SIR RICHARD STEELE, 1672-1729

It is as a prose writer that Sir Richard Steele is best known, especially as the writer of those essays that appeared in the Tatler, the Spectator, the Guardian, the Englishman, and the Lover, during the years 1709 to 1715. His letters come next in interest, if not in literary importance; his Christian Hero was an experiment which he never repeated; his plays are chiefly interesting because by means of them he put into actual practice his theories of the drama; his political writings brought upon him more controversies and bitterness of heart than literary fame; poetry he recognized as not native to his genius, and he made only a few slight attempts at writing it.

And it is in Steele's essays that reference to the classics in general, and to Horace in particular, is to be found. Steele was by no means dependent upon the classic authors for aid to his thoughts; perhaps he was less dependent than any other writer of his time, even Swift. As Dr. Rundle said of him in his Anticipation of the Posthumous Character of Sir Richard Steele,' 'he had learning; but it was seldom transfused into his performances.' For his first interest was in human life; and he used his papers, except when he wrote for political purposes, as the means for carrying on a steady comment and kindly criticism upon the foibles of society, and for giving encouragement to any noble aspirations that he saw struggling to the light. So that in these papers classical allusion arises usually out of some suggestion contained in the motto. for the day.

1 Steele's Epistolary Correspondence, ed. by J. Nichols, 1809, 2. 689.

The prevailing use of such mottos as introductory to all sorts of writings was an expression of the tendency of the time rather than an invention of his own. In the Reader, No. 2, he speaks of 'the theme at top of my paper, which ornament is become a great fashion,' and indicates his willingness to conform to custom. Quotations and classical allusions within the papers themselves occur more frequently in letters presumably contributed by such men as Hughes than in those papers definitely known to be by Steele, and he expresses his own opinion on the matter when in the Tatler, No. 56, he says: "There is nothing so pedantic as many quotations.' He makes humorous comment on his use of mottos, first in the Spectator, No. 370, where he says: 'Many of my fair readers, as well as very gay and well-received persons of the other sex, are extremely perplexed at the Latin sentences at the head of my speculations. I do not know whether I ought not to indulge them with translations of each of them'; and in the Spectator, No. 444, which is an indictment of quacks, he intimates what he considers to be the value of these mottos, when he speaks of the methods used by quacks to attract the attention of the public and 'convince them of your ability in that you profess,' and adds: 'You may be sure it is upon that I go, when sometimes, let it be to the purpose or not, I keep a Latin sentence in my front; and I was not a little pleased, when I observed one of my readers say, casting his eye upon my twentieth paper, "More Latin still? What a prodigious scholar is this man!"'

In reading Steele one gets the impression that Cicero was his favorite author, though, as a matter of fact, he drew upon him for few of his mottos and referred to him comparatively seldom. Perhaps it was as a political orator that he admired him chiefly, and depended on him in his controversies. He shows his esteem for him by

referring to him as an author 'who in all respects was a much greater man than Pliny';1 a writer to the Spectator speaks of Cicero as 'your Tully," and in another place Steele calls him 'my beloved author," and again, ‘the greatest orator."

But it is from Horace that Steele, like Addison, and all the writers of periodicals of the day, chiefly takes his mottos for his papers. The Tatler, though its first forty numbers have the one motto from Juvenal, besides fifteen other mottos from the same author, has approximately fifty-six Horatian mottos, and twenty taken from Virgil; the Spectator (I am referring only to Steele's contributions to these papers) has about one hundred and eight mottos from Horace, thirty-eight from Virgil, thirtythree from Cicero, nineteen from Juvenal, sixteen from Terence, twelve from Ovid, etc.; the Guardian has twentyseven mottos from Horace, fifteen from Virgil, six from Ovid and Terence, five from Juvenal, and so on; the Englishman is the only paper which has more mottos from Virgil than from Horace. The reason for this preponderance of Horatian mottos seems to be, what has been observed before, that Horace lends himself very readily to quotation. In the essays themselves there appears no favorite author: Homer's Iliad is commented upon and described; the incidents of the Eneid are frequently related, and reading the Georgics before sleeping causes a dream which becomes the subject of a Spectator; Virgil and Homer are often compared;" Virgil and Theocritus form the subject of several essays

1 Tatler 159.

2 Spectator 158.

3 Ibid. 346.

4 Tatler 167.

5 Ibid. 6.

• Spectator 514.

7 Englishman 52, and often in the Guardian, especially in 12, 21, 51, and 86.

on Pastorals;' Democritus, Juvenal, and Persius are mentioned or quoted in an Essay on Laughter;2 Horace and Juvenal are presented as the two greatest satirists;3 the example of Socrates is frequently held up for emulation; Ovid is cited at length, and is the favorite author of the Lover; and it is apparent that Steele was familiar with all the Roman historians.

Hence, in the consideration of Steele's relation to Horace, the chief interest lies in the way in which he uses the mottos which he takes from that author.

Horace is sometimes an aid to him in carrying on his work as editor. His delineation of the Spectator's personal peculiarities, and his description of the kind of reflections he proposes to make in his writings, he introduces with the motto,*

Egregii mortalem altique silentii?

in No. 4 of that paper. And much later, in No. 442, he issues a whimsical invitation to his readers, whosover, whatsover, howsoever they be, to send essays to the Spectator, with the encouraging heading:5

Scribimus indocti doctique.

The original Dedication to Vol. 2 of the Guardian has the following remark: "The greatest honour of human life, is to live well with men of merit; and I hope you will pardon me the vanity of publishing, by this means, my happiness in being able to name you among my friends'in which Steele is echoing Horace's self-gratulation:*

Me cum magnis vixisse . . . fatebitur.

1 Guardian 22, 23, 28, 30, and 32.

2 Ibid. 29.

3 Tatler 242.

4 S. 2. 6. 58.

5 E. 2. 1. 117.

6 S. 2. 1. 76.

The first number of the Lover contains the plan of that periodical, commencing with the motto:1

Virginibus puerisque canto.

-'All you, therefore who are in the dawn of life, as to conversation with a faithless and artful world, attend to one who has passed through almost all the mazes of it, and is familiarly acquainted with whatever can befal you in the pursuit of love.' And in No. 36 of the same paper Steele explains that the praise of honorable love is the 'chief end' of his writing:2

Concubitu prohibere vago.

Finally, in issuing the last number of the Theatre, he explains why he is giving up the publication of it, having been dispossessed of his license to present plays at the Play-house in Drury Lane, and uses as his motto the two words from Horace:3

Ludicra pono.

It is a peculiarity of Steele's to use the same mottos more than once, some rather frequently. He is fond of discoursing upon women's dress, with the text, 'simplex munditiis." In the Tatler, No. 62, he has the following: 'You see in no place of conversation the perfection of speech so much as in an accomplished woman. . . . My Lady Courtly is an instance of this: she was talking the other day of dress. . . . Besides which, her words were particularly well adapted to the matter she talked of, that the dress was a new thing to us men. She avoided the terms of art in it, and described an unaffected garb and manner in so proper terms, that she came up to that

10. 3. 1. 4.

2 A. P. 398. 3 E. 1. 1. 10.

4 O. 1. 5. 5.