17 JULY 1897, Page 15

SIR,—After reading your article on "The Sultan's Success" in the

Spectator of July 10th, I turned to "Lord Blachford's Letters," (p. 401), and read as follows :- " October 17th, 1880.

"What a muff European Concert is, unless one or more Powers are prepared and allowed to act constable ! The Sultan is some- thing between a farce and a bad dream, in which the same ridiculous or disgusting dilemma is always turning up, in the midst of all your struggles to avoid it. The eternal promise and the eternal breach, and the eternal surprise at being eternally taken in exactly the same way, and the eternal objections to the only mode of breaking through the eternal dilemma, are enough to choke one."

I cannot help telling you how striking the coincidence seems Sutton Oaks, Macclesfield, July 11th.