30 JUNE 1923, Page 12

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Possibly the following quotation

may be deemed to emphasize, however slightly, Mr. Venning's contention that liorace is both poetical and translatable. Mr. Gladstone

has thus translated the last verse of the Ode " Donee gratus eram tibi," representing the quarrel between Horace and Lydia. Each had snarled at the other for fickleness and belauded the superiority of the substituted sweethearts.

At last the melting young lady, pining for her return to her original love, breaks out :—

" Though brighter than a star is he ;

Though rougher than the Adrian sea, And fickle as light cork, yet I With thee would live—with thee would die."

Has not Gladstone rescued this Ode from the charge of being unpoetical and untranslatable ?—I am, Sir, &c.,

Hamm KNOLLYS,

• ed.: 25 :Myrick Park Crescent, Bournemouth.