28 NOVEMBER 1952, Page 5

My assumption that the Latin version of the Lady of

Riga included by Dr. M. J. Haarhoff in his Burge Lecture was original is evidently very much out, as a number of correspon- dents have been (mod enough to inform me. Like a great many other things, it had not come my way before. One letter seems to silence speculation as to the real authorship. The Latin version, writes Mr. A. Graham, of Edinburgh, was composed in his house about 1912 or 1913 by Mr. D. H. Peel, then a Rossall master, who was the author also of a number of brilliant Greek Limericks. Yet here is another writer saying he heard the lines in 1895. Anything earlier '? (In the version I quoted proiecta was, of course, a misprint for profecta.)