had again to repent.

powers of argument: but his address has much of that honest zeal and affection which comes from the heart. It has been often reprinted and circulated among the middling class of readers, and in his own time probably redounded more to his honour as an author, than to his advantage as a man; for he informs us, that the rebuffs he met with, instead of encouragements for his declarations in regard to religion, laid him under a necessity of enlivening his character; and with this view, he wrote his first play, called "The Funeral, or Grief Alamode," which was very successfully performed the same year, and is yet a favourite with the public. This play is said to have procured him the regard of KING WILLIAM, who intended to have bestowed some mark of favour upon him, which the death of that monarch prevented. By the friendship, however, of Lord HALIFAX, and of the Earl of SUNDERLAND, to whom he had been recommended by ADDISON, he was, in the beginning of QUEEN ANNE's reign, appointed GAZETTEER. ADDISON is said also to have assisted him in the comedy of the "Tender Husband, or the Accomplished Fools," which was acted with great success in 1704. The friendship between these two illustrious characters commenced when they were school-fellows at the Charter-house. "I remember," says STEELE, "when I finished the "Tender Husband," I told him (ADDISON) there was nothing

I so tenderly wished, as that we might, sometime or other, publish a work written by us both, which should bear the name of the MoNUMENT, in memory of our friendship *."

His next play was "The Lying Lover," which he tells us," was damned for its piety;" a fate which it does not appear to deserve on that, or any other account more within the province of a dramatic tribunal. There is great regularity in the fable of all his plays, and the characters are well sketched and preserved; but in the dialogue he is sometimes tedious. He wants the quick repartee of CoNGREVE, and though possessed of humour, falls into the style rather of an oration than a drama. Much of that point which appears in his TATLERS may be discovered in his comedies.

After the condemnation of this play, he commenced the TATLER, on the 12th of April, 1709. During its publication, in 1710, he was appointed a commissioner of the Stamp Duties, which he retained after that ministry was dismissed, by whose favour the place had been conferred. The TATLER was almost immediately followed by the SPECTATOR and GUARDIAN. In the course of the GUARDIAN, he began to take a greater share in the politics of the day, and engaged with considerable warmth against the ministry, though rather covertly but at length resigning his place in the Stamp Office, and a pension which he had enjoyed as belonging to the household of * Spec. No 555.

PRINCE GEORGE OF DENMARK, he declared open war against the ministers, by publishing the GUARDIAN on the demolition of Dunkirk, and other political tracts. On the dissolution of parliament, he was returned member for Stockbridge, in Hampshire; but was expelled the house a few days after he took his seat, for several seditious and scandalous libels.. Immediately after his expulsion, he issued proposals for writing the history of the DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH, whose character he always defended, but this work was never executed. At the same time he wrote "THE SPINSTER;" and, in opposition to the EXAMINER, he began a paper entitled "THE READER *.”

This contest was beneficial in the end. On the death of the Queen, he was appointed Surveyor of the Royal Stables at Hampton Court, and put into the commission of the peace for the county of Middlesex; and having procured a licence for chief manager of the royal company of comedians, he easily obtained it to be changed in the same year (1714) into a patent from his Majesty, appointing him governor of the said company during his life, and to his executors, administrators, or assigns, for the space of three years afterwards. He was also chosen one of the representatives of Boroughbrigg, in Yorkshire, in the first parliament of GEORGE I. who conferred the honour of knighthood upon him April 8, 1715, on his presenting an address from the Lieu

*See Preface to the GUARDIAN, P. 37 and 41. VOL. I.

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