fore he left London, surrendered all his property to his creditors. To their benevolence he was in the end of his life principally indebted for his maintenance. He lingered out near two years in Wales, in the melancholy contemplation of what he might have been, and what he was; and Sept. 21st, 1729, paid the last debt to nature. He was privately interred, according to his own desire, in Caermarthen church.

Among his papers were found the manuscripts of two plays almost finished. The one was entitled The Gentleman, founded on The Eunuch of TERENCE, the other The School of Action.

STEELE was a man endued by nature with superior talents. His understanding was quick, acute, and vigorous: his imagination was fertile, and his memory retentive. He had received a good education; and although not very learned, he possessed a considerable share of knowledge. He was acquainted with the Latin classics, but not conversant in Grecian literature. As an author, he must be acknowledged to have made a considerable addition to the general mass of pleasing and useful literature. Quick and penetrating, his genius was well fitted for diving into the human mind. He had studied man as he found him in society, not in books; and, with an humour lively and versatile, he could paint him, as a comic writer, justly and agreeably as he saw him. His characters are natural, well drawn, and well supported. The sentiments and observations are suitable to the characters. In moral tendency, his comedies are unexcep

tionable. Virtue excites esteem and admiration; vice contempt and hatred. Rectitude is shown to be true wisdom. Intemperance and profligacy are never varnished with agreeable colours, but exhibited in their real deformity. Purity of expression accompanies purity of sentiment. Nothing is introduced which can inflame or corrupt youth. Wit and humour minister to wisdom and morality. Tenderness is the quality the most eminently conspicuous in some of STEELE'S comedies, which please us by powerfully moving our best affections. As a political writer, STEELE, who had acquired a just knowledge of the principles of government, and diligently attended to the history and constitution of his country, shows general, liberal, and enlarged views. He was warm, but always candid. His political pamphlets afford considerable information concerning the state of affairs in his time.

As an essayist, STEELE is an able and agreeable describer of life and manners; a strenuous and persuasive supporter of religion and virtue.

In his moral character, STEELE was a man of upright principles, though he deviated from the paths of prudence. He was a man of great and extensive benevolence; the reliever of the distressed, the protector of the helpless, and the encourager of merit. In his transaction of business he was fair and equitable; in his opinions of mankind candid and liberal. He allowed those who were above him the due superiority. He treated his equals with ease and cordiality. He behaved to his inferiors with affability,

without the arrogant insolence of familiarity, or the ostentatious parade of condescension. He was, by his benevolent disposition, and by his sprightly talents, a most agreeable companion, desirous of pleasing, possessing a great flow of spirits, and abounding in lively repartees.

With such talents and with such virtues, the question naturally arises, how came STEELE to be so distressed and miserable? By his violence, his indiscretion, his extravagance. The superiority ascribed by the Satirist to prudence over fortune, was never more manifest than in the life of Steele. Fortune held out her favours to him, but not courting the assistance of discretion, he was unable to keep them from vanishing for In his lamentable fate is strikingly exhibited the important truth, that great talents, benevolent and mild disposition, and amiable manners, cannot secure happiness, without the co-operation of self-command and of prudence.

ever.

Juvenal, conclusion of Satire x.

THE

SPECTATOR

IN MINIATURE.

JEALOUSY.

In amore hæc omnia insunt vitia: injuriæ,
Suspiciones, inimicitiæ, inducia,
Beltum pax rursum.

TER.

All these inconveniencies are incident to love; reproaches, jealousies, quarrels, reconcilements, war, and then peace.

JEALOUSY is that pain which a man feels from the apprehension that he is not equally beloved by the person whom he entirely loves. Now because our inward passions and inclinations can never make them. selves visible, it is impossible for a jealous man to be thoroughly cured of his suspicions. His thoughts hang at best in a state of doubtfulness and uncertainty; and are never capable of receiving any satisfaction on the advantageous side; so that his inquiries are most uccessful when they discover nothing. His pleasure trises from his disappointments, and his life is spent 1 pursuit of a secret that destroys his happiness if he ance to find it.

An ardent love is always a strong ingredient in this passion; for the same affection which stirs up the jea ous man's desires, and gives the party beloved so VOL. II.

B