Sir Richard 6 Steele

Only two months elapsed between the stoppage of the Tatler and the appearance of the Spectator, which was the organ of the two friends from March 1, 1711 to Dec. 6, 1712. Addison was the chief contributor to the new venture, and the history of it belongs more to his life. Nevertheless, it is to be remarked as characteristic of the two writers that in this as in the Tatler Addi son generally follows Steele's lead in the choice of subjects. The first suggestion of Sir Roger de Coverley was Steele's although it was Addison that filled in the outline.

Steele projected various journals in the next years, most of them, such as the Englishman (1733), and the Reader (1714), Town Talk, Tea Table and Chit Chat, very short lived; though the Guardian (1713) had 176 numbers. Steele's most famous political paper, the Plebeian (1718) embroiled him in a contro versy with Addison. A pamphlet, An Apology for Himself and his Writings (1714) is important biographically.

Later Life.

The fortunes of Steele as a zealous Whig varied with the fortunes of his party. Over the Dunkirk question he waxed so hot that he threw up a pension and a commissionership of stamps, and went into parliament as member for Stockbridge to attack the ministry with voice and vote as well as with pen. But he had not sat many weeks when he was expelled from the house for the language of his pamphlet on the Crisis, which was stigmatized as seditious. The Apology already mentioned was his vindication. With the accession of the House of Hanover his fortunes changed. Honours and substantial rewards were showered

upon him. He was made a justice of the peace, deputy-lieutenant of Middlesex, surveyor of the royal stables, governor of the royal company of comedians—the last a lucrative post—and was also knighted (1715). After the suppression of the Jacobite rebellion he was appointed one of the commissioners of forfeited estates, and spent some two years in Scotland in that capacity. In 1718 he obtained a patent for a plan for bringing salmon alive from Ireland. Differing from his friends in power on the question of the Peerage Bill he was deprived of some of his offices, but when Walpole became chancellor of the exchequer in 1721 he was reinstated. With all his emoluments however the imprudent, im pulsive, ostentatious and generous Steele could never get clear of financial difficulties, and he was obliged to retire from London in 1724 and live in the country. He spent his last years on his wife's estate of Llangunnor in Wales, and, his health broken down by a paralytic seizure, died at Carmarthen, Sept. 1, 1729.

A selection from Steele's essays, with a prefatory memoir, has been edited by Austin Dobson (1885; revised 1896). See also Selected Essays (1907) ed. L. E. Steele ; and Letters of Richard Steele (1928), ed. R. B. Johnson. Dobson contributed a biography to Andrew Lang's series of English Worthies, in 1886. In 1889 an exhaustive life was published by G. A. Aitken, who also edited Steele's plays (1898) and the Tatler (1898).