ABSTRACT
This tract in 1701, Steele’s first prose work, was written when he was on active duty in and near London as an Ensign of the Guards. It was addressed to “ Men of Wit and Gallantry,” but particularly to his fellow soldiers, and was dedicated to his colonel, Lord Cutts, one of Marlborough’s most able generals. In purpose and content it is related to the moral essay, the manual of piety, and the reforming tract issued in such vast numbers at the turn of the century. That Steele’s first object of reform was himself he confessed some years later: he wrote it “ with a design principally to fix upon his own Mind a strong Impression of Virtue and Religion.” For a time he did not publish it (the summer of 1699 was the date of its inception) ; but “This secret Admonition was too Weak; he therefore Printed the Book with his Name, in hopes that a standing Testimony against Himself might … make him ashamed of Understanding and seeming to feel what was Virtuous and living so quite contrary a Life ” (Apology, 1714).
