2 MAY 1941, Page 5

My note on Sir Richard Livingstone's list of classical Prime

Ministers has elicited some suggested emendations from a com- mentator who holds that only four out of the eighteen who held office between 1837 and 1937 (not ten, as the President of Corpus Christi suggested) deserved the description of classical scholars, viz., Peel, Derby, Gladstone and Asquith. He thinks Salisbury was more of a classical scholar than Balfour ; I included the nephew in my own list but omitted the uncle.