In Competition No. 2429 you were invited to write a poem in praise of one of the Seven Deadly Sins.
It was the Reverend Sydney Smith who, as Keith Norman appropriately reminded me, came down to breakfast smiling and announced that he had had a beautiful dream: that there were seven Articles and 39 Deadly Sins. Because we all willingly admit to it, sloth was the most popular sin. The poet James Thomson, who was said to be so lazy that he couldn’t be bothered to reach out to pluck a peach, nevertheless wrote a long poem entitled ‘The Castle of Indolence’. Avarice and envy proved hard to praise. Commendations go to Mary Holtby, Paul Griffin, Jeremy Lawrence and Michael Swan. The prizewinners, printed below, have £25 each, and Lindsay Staniforth lifts the bonus fiver.
Its deadliness is in the second league:
Sins of omission seem to do small harm.
If
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