his mother's. He was educated at Charterhouse,
and followed much the same course as his countryman, Farquhar. He tells
us gaily, "At fifteen I was sent to the University, and stayed there for
some time; but a drum passing by, being a lover of music, I enlisted
myself as a soldier." He seems to have been at this time ambitious of
being one of those "topping fellows," of whom he afterwards spoke with
so much contempt. Among the various appointments he successively
obtained, was that of Gentleman Usher to Prince George, and that of
Gazetteer, an office which gave him unusual facilities for affording his
readers foreign intelligence. He was also Governor of the Royal Company
of Comedians, and wrote plays, his best being "The Conscious Lovers"
and "The Funeral." The latter was much liked by King William.
Notwithstanding its melancholy title, it contained some good comic
passages, as where the undertaker marshalls his men and puts them
through a kind of rehearsal:--

_Sable._ Well, come, you that are to be mourners in this house, put
on your sad looks, and walk by me that I may sort you. Ha, you! a
little more upon the dismal--(_forming their countenances_)--this
fellow has a good mortal look--place him near the corpse; that
wainscot face must be o' top of the stairs; that fellow's almost in
a fright (that looks as if he were full of some strange misery) at
the entrance of the hall--so--but I'll fix you all myself. Let's
have no laughing now on any provocation, (_makes faces_.) Look
yonder, that hale, well-looking puppy! You ungrateful scoundrel,
did not I pity you, take you out of a great man's service, and show
you the pleasure of receiving wages? Did not I give you ten, then
fifteen, now twenty shillings a week to be sorrowful? and the more
I give you, I think the gladder you are.

At the first commencement of the "Tatler," Steele seems to have
intended, as was usual at the time, to write almost the whole newspaper
himself, and he always continued nominally to do so under the name of
Isaac Bickerstaff. The only assistance he could have at all counted upon
was that of Addison--his old schoolfellow at Charterhouse--whose
contributions proved to be very scanty. We soon find him falling short
of material and calling upon the the public for contributions. Thus he
makes at the ends of some of the early numbers such suggestions as "Mr.
Bickerstaff thanks Mr. Quart