SWINBIJRNE'S GREEK ELEGIACS ON L.A_NDOR. [To THE EDITOR OF THE
"SPECTATOR."] Sin,—In your issue of the 7th inst. the reviewer of "The Life and Memoirs of John Churton Collins" remarks that Collins "could make some curious mistakes," and gives, as a sole illustration, the statement that " Swinburne's knowledge of Greek was very imperfect." The reviewer contends that the elegiacs to the memory of Walter Savage Landor in Swin- burne's "Atalanta in Calydon " disprove Collins's statement. 1 knew Collins intimately for nearly thirty years. His passion for accuracy in all things was so great as to preclude all like- lihood of this statement being erroneous. Further, he was very intimate with Swinburne some years after the "Atalanta" was published. Collins knew these elegiacs by heart. Lastly, there was a story current in Oxford, to my knowledge, in the early sixties, that before the Greek elegiacs were published. Swinburne sent them to Shilleto at Cambridge for revision, and that Shilleto returned them saying that, though there was not a line without a mistake, he wished he could have written the poem himself.—I am, Sir, &c.,
H. BRYAN DONEIN.
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