4 NOVEMBER 1911, Page 35

" QUEERY LEARY NONSENSE."

[To THE Earroa OP THE "SPECTATOR."] Sra,—Ycru say that the manner of Lear's amusing "Epitaph '' has had many imitators ; it also had some predecessors. The.

wonderful child Marjorie Fleming (see Dr. John Brown's " Home Subsecivae") wrote thus about an ape :- "His nose's cast is of the Roman ; He is a very pretty woman.

I could not get a rhyme for Roman,

So was obliged to call him woman."

And about James IL of Scotland:— "He was killed by a cannon splinter, Quite in the middle of the winter.; Perhaps it was not at that timej But I can get no other rhyme."

Of course this is mentioned only as a matter of coincidence. am, Sir, &c.,

Tunbridge Wells.

T. S. OaroND.