SIR RICHARD STEELE, AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. CHAPTER I. THE YOUTH, THE COLLEGIAN, AND THE SOLDIER-1671 1700. Value and interest of biography-Birth and parentage of Steele His account of his mother, and of his father's death Is sent to the Charter-House School in London, where he makes the acquaintance of Addison-Notice of the Chartreuse- Enters Merton College, Oxford-Cultivates dramatic literature, and writes a comedy, which, being disapproved by a college friend, he destroys-Lines on the death of Queen Mary-Fancy for a military life, which, being disap proved by friends, he enters the Guards as a volunteer, and is, in consequence, disinherited by a wealthy relative Remarkable parallel instances, Cervantes and Coleridge-Acts as secretary to Lord Cutts, his colonel, and receives a commission from him- Notice of that officer-Is led into undue convivial habits by the attractions of his wit and social qualities among his military associates, opposed to his better feelings-His resolve to break with these habits, and the effects of that resolution. THE celebrated sentiment of the old dramatist, which never failed to draw forth the plaudits of a Roman audience, "Nihil humani a me alienum puto," may be considered to embody some of the most important of the various claims A of biography upon our interest and attention, and is peculiarly applicable in reference to that of one who was so distinguished by his fine humanity, and the catholic range of his sympathies. This fascinating field of literature, which unites much of the personal charm of fiction with the utility of history, abounds more than any other in human interest. It appeals to our curiosity, our sympathy, and our self-love. We are curious to know how men who have left their impress on their time, and influenced not merely their own, but, it may be, many a subsequent age, attained to this enviable pre-eminence; we feel a pride in bearing a common nature with such spirits, and are consoled, too, for the mortifying sense of our own mediocrity, in exemption from the envy, care, and disappointment which too often, if not invariably, attend upon superior merit ;* and in feeling our weaknesses and shortcomings kept in countenance by finding that, with all their great qualities, the subjects of the historian were men of like passions with ourselves. Biography brings us acquainted with the best company in the world. The wisest, the wittiest, the bravest, the best, of all ages become our contemporaries,—they converse with us at our firesides, not in pomp and state, but without ceremony or constraint. From what other source do we derive so much of the spirit of antiquity as from the lives of Plutarch?-one of * This remarkable fact of the large number of "unsuccessful great men" who were distanced in the race by mediocrity, is, according to Swift's theory, explained by their attaching too little importance to the "little helps and little hindrances" to which smaller men look more carefully. This is even applicable to the sons of great men, who though, with few exceptions, excelling like their fathers, have been generally more successful socially. those productions which, it has been said, we would desire to rescue from destruction if all other books were to suffer annihilation, or which we would choose for our companion if cast upon a desolate island. Richard Steele was born in Dublin in the year 1671.* He was descended of a good family, one branch of which possessed considerable landed property in Wexford county, of part of which Steele was disinherited, owing to his imprudent wilfulness in entering the army in the way he did, and against the wish of his friends.† His father, who was a counsellor-at-law, had been private secretary to James, first Duke of Ormond, when LordLieutenant of Ireland, and died when Steele (his only son) was very young. It is a prevalent notion, justified by many striking examples, that the shining qualities of eminent men are most commonly inherited from the mother. Of Steele's mother (whose maiden name was Gascoigne) little is known; but, from a passage in one of his descriptive sketches, which has always been justly admired for its beautiful simplicity, tenderness, and pathos, it appears that she was a very superior woman, and that her * On the authority of his baptismal register, dated March 12. The inaccuracy of the early authorities in giving the year 1675 or '76 has been followed by a writer generally so careful and painstaking as Dr Drake, in common with the writers of almost every other sketch of his life, except Miss Aikin. By a curious coincidence there was a Sir Richard Steele high sheriff of county Dublin in 1821, who was made the subject of one of his squibs by Moore, referred to in his Memoirs, vol. iii., p. 190, where he says,-" Sent a copy of them [lines of Byron to himself] to Perry, [of Morn. Chron.,] and added some nonsense of my own about Sir Richard Steele, the high sheriff, who has just dispersed a meeting in Dublin by the military, beginning, Though sprung from the clever Sir Richard this man be, The genealogical allusion is probably only apparent. |