Life of Ralegh
Sir: May I crave the hospitality of your columns to express chquiet at the criticism by Mr Robert Nye (November 3) of the two books on Sir Walter Ralegh. In searching for an adjective lo.describe it the good common word bitchy' springs irresistibly to mind.
Mr Nye is obviously a fanatical admirer of Ralegh's poetry. Now there are also those who dote on the painting of Sir Winston Churchill, but to condemn a history book about Sir Winston because it under-rated him as an artist would be as ridiculous as Mr Nye's damning so shrilly Mr Lacey's book on Ralegh because he doesn't think as highly of Sir Walter's poetry as Mr Nye does. I happen to be halfway through Mr Lacey's book, which 1 bought because I am keenly interested in the history of the Elizabethan age — not from "the secondary world of amateur enthusiasm "'— but as a professional Woman. I find Mr Lacey's style highly readable and frequently of marked literary merit; and his assessment of Sir Walter in his many and varied roles of enormous interest. "Big rollicking
biograph
unkindly, but one wonders why Mr Nye should think it self-evident that to add life and enjoyment to scholarship IS necessarily wrong. 1 cannot escape the feeling that Mr INlye would have been more honest had he said that he was criticising only a small part of the book — the only part that was of interest to him as the editor of a book on Ralegh as a writer.
Florence B. Sanderson 7 Braxted Park, Streatham Common, London SWIG
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