[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR. "] anticipate that you
will permit me to say a very few words about the article in your last issue criticizing the editorial conduct of the English Review. By an ingenious device well known in the craft of polemics you yourself state some of the chief arguments which may be brought against the method and matter of your attack. But you omit to answer them. In my opinion, however, your article does not call for arguments. It calls merely for protest. The fact that I am a contributor to the English Review shall not prevent me from making the protest. Indeed, if connection with the English Review were to be a bar to speaking in its defence, not only myself, but most of the leading writers in England would have to remain silent. The crux of your charge seems to be that the policy of the English Review resembles that of " the shady second-hand booksellers." Mr. Thomas Hardy, Mr. Joseph Conrad, Mr. H. G. Wells, Mr. Henry James, and Mr. Cunning. hame Graham, to name some names, will possibly receive with mild astonishment the news that they have been lending their immense prestige to support the lewd trickery of Holywell Street. Every reader of the English Review will know what adjective to apply to the latest indictment. Whatever friends you may make in this singular crusade, you have certainly, during the last year or two, aroused the deep resentment of the literary artists of this country. Of this fact I have
yr:rsonal knowledge. Happily it is the literary artists alone who are responsible for our literature. Thanking you in anticipation of the courtesy of insertion.—I am, Sir, &c.,
[If " the literary artists of this country " approve of the reasons given by " The Great Adult Review" why the public should purchase it, and resent our criticism of those reasons, we can only say that "the literary artists of this country" are welcome to their " deep resentment." We note not without amusement that even Mr. Arnold Bennett's ingenuity is not equal to attempting a defence of " The Great Adult Review's " advertisement.—En. Spectator.]
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