20 MAY 1905, Page 14

THE LAST WORDS OF OLLENDORFF.

Sin,—According to the well-known " French Grammar" of Messrs. Eve and de Bandies, it was neither 011endorff nor le Pere Bohours, nor even Vaugelas, who perpetrated the pedantic anecdote you have quoted. Mr. Eve's footnote [p. 141], quoted from Beneke, runs as follows :—" Le gram- mairien Beauzee etait A, son lit de mort; un de see amis, grammairien comme lui, vint le voir. ' Comment allez-vous P' lui dit-il. Mon ami,' repondit Beauge, je m'en vain ou je m'en vas; l'un et l'autre se dit.' Et ne voulant pas memo en mourant, avoir une faute, un simple oubli de syntaxe 1 se reprocher, it ajouta on se disent ' et it expira."— [Larousse (" Grand Dictionnaire," p. 217), as another correspondent points out, also attributes the saying to Beauzee, an Academician who died in 1789. We can publish no more letters on this subject.--ED. Spectator.]