THE KING OF THE BEGGARS
[To the Editor of Me SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Mrs. Meynell one: wrote, " Exposition, interpretation, by themselves are not necessary. But for controversy there is cause." Perhaps Mr. V. S. Pritchett had some similar idea in mind when he wrote the last sentences in his review of my edition of Bampfyide-Moore Carew. If he had not, I have. After stating that neither book on Carew tells us how he ended his days—the reason for which is that one was published thirteen, the other nine, years before Carew's death—Mr. Pritchett asks whether I was afraid of providing a final reason for moral disapprobation, or " is it simply that the end of ilampfylde-Moore Carew is not known? "
Without stressing the fact that I quoted on p. 205 of my book the date of Carew's burial as given in the Bickleigh registers, and mentioned three magazines which noticed his death in 1759, and four pages earlier quoted, for what it is worth, the statement that he ended his days beloved and esteemed by all "—I would ask Mr. Pritchett of his charity to explain why he is willing to deny me the reputation for uprightness which even Carew's editor is entitled to claim until he can. be proved guilty of that suppression of the facts which Carew sometimes found convenient and, if I dare hint it, Mr. Pritchett himself practises when he quotes St. Augustine and Marcus Aurelius as though he relied on his own, and not on my acquaintance with those esteemed authors.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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