I 217. TO MRS. STEELE. DEAR PRUE, APRIL 22, 1713. HAVE met with Doggett *, and we shall fall into a discourse which will turn to account. I shall dine with him at some eating-house. If you will be exactly at five at Button's, we will go together to the Park, or elsewhere; and be with you all night, if you condescend to take me out of my truckle-bed. Yours faithfully, RICH. STEELE. * Thomas Doggett, an author and an actor, who had, not long before the date of this letter, thrown up in disgust his office of joint-manager of Drury-lane theatre, which he had some time held with Wilks and Cibber. By his frugality he secured a sufficient competence to retire from the hurry of business whilst in the height of his reputation. In political principles, to use the words of Steele, he was "a Whig up to the head and ears ;" and so strictly was he attached to the interests of the House of Hanover, that he never let slip any occasion that presented itself of demonstrating his sentiments in that respect. The year after George I. came to the throne, Doggett gave a waterman's coat and silver badge, to be rowed for by six watermen, on the 1st day of August, being the anniversary of the accession; and at his death bequeathed a certain sum of money, the interest of which was to be appropriated annually, for ever, to the purchase of a like coat and badge, to be rowed for in honour of the day. The ceremony continues to be annually performed; the claimants setting out on a signal given at that time of the tide when the current is strongest against them, and rowing from the Old Swan near London-bridge, to the White Swan at Chelsea. † A famous coffee-house in Covent Garden, frequented at that time by all the Wits. 1 218. TO 218. TO MRS. STEELE. DEAR PRUE, 9 IN THE MORNING, MAY 5, 1713. I HAVE sent Will to get a place in the coach for your new maid; and am going out to visit the company I invited to Hampton-court, to know their resolution. Your maid may be always with the children. If the appointment holds, I will send Will also this afternoon with further directions. I value a person you are fond of too much to ride late in the evening; therefore shall set out myself early in the morning to-morrow. Your obedient husband, RICH. STEELE. 219. DR. SWIFT TO MR. ADDISON. SIR, MAY 13, 1713. I WAS told yesterday, by several persons, that Mr. Steele had reflected upon me in his Guardian; which I could hardly believe, until, sending for the paper of the day, I found he had, in several parts of it, insinuated with the utmost malice, that I was Author of the Examiner *; and * In the Guardian, N°LIII. Mr. Steele says, "Though some times I have been told by familiar friends, that they saw me such a time talking to the Examiner; others, who have raillied me abused me in the grossest manner he could possibly invent, and set his name to what he had written. Now, Sir, if I am not Author of the Examiner, how will Mr. Steele be able to defend himself from the imputation of the highest degree of baseness, ingratitude, and injustice? is he so ignorant of my temper, and of my style? has he never heard that the Author of the Examiner (to whom I am altogether a stranger *) did, a month or two ago, vindicate me from having any concern in it? should not Mr. Steele have first expostulated with me as a friend? have I deserved this usage from Mr. Steele, who knows very well that my Lord Treasurer has kept him in his employment upon my intreaty and intercession †? me for the sins of my youth, tell me, it is credibly reported that I have formerly lain with the Examiner.—I have carried my point; and it is nothing to me whether the Examiner writes in the character of an estranged friend, or an exasperated mistress.” -By the first of these appellations, Dr. Swift is to be understood; by the latter, Mrs. Manley, authoress of the Atalantis ; who likewise, in conjunction with Oldisworth, wrote in the Examiner, often under the direction, and with the assistance, of Swift, but oftener without leading-strings. * The reader will please to recollect the received opinion, that Dr. Swift never wrote any Examiners after June 7, 1711. The curious may see an accurate and satisfactory account of the Examiner, and of this circumstance particularly, in the notes on the Tatler, No 210. † Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford. "I sat till ten in the evening with Addison and Steele : Steele will certainly lose his Gazetteer's place, all the world detesting his engaging in parties." Swift, Journal to Stella, Sept. 10, 1710. "I was this morning with Mr. Lewis, the under-secretary to Lord Dartmouth, two hours, talking politics, and contriving My Lord Chancellor [Harcourt] and Lord Bolingbroke will be witnesses how I was reproached by my Lord Treasurer, upon the ill returns Mr. Steele made to his Lordship's indulgence, &c. JON. SWIFT. to keep Steele in his office of stampt paper: he has lost his place of Gazetteer, three hundred pounds a year, for writing a Tatler some months ago against Mr. Harley, who gave it him at first, and raised the salary from sixty to three hundred pounds. This was devilish ungrateful; and Lewis was telling me the particulars: but I had a hint given me, that I might save him in the other employment; and leave was given me to clear matters with Steele. Well, I dined with Sir Matthew Dudley; and in the evening went to sit with Mr. Addison, and offer the matter at distance to him as the discreeter person; but found party had so possessed him, that he talked as if he suspected me, and would not fall in with any thing I said. So I stopt short in my overture, and we parted very dryly and I shall say nothing to Steele, and let them do as they will; but, if things stand as they are, he will certainly lose it, unless I save him; and therefore I will not speak to him, that I may not report to his disadvantage. Is not this vexatious? and is there so much in the proverb of proffered service? When shall I grow wise? I endeavour to act in the most exact points of honour and conscience, and my nearest friends will not understand it so. What must a man expect from his enemies? This would vex me, but it shall not; and so I bid you good-night, &c." Ibid. Oct. 22. "Lewis told me a pure thing. I had been hankering with Mr. Harley to save Steele his other employment, and have a little mercy on him; and I had been saying the same thing to Lewis, who is Mr. Harley's chief favourite. Lewis tells Mr. Harley, how kindly I should take it, if he would be reconciled to Steele, &c. Mr. Harley, on my account, falls in with it, and appoints Steele a time to let him attend him; which Steele accepts with great submission; but never comes, nor sends any excuse. Whether it was blundering, sullenness, insolence, or rancour of party, I cannot tell; but I shall trouble myself no more 220. TO DR. SWIFT. SIR, MAY 19, 1713. MR. ADDISON shewed me your letter, wherein you mention me. you believe your long in They laugh at you, if they make interposition has kept me thus my office. If you have spoken in my behalf at any time, I am glad I have always treated you with respect: though I believe you an accomplice of the Examiner. In the letter you are angry at, you see I have no reason for being so merciful to him, but out of regard to the imputation you lie under. You do not in direct terms say you are not concerned with him; but make it an argument of your innocence, that the Examiner has declared you have nothing to do with him. I believe I could prevail upon the Guardian to say there was a mistake in putting my name in his paper; but the English would laugh at us, should we argue in so Irish a manner. I am heartily glad of your being made Dean of St. Patrick's. I am, Sir, Your most obedient humble servant, RICH. STEELE. more about him. I believe Addison hindered him out of mere spite, being grated to the soul to think he should ever want my help to save his friend; yet now he is soliciting me to make another of his friends Queen's Secretary at Geneva; and I will do it if I can; it is poor Pastoral Philips." Ibid. Dec. 16. One story is good till another is heard. See a very different account of the whole transaction pointed out in a note on the Tatler, No 228. T 2 221. FROM |