21 September 1982

Dear Eliot,

thanks for your nice letter. Sorry about this all too prompt and bulky a rejoinder. But bombardment seems a natural way of seeking to extend the range of the canon. (it took me some time too to see why the TLS vignette showed a cannon, even as the perpetrator of the pun thus illustrated!). And I promise not to bother you again for a bit, because I'm battling with the page proofs of a newly revised and augmented edition of the Works and Tragical History of our mutual friend Hugo Wolf (who still seems to twenty years after, to be a creator of truly Shakespearean stature and who like Schubert and Keats and a few others was arguably a greater achiever than Shakespeare within a given time‑span, say up to age 29‑30). Then the autumn lecture season begins; first lied students and then the Shakespeare Institute, where I'm booked in for November 4 - some preliminary fireworks will include the lighting of further Roman candles for your E3.

      On that topic, I thought it might be of some interest if I jotted down a few notes on Ironside etc parallels. The rough results are enclosed; I see that there's some overlap with a few points I mentioned to you last year, but mainly these are new (though

some are inevitably in debt to Everitt ‑ who seems to me incidentally to make a point that is well‑nigh conclusive on its own if he is right in saying that both E5 I.ii.l60 f and E3 last line-three kings make the same historical blunder about the Scottish King David

being sent into France for surrender). The pages are (as everything I send) for you to keep or jettison as you please.

      Most cordial regards, as ever

            Eric

[.PDF of the enclosed notes]