THE DEFENCE OF CULTURE [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
Sm,—Your contributor in his article " The Defence of Culture " says the Medicis differ from Soviet Russia in that they " facilitated the release of their protégés from Romanist traditions." This may very well be a true discrimination but, employing the same touchstone, we may ask, " Did Augustus free Vergil from any fetters of tradition ? " Surely the Aeneid was pure "ballyhoo " for the Emperor's ana- chronistic N.I.R.A. (nova in religionem adactio), the new " drive " towards religion ; no scholar would deny that it is blatant propaganda for the rejuvenated " piety " and the infant Empire.
I am not a GerManophile nor a Russophile, but I see no reason why literature should not attain in those two countries the perfection it reached, however inexplicably, in the Augustan Age.—Yours faithfully, R. A. SiMeox. Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge,
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