Errata
Sir: Since I have only just seen Charles Wilson's review (10 April) of the book Literature and Politics in the Nineteenth Century, which I edited, I hope you will allow me to make some reply. Not because I wish to challenge Mr Wilson's opinions, to which he is entitled, but because he is not entitled to invent facts about the book's con- tent which can buttress his opinions. For example, Mr Wilson claims that in my opening essay I am unfair to Tennyson and Arnold. But the truth is that I never even mention Arnold, never allude to him, never quote from him either as a poet or as critic. I am also said to hound Bagehot in my essay on the 1880s. Since Bagehot died in 1877, a fact which someone who teaches modern history might be expected to know, he is hardly likely to turn up in any essay on the 1880s. Nor does he. There are other errors in the review, equally gross, equally comical. But this will do to be going on with. I suppose it is quite flattering: since Mr Wilson has been unable to attack the book we wrote, he has had to make up a book of his own and then attack that. Still, one feels a bit awed that he should complain abour our misrepresentations.
John Lucas University of Nottingham, Univer- sity Park, Nottingham
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