A PERSONAL EXPLANATION.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.")
SIE,—I apologise for calling Mr. Crawley-Boevey's pamphlet anonymous (Spectator, February 22nd). It was -an inad- vertence due to the fact that hie signature is at the end of the pamphlet, but is not on the title-page. His name, not being known to me, slipped out of my memory after reading the pamphlet, and not finding it on the title-page when I made my quotation, I hastily assumed that the pamphlet was anonymous. Having made that amende, I am free to com- plain of a graver offence committed against me by Mr. Crawley-Boevey. He imputes to me "the amazing suggestion that they [the believers in • Gordon's tomb'] are engaged in promoting a fraud as gross as Lourdes, La Salette, or Loretto." On the contrary, I have described them on the very page of the article to which Mr. Crawley-Boevey refers as excellent persons, all good and pious, and some of them able and intelligent," though "credulous enthusiasts" iu this matter. But the literary champions of the new tomb persist in accusing the believers in the old site of supporting "a pious fraud." I replied that this accusation comes with an M- gr-ace from believers in a shrine for which they have no more evidence than the believers in Lourdes have for theirs. Whatever your correspondent may think, I do not doubt that the believers in Lourdes are quite as honest and sincere as the believers in "Gordon's tomb," and I repudiate the imputation that I accused either of them of "a gross fraud."—
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