preferring the state of his mind to
that of his fortune." The result of this principle of moral conduct
was, that a man of the most admirable abilities was perpetually acting
like a fool, and, with a warm attachment to virtue, was the frailest
of human beings.

In the first act of his life we find the seed that developed itself in
the succeeding ones. His uncle could not endure a hero for his heir:
but Steele had seen a marching regiment; a sufficient reason with him
to enlist as a private in the horse-guards: cocking his hat, and
putting on a broad-sword, jack-boots, and shoulder-belt, with the most
generous feelings he forfeited a very good estate.--At length Ensign
Steele's frank temper and wit conciliated esteem, and extorted
admiration, and the ensign became a favourite leader in all the
dissipations of the town. All these were the ebullitions of genius,
which had not yet received a legitimate direction. Amid these orgies,
however, it was often pensive, and forming itself; for it was in the
height of these irregularities that Steele composed his "Christian
Hero," a moral and religious treatise, which the contritions of every
morning dictated, and to which the disorders of every evening added
another penitential page. Perhaps the genius of Steele was never so
ardent and so pure as at this period; and in his elegant letter to his
commander, the celebrated Lord Cutts, he gives an interesting account
of the origin of this production, which none but one deeply imbued
with its feelings could have so forcibly described.

"_Tower Guard, March 23, 1701._

"MY LORD,--The address of the following papers is so very much due
to your lordship, that they are but a mere report of what has
passed upon my guard to my commander; for they were writ upon
duty, when the mind was perfectly disengaged, and at leisure, in
the silent watch of the night, to run over the busy dream of the
day; and the vigilance which obliges us to suppose an enemy always
near us, has awakened a sense that there is a restless and subtle
one which constantly attends our steps, and meditates our
ruin."[120]

To this solemn and monitory work he prefixed his name, from this
honourable motive, that it might serve as "a standing testimony
against himself, and make him ashamed of understanding, and seeming to
feel what was virtuous, and living so quite contrary a life." Do we
not think that no one less than a saint is speaking to us? And yet