Contemporary with the Dean there was another Anglo-Irishman, who fills a large space in the history of English literature, and of whom his countrymen are justly proud.  Sir Richard Steele (1672-1729), who was born in Dublin and educated at the Charterhouse in London and afterwards at Oxford, started the Tatler in 1709, and thereby popularized, though he did not exactly originate, the periodical essay.  Aided by his friend, Addison, he carried the work to perfection in the Spectator (1711-1712) and the Guardian (1713).  Since then these essays have enlightened and amused each succeeding generation.  Of the two, Addison’s is the greater name, but Steele was the more innovating spirit, for it is to him, and not to Addison, that the conception and initiation of the plan of the celebrated papers is due.  Steele had had a predecessor in Defoe, whose Review had been in existence since 1704, but the more airy graces which characterized the Tatler and the Spectator gave the “lucubrations” of “Isaac Bickerstaffe” and of “Mr. Spectator” a greater hold on the public than Defoe’s paper was ever able to establish.  Steele was responsible for many more periodicals, such as the Englishman, the Lover, the Reader, Town Talk, the Tea-Table, Chit-Chat, the Plebeian, and the Theatre, most of which had a rather ephemeral existence.  Among his other services to literature he helped to purify the stage of some of its grossness, and he became the founder of that sentimental comedy which in the days of the early Georges took the place of the immoral comedy of the Restoration period, when, in Johnson’s famous phrase,

      Intrigue was plot, obscenity was wit.

Steele’s four comedies are The Funeral; or Grief a la mode (1701); The Lying Lover (1703); The Tender Husband (1705); and The Conscious Lovers (1722).  Although he held various lucrative offices, Steele was never really prosperous and was frequently in debt; like most of the contemporary Englishmen with whom his lot was thrown, he was rather addicted to the bottle; but, on the whole, it may fairly be advanced that unnecessary stress has been laid on these aspects of his life by Macaulay, Thackeray, and others.  After a chequered career, he died near Carmarthen, in Wales, on September 1, 1729.

Member of a family and bearer of a name destined to secure immense fame in later Irish history, Thomas Parnell (1679-1718) was born in Dublin and educated at Trinity College.  Entering the ministry in 1700, he was rapidly promoted to be archdeacon of Clogher and some years later was made rector of Finglas.  An accomplished scholar and a delightful companion, he was one of the original members of the famous Scriblerus Club and wrote or helped to write several of its papers, he contributed to the Spectator and the Guardian, and he rendered sterling assistance to Pope in the