Note 300 — [Steele.

Thackeray has compared the treatment of Death by Swift, Addison, and Steele. After speaking of Addison's "lovely serenity" and Swift's "savage indignation," he turns to Steele: "The third, whose theme is Death, too, and who will speak his word of mortal as Heaven teaches him, leads you up to his father's coffin, and shows you his beautiful mother weeping, and himself an unconscious little boy wondering at her side. His own natural tears flow as he takes your hand, and confidingly asks for your sympathy; 'See how good and innocent and beautiful women are,' he says, 'how tender little children! Let us love these and one another, brother—God knows we have need of love and pardon!'" ("English Humourists," 1864, 158-9).