A SPECTATOR 'S NOTEBOOK
T is curious that on the day on which the death of Philip Guedalla was reported the Washington Post should have used (in connexion with American foreign policy) the phrase " like an inverted Micawber, waiting for something to turn down," for it was Guedalla who coined the phrase in the last war—unless, indeed, which is unlikely, it goes back farther still. He applied it to the Inventions Board under Lord Fisher, sitting in an office in Cockspur Street, and " waiting like a kind of inverted Mr. Micawber, for something to turn down." In 1911, when the Cambridge Union had a brilliant President in Norman Birkett, the Oxford Union sent its brilliant President Philip Guedalla over to a Visitor's Debate. He defended himself, among other things, against the charge of over-working epigrams, observing that after all an epigram was only a platitude standing on its head. Perhaps his best mot was regarding a well-known politician who "one day looks straight through you, and the next puts his arm round your shoulders and calls you by a Christian name that isn't yours." Guedalla, of course, was a serious writer. His book on Wellington, The Duke, will hold a high place among historical biographies. * * * *
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