Reviewer rebuked
Sir: One hesitates to criticise a critic — it is so easy to appear churlish — but I suggest that Philip Hensher, one of your two lead book reviewers, is guilty either of disingen- uousness or quite staggering incompetence in his review of my book, The Literary Companion to Parliament (Books, 26 Octo- ber).
He writes that the prize for 'the most fee- ble thing in this anthology . . . must go to the Speaker who, threatening to name a member called John Robinson, said: "Don't suppose, Sir, that I abstain because there is any difficulty in naming him; I could do that, Sir, as soon as you could say Jack Robinson." ' Told thus, it does seem feeble and, indeed, hardly makes any sense. But then the passage in my book, recorded by the anecdotalist John Timbs, reads somewhat differently. John Robinson was, from 1770 to 1782, the MP responsible for fixing Lord North's support in the House by way of bribes to fellow members. As Timbs explains:
During the debate on the India Bill, at which period John Robinson was secretary to the Treasury, Sheridan, one evening when Fox's majorities were decreasing, said, 'Mr Speak- er, this is not at all to be wondered at, when a member is employed to corrupt every body in order to obtain votes.' Upon this there was a great outcry made by almost every body in the House. 'Who is it? Name him! name him!' Sir,' said Sheridan to the Speaker, 'I shall not name the person. It is unpleasant and invidious to do so, and therefore I shall not name him. But don't suppose, Sir, that I abstain because there is any difficulty in nam- ing him; I could do that, Sir, as soon as you could say Jack Robinson.'
It may not rank as the wittiest thing ever said in Parliament or the wittiest thing ever said by Sheridan (the playwright), yet it has more pith than was suggested by Hensher's false rendition. It is one thing for a review- er to write witheringly of an utterance in an anthology; it is quite another to do so while grossly misattributing that very utterance and recklessly quoting it out of context.
Christopher Silvester
39 Colville Gardens, London W11
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