THE SECOND OF SEPTEMBER, 1792.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SrEcTATort."] SIR,—May I offer a belated protest against a poem which you published some weeks ago P It represents a woman of the French Revolution gloating over the sight and, still worse, over the taste of the blood of a guillotined man, apparently a discarded lover. As matter of physiology and morals, delight in blood for blood's sake is a depraved, insane lust, connected with all that is foulest as well as with all that is most cruel. As matter of historical fact, it is only during the deepest of decadence that it has ever been known to prevail. Why, then, should the hospitality of the Spectator be afforded to a poem depicting it ? The writer, I trust, wrote dramatically. But surely there is a line to be drawn as to what may not be expressed in even a dramatic form, to be read by whoso comes
[Of course the writer wrote dramatically. We cannot believe that the poem would encourage blood lust any more than the play of "King Lear" encourages the inhuman crimes of which Regan and Goneril were guilty.—ED. Spectator.]
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