THE AMEER'S MEMOIRS.
ITO THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR.") Sin,—On reading the last quotation in your review of the Ameer's autobiography, I seemed to remember something of the incidents there set down. More than twenty-five years since I was using with my pupils a little book called " Latin Prose through English Idiom," by Dr. Edwin A. Abbott. Among the adapted passages there given for translation into Latin, No. 15, p. 138, runs thus :— " When the renowned Balbus, who had conquered Persia, Tartary, and Syria, was defeated Tullius, and taken prisoner, he sat on the ground, and a soldier prepared a coarse meal to appease his hunger. As this was boiling in one of the pots used for the food of the horses, a dog put his head into it, but, from the mouth of the vessel being too small, he could not draw it out again, and ran away with both the pot and the meat. The captive monarch burst into a fit of laughter : and, on one of his guards demanding what cause upon earth could induce a person in his situation to laugh, he replied : 'It was but this morning the steward of my household complained. that three hundred camels were not enough to carry my kitchen furniture ; now it is carried with ease by that dog, who bath carried away both my cooking instruments and dinner.' "
It is stated in the preface that some of the exercises are extracts from the "Percy Anecdotes."—I am, Sir, &c., P.S.—Since I wrote the above I have borrowed a copy of the " Percy Anecdotes." Among those early in the section headed " Anecdotes of War " I find the story I sent you. For " Balbus " it reads " Amer " [sic], and for a Tullius"
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