25 October 1981

Dear Eliot,

      while you're waiting to hear about your thesis, I thought you might be interested in some notes I made today on EIII + Ironside. I see that 'nip' (of frost) and 'torturing' as an adj. are among the OEDs Shakespearean coinages. I still don't believe that Jürgen Schäfer has any good reason to claim they're counterfeit, or cracked within the ring. He hasn't replied to my request for corroborative data on this point.

      Shakespeareanily speaking I'm at a loose end too, waiting for a destiny to shape it, that's because my handwriting expert (Principal Scientific Officer with the Met. Police) is on holiday in, of all places, China. I have a special reason for hoping he doesn't go up or over The Wall, or catch Yellow Fever: for before he went he rang me up to say (I assure you) that he thinks the Italic annotations on the Folger Lambarde (signed W^m Shakespeare) are in the same hand as the Italic portions of Ironside! It's all shaping up rather interestingly, I think, especially when your EIII etherodoxy becomes orthodoxy. 

      Best regards yours Eric

[.PDF of the enclosed notes]