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chard, I beg ten thousand pardons; upon my honour, I did not remember-bless me, I have a hundred-pound note in my pocket, which is entirely at your service." So saying, he produced the note, which Sir Richard immediately put up, and then addressed him in the following manner: Though I despise an obligation from a person of so mean a cast as I am satisfied you are, yet, rather than be made a fool, I choose to accept of this hundred pound, which I shall return when it suits my convenience. But, that the next favour you confer may be done with a better grace, I must take the liberty of pulling you by the nose,1 as a proper expedient to preserve your recollection ;"—which Sir Richard accordingly did, and then took his leave, whilst the poor baronet stood surprised at the oddity of his behaviour, and heartily ashamed at the meanness of his own.

ADDISON'S LOAN TO STEELE.

STEELE built and inhabited, for a few years, an elegant house, which he called by the name of the Hovel, at Hampton-Wick, adjoining the palace. Not long after the dedication referred to below,2 (1711,) being embarrassed by his vanity of profusion, or his imprudence of generosity, he borrowed a thousand pounds of Addison on this house and its furniture, giving bond and judgment for repayment of the money at the end of twelve months. On the forfeiture of the bond, Addison's attorney proceeded to execution. The house and furniture were sold; the surplus Addison remitted to Steele, with a genteel letter,3 stating the friendly reason of this extraordinary procedure, viz. to awaken him, if possible,

! This nose-pulling spoils the story, which else is credible enough.-ED. 2 See Steele's Dedication to the fourth volume of the Tatler, which is dated "From the Hovel at Hampton-Wick, April 7, 1711."

3 This statement, which is on the authority of Victor, differs materially from that given by Savage to Dr. Johnson, and there is a discrepancy in the dates. Steele, according to his own letter, referred to at our p. 373, repaid Addison the borrowed thousand pounds in 1708. Probably he only gave him his bond and called that payment, and Addison may have waited patiently, till seeing voluntary repayment hopeless, he entered up judgment, in preference to letting some less friendly creditor anticipate him. That Steele was in great trouble for money in 1709 appears from his letter to the Earl of Halifax, dated Oct. 6th. Addison's presumed harshness in exacting repayment is told with some asperity by Dr. Johnson, and satisfactorily defended by Macaulay, p. 45. See Lives of the Poets, and Croker's Boswell, vol. viii. p. 22.

from a lethargy that must end in his inevitable ruin. Steele received the letter with his wonted good humour and gaiety, and met his friend as usual.

When we consider the careless and extravagant temper of Sir Richard Steele, it will be no difficult thing to conceive that Addison's conduct was dictated by the kindest motives; and that the step, apparently so severe, was designed to awaken him, if possible, to a sense of the impropriety of his mode and habits of life. Unhappily for Steele, the correction administered by his friend, in this as in other seasons, was too little regarded; for Steele persevered in those irregularities which ultimately produced his ruin.

STEELE'S IMPROVIDENCE.

THE following are two memorable examples of Steele's expense and improvidence, whilst they at the same time show his natural turn for humour under all circumstances.

Steele one day invited several persons of rank and quality to dine at his house. The company were surprised to see the number of footmen which surrounded the table. After dinner, when wine and lively conversation had dispelled ceremony and restraint, a nobleman asked the knight how so large and expensive a train of servants accorded with his fortune? Sir Richard very ingenuously confessed they were fellows of whom he would very willingly be rid. Being asked why then he did not discharge them, he declared that they were bailiffs, who had introduced themselves with an execution, and whom, since he could not send them away, he had thought it convenient to embellish with liveries, that they might do him honour whilst they staid. His friends were diverted with the expedient, and by paying the debt discharged him from this encumbrance, having first obtained a promise from Sir Richard that they should not find him again graced with such a retinue.

Steele had at one time formed a project of converting part of his house into a sort of a theatre, for reciting passages from the most approved authors, ancient and modern. He had, as usual, never considered whether he could derive any advantage from the execution of that project, or whether his finances would bear the expense. A splendid theatre was constructed, and finished under his direction.

Steele was delighted with the appearance of the place; and wishing to know if it was equally fitted for pleasing the ear as the eye, desired the carpenter, who had undertaken and completed the work, to go to a pulpit at one end of the room, and from thence to pronounce some sentences, whilst himself at the other should judge of the effect. The carpenter being mounted in the pulpit, declared himself at a loss how to begin, or what to say. Sir Richard told him to speak whatever was uppermost in his mind. The carpenter, thus directed, in a distinct and audible voice called out, "Sir Richard Steele, here has I, and these here men, been doing your work for three months, and never seen the colour of your money.—When are you to pay us? I cannot pay my journeymen without and money money, I must have.' "Very well, very well," said Sir Richard, " pray come down, I have heard quite enough. You speak very distinctly, but I don't admire the subject."

