Roused by Rowse
Sir: The difficulty with A. L. Rowse (January 12) is that as he leaps to the pinnacles of professional scholarshiP his trousers fall down.
From an apparently imprecise casual observation by a French Ambassador — I have not seen the original — •he invites us to believe that Henry VIII had a "light, small, not very mas' culine" voice, which is pushing the meaning of the passage he quotes verY hard indeed. Dr Rowse then assumes:
(a) that in a mature male, not an' tually gelded before puberty, a dee?, voice signifies generative potency, an vice versa; (b) that the ability to pleasure a particular woman much younger than oneself is directly related to the capacity to beget children.
There are not only errors, but yule, errors on a par (no pun intended) yin!' expounding Shakespeare's Sonnets.lh the manner of a second-rate Freudian interpreting Wee Willie Winkie. D8 Old Common, Esher, Surrey jaie/drarri
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