SIR RICHARD STEELE'S " TATLER." * IT was the fashion at
one time to speak of Sir Richard Steele with an air of patronage and pity. Because he could not write with the delicate art of Addison, he was regarded as an essayist whose reputation was in large measure due to his friendship with a greater man. Lord Macaulay confirmed this impression by declaring, with his wonted love of forcible and exaggerated statements, that any five of Addison's essays in the Taller were more valuable than all the two hundred numbers in which he had no share. Even Thackeray, much as he liked Steele and admired his fine qualities, is a little inclined to pat him on the back, and calls him "poor Steele" and "amiable creature." One does not quite like to use such terms of a man so able and, in his own line, so auccessfuL They .are "equivocal at best," as Charles Lamb said of the epithet -" gentle-hearted," bestowed on him by Coleridge. Of late years, Steele's genius has come to be spoken of without this admixture of pity, and the debt literature owes to him is now frankly acknowledged.
About three years ago, Mr. Austin Dobson published a .delightful volume that was welcomed by all admirers of Steele. It contained selections from the Tatter, Spectator, and Guardian, with an introduction that showed the editor's warm apprecia- tion of the "sprightly father of the English essay." Mr.
• The Tatter Selected Essays. With an Introduction and Notes, by Alex. .Charles Ewald, F.S.A. London: Warne and CO.
Dobson hit precisely the charm that attracts us to this writer when he said that, while for faultless art Addison's work is
beyond the range of his friend, yet "for words which the heart finds when the head is seeking ; for phrases glowing with the white heat of a generous emotion ; for sentences which throb and tingle with manly pity or courageous indignation, we must go to the essays of Steele." To our thinking, there is an ease and freshness in the Tatter that make it in certain moods more acceptable than its successor. Possibly Lord Ma,caulay's unjust depreciation of Steele has driven some of his admirers to estimate him too highly ; and yet, when once his im- perfection as a literary artist has been admitted, it would be difficult to do so. Steele is careless, and occasionally slovenly in composition ; but his vivacity, his pathos, his sincerity, his art in telling a story, are qualities that give life to literature and make it easy to overlook defects. And as a man, too, there was much about Steele to win affection. His faults are palpable, and he saw them perhaps as clearly as we do ; but we see also bow large-hearted he was, how full of gentleness and sympathy. His letters to his "dear Prue," written on the impulse of the moment, and assuredly for no eyes but hers, are a revelation of character that does him honour ; and we cannot agree with Forster that Lady Steele treasured up these notelets so carefully because she was "thrifty and prudent of everything that told against him." Steele was not an easy husband to live with ; but it could not have been with unkind feelings that his "dear little, peevish, beautiful, wise governess" kept all the tender words written in her praise. That the two should have had "tiffs," was inevitable; but no one who reads the letters care- fully can doubt, we think, that the love Steele expressed so warmly was returned.
The debt literature owes to Steele can scarcely be over- estimated. He broke new ground, and wrote for the first time in a style fitted for readers who were not literary and who craved for wholesome amusement. There was little or nothing in the current literature of the day to satisfy that craving. The coarse novels of Mrs. Manley and Mrs. Behn could not be read by ladies without some hesitation even in that coarse age, and it was not every one who, like Dorothy Osborne, could enjoy the interminable romances of Mademoiselle de Scuderi.
The Taller appeared in 1709, and it was not until 1719 that Defoe published Robinson Cru.soe, the first English novel fit for both sexes and for every age. If Defoe may be called the father of our novelists, Steele holds the same position as an essayist. The age was unrefined, as Defoe showed in his later novels, and Steele often uses coarse language ; but his aim is always good, and the Taller is not only an amusing but a moral book. The editor put some of his best work into it, but he did still more by the publication, since it gave Addison an opportunity for discovering the true bent of his genius. At that time Addison was regarded as a poet, but his verses, with the exception of a few sacred poems, died with him, and for us the creator of Sir Roger de Coverley lives as an exquisite humourist and essayist. Addison, indeed, may be said to owe his fame to his friend. It is a singular fact that with regard to the form of his work he originated nothing, but followed where Steele led the way ; and it will be remembered that even the first sketch of Sir Roger comes from Steele's hand. Who does not remember how gracefully and modestly he acknowledges his obligations to Addison, and how proud he was to call him friend? He knew that his own genius was obscured by that of the auxiliary who had come to help him. "I am, indeed, much more proud of his long-continued friend- ship," he said, "than I should be of the fame of being thought the author of any writings which he himself is capable of pro- ducing." Steele had printed several numbers of the Taller before Addison contributed an essay ; but Mr. Ewald, in his introduction to this selection from the Taller, states rightly that the success of the periodical was complete and assured from the date of its publication to the day of its withdrawal. He is too much disposed, we think, to adopt Macaulay's view, and to follow the old lines in attributing the Tatter's popularity to the art of Addison. Steele was something far better than a "rollicking, easily led, impulsive, good-hearted, literary man," or he would not have left an enduring mark on our literature. There was a charm about what he wrote which made even his Christian Hero highly popular, and it is certain that the Tatler's great financial success was due to Steele and not to
Addison, since forty or fifty papers, however admirable, would not sustain a periodical that consists of two hundred and seventy-one. By far the larger number of essays come from Steele, and though the matter is slight, and the manner often careless, no reader who has once learned to love the Tatter is likely to lose his zest for it. Steele discovered a new world for Queen Anne readers, and in spite of the allure- ments of modern literature, that world has a special attraction for some of us also in this age of many books. We agree with Mr. Ewald that to the social historian of the period the pages of the Tatter are invaluable, and he might have added that for this vivid picture of the town he is chiefly indebted to the lively sketches of Steele. Neither were Steele's gifts confined to these amusing descriptions of character and manners. He writes often with admirable sense, and always with right feeling ; and then, may we not say with Landor, "What a good critic he was !" although we cannot agree with Landor when he adds, "I doubt if he has ever been surpassed."
The editor's selections from the Tatter contain, it is needless to say, the finest essays which Addison contributed to that paper. Out of about one hundred and twenty-five of the selected essays, over forty are from Addison's pen, or from Addison and Steele in conjunction. We are justified, how- ever, in the heading given to this article. The Tatter belongs to Steele. It was he who, without consulting Addison, started the paper, and brought it suddenly to an end; by far the larger portion of it is the product of his pen, and it was his first great literary venture.
Mr. Ewald has produced an attractive volume. The intro- ductory essay is interesting, but some of the writer's state- ments are open to criticism. Is he right, for instance, in saying that, thanks to the scourging of Jeremy Collier, modest women in the Queen Anne days could visit the theatre unmasked, "neither author nor actor giving occasion for such a veil"? If there was no danger of offending a lady's modesty, it must have been because in that coarse age it was difficult to offend it. For a proof of this, it will suffice to turn to the third number of the Tatter, where we read that Wycherley's Country Wife was acted at Drury Lane, a play justly charac- terised by Macaulay as "one of the most profligate of human compositions ;" or to No. 9, in which Steele writes that he was entertained at the theatre with Congreve's Old Bachelor.
And what in the name of wonder does Mr. Ewald mean by saying that Steele had watched and criticised the fair sex more as an anatomist than as an admirer ? To our thinking, not only the character of the man, but every word he has written about women belies the statement. Was it an anatomist who studied, as the editor asserts, the temper of his dear Prue Or was it his skill in dissection which led him to write his memorable eulogy of Lady Elizabeth Hastings, which, as Thackeray said, was perhaps the finest compliment to a woman that ever was offered ?
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