17 DECEMBER 1988, Page 32

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Sir: Some of the hexameters in your competition (5 November) were ingenious. Nash was right, though:

The Hexamiter verse I graunt to be a

Gentleman of an auncient house (so is many an English begger), yet this Clyme of ours he cannot thrive in; our speech is too craggy for him to set his plough in: he goes twitching and hopping in our language like a man running upon quagmires, up the hill in one Syllable and down the dale in another, retaining no part of that stately smooth gate which he vaunts himselfe with amongst the Greeks and Latins.

L. K. Lawler

Vine Cottage, Peppard, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire