19 OCTOBER 1901, Page 14

A LITERARY PARALLEL.

[To TEE EDITOR Or THE 'SPECTATOR'] Sre,—It may be of some interest to your poetical correspoie dent "Presbyter Barbadensis," in the Spectator of October 5th, to know that the sentiment which he illustrates so aptly and so harmoniously animated a worthy townsman and Alderman of Hull two centuries ago in a very practical manner, and induced him to found a hospital or almshouse for indigent townsfolk in 1668, over the door of which he inecribed,—

" Da dum tempus habes tibi propria sit menus haeres Auferet hoc nemo quod dabis ipse Deo." Alderman Crowle thus carried the idea a step further in the suggestion that a man might so make himself his own heir. The lessen is obvious.—I am, Sir, &c.,