[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sin,-- When Lord Oxford and Asquith addressed a learned Society in Edinburgh with a Latin poet as his theme, not one in ten understood his Latin references, quoted in what was to a Scottish audience an alien tongue. When Mr. Gladstone went out to the Ionian Islands as Commissioner, he made a speech, no doubt in scholarly Greek, but as he used the Oxford pronunciation nobody understood a word.
Some years ago a lad at Oxford, asked to read a passage in the New Testament in Greek, was pulled lip by his examiner with the question, " Where on earth did you pick up that barbarous accent ? " " In Greece, sir," was the reply. " My home is in Athens, where my father is attached to the British Legation."--I am, Sir, &e.,
WILLIAM WALLACE.
11 Ladbroke Road, W. 11.
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