same time must confess my life is at best but pardonable."[3]

With his usual generosity, Steele more than once spoke in the warmest
terms of the assistance rendered to him by Addison. In the preface to
the collected edition he said: "I have only one gentleman, who will be
nameless, to thank for any frequent assistance to me, which indeed it
would have been barbarous in him to have denied to one with whom he had
lived in an intimacy from childhood, considering the great ease with
which he is able to despatch the most entertaining pieces of this
nature. This good office he performed with such force of genius, humour,
wit, and learning that I fared like a distressed prince, who calls in a
powerful neighbour to his aid; I was undone by my auxiliary; when I had
called him in I could not subsist without dependence on him." And in
1722, after Addison's death, in a preface to his friend's play, "The
Drummer," Steele wrote of the _Tatler_, "That paper was advanced indeed!
for it was raised to a greater thing than I intended it! For the
elegance, purity, and correctness which appeared in his writings were
not so much my purpose, as (in any intelligible manner, as I could) to
rally all those singularities of human life, through the different
professions and characters in it, which obstruct anything that was truly
good and great."

It is only fair to Steele to point out that the original idea of the
_Tatler_ was entirely his own, and that he alone was responsible for the
regular supply of material. Addison was in Ireland when the paper was
begun, and did not know who was the author until several numbers had
appeared. His occasional contributions were of little importance until
after eighty numbers had been published; and of the whole 271 numbers
Steele wrote about 188 and Addison only 42, while they were jointly
responsible for 36. Swift contributed only to about a dozen numbers; and