Jane Attwater (1753–1843)

Jane Attwater’s friendship with Mary Steele was so deep that it served as the model for Danebury, Steele’s narrative poem about “The Power of Friendship” between two young girls about the same age as Steele and Attwater in 1768, the year the poem was composed. After the poem’s publication in 1779, Steele sent Attwater a copy with the fol-lowing inscription: Sylvia cannot transmit this little Pamphlet to the Friend of her heart without reminding her from whom those Ideas of Friendship arose which it feebly attempts to describe without recollecting with enthusiastic tenderness those happy hours when her Myrtilla taught her “Ere she knew its name to feel its Power” & however deficient she is in every other respect her Bosom still glows with the ardent wish of being what Emma was to Elfrida A Faithful Friend[.] (NWW 3: 390, n. 2)