BALLIOL MEMORIES.

A NOTE BY THE HON. A. E. GATHORNE-HARDY.

My article in the October number has brought me many kind letters from old Balliol friends for which I am grateful, and one or two errors have been called to my attention, which I should like to correct. Sir Courtenay Ilbert points out that I am mistaken in claiming the present Speaker as a member of Balliol College, ‘he was of Trinity, Cambridge.’

Francis Le Marchant points out that ‘Dick Webster,’ the late Lord Alverstone, and not Lawes as stated, beat Jersey in the mile race in the first Inter-University Sports held at Cambridge; ‘believe an eyewitness.’ Sneyd Kynnersley contributes an amusing anecdote about the latter’s trophies. Count Karolyi was admiring his display of racing cups, and noticing one in particular, asked what horse won it. ‘Oh,’ answered his host, ‘I won that one myself in a three-mile race.’ ‘Do you mean to say, Lord Jersey,’ said the Count, ‘that you ran three miles without sitting down!’

I should like also to correct a careless error in my quotation of Tennyson’s metrical compliment to Katherine Bradshaw. The first two lines should read:

Because she bore the iron name
Of him who doomed ‘his’ King to die,

instead of, as printed, ‘the’ King. I am sure the exquisite ear of the author would attach importance to the correction; he would never have allowed the cadence and stress to fall on such an insignificant word and sound as ‘the.’