"A Rake," says he, "is a man always to be pitied; and if he lives one day is certainly reclaimed; for his faults proceed not from choice or inclination, but from strong passions and appetites, which are in youth too violent for the curb of reason, good sense, good manners, and good nature; all which he must have by nature and education before he can be allowed to be or to have been of this order.... His desires run away with him through the strength and force of a lively imagination, which hurries him on to unlawful pleasures before reason has power to come in to his rescue." That impulsiveness of feeling which is here described, and which was the cause of so many of Steele's failings in real life, made him the most powerful and persuasive advocate of Virtue in fiction. Of all the imaginative English essayists he is the most truly natural. His large heart seems to rush out in sympathy with any tale of sorrow or exhibition of magnanimity; and even in criticism, his true natural instinct, joined to his constitutional enthusiasm, often raises his judgments to a level with those of Addison himself, as in his excellent essay in the _Spectator_ on Raphael's cartoons. Examples of these characteristics in his style are to be found in the _Story of Unnion and Valentine_,[34] and in the fine paper describing two tragedies of real life;[35] in the series of papers on duelling, occasioned by a duel into which he was himself forced against his own inclination;[36] and in the sound advice which Isaac gives to his half-sister Jenny on the morrow of her marriage.[37] Perhaps, however, the chivalry and generosity of feeling which make Steele's writings so attractive are most apparent in the delightful paper containing the letter of Serjeant Hall from the camp before Mons. After pointing out to his readers the admirable features in the serjeant's simple letter, Steele concludes as follows: