6 NOVEMBER 1926, Page 16

THE SCOT VERSUS THE ENGLISHMAN

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sta,—Mr.J.S.N. Roche and " M.N.," who corrects him, have both got somewhat mixed among the John Browns. The author of Rab and His Friends was but the fourth in direct succession. It was his still more famous great-grandfather–. and my own great-great-grandfather—Dr. John Brown, of Haddington, who, though he began life as a poor shepherd boy and had only a few weeks at school, educated himself and became a great scholar and linguist, knowing as many as twenty languages.—I am, Sir, &c., H. ERSKINE HILL. Cathedral House, Aberdeen.