SIR THEODORE MARTIN.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:1 SIR,—May I add a personal illustration of Sir Theodore Martin's extraordinary memory ? He was an old friend and contemporary of my father, and as a boy I have a dim recollection of being taken to his house some forty years ago. I never saw him again until about four years ago, when I met him at a musical party in London, and, reintroducing myself on the strength of his friendship for my father, was naturally flattered by his at once referring to a volume that I had published some ten years earlier. I met him two or three times at the club in the last two years, but it was never necessary for sue to 'explain who I was ; he took up the thread of acquaintanceship as firmly as if he had been a contemporary. His interest in events of the moment remained unimpaired, and I remember his quoting the line guidguid delirant reges plectuntur Achivi apropos of the German Emperor's famoua Daily Telegraph interview. In most men of advanced age the memory of recent events is blurred, but with him it seemed to be as fresh as even
You speak in your brief notice last week of the "Bon Gaultier Ballads." The narrative poems, in my opinion, had a peculiar quality which I do not remember to have seen fully recognised. While primarily burlesquing what the authors held to be a vitiated taste or unworthy literary craze, they had such a lilt and spirit of their own that they could be read with enjoyment by those who were unacquainted with
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