Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

“ Steele flung up his Tatler, and instead of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, subscribed himself Richard Steele to the last of those papers, after a handsome compliment to the Town for their kind acceptance of his endeavours to divert them. ”

“ Richard Steele was born in Dublin in 1672; his father was an attorney who married a widow named Elinor Symes, but both his parents died while he was a child, and Steele passed into the care of a kind uncle, Henry Gascoigne, private secretary to the Duke of Ormond, and by his influence was placed upon the foundation of the Charterhouse in 1684. Two years later Joseph Addison, who was only a few weeks younger than Steele, entered that famous school, and the two boys formed the closest of friendships. In 1689 Steele followed Addison to Oxford, entering at Christ Church ”

“ Numb. I. To be continued" (London, 1711) , opens with an account of the discontinuance of the Tatler: "What should this great matter be, but that the old man, the philosopher, the humourist, the astrologer, the censor, the undertaker, the constellation-monger, the Tatler, should be no longer Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.; that he should have neither maid, dog, cat, pipes, or tobacco-box, in Sheer Lane; but one Richard Steele: from whence arises many fatal mischiefs," &c. ”

“ 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's fortune, they had resources enough, but Richard at intervals sends Prue a guinea or two; Richard is constantly in hiding from the bailiffs; is never out of debt; sometimes there is no coal, candle, or meat in the house. Steele was the most affectionate of men and the most generous. He boasted that the world owed Addison's essays to him, because he had made Addison overcome his laziness, and he told the world how greatly Addison was his superior. ”

“ Joseph Addison was born at Milston, England, May 1, 1672. He
completed his education at Queen's and Magdalen colleges, Oxford. He
entered the diplomatic service and rose steadily, becoming one of the
two principal secretaries of state two years before his death. He
attained a higher political position than any other writer has ever
achieved through his literary ability. With Steele he published
The Tatler, and later The Spectator, at first a daily
paper and afterward a tri-weekly one. He was a master of English
prose, and his poems are elevated and serious in style. ”

“ Addison himself had so high an opinion of this simile, as to call it as great as ever entered into the thought of man; for it has in reality no uncommon greatness in it. The image occurs a thousand times in the book of Psalms; so that it has not novelty to recommend it, and the manner of its being expressed, is no way extraordinary. The high terms in which it is celebrated, is the language of friendship, not of judgment. It is very probable Sir Richard Steele, warm'd with a favourite subject, and zealous for the fame of Addison, might express himself thus hyperbolically concerning it ”

“ Addison was a cold politician because he was most himself when analyzing principles of thought, and humours, passions, duties of the individual. Steele, on the contrary, braved ruin for his convictions as a politician, because his social nature turned his earnestness into concern for the well-being of his country, and he lived in times when it was not yet certain that the newly-secured liberties were also finally secured. ”

“ His father was a man of generous culture: an Oxford scholar, who had stood frankly for the Monarchy and Episcopacy in Puritan times; a voluminous and agreeable writer; of whom Steele says that he bred his five children "with all the care imaginable in a liberal and generous way." From this most influential of schools Addison passed on to other masters: from the Grammar School at Lichfield, to the well-known Charter House ”

“ Single-minded, quick-witted, and prompt to act on the first suggestion of a higher point of usefulness to which he might attain, Steele saw the mind of the people ready for a new sort of relation to its writers, and he followed the lead of Defoe. But though he turned from the more frivolous temper of the enfeebled playhouse audience, to commune in free air with the country at large, he took fresh care for the restraint of his deep earnestness within the bounds of a cheerful, unpretending influence. Drop by drop it should fall, and its strength lie in its persistence. ”

“ Addison is sensitive, and has among strangers the reserve of speech and aspect which will pass often for coldness and pride, but is, indeed, the shape taken by modesty in thoughtful men whose instinct it is to speculate and analyze, and who become self-conscious, not through conceit, but because they cannot help turning their speculations also on themselves. Steele wholly comes out of himself as his heart hastens to meet his friend. He lives in his surroundings, and, in friendly intercourse, fixes his whole thought on the worth of his companion. ”

“ The original suggestion for the character of Sir Roger seems to have come from Steele, who wrote that account of the Spectator Club (Spectator, No. 2) in which the knight first appears. But it is to Addison's keener perception and nicer art that we owe most of those subtle and humorous touches of characterization which make the portrait so real and so human. There is more of movement and incident in Steele's papers, and there is more of sentiment. It is Steele, for example, who tells the story of the Journey to London, and recounts the adventures of the Coverley ancestry ”

“ Addison’s character was, in a measure, the complement of Steele’s. He was coy, dignified, reticent—not given to easy familiarities at sight—nor greatly prone to over-fondling. He was the son of an English rector down in Wiltshire; was born in a cottage still standing in Milston—a few miles north of Salisbury. He was a Charter-house boy and Oxford man; had great repute there as scholar—specially as Latinist—became a Fellow—had great Whig friends, who, somehow, secured him a pension, with which he set out upon European travel ”

“ But in the best papers by Addison, like the Visit to the Abbey or the Evening at the Theater, there is hardly a line that does not reveal, in speech, or manner, or notion, some peculiarity of the kindly gentleman we know and love so well. If Steele outlined the portrait, it was left for Addison to elaborate it. Moreover, a careful reading of the papers will show that Steele's conception of the character was slightly different from Addison's. Steele's Sir Roger is whimsical and sentimental, but a man of good sense; not only beloved but respected. ”

