THE " ARMADA MERCURiES."
(To THE EDITOR Of THE SPECTATOR."3 Snt,—With regard to the note which you append to the letter of my friend, Mr. P. C. Yorke, in your issue of April 15th, I beg to state that there is no controversy about the second Lord Hardwicke's motives in printing the skit in question. His own words are :—" I have amused myself by throwing some of the more public occurrences relating to it [the Armada] into the form of a newspaper. . . . I would have the thing remain a secret between us two." For fifty years it did so remain, and only the uncritical credulity of a literary man raised it to a quite unintended notoriety.
The innocent people who are deceived by the Armada Mer- curies are really deceived by the unintelligent repetition of statements about them by persons who have never seen them. If Lord Hardwick° had lived to see the outcome of his amuse- ment, he might have used his own words about another famous skit perpetrated by him :—" When a due interval of time has elapsed the truth may be owned; the illusion vanishes; it is a Masquerade which is closed."—I am, Sir, &c., Department of Manuscripts. D. T. B. WOOD. British Museum, London, IV.C. I.
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