To judge by its content, the typical British reader of the weekly Spectator is a staid, orderly man who carries an umbrella on threatening days, and whose wife has the vicar to tea in the garden. He is likely to say "verb. sap." when he means "a word to the wise," and if he says, "I rather think I shall go sailing tomorrow, D.V.," everyone knows that he means "Deo volente" (God willing).
He may resent the satires on British mores of such writers as Max Beerbohm, "Saki," and Evelyn Waugh, but he...
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