From Mr Brian Brindley Sir, The Revd Anthony Dykes is not a fair critic. He puts the words "the language of the Renaissance" in inverted commas, implying that I used them; I did not. Nor did I say that ecclesiastical Latin was demotic; I said it was a vernacular, i.e. "the language or dialect of a particular country" (COD). I mentioned Dante merely to indicate the period at which the Italian language became settled (though I am under the impression that La Divina Commedia was written in it) and Milton not as an advocate of the vernacular but a fluent writer of Italian.
The eccentricity of Fr Dyke's opinions is illustrated by his assertion that "the most famous British writer of the period" of Shakespeare was the epigranunist John Owen, about whom most of your readers would have to say "Who?". To quote (accurately) Fr Dykes, "What can I say?".
Yours faithfully, BRIAN BRINDLEY, Brighton, Sussex.