24 JANUARY 1914, Page 15

MO TIM EDITOR OP TIZ "Srecrovon."1

SIR, —In the article in the Spectator of January 17th entitled " The Casual Reader" it is stated that Thomas Carlyle's famous dictum regarding his fellow-countrymen was antici- pated by the Canon in Don Quixote, who exclaims, "What a great majority of fools there is in the world!" But surely both Carlyle and Cervantes were anticipated by Horace in the third satire of his second book of Satires (line 33), where he says :--

"0 bone, no to

Frustrere; insanis et tu, stultiguo props swam."

He adds, moreover, that the idea was not original on his part, but that he bad been taught it by Stertinius, his preceptor—.