17 MARCH 1961, Page 13

Sot.—Professor Kermode did not imply any refer- ence to Dr.

Leavis—so be it. But Dr. Leavis's ques- tion remains unanswered. Who, twenty years ago, did savagely exclude Milton and the Victorians from the permitted reading of the young? Even as a journalist's deliberately rhetorical exaggeration, such a description of how things were in my, and Pro- fessor Kermode's, youth strikes me as almost unmiti- gated nonsense.—Yours faithfully, 3. C. MAXWELL

King's College, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1