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world, and calls every thriving man a pitiful upstart, by no means to the general dissatisfaction; there is Major Matchlock, who served in the last civil wars, and every night tells them of his having been knocked off his horse at the rising of the London apprentices, for which he is in great esteem; there is honest old Dick Reptile, who says little himself, but who laughs at all the jokes; and there is the elderly Bencher of the Temple, and next to Mr. Bickerstaff, the wit of the company, who has by heart the couplets of Hudibras, which he regularly applies before leaving the club of an evening, and who, if any modern wit or town frolic be mentioned, shakes his head at the dulness of the present age and tells a story of Jack Ogle. As for Mr. Bickerstaff himself, he is esteemed among them because they see he is something respected by others; but though they concede to him a great deal of learning, they credit him with small knowledge of the world, "insomuch that the Major sometimes, in the height of his military pride, calls me philosopher; and Sir Jeffrey, no longer ago than last night, upon a dispute what day of the month it was then in Holland, pulled his pipe out of his mouth, and cried, 'What does the scholar say to it ?" "

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STEELE AND SWIFT QUARREL.

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We have already seen how Jonathan Swift, tleman in boots just come out of the country," was introduced to Steele and Addison at the St. James's coffee-house.* They now frequently met at Lord Halifax's "good dinners ;" and never was Swift so intimate as now with Steele and Addison. We have him dining with Steele at the George, when Addison entertains; with Addison at the Fountain, when Steele entertains; and with both at the St. James's when Wortley Montagu is the host. The intimacy had been strengthened into a sort of co-partnery in a very notable pleasantry. Swift had lately launched the wonderful joke against Partridge, the astrologer, and which was turned to a memorable use by Steele.+ Swift predicted Partridge's death on the 29th of March; and in casting out for a whimsical name to give to the assumed other astrologer who was to publish this joke, his eye caught a sign over a blacksmith's house with Isaac Bickerstaff underneath. Out, accordingly, came Mr. Bickerstaff's predictions, followed very

* See p. 38, ante.

+ See, also, pp. 24-25, ante.

speedily by an account of the accomplishment of the first of them upon "the 29th instant." Partridge was fool enough to take the matter up gravely, declared in a furious pamphlet that he was perfectly well, and they were knaves who reported it otherwise. Bickerstaff retorted most divertingly; and Steele was foremost in contributing to the entertainment. Congreve, affecting to come to the rescue, took up Partridge's cause, complaining that he was twitted for sneaking about without paying his funeral expenses. All this, heightened in comicality by its contrast with the downright rage of Partridge, who was continually advertising himself not dead, and by the Company of Stationers actually proceeding as if in earnest he were, so contributed to make Mr. Bickerstaff talked about, far and wide, that Steele afterwards spoke with no exaggeration when he gave Swift the merit of having rendered his name famous through all parts of Europe.

Swift is thought to have been admitted by Steele to the secret of the forthcoming Tatler: he was still lingering in London, and Steele was in constant communication with him, (all Swift's letters and packets being addressed to him at the Gazette office, for the friend's privilege of so getting them free of postage:) and with the Doctor, Steele may probably have advised before using Mr. Bickerstaff's name. Generally, Swift wrote in the Tatler as a correspondent; but occasionally Steele surrendered Mr. Bickerstaff's chair to him. The friendship of Swift and Steele lasted till the autumn of 1710, when Jonathan proved false to his old associate: the Whigs were now overthrown, and Swift having cast his fortunes against his old friends, was dining with Harley; and before the same month was closed, the Gazette was taken from Steele. Swift now affected to feel surprise at Steele's coolness to him: he had never been invited to Bury-street since he came over from Ireland; he complained that during this visit he had not seen his wife, "by whom he is governed most abominably. So what care I for his wit ?" he adds, "for he is the worst company in the world till he has a bottle of wine in his head." Nevertheless, the two friends soon met at the St. James's, at the coffeeman's christening, where Steele and Swift sat together over a bowl of punch until very late indeed. Soon after this, Swift, at the request of the new Lord Treasurer, Harley, refused to give any more help to the Tatler.

But Swift quarrelled with Steele about 1713. The Dean

says Steele attacked him in the Guardian, and that he called him an infidel, but this is not proved by the Guardian. There must have been some more serious grounds of quarrel than these; and a correspondent of Notes and Queries (2nd S., No. 106,) suspects Steele to have written a gross pamphlet against the Dean, entitled Essays, Divine, Moral, and Political. Swift had his revenge in the venomous pamphleteering fashion of that day; and from that time to the hour of Steele's death they were enemies.

Some account of their public controversy will be interesting. In the Guardian, No. 120, Steele had attacked the ministers for negligence in enforcing that stipulation of the treaty of Utrecht which respected the demolition of Dunkirk; and being then about to be elected member of Parliament for Stockbridge, he pursued the subject in a pamphlet, entitled The Importance of Dunkirk Considered, in a letter to the bailiff of that borough. Swift, with less feeling of their ancient intimacy than of their recent quarrel, appears readily and eagerly to have taken up the gauntlet. His first insulting and vindictive answer is, The Importance of the Guardian Considered, in which the person, talents, history, and morals of his early friend are the subject of the most acrimonious raillery; and where he attempts to expose the presumption of Steele's pretensions to interfere in the councils of princes, whether as a publisher of Tatlers and Spectators, and the occasional author of a Guardian; or from his being a soldier, alchymist, gazetteer, commissioner of stamped papers, or gentlemanusher. Besides this diatribe, there appeared two others, in which Swift seems to have had some concern. One was, The Character of Richard Steele, Esquire, with some Remarks by Toby. Swift was the supposed author of this piece, which is, however, with more probability, ascribed to Dr. Wagstaffe, under his directions. Steele is thought to have ascribed it to Swift: in the Englishman, No. 57, he says: "I think I know the author of this, and to show him I know no revenge, but in the method of heaping coals on his head by benefits, I forbear giving him what he deserves, for no other reason but that I know his sensibility of reproach is such, that he would be unable to bear life itself under half the ill language he has given me." Swift took this allusion to himself and admitted that he was originally as unwilling to be libelled as the nicest man could be, but that he had been used to such treatment ever since he unhappily began to be known, and had now grown hardened.