“ In very truth it 'doubled all his store.' Steele's heart was open to enjoyment of all kindly intercourse with men. In after years, as expression of thought in the literature of nations gained freedom and sincerity, two types of literature were formed from the types of mind which Addison and Steele may be said to have in some measure represented. Each sought advance towards a better light, one part by dwelling on the individual duties and responsibilities of man, and his relation to the infinite ”

“ I have seen great men in my time, but never such a great one as that head-boy of my childhood: we all thought he must be Prime Minister, and I was disappointed on meeting him in after life to find he was no more than six feet high.
Dick Steele, the Charterhouse gownboy, contracted such an admiration in the years of his childhood, and retained it faithfully through his life. Through the school and through the world, whithersoever his strange fortune led this erring, wayward, affectionate creature, Joseph Addison was always his head boy. Addison wrote his exercises. Addison did his best themes. ”

“ He did indeed try the plainest of speech, not only on dead tyrants and their ministers, but on the society of his own time. The elder Disraeli remarks that Richard Steele meant the Tatler to deal with three provinces—manners, letters, and politics; and that, as to politics, “it remained for the chaster genius of Addison to banish this disagreeable topic from his elegant pages.” Horace was in this respect the Addison of Satire under the Empire. In Juvenal, the Italian medley once more exhibits, though with necessary modifications, the larger and more vigorous spirit of its early prime. ”

“ These two friends now united their efforts in that well-known periodical work, "The Spectator;" by which they reformed the manners, as well as the morals, of their readers, and established their own literary fame. But, as the talents of Addison were superior to those of Steele, so are the papers in this work which were written by him esteemed above the rest;—and, as a mark of distinction, he had the laudable, or his friend Steele the honest pride, to affix a letter at the end of every such paper, by which it should be known for his. ”

“ The liveliness of this comedy made Steele popular with the wits; and the inevitable touches of the author's patriotism brought on him also the notice of the Whigs. Party men might, perhaps, already feel something of the unbending independence that was in Steele himself, as in this play he made old Lord Brumpton teach it to his son:
'But be them honest, firm, impartial ”

“ Steele shared his friend Addison's delight in Milton, and had not, indeed, got beyond the sixth number of the
Tatler
before he compared the natural beauty and innocence of Milton's Adam and Eve with Dryden's treatment of their love. But the one man for whom Steele felt most enthusiasm was not to be sought through books, he was a living moulder of the future of the nation. Eagerly intent upon King William, the hero of the Revolution that secured our liberties, the young patriot found in him also the hero of his verse. ”

“ I shall not think my pains, or indeed my life, to have been spent in vain."2 At the close, speaking in his own name, Steele wrote: "The general purpose of the whole has been to recommend truth, innocence, honour, and virtue, as the chief ornaments of life; but I considered, that severity of manners was absolutely necessary to him who would censure others, and for that reason, and that only, chose to talk in a mask. ”

“ From Nos. 2 and 106 of "The Spectator." It has been conjectured that the world owes to Steele rather than to Addison the original conception of the character of Sir Roger, altho its development was due more largely to Addison. ”

“ Surely this was a woman who deserved the love that never swerved from her. True husband and true friend, he playfully called Addison her rival. In the
Spectator
there is a paper of Steele's (No. 142) representing some of his own love-letters as telling what a man said and should be able to say of his wife after forty years of marriage. Seven years after marriage he signs himself, 'Yours more than you can imagine, or I express.' He dedicates to her a volume of the
Lady's Library
, and writes of her ministrations to him:
'if there are such beings as guardian angels, thus are they employed. ”

“ I know no party; but the truth of the question is what I will support as well as I can, when any man I honour is attacked.'
John Forster, whose keen insight into the essentials of literature led him to write an essay upon each of the two great founders of the latest period of English literature, Defoe and Steele, has pointed out in his masterly essay upon Steele that Swift denies having spoken of Steele as bridled by his friend, and does so in a way that frankly admits Steele's right to be jealous of the imputation. Mr. Forster justly adds that throughout Swift's intimate speech to Stella ”

“ Spectator
is not merely the best example of their skill. It represents also, perhaps best represents, a wholesome Revolution in our Literature. The essential character of English Literature was no more changed than characters of Englishmen were altered by the Declaration of Right which Prince William of Orange had accepted with the English Crown, when Addison had lately left and Steele was leaving Charterhouse for Oxford. Yet change there was, and Steele saw to the heart of it, even in his College days. ”

“ Addison was the author of "Cato," a tragedy, and the "Campaign," celebrating the victory of Blenheim, with other poems. But the reputation of both Steele and Addison rests on their prose. They were the introducers of essay and periodical writings, and carried these to a perfection which has never been surpassed. Richard Steele (b. 1671; d. 1729) has the honour of originating this new department of literature—a departmentwhich has grown into such importance, that the present age would scarcely know how to exist without it. ”

“ Sir Roger we have called him, and be sure that honest Dick Steele, even if he drew the first outlines of the figure, would not bear us a grudge for so doing. Whoever first thought of Sir Roger, and however many little touches may have been added by other hands, he remains Addison’s creation: and furthermore it does not matter a snap of the fingers whether any actual person served as the model from which the picture was taken. Of all the bootless quests that literary criticism can undertake, this search for “the original” is the least valuable. ”