15 OCTOBER 1988, Page 33

`To forgive, divine'

Sir: How timely of Mr Johnson to lecture us about printing errors (The press, 1 October). Sadly, these days no journal however prestigious is immune. In my article of the same issue, I certainly never wrote anything as batty as 'Prague was the seat of the oldest German university of the middle classes.' What I said (and I'm sure what the exceptionally competent copy taker wrote down) was, 'Prague was the oldest German university. The middle classes of virtually every town spoke as good German as they did Czech or Slovak.' Is it possible that someone working on The Spectator imagines there was a middle class in 1348?

Richard Bassett

Hotel Moskva, Belgrade, Yugoslavia