PRINCE BISMARCK AND THE PRESS. [To THE Roma ov van
"BYXLI,SOB...3 SIR,—In your issue of the 10th inst. you published a letter superscribed" Mr. Ellis Barker and Prince Bismarck," in which Mr. V. de S. Fowke challenged the accuracy of the Bismarck articles which I quoted in my recent Nineteenth Century paper, and from which copious extracts were published in the Spectator on April 3rd. Your correspondent informed your readers that it is "rather strong to say, as Mr. Barker says, that Bismarck wrote' all the articles ascribed to his pen by Mr. Barker. . . . Are these articles signed by the Prince, or are they merely generally worded editorial reproductions of Bisroarck's supposed opinions gathered from conversations ? "
Practically all the quotations given by me were taken from Penzler's work, First Bismarck mach seiner Entlassung. It consists of seven large volumes which run to about a million four hundred thousand words. Six of these appeared in 1897 and 1898, during Biemarek's lifetime, and all those articles which emanated from Prince Bismarck are distinctly marked as such. The proofs of the book were passed by Mr. Hofmann, who received Bismarck's instructions at Friedrichsruh. Bismarck read the work through, and if he had disapproved of any of the articles ascribed to Lim the whole Press and the whole world would have known it. Prince Bismarck certainly did not sign his articles, but they are written in his inimitable style, and the vast majority of them were published in the HaniLorger Naehrichten. If Mr. Hofmann had taken any liberties with a. single one of Bismarck's articles, Bismarck would undoubtedly have stopped the supply, for he carefully scrutinized the articles of the Hamburg paper after their appearanm and demanded absolute accuracy. The articles were partly dictated, partly did they consist of a faithful rendering of Bismarck's words of which Mr. Hofmann took notes at the time. He, like Bismarek's secretaries, had to cultivate a faithful memory. If your correspondent should deny that the articles given by Peuzler were written by Bismarck because he did not actually use pen and paper, then be would also have to dispute the authorship of Bismarck's memoirs, for these also were largely dictated Tho correctness of Pedzler's
publication has recently been confirmed by the reminiscences of Mr. Hofmann, of which I believe I possess the only copy in this country, for the book is neither at the British Museum nor the London Library.
Your correspondent suggests that Bismarck "was very old and what is called ' dotty ' " after his dismissal. Any one who has read the extracts from Bismarck's articles which I gave in my Nineteenth Centanj article, or who has read through the three thousand pages of Penzler's work, as I have done, will be convinced that Bismarck retained his matchless faculties to the day of his dv.th. The spiteful tittle-tattle reported by Busch can scarcely be accepted as serious evidence.—I am,
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