BOOKS.

T11Ji NEW LIFE OF STEELE.* IT was not until the .present century that Sir-Richard Steele received the attention from men of letters to which he was entitled. His merit as the " sprightly father of the English Essay " ranks bim with the foremost of the. Queen Anne-men.

• The Life of Richard Steele. By George A. Aitken. 2 vols. London : Ishister

Although by no means the greatest, he is the freshest and

moat original writer of his time, and if his literary work has many imperfections, it abounds in beauties which appeal to the heart and satisfy it. There are few pleasanter books in the language for a leisure hour than Steele's Tatter. It led the

way to a series of essays of higher literary worth ; but the exquisite art of Addison, which, be it remembered, we owe to his friend, does not. make the careless beauties of Steele less welcome. Like Goldsmith, Steele had such an open dis- position, so great a warmth of heart, so much, in spite of obvious failings, which was loveable and worthy, that the biographer, in depicting such a character, has large scope for his art. The faults and virtues of Sir Richard are alike con- spicuous, and we can obtain a far more vivid portrait of him than it is possible to obtain of a man like Addison, who was, perhaps, more virtuous, and was certainly more reticent and self-restrained.

It is nearly half-a-century since Macaulay applauded Addison at the expense of Steele, and by this invidious com- parison of the two friends aroused, not unnaturally, a feeling in favour of Sir Richard, whose generous depreciation of his own abilities should have preserved him from the attack. Mr. Forster, roused to the defence of Steele, wrote a eulogy of the essayist as able as it was just. Other modern writers have

followed, but while Mr. Dobson's monograph on Steele in English Worthies is likely to satisfy most readers, it is true, as

Mr. Aitken observes, that the present work is the first in which an endeavour has been made to treat the subject exhaustively. That he has done this, will be admitted by every competent reader of these weighty volumes. The careful student will not find, we believe, anything wanting in this Life which it was possible for the most painstaking research to discover.

Mr. Aitken deserves credit for the expenditure of immense labour on his subject, and for having made some discoveries unknown to earlier biographers. He has searched the Public Record Office and the Probate Registry at Somerset House; he has derived assistance from the Lord Steward's Office and from the Lord Chamberlain's Department; he has made use of the public records in Dublin ; he has made researches in libraries at home and abroad. By inquiries at the Colonial Secretary's Office in Barbadoes, he has discovered the name of

Steele's first wife ; and the papers relating to Steele in the Blenheim collection have been placed in his hands by the Duke

of Marlborough. Assistance of the most generous description from private persons is also recorded in the preface ; and the writer has been able to print a large number of letters and manuscripts by Steele hitherto unpublished. The mass of material selected is great, the notes are elaborate, everything that anybody has said of Steele is recorded, and it would almost seem that nothing remains to be done by any future writer in favour of this delightful essayist. To know all about Steele that can be known, the student must go to Mr. Aitken.

This is high praise, but it is not too high, and, unfor- tunately, it must be. given with a considerable qualification.

The biography may prove invaluable for consultation, but it has the serious defect of being wearisome to read. Mr., Aitken's love of minuteness, and his dread of omitting any point that refers, however indirectly, to his hero, have de- stroyed the sense of proportion which is one of the first quali- fications demanded of a biographer. He does not know how to omit, he cannot discriminate between what is essential and what is worthless ; and the result is that the portrait of Steele himself is not made a whit more distinct by the labour now -expended upon it, than by the slighter bat more discrimina- ting sketches of writers who, with less knowledge of the sub- ject than Mr. Aitken, have displayed more literary judgment. We cannot justify this assertion so fully as we should like to

ao, since to prove it minutely would need more patience from our readers than we can fairly demand, and more space than the 'Spectator can afford to give. It must suffice to point out several examples of Mr. Aitken's ponderous method of dealing with as lively a literary topic as the first half of the eighteenth century can supply.

