30 MAY 1896, Page 14

STUDIES IN MONASTICISM

LTO THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."]

SIR,—From the review in the Spectator of May 23rd, "Studies= in Monasticism," I see that Miss Eckenstein in her "Woman Under Monasticism" treats as genuine the " Th4iktre de Hrotswitha." Having done the same thing a good many years ago in a little book on "Deaconesses and Sisterhoods,' I feel bound to warn your readers that the " Theiltre de Hrotswitha" is now well-known in France to be nothing but an exceedingly clever literary forgery by its professed editor,. M. Charles Magnin. The forgery was, I believe, discovered by some French man of letters who, thinking that the nunnery of Gandesheim in Swabia (not Saxony), where Hrotswitha was. supposed to have been a nun, might yield other literary treasures, set forth in search of it, only to discover that it. never had any existence but in M. Charles Magnin's volume.