212 



(No. 4.) 

 By C. E. Long, Esq. 

 To the Editor of the Wilts Magazine. 

 Sir, 



have my doubts whether the pages of our Magazine are the 

 proper arena for controversy, and whether we should deviate 

 from our ordinary practice, and address you, personally, as the peg 

 on which to hang our literary squabbles. Nevertheless as the 

 gauntlet is thus thrown down, and as I am challenged to the 

 conflict, and by no ordinary combatant, I cheerfully take it up, and 

 enter the lists at his bidding, although he has the advantage of 

 coming to the encounter with his visor down. 



"The Littlecote Legend," — so our friend heads his communi- 

 cation,^ and I feel obliged to him for the selection of the word. Our 

 dictionaries describe a "Legend" as being "an incredible unauthentic 

 narrative." It is not for me to dispute the correctness of this 

 definition, nor its special application, as made by the critic, to this 

 Littlecote story. But let that pass. I will, at once, endeavour to 

 dissect the dissertation of our "Credulous Archaeologist," taking 

 his objections, as nearly as may be, in the order in which they 

 stand. 



He says, first, that I "committed myself to a strong opinion 



[Vol. IV. p. 222] of the mythical character of the story." I now 



repeat that quoad Darell and Littlecote, the murder of the infant 



by him, and at his house, the discovery of the crime and of his 



identity by the midwife, his trial at Salisbury and acquittal, together 



with all the garnishment thereof, I look upon this tale in the light 



of mere village gossip gathered up into a marvellous fire-side story, 



" To make the critic smile, the vulgar stare." 



Suppositions based on no solid foundation were magnified into 



' "Wilts Archaeol. Mag. vol. vii. p. 45. 



