11 DECEMBER 1915, Page 16

BENTLEY AND JOHNSON. [To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.")

Sin,—May I venture to point out that a saying which, in your issue of December 4th, you ascribe to Johnson was really borrowed by him from Bentley ? Macaulay writes :— "Ho [Johnson] always maintained that fame was a shuttlecock which could be kept up only by being beaten back, as well as beaten ■ forward, and which would soon fall if there were only one battledore. No saying was oftener in his mouth than that fine apophthegm of Bentley, that no man was over written down but by himsclf."

The phrase of Bentley—less terse than its modern version— is thus given in BartIett's Familiar Quotations : 'It is a maxim with me that no man was ever written out of reputation but