regards to each other, mutual and unchangeable, that, while the world around us is enchanted with the false fatisfactions of vagrant defires, our perfons may be shrines to each other, and facred to conjugal faith, unreferved confidence, and heavenly fociety. While we live after this manner, angels will be so far from being our fuperiors, that they will be our attendants. Every good being guard my faireft, and conduct her to that bofom that pants to receive her, and protect her from all the cares and viciffitudes of life with an eternal tenderness! I am ever most obligedly yours, RICH. STEELE.

LETTER XXII. To Mrs. SCURLOCK.

MADAM,

Saturday, Sept. 6, 1707.

AM at a friend's house, where they have given me, as you fee, but very ordinary inftruments to write with. However, I hope the fincerity of my heart is not to be measured by the drefs in which I cloath it. My thoughts hurry upon me in confideration of the approach of the moment in which those fair lips are to give me in one monofyllable more than all the eloquence in the world can exprefs, when you say Yes to the accepting of, Madam, your moft obliged, moft grateful, moft obedient fervant,

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RICH. STEELE.

LETTER

LETTER XXIII. To Mrs. SCURLOCK *,

MADAM,

IN

Sept. 7, 1707. N obedience to your commands by your daughter, of hearing every poft from this town of her health and welfare, I do myself the honour to inform you of it, and humbly defire you would accept of my own duty,

I hope you have before now received a letter from me wherein I laid before you at large the ftate of my affairs, and that, when we come to be acquainted, you will not esteem it a disadvantageous accident that I have the honour of being, Madam, your most obedient fon, and moft humble fervant, RICH. STEELE.

I

LETTER XXIV. To Mrs. SCURLOCK.

MADAM,

Sept. 9t.

HOPE your denying what I urged with so much paffion, and which I complained of in too vehement a manner, has not been a grief to my tender companion; for, upon reflection

To Mrs. Scurlock's mother.

+ See Letter XIX.

The date is altered from Sept. 9, to Sept. 11. See Letter XXVI. and zote.

this morning, I extremely approve your conduct, and take your behaviour to proceed from an inclination to come to my arms hallowed by your parent's bleffing. I comply with your measures. in bringing that happiness about, and fhall be have myself as if only in the beginning of a facred love made at the altar. I promife to my-" felf fincere felicity in a woman that can facrifice all defires to her duty; and I affure you, whatever appearance of care and disturbance you may observe now and then in my countenance, it is not the image of fpleen, ill-nature, or diffatisfaction, but a ftrong propenfity to make you the happiest of your fex; which I fhall endeavour to do, rather by an induftrious ambition to promote your fortune, than by a mere dalliance of your perfon only, to fhow a greater regard to the beauty than the wife. I beg of you to show my letters to no one living, but let us be contented with one another's thoughts upon our words and actions, without the intervention of other people, who cannot judge of fo delicate a circumstance as the commerce between man and wife. I am eternally yours, RICH. STEELE.

Pray write me a line.

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LETTER

LETTER XXV. To Mrs. SCURLOCK.

MADAM,

B

Sept. 10, 1707 *.

EING very uneafy when absent from you, I defire you would give me leave to take coach and come to your house; in order to which, pray let Warren be in the way to adinit your most obliged humble fervant,

RICH. STEELE.

LETTER XXVI†. To Mrs. SCURLOCK 1.

MADAM,

B

Lord Sunderland's Office, Whitehall, Sept. 20, 1707. Y Tuesday's poft I took the liberty to write to you on the most important occafion, and have been in ten thousand anxieties

ever

*The date of this letter, which is directed "to Mrs. Warren," eems to have been altered from Sept 10, to Sept. 13, 1707. + To Mrs. Scurlock's mother. See the next note.

"It feems to me that the two preceding letters to Mrs. Scurock's mother, were not fent according to their real original dates. Perhaps Mrs. Scurlock, who probably became Mrs. Steele on the 6th or 7th of Sept. 1707, prevented these two letters, which are marked No XIX. and No XXIII. from being difpatched. There appears to have been an intention, on her part, to have kept her marriage private, and to have abftained from her husband's bed, till her mother came from Caermarthen to her London houfe in Swallow-street. This supposition throws fome light on the letter marked No XXIV. and is countenanced

by

ever fince that time, for the reception which that letter is to find. The circumftance is fo tender, and my happinefs hangs fo much upon it, that I could not forbear feconding my first address to you with a fecond, though, I proteft to you, I fet pen to paper with as much diffidence. as if I had the fame paffion for yourself as for your daughter. I do not entertain you with an account of my fortune, and those particulars which will naturally be enquired into by a parent, because I doubt not but you have fo good an opinion of Mrs. Scurlock's prudence, that you do not believe fhe would throw herself away. As to your favour to my pretenfions, I hope it upon no other foundation, than making it appear to you that, as to your own part in the

by fimilar inftances of prudery, mentioned in the course of Steele's correfpondence. His first letters to his wife are not directed to her, but to Mrs. Warren, witnefs the two following, dated Sept. 21, and Oct. 6, 1707. STEELE, it feems, did by no means relish this way of proceeding. It appears from No XXIV. that he oppofed it warmly, and I suspect that he wrote feveral letters on the fubject, which have not escaped the wreck of time and chance. An attention to the dates of the letters about this time confirms me in this opinion. On the 7th of Oct. 1707, STEELE went into open rebellion, and directs his letter to his wife, to Mrs. STEELE, and perfevered in his obftinacy. On the 13th of the fame month he begs pardon for every act of rebellion, but then he seems to have carried his points, or per fifted nevertheless. See No 29, et feq. The alterations and indorsements on fome of these letters, if made by Mrs. Mary Scurlock, afterwards Lady Steele, are miferably bungled, and give no proofs of her fagacity." I owe this note to my good friend, the ANNOTATOR ON THE TATLER.

affair,