o be seriously angry with him, and that even rigid moralists felt
more inclined to pity than to blame him, when he diced himself into a
sponging house, or drank himself into a fever. Addison regarded Steele
with kindness not unmingled with scorn, tried, with little success, to
keep him out of scrapes, introduced him to the great, procured a good
place for him, corrected his plays, and, though by no means rich, lent
him large sums of money. One of these loans appears, from a letter dated
in August, 1708, to have amounted to a thousand pounds. These pecuniary
transactions probably led to frequent bickerings. It is said that, on
one occasion, Steele's negligence, or dishonesty, provoked Addison to
repay himself by the help of a bailiff. We cannot join with Miss Aikin
in rejecting this story. Johnson heard it from Savage, who heard it from
Steele. Few private transactions which took place a hundred and twenty
years ago are proved by stronger evidence than this. But we can by no
means agree with those who condemn Addison's severity. The most amiable
of mankind may well be moved to indignation, when what he has earned
hardly, and lent with great inconvenience to himself, for the purpose of
relieving a friend in distress, is squandered with insane profusion. We
will illustrate our meaning by an example, which is not the less
striking because it is taken from fiction. Dr. Harrison, in Fielding's
Amelia, is represented as the most benevolent of human beings; yet he
takes in execution, not only the goods, but the person of his friend
Booth. Dr. Harrison resorts to this strong measure because he has been
informed that Booth, while pleading poverty as an excuse for not paying
just debts, has been buying fine jewelry, and setting up a coach. No
person who is well acquainted with Steele's life and correspondence can
doubt that he behaved quite as ill to Addison as Booth was accused of
behaving to Dr. Harrison. The real history, we have little doubt, was
something like this: A letter comes to Addison, imploring help in
pathetic terms, and promising reformation and speedy repayment. Poor
Dick declares that he has not an inch of candle, or a bushel of coals,
or credit with the butcher for a shoulder of mutton. Addison is moved.
He determines to deny himself some medals which are wanting to his
series of the Twelve Caesars; to put off buying the new edition of
Bayle's Dictionary; and to wear his old sword and buckles another year.
In this