RE-VERSAL

May I recommend a Pope in the eye with a sharp stick for permitting your correspondent to get away with last Sunday’s Letters page misquotation of the 18th Century’s most particular wit.

Here’s the way it usually goes:

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,

As, to be hated, needs but to be seen;

Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,

We first endure, then pity, then embrace.

Hair-splitting academic snit aside, I’m glad to see printed before the eyes of millions--well, several tens of thousands--even partially accurate words from a guy who understood what moral venom was all about. I wonder if Rush Limbaugh, just before he heats up the mike, reminds himself, “I am getting into the ring with Mr. Pope”?

Naah!

DAVID WILSON

Laguna Beach