desire of me. You have it (as Cowley calls it) just warm from the brain. It came to me the first moment I awaked this morning: yet you will see it was not so absolutely inspiration,* but that I had in my head not only the verses of Adrian, but the fine fragment of Sappho, &c. :

THE DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS SOUL ODE.

Vital spark of heavenly flame,
Quit, oh, quit this mortal frame:
Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying,
Oh, the pain, the bliss of dying!
Cease, fond nature, cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life.

Hark, they whisper; angels say,
Sister spirit, come away!
What is this absorbs me quite,
Steals my senses, shuts my sight,
Drowns my spirits, draws my breath!
Tell me, my soul, can this be death?

The world recedes; it disappears!
Heaven opens on my eyes! my ears
With sounds seraphic ring!

Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!

O grave! where is thy victory?

O death! where is thy sting?

Among the "excellent productions" which Steele justly claimed to himself the merit of having extorted" from persons of ability, this beautiful ode is not the least.

In a poetical satire, published this year (1712) by a Mr Newcomb, entitled "Bibliotheca; a Poem, occasioned by the sight of a Modern Library," the writer, after tracing the progress of oblivion in a style similar to that afterwards adopted by Pope in the "Dunciad," passes a high encomium on Steele and his labours, which may be worth quoting.

* "It has been suggested that some part of what is here ascribed to inspiration, and said to have come warm from Pope's heart, dropt originally from the pen of Flatman."

"Still to proceed the Goddess try'd,
Till STEELE's immortal works espy'd ;
Trembling her dreaded foe to view,
She sunk, and silently withdrew ;

*

While Sarum's labours, round her spread, Sustain and prop her drowsy head.

Hail, mighty name! of all thy pen
Has dropt, to charm both gods and men,
Time nor oblivion ne'er shall boast
One line or single period lost!
Improving youth, and hoary age,
Are better'd by thy matchless page;
And what no mortal could devise,
Women by reading thee grow wise;
Divines had taught, and husband's rav'd,
Now threat'ned, then as poorly crav'd,
But, spite of all, the stubborn dame
Remain'd our curse, and still the same;
Modish and flippant as before,

The smoothing paint and patch are wore ;
Two hours each morning spent to dress,
And not one ounce of tea the less:
While the provoking idiot vows
Her lover fairer much than spouse.
Great Socrates but vainly try'd
To sooth the passions of his bride;
Her female empire still she holds,
And as he preaches peace, she scolds:
In vain he talks, in vain he writes;
One kissing while the other bites;
Precepts with her, and moral rules,
Are only gins to hamper fools;
And, preach and dictate what he will,
Madam persists, Xantippe still.
But wedlock by thy art is got
To be a soft and easy knot;

Which smiling spouse and kinder bride
Now seldom wish should be unty'd;
Think parting now the greatest sin,
And strive more close to draw the ginn:

Taught by those rules thy pen instills,
Nobly to conquer human ills;
The female sufferer now sustains
Each mournful loss with lessen'd pains;
A week is now enough to pine,
When puking lap-dog cannot dine;
While grief as real swells her eyes
When spouse, as when her parrot, dies.
The fop no longer shall believe
Sense ty'd to every modish sleeve,
Nor, conscious of his wants, presume
To measure merit by perfume;
That courage in Pulvilio dwells,
The boldest he who strongest smells;
To prove his sense no longer bring
The doughty proofs of box and ring;
Strongly professing ne'er to know
An ass conceal'd beneath a beau;
Each taught by thee, shall hence confess
Virtue has no regard for dress;
That the bright nymph as often dwells
In homely bays as rural cells;
And in a ruff as fairly shin'd,
As now to modern peak confin'd ;
Blushing, thus half-expos'd to view,
Both for herself and mistress too.

The widow, pining for her dear,
Shall curse no more the tedious year;
In sighs consume each pensive day,
Nor think it long from June to May.
See how the pensive relict lies,
Oppress'd with spouse's fate, and dies
That Betty with her drops in vain
Recalls her flying soul again;
No colour now so fair appears,
As is the sable vest she wears,
To her the only garment vow'd,
Till death exchange it for a shroud,
And her cold ashes kindly place
Once more within her lord's embrace.

;

The ladies, pleased with thee to dwell, Aspire to write correct, and spell : We scarce behold, though writ in haste,

1712.] Lady Montagu desires Steele's Correspondence. 321

Five letters in a score misplaced;
Marshall'd in rank they all appear,
With no front vowels in the rear,
Nor any, out of shame or dread,
Skulking behind that should have led;
In every line they now demur,
'Tis now no longer, Wurthee Surr;
With half our usual sweat and pain,
We both unravel and explain,
Nor call in foreign aid to find,

In mystic terms, the fair one's mind.

Maintain, great sage, thy deathless name,
Thou canst no wider stretch thy fame,
Till, gliding from her native skies,
Virtue once more delighted flies;

By each adoring patriot own'd,

And boasts herself by thee enthroned!

*

It may be here mentioned as a subject of regret that we should have no letters to or from one who had expressed a desire for Steele's correspondence,-Lady M. W. Montagu. Lady Mary had been acquainted with Mrs Steele before her marriage, and with himself after, and from his great intimacy with her husband, she says in one of her letters to the latter, "I wish you would learn Mr Steele to write to your wife."

Nichol's Select Collection.

Χ

CHAPTER IX.

THE PERIODICAL ESSAYIST AND DELINEATOR OF CHARACTER1713.

Steele starts the Guardian as a sequel to the Spectator-Its plan-Nestor Ironside, guardian to the Lizard family-Its members-Notice of the contributors, Bishop Berkeley, Pope, Gay, Addison, &c.—Subjects of dedications-Controversy with the Examiner—It diverges into politics, and is discontinued.

WHATEVER may have been the particular motives that influenced Steele in laying down the Spectator at a time when it had attained to such celebrity, and there appeared so much inducement to continue it, we cannot regret the dropping of the different papers and resuming his labours under a new title. It has contributed greatly to their variety, and each successive effort stimulated his invention to fresh sketches of character and clubs, and developed in new social combinations his wonderful knowledge of human nature and of life. In the collected form in which they were to descend it may have been justly felt that it was an advantage to break their continuity. At all events, that it was from no feeling of exhaustion that they were discontinued is very evident. Perhaps an irksome sense of the monotonous effect of maintaining the same characters for an indefinite length of time may have had some influence. But whatever may have been the cause of his literary suicide, he seemed, like the Phoenix, to