27 DECEMBER 1940, Page 14

TRACED

Sta,—Mr. Hewlett's perplexities over " ringing grooves of change" were solved in advance by the poet himself. In a note to the Eversley edition, Tennyson wrote: " When I went by the first train from Liverpool to Manchester (I830), I thought that the wheels ran in a groove. It was a black night, and there was such a vast crowd round the train at the station that we could not see the wheels. Then I

made this line."—Yours faithfully, MICHAEL BALFOUR The Huntsman's Cottage, Culham, Abingdon, Berkshire.