[To THE EDITOR OF THE "Srscrvroli."1
Sin,—By omitting a paragraph in my letter last week you rather spoilt the sequence of my remarks, and you compel me now to correct your own biographer.
The subject for the Oxford prize poem in 1870 was not "The Lake of Tiberias" (as your writer asserts), but " Gennesaret." I an absolutely certain of this, as I possess a copy of the prize poem.
The difference is obvious. Gennesaret" is a somewhat wide expression and includes " The Land of Gennesaret " (Matt. xiv. 34, Mark vi. 53), including the cities as well as the sea itself. It was, I presume, because the prize poem dealt largely with the district and the fate of the cities that the
examiners felt justified in setting as a subject in 1883 the- more restricted. topic "The Sea of Galilee." This was the• view I expressed to Alfred Church when he talked of the. lucky coincidence.
If th3 examiners had really set " The Lake of Tiberias ". before, then they either unwittingly set the same subject twice in thirteen years, or, out of sympathy with Church and regret for a fine poem wasted (assuming that they read it in the former instance), they deliberately gave him a second chance, neither of which views is tenable. It would be interesting to hear what the adjudicators have to say if still am
Sir, &c., J. HUDSON. 325 Southampton Street, Camberwell.
[No doubt our correspondent is right. His evidence seems to be conclusive. We may say, however, that we gave the story as Mr. Church used to tell it himself and as it is told in his " Memories of Men and Books " (pp. 73, 74).—En.. Spectator.]
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