A CORRECTION.
pro THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."( It is all very well to dissemble your love, But why did you kick we downstairs ? '" That the first line should be in the present tense and the second in the past tense is obviously incorrect in any case. But the couplet as quoted is neither " tag "-rag nor bobtail. The lines, of course, are from J. P. Semble's play, The Panel' Act L, where they run :— " Wh -n first I attempted your pity to move, You seeni'd deaf to my sighs and my p ayers; Perhaps it was eight to dissemble your love, But why did you kick me downstairs? downstairs?"— and are recited by Beatrice to her mistress as some "moving lines" "made by her sweetheart," who made such "verses to repeat to her " (" London Stage Comedies, &c.," Sherwood's Edition, 1827).—I am, Sir, Sze., Sra,—One does not expect slipshod verse or misquotation in the Spectator. But in a paragraph in your issue of November 2nd, upon the alleged Rhodesian inspiration of the Buller criticism, I read that, if what had been implied were true, " Mr. Rhodes might, indeed, be justified in using the old tag,'— North Walsham. JAMES HY. REEVE.
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