Pièce 21 - Notes on Thomas Nashe, by R. B. McKerrow

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Transcript

Some Notes on Nashe.

Since the completion in 1910 of my edition of Nashe, I have, naturally enough, come across a certain number of things bearing upon his work which, had I known of them earlier, I should have incorporated into my notes. I have at times thought of printing these, but doubted whether the interest of them—scrappy as they are—was sufficient. Of late, however, several scholars have published additional notes on Nashe—the most important contribution known to me being Professor W. P. Mustard’s in the December number of Modern Language Notes, {1} and it may therefore be as well that I should summarize those things that I have noted—I omit of course those that, so far as I know, have been printed already by others.

1. Among books used by Nashe in writing “The Anatomy of Absurdity” was undoubtedly L. Lloyd’s Pilgrimage of Princes [1573]. This book itself borrows largely from Agrippa’s Vanity of Arts & Sciences and is itself used by Brian Milbanke in his Philotimus, from both of which works Nashe, as I showed, borrowed much material. I failed however to notice that though certain of Nashe’s borrowings such as the passage about the ‘Massagets’ (16. 3-5) are taken from Lloyd (sig Ee2) by way of Milbanke, there is a good deal that is taken from him direct. Thus, the whole of Nashe’s examples of frugality in diet (I. 38. 20–39. 22) are from the Pilgrimage of Princes as follows. {2}

Diogenes (38. 20-2). P of P. N4v (misprinted M4v) foot
Plato ([blank]). [P of P.] O1 top.
Porus. [P of P.] N2v. ll. 11-2.
Agesilaus (ll. 25-35). [P of P.] N2 ll 2-15.
Constantius. N2 ll. 20-2.
The Priests of Ægipt. N3v. ll 24-5.
The Persians. N4v ll. 11-12.
In Rhodes … N4v ll. 13-15.
Zaleucus law. [mentioned on N2, but not quite as here]
The Matrons & Ladies of Rome … Eg. Mæcenius … Censoriall Cato (39 ll. 8-22). N4 l 28 to N4v l. 7.

The borrowings are in Nashe’s usual manner practically word for word.

Nash may also have used the Pilgrimage of Princes elsewhere in the Anatomy, but I have failed to find indisputable evidence. It may, however, be noted that of the less virtuous women discussed on p. 11, eight are mentioned on sigs O2v–O3 and one, ‘Laena’ on P4v. Of the mysterious ‘Architumna’ there is still no trace. If Nashe really followed Lloyd here she ought to be ‘Virginia’ but I question if it could be a possible misreading.

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The square brackets are original, except where indicated below. The abbreviation ‘v’ for ‘verso’ is superscript throughout.

{1} W. P. Mustard, ‘Notes on Thomas Nashe’s Works’, Modern Language Notes, xl (1925). 469–76. The expression ‘December number’ appears to date this note to the year 1926.

{2} The references to signatures in the following entries are arranged in a column. The title ‘P of P.’, which appears before the first, was evidently intended to refer to all the succeeding references, but ditto marks, substituted above by ‘[P of P.]’ were only added for three entries. A few full stops have been added to separate the initial words from the references.