1 DECEMBER 1961, Page 15

S , IR,—Litcrary references to the Spectator are doubt- less innumerable,

but two notable omissions from Your modest self-appraisal occur to me. Readers of 1(lPling may recall in 'The Village that Voted the tarth was Flat' that to the general press denunciation Of purblind Huckley the Spectator contributed two Middles, 'Rural Tenacities' and 'Village Hausmania,' the latter—described as 'scholarly and delightful'— being a reference to the village's philistine neglect of its fourteenth-century font. . It may also be remembered that one of the war- time solaces of Evelyn Waugh's Guy Crouchback Was his Saturday walk to collect the Spectator (albeit tagether with the New Statesman and the 7'ablet!).