The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series by Sir Richard Steele;Joseph Addison
page 40 of 3879 (01%)
page 40 of 3879 (01%)
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'This was ill hinted both in relation to him and me. I know no party; but the truth of the question is what I will support as well as I can, when any man I honour is attacked.' John Forster, whose keen insight into the essentials of literature led him to write an essay upon each of the two great founders of the latest period of English literature, Defoe and Steele, has pointed out in his masterly essay upon Steele that Swift denies having spoken of Steele as bridled by his friend, and does so in a way that frankly admits Steele's right to be jealous of the imputation. Mr. Forster justly adds that throughout Swift's intimate speech to Stella, 'whether his humours be sarcastic or polite, the friendship of Steele and Addison is for ever suggesting some annoyance to himself, some mortification, some regret, but never once the doubt that it was not intimate and sincere, or that into it entered anything inconsistent with a perfect equality.' Six months after Addison's death Steele wrote (in No. 12 of the 'Theatre', and I am again quoting facts cited by John Forster), 'that there never was a more strict friendship than between himself and Addison, nor had they ever any difference but what proceeded from their different way of pursuing the same thing; the one waited and stemmed the torrent, while the other too often plunged into it; but though they thus had lived for some years past, shunning each other, they still preserved the most passionate concern for their mutual welfare; and when they met they were as unreserved as boys, and talked of the greatest affairs, upon which they saw where they differed, |
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