30 JUNE 1973, Page 4

Baconians

Sir: As one who has had to suffer unwelcome acclaim as a fellow-Baconian by Baconians, allow me to offer a defence of Dr Rowse's recent action in paining members of the Francis Bacon Society by describing them as crackpots.

If there were a Descartes Society which devoted its energies to a study of his works, it would be grossly discourteous ot Dr Rowse, were he to discribe them as crackpots. But if the members of this society were sled by their enthusiasm to propagate a theory that Descartes was the manifest author of the works ascribed to his contemporary, Piere Corneille, then Dr Rowse's use of the term crackpot could only be blamed as unnecessarily mild.

Christopher Sykes Swyre House, Swyre, near Dorchester, Dorset