"JOHN THADDEUS MACKAY."
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—Thanking you very heartily for your review of my story, " John Thaddeus Mackay," in the Spectator of June 10th—one of less than half a dozen which show that the writer read the book—may I ask whether you object to my taste in publishing "apparently a private letter" from Car. dinal Newman, or to my footnote interdicting its publica- tion? In the first contingency, let me say that I had express authority from Dr., not then Cardinal, Newman to publish the letter if I thought it "advisable," but it was not printed then because I went abroad and mislaid the letter for years. As to the footnote, I interdicted the republication because my experience is that once an extract appears in a review it runs round the country without any recognition of where it comes from, and sometimes mutilated to boot, as Sheridan's gipsies treated children.—I am, Sir, &c.,
CHARLES WILLIAMS.
Constitutional Club, Northumberland Avenue, W.C., Junellth.
[Our objection was based on a misconception. The posi- tion of the footnote led us to suppose that the republication of the letter was forbidden by the writer.—En. Spectator.]
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