13 OCTOBER 1923, Page 15

"MEND OR END."

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sra,—Whoever invented this phrase, John Morley probably got it from Walter Scott, either from The Heart of Mid- lothian (1818), o. 4—" till this is either mended or ended "- or from The Monastery (1820), c. 19, where Halbert Glenffinning says, "My fate calls me elsewhere to scenes where I shall end it [my fate] or mend it." In his note on this passage Andrew Lang thought that this was the original of "the political jingle." I am told that Browning used it, too.—