29 DECEMBER 1950, Page 14

What is a Sonnet?

SIR,—Your correspondent, Mr. W. J. McCombe, finds fault with me for speaking of " the Meredithian form of sonnet." But it is not I with whom the fault lies. Mr_ McCombe musts blame Algernon Charles Swinburne, who always referred to the. series" Modern Love" as con- sisting of sonnets ; see (oddly enough) the Spectator of June 7th, 1862. Of course Meredith wrote normal sonnets as well.—Yours truly,