bearings on his after history, with Richard Steele, whose character may
be summed up in a few sentences. Who has not heard of Sir Richard Steele?
Wordsworth says of one of his characters--

"She was known to every star,
And every wind that blows."

Poor Dick was known to every sponging-house, and to every bailiff
that, blowing in pursuit, walked the London streets. A fine-hearted,
warm-blooded character, without an atom of prudence, self-control,
reticence, or forethought; quite as destitute of malice or envy;
perpetually sinning and perpetually repenting; never positively
irreligious, even when drunk; and often excessively pious when recovering
sobriety,--Steele reeled his way through life, and died with the
reputation of being an orthodox Christian and a (nearly) habitual
drunkard; the most affectionate and most faithless of husbands; a brave
soldier, and in many points an arrant fool; a violent politician, and the
best natured of men; a writer extremely lively, for this, among other
reasons, that he wrote generally on his legs, flying or meditating flight
from his creditors; and who embodied in himself the titles of his three
principal works--"The Christian Hero," "The Tender Husband," and the
_Tatler_;--being a "Christian Hero" in intention, one of those intentions
with which a certain place is paved; a "Tender Husband," if not a
true one, to his two ladies; and a _Tatler_ to all persons, in all
circumstances, and at all times. When Addison first knew this original,
he was probably uncontaminated, and must have been, as he continued to
the end to be, an irascible but joyous and genial being; and they became
intimate at once, although circumstances severed them from each other for
a long period.