LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
From Martin Waitzwright, John Maxwell, Francis A. Bozo:, Maurice Cowling, Lady Cole, Katharine Kenyon, David M. Courage, J. Fendall. T. C. Skellington-Lodge, Cledwyn Williams, J. H. K. Lockhart, George Chowd- haray-Best, M. Hepper, Al. Mortitner, Lady de Zulu eta, R. Shaw-Smith, G. Reichardt, Jossleyn Hennessy.
Shakespeare and Dr Rowse
Sir: Dr Rowse writes: 'I have no respect for contemporary society and I know that it is breaking down.' Why, then, does he fill four pages of a contemporary magazine with a bilious outpouring of arrogance and conceit? His op- ponents are derided throughout as 'crackpots,' 'lunatics', without 'tactical sense or political judgment' and so forth, while he describes him- self as the performer of 'a prime service', an 'effective ally' and the author of the best bio- graphy on Shakespeare ever written.
In the middle of all this, he alleges that Brit- ain's intellectual standards are declining 'along with everything else'. I quite agree with him, particularly when an historical Fellow of All Souls claims that 'a proper historian detests theories and hypotheses and reconstructions; he respects facts'. Dr Rowse is firmly stuck in a dead end. There are no final solutions in history and a fact, in Pirandello's words, is like a sack in that it will not.stand up until you have put something into it. Henri Pirenne, to my mind a greater historian than Dr Rowse, wrote that a historian opens the way, he does not close it'.
Dr Rowse's conviction . . this isn't another hypothesis, this is the answer and I am right about it' leaves him up a blind alley, while other historians continue up the highway of their subject, passing him by.
Martin Wahnvright Merton College, Oxford
Sir: Suggested question for an English exam: 'Distinguish clearly between Dr Rowse and William Shakespeare.' Write one side of the paper only—if that.
The clearest answer should be communicated to the good Doctor who clearly sees no differ- ence.
John Maxwell 37 Merchiston Avenue, Edinburgh
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