THE GREEN LEEK.
[TO TUE EDITOR Or THE " SPECTATOR:1
SIR,—The Association Cup Tie annually arouses melancholy reflections, expressed in correspondence columns, of the devotion of decadent Rome to watching sport (as well as demanding free meals). The satirists of that age are quoted as prophets for us. But when Juvenal wrote (Sat. XI. 197)- " totam hodie Romam circus capit, et fragor aurem percutit, eventum viridis quo colligo panni "—
is it not possible for scientific criticism to see the application, not to mere football grounds or Newmarket, but to our political arena ? Juvenal speaks of the victory of the green flag (or rag) : last week you wrote of a parade "in green chains." Curiously enough, Martial describes the green stable of racing teams as prasinue, "wearing the green leek." Surely in view of the influences by which our rulers have been guided, this is so venial an error as to amount to a confirma- tion of the theory that these Imperial writers were inspired
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