28 NOVEMBER 1914, Page 15

PRUSSIA OR GERMANY ?

[TO THR EDITOR 07 TEl "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Your correspondent " H. C." wrongly calls Beethoven a Prussian. He was a Rhinelander by birth, but his grandfather was an immigrant from Flanders; the prefix "van," on which Beethoven always insisted, proves his origin. His family was from Louvain ; the last (female) representative of his name and race died at Antwerp in the middle of the last century. As for Mendelssohn, he was a Hebrew par sang.—I am, Sir, Savile Club, 107 Piccadilly, W.