Richard Steele was born in Dublin, 1672, of English parents, and educated at the Charterhouse, where, as we have said, Addison was at the same time a pupil. In 1690 he matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, Addison being then demy at Magdalen. Steele left college without taking a degree, and entered the army as a cadet. After a time he obtained the rank of captain in Lord Lucas's fusiliers, and wrote his treatise, _The Christian Hero_ (1701), with the design, he says, 'principally to fix upon his own mind a strong impression of virtue and religion in opposition to a stronger propensity towards unwarrantable pleasure.' Steele was an honest lover of the things most worthy of love, but his frailty too often proved stronger than his virtue, and the purpose of _The Christian Hero_ was not answered.
Jeremy Collier's _Short View of the Immorality and Profanity of the English Stage_, published in 1698, had made, as it well might, a powerful impression, and Steele, who was always ready to inculcate morality on other people, wrote four comedies with a moral purpose. _The Funeral; or Grief à-la-Mode_ was acted with success at Drury Lane in 1701, and when published passed through several editions. _The Lying Lover_ followed two years later, and was, in the comfortable judgment of the author, 'damned for its piety.' This was followed, in 1705, by _The Tender Husband_, a play suggested by the _Sicilien_ of Molière, as _The Lying Lover_ had been founded on the _Menteur_ of Corneille. Many years later Steele's last play, _The Conscious Lovers_ (1722), completed his performances as a dramatist. It was dedicated to the King, who is said to have sent the author £500. The modern reader will find little worthy of attention in the dramas of Steele. His sense of humour enlivens some of the scenes, and is, perhaps, chiefly visible in _The Funeral_; but for the most part dulness is in the ascendant, and the sentiment is frequently mawkish. _The Conscious Lovers_, said Parson Adams, contains 'some things almost solemn enough for a sermon.' This may be true, but we do not desire a sermon in a play, and Steele, who is always a lively essayist, loses his liveliness in writing for the stage. It has been observed by Mr. Ward that, taking a hint from Colley Cibber, he 'became the real founder of that sentimental comedy which exercised so pernicious an influence upon the progress of our dramatic literature.' 'It would be unjust,' he adds, 'to hold him responsible for the feebleness of successors who were altogether deficient in the comic power which he undoubtedly even as a dramatist exhibits; but in so far as their aberrations were the result of his example, he must be held to have contributed, though with the best of motives, to the decline of the English drama.'[38] One of the prominent offenders who followed in Steele's wake was George Lillo (1693-1739), whose highly moral tragedies, written for the edification of playgoers, have the kind of tragic interest which is called forth by any commonplace tale of crime and misery. In Lillo's two most important dramas, _George Barnwell_ (1731), a play founded on the old ballad, and _The Fatal Curiosity_ (1736), there is a total absence of the elevation in character and language which gives dignity to tragedy. His plays are like tales of guilt arranged and amplified from the Newgate Calendar. The author wrote with a good purpose, and the public appreciated his work, but it is not dramatic art, and has no pretension to the name of literature.