WHEN I read the story about the poet who failed an examination question on his own poem ("Poetic justice, maybe?", Herald Diary, January 27)", I was reminded of a verse about a similar incident in the Victorian era.

Last night I dreamt that Shakespeare's ghost

Sat for a Civil Service post

The English paper for that year

Was on the subject of King Lear

William, he did rather badly

You see he had not read his Bradley.

AC Bradley was the Regius Professor of English Literature and Language in Glasgow University at the end of the nineteenth century and author of Shakespearean Tragedy.

Hugh Boyd,

65 Antonine Road,

Bearsden.