14 JULY 1950, Page 22

Happy Autumn Fieds

SIR,—This phrase of Tennyson is strangely disputed on p. 900 of your paper Why this fuSs about accepting a cheerful adjective ? Virgi begins his first Georgic with Quod facial laetas segetes—what makes the cornfields smile?—and later in the poem takes the adjective to the super lative in the same connection, laetissima farra. For Virgil the crop; themselves rejoice in their full fruitage. Why shouldn't they ? Tenny son owed much to Virgil—indeed, more than the commentators have