" OSSIAN " IN ITALY.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.") SIR,—At a mess-table here there were forgathered one evening four Englishmen, the inevitable Scot, and an officer, Italian by birth, of high raiik in the Belgian forces. In the course of a discussion, in which the Scot was maintaining the civilizing influences of his homeland, our guest, coming gallantly to the assistance of the weaker side, adduced that Ossian, the father of English literature, came from the north of the Tweed. We learnt with interest that in the Italian schools a translation of Macpherson's Ossian is, or was in the youth of our guest, the standard " English " classic. It is to be hoped that in the general Allied rapprochement the children are not being forgotten, and that the next generation of all civilised nations may be assured that the foreign " classics" they have to read are at least universally 'accepted as classics in the laud that gave them birth.—I am, Sir, &c., EXILE. Daressalam, July 7th.
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