30 JULY 1965, Page 11

Matthew Arnold SIR,—The attack on Matthew Arnold in your issue

of July 23 seems to me extravagant and unjust. A de- tailed defence must be left to Dr. Holloway or some other authority on English literature, but may remark that such reminiscences of earlier poets as your correspondent collects—and they are not very close reminiscences—would in the age of Virgil and Horace have been a cause for congratulation, not for reproach?

S Chaucer Road, Bedford

G. M. LEE