26 APRIL 1913, Page 32

"ELEGANT EXTRACTS."

[To THE EDITOR Or THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—In your issue of April 19th your correspondent gives a very apt quotation from" Elegant Extracts" in the "Ode to

Pitt," most applicable to the organization, or want of organ- ization, in the English Army, so vigorously urged by Lord Roberts. Another parallel, however, suggests itself in reference to two leading events of our time in the following lines of Cowper :—

"When lawless mobs insult the Court, That man shall be my toast,

If breaking windows be the sport, Who bravely breaks the most !

But oh! for him my fancy culls The choicest flow'r she bears, Who constitutionally pulls

Your house about your ears."

The second line unfortunately demands a slight variation. These verses form the heading of Letter No. xxx., being one of a series of political pamphlet-records, written in the defence and praise of the principles, sentiments, and motives of the Right Hon. W. Pitt. They were published in one volume (1812), entitled "The Pilot that Weathered the Storm," with a dedication under the pseudonym "Plutarch." written in a_ masterly style and of characteristic .composition.—I am,

Oakley Crescent, S. V.