THE FRIENDSHIP OF STEELE AND ADDISON.

In the last paper of the seventh volume of the Spectator, No. 555, (published Dec. 6, 1712,) written and signed by Steele in his real name and character, how nobly disinterested and how tenderly affecting are his acknowledgments to his illustrious friend and coadjutor Addison!

"I hope," says he, "the apology I have made, as to the licence allowed to a feigned character, may excuse anything which has been said in these discourses of the Spectator and his works. But the imputation of the grossest vanity would still dwell upon me, if I did not give some account by what means I was enabled to keep up the spirit of so long and approved a performance. All the papers marked with a C, Î, 1, 0, were given me by a gentleman, of whose assistance I formerly boasted in the preface and concluding leaf of the Tatler. I am indeed much more proud of his long-continued friendship than I should be of the fame of being thought the author of any writings which he is himself capable of producing. I remember, when I finished the Tender Husband, I told him there was nothing I so earnestly wished, as that we might some time or other publish a work, written by us both, which should bear the name of the Monument, in memory of our friendship. I heartily wish what I have done here were as honorary to that sacred name as learning, wit,

and humanity render those pieces which I have taught the reader how to distinguish for his. When the play abovementioned was last acted, there were so many applauded strokes in it which I had from the same hand, that I thought very meanly of myself that I had never publicly acknowledged them. After I have put other friends upon importuning him to publish dramatic as well as other writings he has by him, I shall end what I think I am obliged to say on this head, by giving my reader the hint for the better judging of my productions-that the best comment upon them would be an account when the patron of the Tender Husband was in England or abroad."

Again, in his Theatre (No. 12, published 1720, after Addison's death) Steele bears testimony to the sincere and ardent friendship which existed between them.

"There never was a more strict friendship than between these two gentlemen; nor had they ever any difference but what proceeded from their different way of pursuing the same thing: the one with patience, foresight, and temperate address, always waited and stemmed the torrent; while the other often plunged himself into it, and was often taken out by the temper of him who stood weeping on the bank for his safety, whom he could not dissuade from leaping into it. Thus these two men lived for some years last past, shunning each other, but still preserving the most passionate concern for their mutual welfare. But when they met they were as unreserved as boys, and talked of the greatest affairs, upon which they saw where they differed, without pressing (what they knew impossible) to convert each other."

STEELE'S ELECTION STRATAGEMS.

THE reputation Steele gained by his "Tatlers" led to his being made one of the Commissioners of the Stamp-office; but having an ambition to sit in the House of Commons, he soon resigned his appointment and stood candidate for Stockbridge. It is said he secured his election by kissing the voters' wives with guineas in his mouth. He did not, however, long enjoy his seat, for having published a pamphlet entitled "The Crisis," and a paper called "The Englishman,' he was so severe upon the men in power, that the libels were made matter of accusation in the House, and he was

considered him as the writer of Tickell's version. grounds of this suspicion are thus recorded by Mr. Spon "There had been a coldness (said Mr. Pope) between Addison and me for some time; and we had not been company together for a good while anywhere but in ton's coffee-house, where I used to see him almost every o On his meeting me there, one day in particular, he to. aside, and said he should be glad to dine with me at s tavern, if I stayed till those people were gone (Bucz Philips)." He went accordingly; and after dinne Addison said, "that he had wanted for some time with him; that his friend Tickell had formerly, whit ford, translated the first book of the Iliad; that he to print it, and had desired him to look it over; that therefore, beg that I would not desire him to lock first book, because if he did it would have the air dealing." "I assured him that I did not at all to. Mr. Tickell that he was going to publish his t that he certainly had as much right to translate · as myself; and that publishing both was enterin stage. I then added, that I would not desire over my first book of the Iliad, because he had Mr. Tickell's, but could wish to have the benefit servations on my second, which I had then which Mr. Tickell had not touched upon. sent him the second book the next morning; a dison, a few days after, returned it, with very high ations. Soon after it was generally known that was publishing the first book of the Iliad, I n in the street, and upon our falling into that doctor expressed a great deal of surprise at T had such a translation so long by him. He st inconceivable to him, and that there must be in the matter; that each used to communic whatever verses they wrote, even to the leg Tickell could not have been busied in so lo without his knowing something of the mar had never heard a single word of it till This surprise of Dr. Young, together with said against Tickell in relation to this affair, probable that there was some underhand der ness; and, indeed, Tickell himself, who is a

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