27 JUNE 1874, Page 15

!1R. HOVENDEN'S " ODES OF HORACE." [TO THE EDITOR OF

THE "SPECTATOR.")

Stn,—Last week, in your notice of my "Paraphrase" of the "Odes of Horace," you quoted the eighteenth of the First Book as a specimen of my manner, and in line seven printed " let " for " lest." Now, without questioning a critic's right to select at will any portion of a published book, and treating that as a fair sample, to pronounce judgment on the whole accordingly, I cannot but hold that he is bound not to change the sense of a passage into non-