This play is the work of a man of singular character. He was attached to convival, and even dissipated enjoyments; yet the productions of his pen breathe the purest morality, and the chief practice of his life was benevolence, and every other charitable virtue.

Steele is a well known name to the admirers of the Spectator, the Tatler,² and others of his excellent publications. He was the colleague of the great Addison, in dispensing instruction and amusement to the English nation, who reformed their follies, and even their vices, on the perusal of his able lessons.

The faults, which he saw and regretted in himself, he took infinite pains to eradicate from the inclination of his neighbour. Industriously dissecting his own heart, and beholding each avenue to delinquency, he applied public remedies so efficacious against every minor, as well as capital, error, that his name comes down to posterity as one of the first among British moralists.

Steele was born about the year 1676,³ in Ireland; in which kingdom a branch of his family was possessed of a considerable estate. His father was of English extraction, but resided in Dublin; was a counsellor there, and private secretary to James, b 2[Page 4]Duke of Ormond. He sent this, his son Richard, into England for education; where, at the school of the Charter-house, he contracted that intimacy with Addison, his schoolfellow, which lasted, till death dissolved their friendship.⁴

The taste of Richard Steele, on arriving at manhood, first led him to the army, and he became an ensign in the Guards, and afterwards a captain in the corps of Fusileers.⁵ A taste for polite literature succeeded his military propensity; and he appeared before the public, as a dramatist, in the comedy of "The Funeral; or, Grief a la Mode."⁶

In the choice of his pursuits, both as a soldier and an author, he offended his nearest relations, and thereby lost all hopes of succeeding to that property, of which it was in their power to have rendered him possessed;⁷ but, in return for this serious and substantial good which he inconsiderately relinquished, he found himself the joy, the idol, of his gay companions; and valued such encomiums as his wit and humour excited, beyond every allurement which true affection or sage advice could offer.

His first success as a dramatic writer was soon embittered by a failure in his play of "The Lying Lover."⁸ But, possessing spirits untamed by disappointment, he pursued his literary employment with renovated ardour, and in his future compositions was generally fortunate.

The "Conscious Lovers" redeemed the credit he had previously forfeited; and in giving the town a novelty, by combining moral instruction with enter-[Page 5]tainment, he established a reputation with the good, and augmented his sway among the depraved.

This play was performed at Drury Lane in 1721.⁹ The merit of the graver scenes, from which the most powerful effect was produced at the time it first appeared, has since been much obscured by imitations which have surpassed the original;¹⁰ but to Steele are due the honours of originality, and of teaching an audience to think and to feel, as well as to laugh and applaud, at the representation of a comedy.

The scenes, wherein Bevil and Indiana¹¹ are concerned either together or separately, have ever been considered as elegantly written, highly refined, and deeply interesting. There is, notwithstanding, a degree of languor which pervades some of those scenes in the representation; nor has the remaining part of the comedy force sufficient to buoy up those characters, which, upon the stage, sink into insipidity, through the lifeless weight of mere refinement.

But though neither the extravagant raptures of love, nor the brilliancy of wit, are here to be found; sprightly dialogue, nervous sentiment, with affecting incident, are excellent substitutes: and if, in the character of Cimberton,¹² the author has at times degraded his muse, to comply with the degraded taste of the auditors of that period: the readers of this, will pardon such a fault in one, who seldom offended against good manners: and they will surely set a peculiar value on the whole drama, as the work of Sir Richard Steele.

This celebrated author added to his other profes-3[Page 6]sions, that of a politician; and his pen was of infinite use to the party whose opinions he adopted.¹³ He was indefatigable in producing pamphlets, essays, and other political writings, in support of his friends, and to the annoyance of their adversaries.

As Steele took all the liberty with the press which the press would give, and sometimes a little more—so, as he ranged himself with the strong or with the weak, on the ministerial or on the opposition side of the question, was he alternately punished or rewarded.¹⁴

About the middle of Queen Anne's reign, this author was both a placeman and pensioner¹⁵ —towards the end of it, he found the resignation of all such profit necessary; and having procured a seat in parliament, was expelled from that house for writing seditious libels.¹⁶

On the accession of George the First, he was taken into favour, on account of his former disloyalty; was appointed surveyor to the royal stables at Hampton Court; was put into the commission of the peace for the county of Middlesex; obtained a patent from his majesty, which made him manager and governor of the royal company of comedians, during his life, and received the honour of knighthood.¹⁷

Sir Richard was now once again chosen a representative in parliament, and obtained a more lucrative appointment than ever, as one of the commissioners for inquiring into the estates, forfeited by the late rebellion in Scotland.¹⁸ But neither this, the income which arose from his various other sinecure places, [Page 7]nor a fortune and estate which marriage had brought him, were sufficient to supply that idle luxury in which he lived, and the bounty he bestowed upon the necessitous. He was so inconsiderate, that his very best deeds lost that virtue which they would have derived from premeditation.

Although, from his careless character, the gifts which Steele bestowed upon the poor may be ascribed to his want of thought; still the advice, the admonitions, which he generously gave to the world, can admit of no such conclusion—for he certainly did not write without thinking.