4 April 1983

(handwritten notes by Eliot Slater)

Dear Eliot,

after a very quiet, not to say inaudible, family Easter with my mother in Holland (on Sea) I return to the word‑list. Here are the few extra items, as promised. I've retained the Ule lineation, since you said it gave you no difficulty.

Avail, n: 3, not 2, viz:                                                                                   

    plots and other stratagems/ of great avail, 1154-5                                            

    counsels of great avail, rare stratagems,    1434                                               

    present for your best avail                          1643                                          

choice, a 1, not 0:                                                                                                                     

     a choice company of armed men                                                                                              

midstn: 1 not 0                                                                                                                         

     here in the middest of unknown enemies   1504                                             

(cf also the armies do compass the two kings in the middest, 2054) SD

proffer, v. 1 not 0                                                                                                                      

     if chance he proffer any courtesy                416                                             

(cf also my proffered grace, 936)                                                                                                  

retreat, n 3 not 2

(but I now see that one of these is in a stage direction, 1006, and so is lost to the system)

      I can't imagine why the tiresome Oxford Associate Editor asks us if we have any answers, since I should have thought that a flick or two of his computer switch would readily enable further factual tests to be made. But little can be done with a chap

who incorporates into his arguments such premises as 'no one would think' or 'have often been thought'. I could perhaps try a dating of Ironside , e.g. it's quoted with other plays c. 1590 in A Knack to Know A Knave, performed 1592, but then he’d just say that 1 Henry V and Titus have often been thought to contain the work of other writers. However, perhaps your techniques can also demonstrate their integrity?