7 JUNE 1913, Page 15

MR. GLADSTONE AND LORD BEACONSFIELD.

[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."' SIR,—Mr. Stephen Coleridge's version of the Gladstone and Beaconsfield incident as told by Dean Stanley is imperfect and inaccurate. The correct account is to be found in vol. p. 447, of the Dean's Life and Letters. It occurred at a luncheon given at Marlborough House. The Dean would have had too much tact to invite the two antagonists to meet at dinner in the Deanery. The date, also, June 1882, when Mr. Coleridge says that he heard the story, is a mistake, as the Dean had then been nearly a year dead.—I am, Sir, &c.,