a liberal
education.'" Leigh Hunt's critical judgment was better than his
information. The words "to love her is a liberal education" are by
Steele, and not by Congreve. They do not appear in the essay by
Congreve on the character of Lady Elizabeth Hastings, but in a
subsequent essay by Steele, in which, after a fashion common enough in
the _Tatler_ and the _Spectator_, one author takes up some figure
created or described by another, and gives it new touches and commends
it afresh to the reader. Steele was doing this with Congreve's picture
of Aspasia, and it was then that he crowned the whole work by the
exquisite and immortal words which Leigh Hunt could never read without
thinking they must have come from the man who was in fact their author.

If literature had its losses in these years, it had also its gains.
Not long before the time at which we have now arrived, English
literature had achieved three great successes. Pope wrote the first
three books of his {302} "Dunciad," Swift published his "Gulliver's
Travels," and Gay set the town wild with his "Beggar's Opera." We are
far from any thought of classifying the "Beggar's Opera" as a work of
art on a level with the "Dunciad" or "Gulliver's Travels," but in its
way it is a masterpiece. It is thoroughly original, fresh, and vivid.
It added one or two distinctly new figures to the humorous drama. It
is clever as a satire and charming as a story. One cannot be surprised
that when it had the attraction of novelty the public raved about it.
To say anything about "Gulliver's Travels" or the "Dunciad," except to
note the historical fact that each was published, would of course be
mere superfluity and waste of words.

In 1731 the first steps were taken in a reform of some importance in
the liberation of our legal procedure. It was arranged that English
should be substituted for Latin in the presentments, indictments,
pleadings, and all other documents used in our courts of law. The
early stages of this most wise and needful reform were met with much
opposition by lawyers and pedants. One main argument employed in favor
of the retention of the old system was that, if the language of our
legal documents were to be changed, no man would be at the pains of
studying Latin any more, and that in a few years no one would be able
to read a word of some of our own most valuable historical records. It
was mildly suggested on the other side that there would always be some