Throughout his life Steele was at war with fortune. His hopefulness was inexhaustible, but he learnt no lessons from experience, and escaped from one slough to fall into another. He was as unthrifty as Goldsmith, whom in many respects he resembles, and his warm, impulsive nature was allied to a combativeness and jealousy which sometimes led him to quarrel with his best friends. Of his passion for the somewhat exacting lady whom he married,[39] and of the 400 and odd notelets addressed by the lover-husband to his 'dear, dearest Prue,' and 'absolute Governess,' it is enough to say here, that the story told offhand in his own words, shows how lovable the man was in spite of the faults which he never attempted to conceal. Only about a week before the marriage the lady had fair warning of one probable drawback to her happiness as a wife.[40] On the morning of August 30th, 1707, Steele advised his 'fair one' to look up to that heaven which had made her so sweet a companion, and in the evening of that day he wrote:
'I have been in very good company, where your health, under the character of _the woman I loved best_, has been often drunk, so that I may say I am dead drunk for your sake, which is more than I _die for you_.
After marriage Steele's extravagance and impecuniosity must have proved a severe trial to Prue. At times he would live in considerable style, and Berkeley, who writes, in 1713, of dining with him frequently at his house in Bloomsbury Square, praises his table, servants, and coach as 'very genteel.' At other times the family were without common necessaries, and on one occasion there was not 'an inch of candle, a pound of coal, or a bit of meat in the house.'
On the 12th April, 1709, Steele issued the first number of the _Tatler_, its supposed author being the Isaac Bickerstaff, whose name, thanks to Swift, had been 'rendered famous through all parts of Europe.' The essays appeared every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, for the convenience of the post, and at the outset contained political news, which Steele, by his government appointment of Gazetteer, was enabled to supply. After awhile, however, much to the advantage of the _Tatler_, this news was dropped. The articles are dated from White's Chocolate-house, from Will's Coffee-house, from the Grecian, and from the St. James's. It is probable that the column in Defoe's _Review_, containing _Advice from the Scandal Club_, suggested his 'Lucubrations' to Steele. If so, it does not detract from his originality of treatment, for Defoe's town gossip is poor stuff. Addison, who knew nothing of the project beforehand, came, ere long, to his friend's assistance; but it was not until about eighty numbers had appeared, that he became a frequent contributor, and before that time Steele had made his mark. When the essays were afterwards reprinted in four volumes, Steele, who was never wanting in gratitude, generously acknowledged the help he had received. 'I fared,' he says, 'like a distressed prince who calls in a powerful neighbour to his aid. I was undone by my auxiliary. When I had once called him in, I could not subsist without dependence on him.' The _Tatler_ still supplies delightful entertainment, and in the almost total absence of amusing and wholesome reading in Steele's time, must have proved a welcome companion. Readers who are inundated by what is called 'light literature' can with difficulty imagine the dearth suffered in Pope's day, when the interminable romances of Calprenède, of Mdlle. de Scuderi and her brother, and of Madame la Fayette, were the liveliest books considered fit for a modest woman to read. A novel, however, in ten volumes, like the _Grand Cyrus_ or _Clélie_, had one advantage over the cheap fictions of our time, its interest was not soon exhausted.