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EZV 38
Factory of factory and workshop premises. See also:Modern See also:work-
Buildings.
again tried his See also:fortune on the See also:stage with The Conscious Lovers, the best and most successful of his comedies, produced in See also:December 1722.
Meanwhile the gallant See also:captain had turned aside to another See also:kind of See also:literary work, in which, with the assistance of his friend See also:Addison, he obtained a more enduring reputation. There never was a See also:time when literary See also:talent was so much sought after and rewarded by statesmen. Addison had already been waited on in " his humble lodgings in the Haymarket," and advanced to See also:office, when his friend the successful dramatist was appointed to the office of gazetteer. This was in See also:April or May 1707. It was See also:Steele's first connexion with journalism. The periodical was at that time taking the See also:place of the pamphlet as an See also:instrument for working on public See also:opinion. The .See also:Gazette gave little opening for the See also:play of Steele's lively See also:pen, his See also:main See also:duty, as he says, having been to " keep the See also:paper very See also:innocent and very insipid "; but the position made him See also:familiar with the new See also: Steele's position as gazetteer furnished him with See also:special advantages for See also:political See also:news, and as a popular frequenter of See also:coffee-houses he was at no loss for social See also:gossip. But Steele not only retailed and commented on social news, a See also:function in which he had been anticipated by See also:Defoe and others; he also gradually introduced into the Taller as a special feature essays on See also:general questions of See also:manners and morality. It is not strictly true that Steele was the inventor of the See also:English " See also:essay "—there were essayists before the 18th See also:century, notably See also:Cowley and See also:Temple; but he was the first to use the essay for periodical purposes, and he and Addison together See also:developed a distinct See also:species, to which they gave a permanent See also:character, and, in which 'they had many imitators. As a humbler See also:motive for this fortunate venture Steele had the pinch of impecuniosity, due rather to excess of See also:expenditure than to smallness of. income: He had ,300 a See also:year from his gazetteership (paying a tax of £45), See also:ioo as See also:gentleman waiter to See also:Prince See also:George, £85o from the Barbadoes estates of his first wife, a widow named. See also:Margaret Stretch, and some fortune by his second wife—Mrs See also:Mary Scurlock, the " dear Prue " of his charming letters., But Steele lived in considerable See also:state after his second See also:marriage, and before he started the Taller was reduced to the See also:necessity of borrowing. The assumed name of the editor was See also:Isaac Bickerstaff, but Addison discovered the real author in the See also:sixth number, and began to contribute in the eighteenth. It is only See also:fair to Steele to state that the success of the Taller was established before Addison joined him, and that Addison contributed to only See also:forty-two of the two See also:hundred and seventy-one See also:numbers that had appeared when the paper was stopped, obscurely, in See also:January 1711. Some papers satirizing Harley appeared in the Taller, and Steele lost or resigned the See also:post of gazetteer. It is possible that this political recklessness may have had something to do with the sudden end of the venture.
Only two months elapsed between the stoppage of the Taller and the appearance of the Spectator, which was the See also:organ of the two See also:friends from the 1st of See also: The first See also:suggestion of See also:Sir See also:Roger de Coverley was Steele's although it was Addison that filled in the outline of a See also:good-natured See also:country gentleman with the numerous little whimsicalities that convert Sir Roger into an amiable and exquisitely ridiculous provincial oddity. Steele had neither the fineness of See also:touch nor the humorous malice that gives life and distinction to Addison's picture; the Sir Roger of his See also:original hasty See also:sketch has good sense as well as good nature, and the treatment is comparatively See also:commonplace from a literary point of view, though unfortunately not commonplace in its charity. Steele's suggestivevivacity gave many another hint for the elaborating skill of his friend. The Spectator was followed by the See also:Guardian, the first number of which appeared on the 12th of March 1713.. It had a much shorter career, extending to only a hundred and seventy-six numbers, of which Steele wrote eighty-two. This was the last of his numerous See also:periodicals in which he had the material assistance of Addison. But he continued for several years to project See also:journals, under various titles, some of them political, some social in their See also:objects, most of them very See also:short-lived. Steele was a warm See also:partisan of the principles of the Revolution, as See also:earnest in his political as in his other convictions. The English-See also:man was started in See also:October 1733, immediately after the stoppage of the Guardian, to assail the policy of the Tory See also:ministry. The See also:Lover, started in See also:February 1714, was more general in its aims; but it gave place in a See also:month or two to the Reader, a See also:direct counterblast to the Tory Examiner. The Englishman was resuscitated for another See also:volume in 1715; and he subsequently projected in rapid See also:succession three unsuccessful ventures—Town Talk, the See also:Tea Table and Chit Chat. Three years later he started his most famous political paper the Plebeian, rendered memorable, by the fact that it embroiled him with his old ally Addison. The subject of controversy between the two lifelong friends was See also:Sunderland's See also:Peerage See also:Bill. Steele's last venture in journalism was the See also:Theatre, 1720, the immediate occasion of which was the revocation of his patent for See also:Drury See also:Lane. Besides these journals he wrote also several See also:pamphlets on passing questions—on the disgrace of See also:Marlborough in 1711, on the fortifications of• See also:Dunkirk in 1713, on. the " crisis " in 1714, An See also:Apology for Himself and his Writings (important biographically) in the same year, and on the See also:South See also:Sea See also:mania in 1720. 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 See also:pension and a commissionership of stamps, and went into See also:parliament as member for See also:Stockbridge to attack the ministry with See also:voice and See also:vote as well as with pen. But he had not sat many See also:weeks when he was expelled from the See also:house for the See also:language of his pamphlet on the Crisis, which was stigmatized as seditious. The Apology already mentioned was his vindication of himself on this occasion. With the See also:accession of the House of See also:Hanover his fortunes changed: Honours and substantial rewards were showered upon him. He was made a See also:justice of the See also:peace, See also:deputy-See also:lieutenant of See also:Middlesex, surveyor of the royal stables, See also:governor of the royal See also:company of comedians —the 'last,a lucrative post—and was also knighted (1715). After the suppression of the Jacobite See also:rebellion he was appointed one of the commissioners of forfeited estates, and spent some two years, in See also:Scotland in that capacity. In 1718 he obtained a patent for a, See also:plan for bringing See also:salmon alive from See also:Ireland. Differing from his friends in See also:power on the question of the Peerage Bill he was deprived of some of his offices, but when See also:Walpole became See also:chancellor of the See also:exchequer in 1721 he was reinstated. With all. his emoluments however the imprudent, impulsive, ostentatious and generous Steele could never get clear of See also:financial difficulties, and he was obliged to retire from See also:London 111 1724 and live in the. country. He spent his last years on his wife's See also:estate of Llangunnor in See also:Wales, and, his See also:health broken down by a paralytic seizure, died at See also:Carmarthen on the 1st of See also:September 1728. A selection from Steele's essays, with a prefatory memoir, has been edited by Mr See also:Austin See also:Dobson (1885 ; revised 1896). Mr Dobson contributed a See also:fuller See also:biography to Mr See also:Andrew See also:Lang's See also:series of English Worthies, in 1886. In 1889 another and more exhaustive life was published by Mr G. A. Aitken, who has also edited Steele's plays (1898) and the Taller (1898). (W. M.; A. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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