17 DECEMBER 1948, Page 17

W. M. PRAED

Silt,—Reviewing John Betjeman's Poems in your issue of December 10th, Mr. H. A. L. Craig states that Praed was a parson. But though the author of The Vicar had two intimate friends, John Moultrie and Derwent Coleridge, who became parsons, he himself was satisfied with a career at the Bar and in the House of Commons and had no desire to take holy orders. At Teignmouth church he appeared "in the gallery pew . . . his hair brushed into a tuft on either side, and a wide velvet collar turned

down over his coat."—Yours faithfully, DEREK HUDSON. Westwood, Tennyson's Lane, Haslemere, Surrey.