BURNS AND THE BIOGRAPHER
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sin,—In my letter to the Spectator of November 8th I made grave specific charges against the Burns Federation. Sir Alexander Gibb, replying in his capacity of President, has made the gesture of extending an olive branch, but no attempt to meet my charges. It was left to Mr. Maclntyre to utter an unofficial quasi-denial. While I note the friendly tone of both letters (in marked contrast to an offensive attack in the Federation Quarterly Bulletin) I cannot allow them to pass without rejoinder.
Mr. Maclntyre states that the correctness of his. letter was established at the recent quarterly meeting of the Federation Executive. Here is what actually happened. It was estab- lished that the threatening letters of which I complained in your columns—letters purporting to be sent on the instruc- tion of " our clients the Burns Federation," and received as such both by my publishers and by the Scottish editor who printed preliminary excerpts from my book—were the unauthorized work of Mr. J. C. Ewing, editor of the Burns Chronicle, and Sir Joseph Dobbie, S.S.C., a past President of the Federation. A motion was accordingly proposed that the Secretary of the Federation be instructed to write to you, Sir, explaining that these acts were unauthorized. But the motion failed to find a seconder—even in Mr. Maclntyre. The Executive then proceeded to " homologate " all that Mr. Ewing and Sir Joseph had done. My original indict- ment therefore stands.
As for Sir Alexander Gibbs' claim, I would direct readers of his letter to ponder his significant use of the words " material." The Federation would fain appear all amiability, but the Federation reserves to itself the right to decide beforehand for the biographer what is and what is not material in the poet's life.—I am, Sir, &c.,
CATHERINE CARSWELL.
3 Parkhill Studios, Parkhill Road, N.W. 3.
[This correspondence is now closed.—En. Spectator.]
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