KEW GARDENS.
[To THR EDITOR 07 Telt nleCTATOR.11 SIE,—To avoid any misconception, may I point out that the " popular old Eriglish ballad" (" Come down to Kew in lilac- time ") quoted in full in last week's Spectator is a copyright poem by myself ? It is possible that your correspondent took it down from the lips of Miss Irene Vanbrugh, who recited it several times in public last year; and as for its "age," I am ready to submit my birth certificate. Feasibly, however, it is a joke; but, if so, I think neither you nor I will see it; and I shall be greatly obliged to you if you will make my claim to the verses clear. The complete poem is to be found as the central ballad in a medley entitled "The Barrel-Organ," pub- lished in the first volume of my Collected Poems. I write in detail because my attention was called to the matter by a paragraph in last Sunday's Observer, and though that writer, obviously enough to myself, bad solved the puzzle for himself, it was by no means clear to me that every reader would do so. I therefore trust you will pluck me out of any possible ambiguity in future "paragraphs." There is no old ballad in the case at all, and the poem is entirely a new and copyright one by myself.—I am, Sir, he., ALFRED NOYES. " Ewhurst," Rottingdean, Sussex.
[We apologize most sincerely for having published the letter in which Mr. Noyes'e charming lyric figured as an "old ballad." Our correspondent was, of course, perfectly sincere in his belief that the poem was "old," and has since written to express the hope that his accidental misstatement will not be taken otherwise than as a compliment—ED. Spectator.]
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