And concluding Leaf of my ‘Tatlers’. I am indeed much more proud of his long-continued Friendship, than I should be of the fame of being thought the author of any writings which he himself is capable of producing. I remember when I finished the ‘Tender Husband’, I told him there was nothing I so ardently wished, as that we might some time or other publish a work, written by us both, which should bear the name of THE MONUMENT, in Memory of our Friendship.’
Why he refers to such a wish, his next words show. The seven volumes of the ‘Spectator’, then complete, were to his mind The Monument, and of the Friendship it commemorates he wrote, ‘I heartily wish what I have done here were as honorary to that sacred name as learning, wit, and humanity render those pieces which I have taught the reader how to distinguish for his.’
So wrote Steele; and the ‘Spectator’ will bear witness how religiously his friendship was returned. In number 453, when, paraphrasing David’s Hymn on Gratitude, the ‘rising soul’ of Addison surveyed the mercies of his God, was it not Steele whom he felt near to him at the Mercy-seat as he wrote Thy bounteous hand with worldly bliss Has made my cup run o’er, And in a kind and faithful Friend Has doubled all my store?
