4 - The Guardian, Parliament and Dunkirk

Summary

Father, Debtor and Entrepreneur

Between 1709 and the first months of 1713, the period of the Tatler and the Spectator, Steele's activities and accomplishments were not confined to the literary periodical, however taxing that work must have been. His growing family certainly added significant responsibilities. His first daughter, Elizabeth, was born on 26 March 1709 – shortly before the beginning of the Tatler (12 April 1709). His son Richard was born on 25 May, 1710; he died at the age of six. Eugene was born on 4 March 1712. Mary was probably born at the end of January, 1713, under difficult circumstances. Mary Scurlock, Prue's mother, had come to London to visit the family but took ill and died. The young Irish clergyman and philosopher George Berkeley, who had first met Steele in January, reported that Mrs Steele had given birth to a son on the same day as her mother died. Most biographers suspect that Berkeley was mistaken as to the gender of the baby, but Aitken speculates (on no real evidence) that a son may have died soon after, and Mary may have been born at the end of the year. In addition to these four children, Steele remained responsible for his illegitimate daughter Elizabeth Ousley.

On the death of Mrs Scurlock, Steele gained an annual income of £500 from her Welsh property. Berkeley notes Steele's kindness to his wife on this occasion and goes on to describe the happy situation of the Steeles:

Before she lay down the poor man told me he was in great pain and put to a thousand little shifts to conceal his mother's desperate illness from her. The tender concern he showed on that occasion, and what I have observed in another good friend of mine, makes me imagine the best men are always the best husbands. I told Mr. Steele if he neglects to resume his writings, the world will look on it as the effect of his growing rich. But he says this addition to his fortune will rather encourage him to exert himself more than ever; and I am apter to believe him, because there appears in his natural temper something very generous and a great benevolence to mankind.