5 DECEMBER 1903, Page 30

THE CINDERELLA.S OF GREAT NATIONAL OCCASIONS.

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR." _I SIR,—The following passage, taken from Thackeray's "Four Georges," is of interest as illustrating the difficulties that attend State recognition of literary or artistic eminence :— "He [George III.] wanted once to establish an order of Minerva for literary and scientific characters ; the knights were to rank after the lmights of the Bath, and to sport a straw-coloured ribbon and a star of sixteen points. But there was such a row amongst the literati as to persons who should be appointed, that the plan was given up, and Minerva and her star never came down amongst us."

Have conditions changed for the better during the last

hundred years P—I am, Sir, &c., W. T. MCINTIRE. Helme Chace, Kendal.