mprovident; and his sanguine Irish nature led
him continually to mistake his expectations for his income. Naturally,
perhaps, his "absolute Governesse" complained of an absolutism so
strangely limited. If her affection for him was scarcely as ardent as
his passion for her, it was still a genuine emotion. But to a coquette
of some years' standing, and "a cried-up beauty" (as Mrs. Manley calls
her), the realities of her married life must have been a cruel
disappointment; and she was not the woman to conceal it. "I wish,"
says her husband in one of his letters, "I knew how to Court you into
Good Humour, for Two or Three Quarrells more will dispatch me quite."
Of her replies we have no knowledge; but from scattered specimens of
her style when angry, they must often have been exceptionally scornful
and unconciliatory. On one occasion, where he addresses her as
"Madam," and returns her note to her in order that she may see, upon
second thoughts, the disrespectful manner in which she treats him, he
is evidently deeply wounded. She has said that their dispute is far
from being a trouble to her, and he rejoins that to him any
disturbance between them is the greatest affliction imaginable. And
then he goes on to expostulate, with more dignity than usual, against
her unreasonable use of her prerogative. "I Love you," he says,
"better than the light of my Eyes, or the life-blood in my Heart but
when I have lett you know that, you are also to understand that
neither my sight shall be so far inchanted, or my affection so much
master of me as to make me forgett our common Interest. To attend my
businesse as I ought and improve my fortune it is necessary that my
time and my Will should be under no direction but my own." Clearly his
bosom's queen had been inquiring too closely into his goings and
comings. It is a strange thing, he says, in another letter, that,
because she is handsome, he must be always giving her an account of
every trifle, and minute of his time. And again--"Dear Prue, do not
send after me, for I shall be ridiculous!" It had happened to him, no
doubt. "He is governed by his wife most abominably, as bad as
Marlborough," says another contemporary letter-writer. And we may
fancy the blue eyes of Dr. Swift flashing unutterable scorn as he
scribbles off this piece of intelligence to Stella and Mrs. Dingley.

In the letters which follow Steele's above-quoted expostulation, the
embers of misunderstanding flame and fade, to f