THE ENGLISH IN LOVE
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—I am more than sorry if the editors of this charming anthology (as I called it in my review) found that review only a " minor pleasure." I see that my mentioning of slips must have given a wrong impression of my attitude towards the book, which, as I hoped I had made clear in the rest of my review, was one of enthusiastic enjoyment. But perhaps slips should only be mentioned in letters to authors ; after all, they are very unimportant. Any anthologist knows how easy it is to make them, both in one's original labours and in proof-reading and above all in the vile work of indexing. If my mention of them sounded carping, may I repeat what I said in my review, that " it is enthusiasm, nice taste, and wide reading that make a good anthology, and all these they have." ? I will add to these qualities erudition, industry, and an admirable sense of the comic and the beautiful.
As to the well-known extract from the Two Noble Kinsmen, the lapse in intelligence was mine, in noting the mistaken ascription in the index and not turning from that to the extract itself, which I had read, of course, while reading through the book, but carelessly not connected. I apologize also for misspelling D'Israeli.
As to fatigue—having compiled an anthology myself, I regard it as a sufficient excuse for far worse and more slips than any that "C. C." and "D. G." (or, I hope, I myself) have perpetrated.—Yours, &c., ROSE MACAULAY.
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