" SCRUTATOR" ON INACCURATE STORIES.
[TO THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—Whether the bon-mot attributed to the late Sir R. Anstruther on the subject of Dr. Magee's speech belongs to another date and another pair of persons, I do not know ; but it is incomprehensible that " Serutator," knowing Sir Robert as he did, should retain no recollection of a stammer that was as invariable as inveterate, and the implied doubt of the existence of which he seems to offer as a part refutation of the truth of the story. His conviction, on the other hand, that the Duke of Cumberland was the speaker, and not Sir Robert (of course on another occasion), is also founded, oddly enough, on the assumption that the Duke was deaf. But I knew him in the latter years of his life intimately, and it is well within my recollection that it was no easy task for his courtiers to prevent his hearing what they whispered amongst themselves, while it was wholly unnecessary to lift up your voice while conversing with him. I have no criticism to make on the nature and quality of the sentence attributed to him by "Scrutator." Se non i vero, I ben irovato. But if the truth of the anecdote depends on the non-existence of Sir R. Anstruther's stammer, or on the existence of the Duke's deafness, the date of the original story is as far off as ever.—
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