4 JULY 1903, Page 15

THE LATE W. P. ADAM.

[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."] Sin,—To the " appreciation " of the late W. P. Adam to which you kindly opened your columns on June 27th I might have added a specimen of his wit. After the death of the Duke of

Wellington in 1852 a most eloquent tribute to his memory was delivered by Mr. Disraeli in the House of Commons. Some one with an inconvenient memory " spotted " its most striking passage as taken bodily from a eulogy by M. Thiers upon the French General St. Cyr. In the Examiner a few days after- wards appeared the following epigram by W. P. Adam :— " In weeping o'er Wellington's pall, Dizzy's grief in full truth does appear; For a great flood of Thiers ' he lets fall, Which was certainly meant for 'St. Cyr."

Worthing.