Steele enlisted in 1694 as a private in the Duke of Ormond's regiment of Guards. Private soldiers in the Guards were often gentlemen's sons, and Steele was in reality a cadet, looking forward to the position of ensign. When Queen Mary died in the following year he published an anonymous poem, _The Procession_, the work of "a gentleman of the army," and dedicated it to Lord Cutts, Colonel of the Coldstream Guards. He was rewarded by being made a confidential agent to Lord Cutts, who also obtained for him an ensign's commission in his own regiment. By 1700 we find Steele referred to as "Captain Steele," and in friendly intercourse with Sir Charles Sedley, Vanbrugh, Garth, Congreve, and other wits. In that year, too, he fought a duel with a Captain Kelly, "one or two of his acquaintances having," as he says, "thought fit to misuse him, and try their valour upon him." The event made a serious impression upon Steele, who, much in advance of his age, never ceased to remonstrate in his after writings against the "barbarous custom of duelling." The life of a soldier stationed at the Tower was certain to lead a young man of Steele's sociable, hearty nature, into excesses. It was, as he says, "a life exposed to much irregularity"; and as he often did things of which he repented, he wrote, for his own use, a little book called _The Christian Hero_; and finding that this secret admonition was too weak he published the volume in 1701, with his name on the title-page. It was "an argument proving that no principles but those of religion are sufficient to make a great man." A second edition was called for in three months, but the only effect of the publication in the regiment was "that from being reckoned no undelightful companion he was soon reckoned a disagreeable fellow." Under these circumstances he says he felt it to be "incumbent upon him to enliven his character, for which reason he wrote the comedy called _The Funeral_, in which (though full of incidents that move laughter) virtue and vice appear just as they ought to do. Nothing can make the town so fond of a man as a successful play." Let us look for a moment at the condition of the drama at the opening of the eighteenth century. II.