Steele had a kind uncle holding a good position, who was a guardian to his nephew, and to whose bounty he owed a liberal education. Such a relative deserved a note of praise in the biography, but it was scarcely necessary to devote several pages to the record of his official life, to reprint the warrant appointing him Chief Chamberlain of the Exchequer in Ireland, a Royal letter admitting him to the post of Clerk of the King's Scullery, and a variety of other particulars, in- cluding extracts from the Overseers' Rate-Books and Registers of the parish of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Mr. Aitken has dis- covered, and for this we are indebted to him, that the maiden- name of Steele's first wife was Margaret Ford, and that she was a widow—Mrs. Stretch—when she married Steele ; but that scarcely justifies him in giving an elaborate account of the Ford family in Barbadoes, and adding in an appendix the substance of several wills of certain Fords whom he does not believe " were related to the family to which Margaret Ford belonged." Steele's second wife, Mary Scurlock, is known to us by the remarkable series of letters addressed to her by her husband,—letters from which we gain perhaps more insight into his character than from all other sources combined. Of Mrs. Steele as a woman and a wife we know little beyond what may be gathered incidentally from those letters, and Mr. Aitken, who has made the discovery that she was once the defendant in a breach-of-promise case, is unable to throw fresh light upon her character. But his researches have enabled him to disinter a number of figures and facts relating to the Scurlock family through many generations, and a genealogist may find some interesting matter in the pages that contain them. It is, however, obvious that the text of a biography should not be burdened with details like these, which for the most part affect neither Steele nor his wife. Actions for debt form so prominent a feature in Steele's life, that a biographer is bound to mention them. Often there are several such actions in a year—in one term there were no less than eight actions for debt against Steele before the Courts—and in each case the reader is put into full possession of the amounts claimed and the judgment of the Court, which in nearly every instance was unfavourable to Steele. That debt was as natural to Steele as water to a duck, we knew before ; but the particulars of the debts we did not know, nor can we think it essential that they should be given so minutely as to occupy many closely printed pages of the biography. It is, for the most part, wearisome and useless reading. We may say the same with regard to the chapters entitled " Interest in the Theatre Mortgaged" and "Litigation about the Theatre," the gist of which might have been given in two or three para- graphs. If Mr. Aitken felt it his bounden duty to give full particulars of such matters, it was surely open to him to do so in the appendices.

Among Steele's numerous projects was a fish-pool in which salmon were to be carried alive from Ireland to the London market. The scheme for which he took out a patent proved a failure. Two men named Gillmore and Sansome were con- cerned in it, and it ended in a Chancery suit brought by Sansome against Steele and Gillmore. Mr. Aitken, after stating that there is reason to think Steele gained the day, sums up the affair by saying that, while it is tolerably clear that Sansome was not entitled to so large a share of the profits as Steele offered him, the question would ultimately settle itself by the discovery that there were no profits to share with any one; and he adds : " The one thing that is evident is Steele's generosity, which, however, as in other instances, was allied to recklessness, and led him into awkward predicaments." That is all that the reader can care to know of the suit, yet the biographer thinks it necessary to devote eighteen pages to the pleadings in their original form, in order that the reader may weigh the evidence for himself.

Of Sir Richard Steele as a man and as a writer, so much has been recently said, and said well, that to attempt any fresh estimate of his character and literary position would seem superfluous. He resembles Goldsmith in the warmth of his affections, in his reckless generosity, in his fine appreciation of moral qualities, and in the weakness of will that marred the

harmony of his life. Unlike Goldsmith, whose exquisite art gives vitality to everything he has written, Steele with all his

charm as an essayist, is an uncertain and often a slovenly

writer. He has done much that is admirable, and that will, it may be hoped, always keep its place in literature. He has put Ms heart into his words, and a warm and loyal heart it was; but the rashness and impulsiveness which distinguish him as a man, affect also, to some extent, the merit of his work. Yet if Art had done comparatively little for him, Nature had not- been without her compensations. " What a good critic Steele was 1" said Landor, who doubted, with a touch of exaggera-

tion, if he had ever been surpassed. As a story-teller he is admirable, and his pathos is never overstrained; he is seldom "gravelled for lack of matter," and always fresh and wholesome in tone, although, as the age permitted, occasionally coarse in language. No one doubts Steele's sincerity, his humanity, his freedom from petty jealousy, his lively humour, his genuine love of letters ; and blessed with gifts like these he was not badly furnished as an essayist. Steele may not be in the highest sense of the term a great writer, but he is a delightful writer, and there are times when the reader is happier in his cheerful company than in that of wise and serious authors who live nearer to the skies.

Mr. Aitken is to be thanked for bringing us once more into Steele's society and into the circle of the Queen Anne wits. To write of Sir Richard is to write also of Addison and Swift, of Pope and Gay, of Arbuthnot and Prior, and of a period the attractions of which to the literary student increase in pro- portion to his knowledge of it. There is abundant matter for study in these well-printed volumes, the value of which is increased by an ample index, and by portraits engraved for the first time from original paintings.