14 JANUARY 1989, Page 22

Metre reading

Sir: L. K. Lawler is right (Letters, 17 December): in the classical tongues on the one hand, quantity rules, but it's stress that you work to in writing in English. (Mostly — though Tennyson tried what was only `burlesque', as he called it.) Test the above by the 'S' to the first of the Ts' in 'Spectator': short if you go by the stress, it can only be long in the Latin.

Alan Bancroft

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