The Spectator IN MINIATURE: Being a collection of the principal Religious, Moral, Humorous, Satyrical & Critical Efsays, contained in that celebrated ed publication Compressed into Two Volumes STEELE. LONDON. Published by W. Suttaby Crosby & Co and Scatcherd & Letterman. 1808. Whittingham Printer. MI TABLE OF CONTENTS TO With the Names (when known) of the Authors of Modesty and Assurance discriminated. The Same. 168 Vanity of most Men's Prayers..... ...The Same. 172 THE LIFE OF SIR RICHARD STEELE. Caput domina venalo sub hasta. JUVENAL. RICHARD STEELE, whose father was a counsellor at law, and private secretary to JAMES first Duke of ORMOND, was at an early age carried over from Dublin *, to England; and placed, by the influence of his father's patron, at the Charter House school in London, where he gave proofs of great quickness of apprehension, and made very considerable progress in classical learning. There he become intimate with ADDISON. STEELE was afterwards removed to Merton College, in Oxford, where he applied himself chiefly to polite literature, discovered an inclination to become a dramatic author, and actually wrote a comedy, which has never been published †. Steele was born in Dublin about the year 1675; his parents were English, of a good family. + Steele showed it to one of his friends, who ad vised him to suppress it, as not worthy of his genius. |