THE CASUAL READER.
[To ma EDITOR or me ..SPECTATOO..3 SIR,—Of the five expressions with which, in Parthian fashion, H. C." challenges the reader of his delightful article (Spectator, January 17th), the most interesting is, perhaps, the well-known "Comparisons are odious." It is much older than Shakespeare or Donne, to whom it is usually attributed. It occurs in the "odious" form in Cockelbie's Sow, an uncouth hotch-potch of fable and adventure written in Scottish home- spun of, perhaps, the fifteenth century. Having mislaid my copy, I regret to be unable to quote chapter and verse, but there, I believe, it is. Now, may I, more &Woo, answer "N. C's " question by asking why "All the time," as used by Mark Twain, is called an Americanism, and why "I doubt," in the sense of "I fear," "I rather think," is said to be a
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