Gleason Professor of Fine Arts Seymour Slive eased sophomores' pain yesterday, admitting some of them to his Literature and Arts B course after announcing hours before study cards were due last week that they would be cut from the class.

In a list distributed yesterday to students, Slive announced the results of a lottery allowing 50 sophomores to enter Literature and Arts B-25, "Rembrandt and His Contemporaries," after the professor told students shopping his course last week that he would have to limit the course because of overcrowding.

Slive told the class he was giving preference to seniors, juniors and fine arts concentrators over sophomores because he would not be offering the class again until 1991. Freshmen were also given priority because, Slive said, they might become fine arts concentrators.

Susan W. Lewis, director of the Core program, said "a very significant portion" of sophomores turned away last week were admitted to Slive's course yesterday.

"The problem was that Professor Slive was surprised that there were so many people," Lewis said, adding that she thinks it was particularly upsetting to students that Slive had to make the cut just before study cards were due.

Although she was unsure that she would be admitted to Slive's course, Sheila M. McDonald '91 said "she just put down 'Rembrandt' [on her study card] and passed it in."

McDonald, who was chosen in yesterday's lottery, said she thought there were "very few sophomores who didn't get in," but she added, "some people may have just given up on Wednesday" when Slive made the cut.

"I didn't see where it made much sense," McDonald said of Slive's previous decision to exclude sophomores, but now, she added, "I think people are pretty satisfied."

"I didn't know what I was going to do if I didn't get in," Trevor W. Carlton '91 said, after finding he had been lotteried into the course yesterday.

Asked about the lottery process, Carlton said, "I feel it's fine, but I probably wouldn't if I didn't make the lottery."

Lewis defended Slive's decision to cut sophomores from his course last week, saying it is "difficult to imagine how many students are shoppers and how many are planning to stay."

"Professor Slive had no way of knowing," Lewis said.

Two other Literature and Arts B courses, "Jazz" and "Modern Art and Abstraction," were also lotteried because of high student turnouts.

But Lewis asserted, "It could happen anywhere, it just happened to be Literature and Arts B."

David H. Thompson '91 said that although he "had made plans to take another course," he has switched into Slive's course after making the lottery.

Although Thompson said he was "not at all" pleased with Slive's previous decision to exclude sophomores from his class, he added that he is "ultimately pleased to take the class."