[To THY EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR. "' Sin,—The Spectator's standard of
accuracy is so high that I hope it will not be considered pedantic to point out that there are three inaccuracies in the interesting article on " The Secret
of the Scot" in your issue of December 6th. In the first place, the much-quoted—and frequently misquoted—second stanza of the Canadian boat song should begin :—
" From the lone shieling of the misty island Mountains divide us, and the waste of seas."
The writer of the article has" on " for " of," and " a world of seas." His second mistake is still more curious. He says Clive was an Oxfordshire man. One would have supposed that every reader of Macaulay's essay on Clive would remember that "the Olives had been settled ever since the twelfth century . . . near Market Drayton, in Shropshire." Clive's statue is prominent in the square at Shrewsbury, and Shropshire's present Lord Lieutenant, the Earl of Powis, is Clive's lineal descendant. Warren Hastings, again, was not a Herefordshire man. Though actually born in Oxfordshire, be was a member of the family of Hastings of Daylesford, iu Worcestershire. It is a curious coincidence that the date of your issue in which the question of Hastings' origin is raised was also the anniversary of his birth, which took place December 6th, 1732.—I am, Sir, &c., A. FIELD. The Mynel, Shrewsbury.
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