17 NOVEMBER 1906, Page 33

THE LATE MR. AITBERON HERBERT.

[To vas EDITOR OF TEl "SPECTATOR.")

Sin,—A little-known episode in the life of Mr. Herbert was the part he played during the Dano-Prussian War of 1864, an account of his stay at the seat of war being described in "Danes in Camp : Letters from Sonderborg." What he, however, omits to mention in this little book is the gallantry displayed by himself on the night of March 29th, 1864, when the Prussians made an unsuccessful attempt to storm the battered Danish entrenchments at Dybbol. Herbert volunteered as ambulance soldier on that occasion, ignoring the tempest of shot and shell, and succeeded in bringing out of the firing- line several wounded and maimed Danes. Loud cheers from the soldiers greeted this brave deed, which gained Herbert the Order of the Dannebrog. Owing to the quaint costume worn by him, the soldiers nicknamed him "the leathern man" or "Robinson Crusoe." A Danish poet recently included this episode in a cyclus of songs on the war, and this poem, "The Englishman," had only a few days before the death of Herbert been arranged for translation and presentation to