20 APRIL 1962, Page 16

RALEGH'S ELDEST SON Sur,-1 am sorry that my old friend,

Christopher Hill, should have perpetrated such an elementary howler as to refer to Ralegh's hitherto unknown son as a daughter, Scores of your readers may be misled by this, otherwise 1 should not bother to correct him on a matter he describes as 'trivial.'

But where are,his standards of historical accuracy? All historians should try their utmost, to be accurate. It seems that we can no more rely on his accuracy as to fact than on his—rather mean—judgments.