15 DECEMBER 1883, Page 15

" JONATHAN SWIFT."

[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.") SIR,—In your critique of " Jonathan Swift " last week, you make a misstatement on a matter of facts which I shall be obliged by your correcting. The book is not an attempt, ambitions or otherwise, to solve the riddle of my hero's life, nor any other riddle. It is an attempt to hold the mirror up to the grandest and most terrible phase of nature, nothing more. The musty investigation of details can safely be left to the chrono- logists.

I may fairly ask you to make this correction, as many who- are capable of understanding a prose poem would never think of reading the plodding investigation of an historical common- place. It is for them I have written.--I am, Sir, &o., Tuz AUTHOR OP "I0NATHLi Swam!'