"THE ROWERS."
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " STECTATOR.1
Srn,—The sympathy that has been expressed throughout England with the central idea of Mr. Kipling's poem makes it the more necessary that we should dissociate ourselves from the serious verbal error contained in its last two words, "shameless Hun." Those words must not only be most painful to those of our friends in Hungary who are able to read them, but they are in themselves contrary to ethnological and political fact. The Hungarians, who are the only repre- sentatives of the Huns in Europe, are by race and feeling far more opposed to German influence than we are, while at the same time they, like the Italians, have for the last hundred years cherished a warm regard for the British people, and have maintained a marked sympathy with British aspirations. Until Mr. Kipling can alter his rhyme I think his admirers should make a public apology.—I am, Sir, &c.,
CLARENCE M. DOBELL.
[We have the warmest feelings of goodwill towards the Hungarians, but it seems to us absurd to imagine that they must necessarily be wounded by poetical and metaphorical allusions to the hordes of Attila. It was quite clear from the context that Mr. Kipling used the word rhetorically, and not ethnologically. He was, we presume, in part alluding to the German Emperor's use of the word " Huns " in regard to the Chinese Expedition, and to the "letters from the Huns" which played so large a part in German journalism some two years ago.—ED. Spectator.)
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