21 MAY 1965, Page 16

Man of Good Sense

SIR,--I am grateful for all the favourable things that Mr. Martin Seymour-Smith says, in his review, about my Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings. But the de- cision to modernise spelling and punctuation was wholly mine and I should not like my excellent pub- lishers to be blamed for what is called an 'impudent practice.' If what I have to say about Johnson'i works is regarded as 'academically stilted,' how much more so would my text have been had I not tried 'to remove those irrelevant accidents of time which could so readily inhibit the appreciation of the common reader of today.

R. T. DAVIES

The University of Liverpool