Letter: A good measure of hexameters

Sir: There was a great deal of sense in James Fenton's article on Penguin Unpopular Classics ('A yawning gap in the literary market,' 7 March), but I disagree with his comment that 'all English poems written in hexameters are intolerable'.

Not all: Clough's Amours de Voyage, in hexameters, is one of the most charming, readable and rereadable of the long poems in the English language, and it was very nice to see the whole of it reprinted by Christopher Ricks in The New Oxford Book of Victorian Verse (1987).

Yours faithfully,

BERNARD RICHARDS

Brasenose College

Oxford

7 March