2 OCTOBER 1926, Page 15

LITERARY COINCIDENCES

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] " It was in bluff King Harry's days, while yet he went to shrift, And long before he stamped and swore, and cut the Pope adrift."

Ingoldsby Legends. Nell Cook. " Ere yet in scorn of Peter's Pence and numbered bead and shrift, Bluff Harry broke into the spew* and turned the cowls adrift."

Tennyson. "The Talking Oak."

This can hardly be a coincidence. Which was the plagiarist ?-