STEELE OR CONGREVEP
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Sra,—There are certain errors or perversions of fact which are apparently as hard to kill as it is easy to show that they ought to die. In the Spectator of to-day, I meet, for the hundredth time, with a reference to " Steele's beautiful enlogium on Lady Elizabeth Hastings." It is as certain as any fact in literary 'history can well be, that this most exquisite tribute ever paid to the memory of a noble woman is no more Steele's than it is yours or mine. The character of Aspasia, in the forty- second number of the Tatter, was written by Congreve. But --ever since Leigh Hunt "could not help thinking that the gener- ous and trusting hand of Steele was very visible throughout this portrait," it has been assumed, with a placid perversity which bids defiance to unacceptable fact, that the sentimental Zebauchee known to modern sympathies as "dear Dick Steele" must be credited with the authorship of an immortal phrase, which is considered by his admirers too beautiful to be the property of a cynical worldling whose name has never been ex- posed to the posthumous homage of such tender and touching familiarities. So convincing an argument is hardly to be over- thrown by mere prosaic evidence, yet the fact remains unalter- able by the verdict of all the sentimental journalists in " Letter land," that it was not the author of "The Conscious Lovers," but the author of "The Way of the World" who said of a good -woman, that "to love her was a liberal education."—I am,
&e., March 22nd. A. C. SWINEURNE. [We wish Mr. Swinburne would give his proof. The attribution of these lines to Congreve has been disputed.— ED. Spectator.]
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