STEELE, OR CONGREVE P
lTo THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR!'] Sra,—I missed seeing anything of this controversy while it was' in its earlier stages. Still, I think you will say it is not too late, to point out the curious mistake into which you and Mr. Swin- burne alike seem to have fallen. The description of Aspasia in- the forty-second number of the Taller is, I believe, unques- tionably by Congreve. But then the beautiful words, " love her is a liberal education," are not to be found in that- essay. They are to be found, as any one can see for him- self, in the forty-ninth number of the Tatter, and in an essay written, I believe, unquestionably by Steele. The forty-ninth number of the Taller contrasts Aspasia, Congreve's Aspasia,- no doubt, with a certain Leucippe, and says of the former, that
to behold her is an immediate check to loose behaviour, and to- love her is a liberal education." It is then, after all, to the- " sentimental debauchee," as Mr. Swinburne calls him, to Dick Steele, that we are to attribute the words so often quoted.—le am, Sir, 4kc.,
15 Ebury Street, S.W., April 16th. JUSTIN MCCARTHY,
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