He is, on the authority of Steele himself, the author of N° 205, on Gluttony, dated August the 1st, 1710. At the period of the communication, however, he was unknown to the editor of this paper; though it is certain, from the Epistolary Correspondence of Sir Richard, that, in the course of five years after this event, a very strict intimacy subsisted between them. In a letter writ ten by Sir Richard to Lady Steele, dated Chelsea, Monday, Feb. 14, 1715-16, he says, "Mr. Fuller and I came hither to dine in the air; but the maid has been so slow that we are benighted, and chuse to lie here rather than go this road in the dark. I lie at our own house, and my friend at a relation's in the town *." In a second epis tle to his lady, of the date of March 2, 1716-17, he writes, Budgell †, Benson ‡, and Fuller, came in upon me to dinner. The two last stayed till the evening; and Fuller carried me with him to the play §;" and, in a third, probably of the same year, and addressed likewise to his wife, he mentions a circumstance which leads us to suppose, that Mr. Fuller was a man of considerable fortune. "You ask me," he says, " about * Epistolary Correspondence, vol. i. p. 121. William Benson, Esq. Auditor of the Imprest. my chariot. Fuller made me a present of a very good one: the old one, with ten pounds, will purchase a good chaise *." The passage, however, in the writings of Sir Richard Steele, which gives us the most satisfactory account of Mr. Fuller, is to be found in the Theatre, N° 26, and dated March the 29th, 1720. It is employed on the subject of Duelling; in the course of which he justly remarks, "I can hardly conceive a more laudable act, than declaring an abhorrence of so fashionable a crime, which weakness, cowardice, and impatience of the reproach of fools, have brought upon reasonable men. This sort of behaviour cannot proceed but from a true and undaunted courage ;" and he then proceeds to introduce the subject of our present article by observing, "I cannot but have in great veneration a generous youth, who in public declared his assent and concurrence to this law, by saying, that in spite of the prevailing custom, he triumphed more in being a second to prevent, than he should have been in being one to promote, murder.' A speech, thus ingenious, could come only from a heart that scorned reserves, in compliance to falsehood, to do injury to truth. "This was true greatness of mind; and the man who did it could not possibly do it for his * Steele's Correspondence, vol. i. p. 161. own sake, but must be conscious of a courage sufficient for his own defence, who could thus candidly, at his time of life, rescue other men from the necessity of bearing contempt, or doing an ill action. The mind usually exerts itself in all its faculties with an equal pace towards maturity; and this gentleman, who at the age of sixteen, could form such pleasant pictures of the false and little ambitions of low spirits as Mr. FULLER did, to whom, when a boy, we owe, with several other excellent pieces, The vain-glorious Glutton,' when a secret correspondent of 'The TATLER;' I say, such a one might easily, as he proceeded in human life, arrive at this superior strength of mind at four-and-twenty *." Whether the several other excellent pieces alluded to by Steele were contributions to the Tatler, it is now impossible to ascertain. The essay on Gluttony, No 205, is supposed by the anno tators to have been revised and corrected by Sir Richard. It is certainly an extraordinary production for a youth of sixteen, and indicates more knowledge of life than can be readily allotted to an age so necessarily unexperienced. The moral which this paper conveys is excellent; and it * The Theatre by Sir Richard Steele, with The AntiTheatre, &c. 8vo. edition, by Nichols, 1791, p. 194 and 195. concludes with a very impressive quotation from a sermon by Dr, South. 18.- BROME, D.D. the author of the Spectator, N° 302, descriptive of the character of Emilia. This paper had been claimed by Mr. Duncombe for his friend Mr. Hughes, and the portrait was said to have been drawn for Ann, Countess of Coventry; but "the real writer," says the annotator upon this number, was Dr. Brome, the clergyman of the parish in which the lady lived, who is celebrated here, under the name of Emilia. She was the mother of Mrs. Ascham, of Connington in Cambridgeshire, and grandmother of the present Lady Hatton. This very amiable lady was a great benefactress to Mrs. Ockley, the daughter of Dr. Simon Ockley, who was left at the death of her father not in very easy circumstances. Mrs. Ockley, on whose unsuspicious testimony this information rests, affirms from her own personal knowledge of the real lady, that the character is faithfully delineated. An internal circumstance in the paper itself, the repeated mention of the name of Bromius, seems to corroborate the testimony of Mrs, Ockley, and to vouch for the propriety of the assignment of this paper to Dr. Brome *" * Spectator, vol. iv. p. 289-note, edit, of 1797. There is reason to suppose, from the tenor of this paper, that the virtuous and accomplished Emilia was the wife of Dr. Brome; and as the passage, on which this construction is founded, will add some slight information to what we have already learned concerning our author, and at the same time will present an admirable lesson to the married of the fair sex, I shall make no apology for its transcription. Emilia " having for some time given to the decency of a virgin coyness, and examined the merit of their several pretensions, she at length gratified her own, by resigning herself to the ardent passion of Bromius. Bromius was then master of many good qualities, and a moderate fortune, which was soon after unexpectedly encreased to a plentiful estate. This for a good while proved his misfortune, as it furnished his unexperienced age with the opportunities of evil company, and a sensual life. He might have longer wandered in the labyrinths of vice and folly, had not Emilia's prudent conduct won him over to the government of his reason. Her ingenuity has been constantly employed in humanizing his passions, and refining his pleasures. She has shewn him by her own example, that virtue is consistent with decent freedoms and good-humour, or rather that it cannot subsist |