13 FEBRUARY 1942, Page 14

MR. NICOLSON AND HORACE

SIR,—The shades of Horace's father, if not of Horace, call for an answer to Mr. Nicolson's libel in Marginal Comment. The good collector scorned the provincial school, took his son to Rome at the age of twelve or so and sent him to the best and, what is more, the snobbiest school in Rome. He went daily with slaves in his train, like the son of a millionaire. If his accent was not quite, quite, the Plagosus Orhilius would have thrashed him soundly. The whole story, including the introduction to Maecenas (by Virgil and Varius), is in the Sixth Satire of the first book. Horace was a dweller in Rome ; and from his teens much more urbane than rustic.—I am,

yours faithfully, W. BEACH THOMAS. High Trees, Wheathampstead, Herts.