A ludicrous paraphrase on the first ode of the second book of Horace is entirely of Swift's composition.

Steele did not condescend to retort these personalities. He was then engaged, with the assistance of Addison, Hoadly, Lechmere, and Marshall, in the composition of the Crisis, intended to alarm the public men upon the danger of the Protestant succession, and the predominating power of France. This treatise is little more than a digest of the acts of parliament respecting the succession, mixed with a few comments. Extraordinary exertions were made to obtain subscriptions, and it was plain that the relief of the author's necessities was the principal object of the publication. This did not escape Swift, who published his celebrated comment under the title of "The Public Spirit of the Whigs,

set forth in their generous encouragement of the author of the Crisis; with some observations on the seasonableness, candour, erudition, and style of that treatise." In this pamphlet, Steele is assailed by satire as personal and as violent as in the former. Thus he is compared with John Dunton, the crack-brained projector, and the compiler of the Flying Post, to whom he must yield-to Dunton in keenness of satire and variety of reading, and to the compiler in knowledge of the world and skill in politics;-yet has other qualities enough to denominate him a writer of a superior class to either ;-provided he would a little regard the propriety and disposition of his words, consult the grammatical part, and get some information on the subject he intends to handle," &c.

However, Steele remained unmoved, and his only reply was moderate and dignified. In defence of himself and his writings before the House of Commons, among several passages in former publications, from which he claimed the honours due to a friend of virtue, he quoted the favourable character given in the Tatler of the Project for the Advancement of Religion, and of its author, with the following simple and manly comment:"The gentleman I here intended was Dr. Swift. This kind of man I thought him at that time: we have not met of late, but I hope he deserves this character still."

STEELE'S COTTAGE AT HAVERSTOCK HILL.

Steele, with all his indulgence in the dissipation of a town life, appears to have been fond of fresh air and the country. His residence at Hampton Court was to be close to the palace stables, of which he was surveyor, though he was evidently fond of the locality; and his removal to Bloomsbury-square may not have been merely dictated by fashion; for this was not only then a fashionable quarter of the town, but was noted for its "good aire," and had its fine gardens and view of the country, as far as Haverstock Hill, where, about midway between Camden Town and Hampstead, Steele tenanted a cottage in the year 1712. In the same cottage, in 1701, had died Sir Charles Sedley," the satirical wit, comedian, poet, and courtier of ladies." In Steele's time this dwelling must have been a country retreat, as there were not then more than a score or two of buildings between it and Oxford-road, and Montague House, and Bloomsbury-square. In the cottage was an apartment called "the Philosopher's room," probably the same in which Steele used to write. On the opposite side of the road, the notorious Mother or Moll King built three substantial houses; and in a small villa behind them lived her favourite pupil, Nancy Dawson. In Hogarth's "March to Finchley," Steele's cottage and Mother King's houses are seen in the distance. Hampstead was then a fashionable resort, and had its chalybeate waters, its concerts and balls,

raffles at the wells, races on the Heath, and music-house at Belsize; the Lower Flask tavern is made by Richardson Clarissa Harlowe's retreat; and at the Upper Flask met the Kit-Kat Club in the summer months. Gay, Akenside, and Shakspeare Steevens were among the literary celebrities of Hampstead.

STEELE'S QUARREL WITH ADDISON.

Steele became gradually estranged by various causes from his friend, Addison. He considered himself as one who, in evil days, had braved martyrdom for his political principles, and demanded, when the Whig party was triumphant, a large compensation for what he had suffered when it was militant. The Whig leaders took a very different view of his claims. They thought that he had, by his own petulance and folly, brought them as well as himself into trouble, and though they did not absolutely neglect him, doled out favours to him with a sparing hand. It was natural that he should be angry with them, and especially angry with Addison. But what above all seems to have disturbed Sir Richard, was the elevation of Tickell, who, at thirty, was made by Addison Under-Secretary of State; while the editor of the Tatler and Spectator, the author of the Crisis, the member for Stockbridge, who had been persecuted for firm adherence to the House of Hanover, was, at near fifty, forced, after many solicitations and complaints, to content himself with a share in the patent of Drury Lane Theatre. Steele himself says, in his celebrated letter to Congreve, that Addison, by his preference of Tickell," incurred the warmest resentment of other gentlemen ;" and everything seems to indicate that, of these resentful gentlemen, Steele was himself one.

While poor Sir Richard was brooding over what he considered as Addison's unkindness, a new kind of quarrel arose upon the Bill for Limiting the Number of Peers. Steele took part with the Opposition, Addison with the Ministers. Steele, in a paper called the Plebeian, vehemently attacked the Bill; and Addison in the Old Whig, answered Steele's arguments. In the controversy was one calumny, which was often repeated, and never contradicted, until it was exposed by Lord Macaulay. It is asserted in the Biographia Britannica, that Addison designated Steele as "Little Dicky." This assertion was repeated by Johnson, who had never seen the Old Whig,

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