12 JUNE 1920, Page 16

CANON RAWNSLEY AND - THE TAKES. [To THE EDITOR or THE

" SPECTATOR."]

Sia,—In your " News of the Week " note on Canon Rawnsley last week you make a strange mistake (hut it is probably due to a printer's omission) when you say : "He was appointed, a few years after leaving Oxford, to the vicarage of Wray on Lake Windermere, and he spent the rest of his life there or at Grasmere." Canon Rawnsley was vicar of Low Wray for five years (1878-83) only, and from 1883 until he retired about three years ago he was vicar of Crosthwaite, near Keswick (in the beautiful churchyard of which Southey sleeps), in the "glorious presence of old Skiddaw," and in full view of " Derwent's glassy lake." In that church, while on visits to the Lakes, I heard many a strikingly eloquent sermon from this versatile worker, and in particular I remember one on the centenary of Tennyson's birth in August, 1909, and one on " The Lady of the Lamp " (Florence Nightingale) on her death in 1910. These were congenial subjects to him, and few who heard the sermons in these beautiful surroundings can forget [We regret the inadvertence, all the more because we always associated Canon Rawnsley with Crosthwaite.—ED. Spectator.]