Remember the Alamo!

I've no particular desire to loose the pendantry of scholarship onto your otherwise lively pages, as, apart from scattering screeds on barren ground, there is a good chance that no-one will give a proverbial damn. Students are granted better things to do than ponder on academic miniatures. But it appears that yours is now a journal of scholarly rejoinder, unwelcome to your readership as this may be. And, I am moved to comment on George G. Saintsbury's arrogant approach to the literary vices so easily cultivated by G.K. Lytton, onetime pretender to the title of The English Genius.'

I've no quarrel with arrogance, nor with aspersion; but I detest factual error. Now, in the letter alluded to above, Saintsbury goes haywire quite early on. He purports to oversee the studies of I A.Q Richards, who is now commonly regarded as the 'adult terrible' of English letters. This relationship is simply not possible (something which all Saintsbury s associations share) Richards and I collaborated on a series of articles last year - collected under the title 'The Tongue as Art' - and we grew quite loose with our secrets. Richards discovered that I regard the wont of hermaphrodeity in Ipswich people as a tragedy, and I discovered that Richards studied under G.K. Chesterten The last named is actually mentioned in Saintsbury's tirade, but in another context. (However, typically Saintsbury is the flagrant disregard for detail, Saintsbury refers to him as G Z. Chesterton, who is, in fact, a peculiar individual now employed by Saintsbury as a 'relief masseur.'

I approached Richardson Thursday, when we both served on a committee welcoming the Anglo-Indian Philological Society to the exhibition of Carlyle's suitmaker at Blades. In the midst of the general jocularity, Richards was only too pleased to confirm my belief. He even went so far as to say 'Saintsbury grabs any bugger on the way up, and Chesterton gets all the distinctions' ripped off by some theiving bastard.'

Now Richards' misrepresentation of others is notorious. One remembers the Voodoo Club scandal, in which Richards accused H. I. Wells of building a tank one mile wide 'around the back,' with the express purpose, it seems, of using up all the life support systems in Whitechapel, because 'Wells sympathised with the Boche.' Wells was not extended in denying the charge. And then there is Richards assertion that Asquite was once an opium addict, and in a state of intoxication, roamed around the Welsh countryside, stark naked, and addressing every woman over eighty as 'Bucephalus' Asquite did not stoop to reply.

However scouring through Richards autobiography 'Princeps of Literary Criticism, I discover not one error of fact in the nauseating account of his development from an Odyssey-quoting nipple eater to the self-styled 'vision of Elysium. He does not tell a single lie, and with this as the deciding factor, I accept Richards word as to his largely forgotten tutorage.

Denying Saintsbury is another matter He is another congenital liar, and another unstoppable assassin of reputation But Saintsbury does not limit murderous outrage to the person of others; a recent entry in the Times obituary column rightly noted Saintsbury's late literary suicide. This is by the way; but there are horrors to access in this disagreement still.

The instances of Saintsbury's emerging from his still incomplete comparison of the fricative patterns in John Aubrey's deep sentence structure and Alexandria's pre-Roman sewerage arrangements to wax unwisely are too numerous to recount. But I wish to add two as yet uncirculated stories.

Saintsbury recently remarked on the propriety of the late Queen's Coronation. Digressing a moment he mentioned a letter addressed to Keats, which made play of the despondency with which a Zebra urinates. The truth is, the letter was addressed by Keats, and made play of the Latin pun secreted away in 'the vale of tears.' Also, I have it on good authority (Ernest Jones, the shrink) that Saintsbury was so rude as to suggest to a platoon of reconnoitring suffragettes, that Bosanquet is a lousy philosopher and an excellent no 3.' Both Bosanquets repudiated these libels with vigour; the philosopher by describing Saintsbury as 'deserving of his repellant isolation', the cricketer by sending Saintsbury the memoirs of a Golden Products salesman manque. Symons was quick to display his displeasure too. An article in last Septembers issue of the 'Jaune Liver,' bearing the initials 'A. S.,' terms Saintsbury, among other things 'treacherously bad, lecherously mad, and a bastart to boot' I concur with most of this evaluation and consequently dismiss any claim that Saintsbury was responsible for the mutilation of Richards' mind.

There is one other point made by Saintsbury to which I take exception. That is the suggestion that Slaver St is a public convenience. It is inconvenient without resembling a Parisian pissoir, and was the scene of Lyttons regrettable arrest following the public lecture on Belles Lettres. Grot it was not.

And, might I mention, David Hare did not write 'Morgan: A suitable case for treatment.' David Mercer did. You should not trust the theatricals, you know. Their word is only an eloquent stammer.

My dislikes are John Wilmot's moral regeneration, the spread of the Spanish Lady rumour, and Lily Langtree's attempt to complete the labours of Atalic.