Adam Fox
Sir: The implication, in the opening paragraph of Peter Levi's review about Philip Larkin (12 June), that the Professor of Poetry at Oxford during his time was a simple-minded and senile cleric is ludicrous- ly far from the truth. Adam Fox, Dean of Divinity at Magdalen and later a Canon of Westminster, was 55 at the time. The fact that he subsequently lived to a great age is irrelevant. His intellectual stature is reflected in manY scholarly books, in- cluding a biography which won the James Tait Black Prize in 1960. The suggestion that he was 'put up' to keep out a non- Christian is also, I believe, not the case. My understanding at the time was that his can- didature was intended to block a fellow- academic (with no specifically poetic claims) who was thought to be unsuitable on more general grounds. Adam Fox is remembered by those who knew him as a brilliant, witty and lovable man. He was also, incidentally, a preacher of stimulating and sometimes unorthodox sermons,
M. J. Hugill
Westminster School, 17 Dean's Yard, London SW1
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