Trevelyan's address c/o G[ordon] Bottomley, The Sheiling, Silverdale, near Carnforth. - Strachey's article in last week's "Spectator" [see 26/12/5] gave Trevelyan much pleasure: it is a 'rare experience to be appreciated at once so generously and so understandingly'. Was very glad Strachey quoted the chorus on Man from the "Antigone", as he thinks his own 'somewhat dangerous experiment of trying to reproduce the Greek metre comes nearest to success' there. What Strachey says about his translation of Theocritus is also 'very gratifying': Trevelyan had worried that the 'expectations and the absence of rhyme in that metre would prove a stumbling block'. Expected that few people would agree with his comment about [Theocritus's] "Sorceress" being the 'greatest of love poems": perhaps he 'went too far', but did not intend to compare it with dramas, short lyrics and sonnets; even among long poems he admits Chaucer's "Troilus [and Criseyde]" and Marlowe's "Hero and Leander" could be argued to be 'greater'. Hoped to 'provoke dissent' but so far Strachey is the only critic to have challenged his assertion. Very pleased to find someone who understands and generally agrees with what he says about metre in "Thamyris"; thinks he could have been more convincing with more space for illustrations, and would also have liked to have given some examples of 'good and bad poetic rhetoric'. Has always thought Campion's ' "Rose-cheeked Laura" was a 'very remarkable invention"; Strachey may have noticed that he translated several Theocritean epigrams into it. Is himself 'no enemy of rhyme' but thinks there are 'great possibilities in unrhymed lyrical verse in English' which modern vers libre writers have not explored fully.
Mill House, Westcott, Dorking. - Hopes his parents had a good time at Welcombe. He and Bessie were 'very glad' to see his mother in London: they had a 'pleasant evening with her, and at George's the next day'. They are going to London again tomorrow, and Robert will 'arrange about the publishing of [his] new play [The Birth of Parsival]'; in the afternoon, they will see Marlowe's Faustus, performed by the Elizabethan Stage Society. Bessie is well, and they are enjoying the weather and countryside, 'which is very beautiful this autumn'.
The situation with Russia [the Dogger Bank incident] 'seems very bad, especially this morning'; however, he thinks the two governments [Russian and British] will find a way to 'settle the matter, especially as the French government seems very anxious for peace'. Thanks his father for returning Dmitri Roudine, and is glad he found it interesting; perhaps it is 'not a perfect novel', but Robert thinks he likes it 'almost as much as any of Turgeneff's'.
They went last week to stay for two nights with Aunt Meg [Price] at Pen Moel, and had a 'very pleasant visit'; Robin was there 'and seemed much improved, though still very shy'. A 'young Trinity man' is there as his tutor, whom they liked. Also staying was 'Lady Macdonald, the wife of the Canadian "Dizzy" [Sir John Macdonald]'; she was 'rather amusing for a little, but not for long, as she is really very vulgar, though quite a kind good-natured person'. Reminded him of 'characters in Dizzy's novels. Perhaps she modelled upon them'.
Bertie Russell has been staying for two days and was 'very cheerful, as he is getting on now quite well with his work which is to revolutionize mathematics'; he 'got stuck' for almost a year and 'could not get on at all, which together with the Fiscal controversy depressed his spirits very much'. Sends love from both himself and Bessie to both his parents; Bessie thanks his mother for her letter.
Cad Hill House, Upton-St-Leonards, Glos. - Thanks Bob for the translations from Latin and Greek [this year's "From the Shiffolds"], particularly the "Moretum", which gives an idea of how good Bob's translation of the "Georgics" must be: asks if he ever finished 'that lovely thing'. Asks whether Bob thinks Virgil wrote the "Moretum". The [Homeric] "Hymn to Pan" is 'most beautiful'. The 'news about the Marlowe fragment' ["The Stream"] is 'sensational': it is 'now said to be by Jervis [Gervase] Markham'; the '24 lines seem much the best of those quoted (in the "Times Lit. Sup.)' [see John Crow. "Marlowe Yields to Jervis Markham."" The Times Literary Supplement", 4 Jan. 1947, p. 12]. Is having difficulty writing as three of his children are 'playing rampageously in the room'. Hopes Bessie, Julian, and Ursula are well. Is renting a small house on the edge of the Cotswolds; wishes Bob was within walking distance. Thanks Bob for the gift of "Gebir" [by Walter Savage Landor], which although uneven is a 'noble poem'; is now re-reading Boswell's life of Johnson. Cold and stormy weather, and the normally good views are affected by fog. Was re-reading Bob's translations of Juvenal recently, which are 'perfectly done'; thinks he should translate the sixth "Satire" if he has not already done so. Adds postscript to say Diana would send love if she were not out.
Cud Hill House, Upton Saint Leonards, Glos. - Bob has given him great pleasure [by sending him his book "Windfalls"]: finds himself drawn first to the essays with personal names: Browning, Virginia Woolf, Meredith; these are all '[d]elightful', with '[s]uch sensitive discrimination in the literary criticism', combined with 'personal pictures - so vivid', such as 'Meredith's thumps with his stick in honour of the lovely Lucy Duff Gordon'; asks which of Meinhold's works Duff Gordon translated. Praises Bob's literary criticism: calls his defence of rhetoric 'timely needed & excelled'; might not have had Marlowe and the University poets 'without the Schools of Rhetoric of Oxford & Cambridge', and without Marlowe, there might have been no Shakespeare. Comments on 'how neatly' Bob 'refute[s] Edgar Poe's heresy!'. Likes what Bob says about Shelley's "Music when soft voices die": has sometimes read the last stanza as 'addressed by Shelley to himself'; cites 'Less oft is peace in Shelley's mind...' [from "To Jane: The Recollection"] as another instance of self-address. Diana [his wife] and the children are going to Sennen at Land's End on Monday; he himself is not, since he always finds South Cornwall 'too damp'; will go instead to the 'Brit[ish] Ass[ociation for the Advancement of Science]' in Broghton from 7-14 September. His eldest son [Oliver] is engaged to be married to Rosemary Phipps, a 'charming girl' living at Fairford on the upper Thames; she and Oliver have been to visit. Tom [his other son] is staying with Lodge's sister [Barbara Godlee?] near Manchester, but will join the rest of the family in Cornwall. He is 'very musical-studying'. Bob's grandson Philip is here, playing in the garden with Colin; he is a 'dear little boy'. Sends love to both Trevelyans; hope Bob's has a 'good holiday & enjoy[s] Italy'. Asks if 'the cause of Virginia Woolf's death [was] ever known'. Adds a postscript to say her heard a 'marvellous Beethoven piece' on the radio last night, the String Quartet in B flat, Op. 18 no. 6.
140 Carlingford Road, West Green, N.—Draws attention to further borrowings by Weever.
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Transcript
140 Carlingford Road, West Green, N.
11-12-1911
Dear Mr McKerrow,
I’ve just finished reading my recently-acquired copy of the Arcadia, which, I presume, follows ed. 1598, and I find that of 13 quotations ascribed to Weever in England’s Parnassus, five of them consist of matter borrowed with little alteration from Sidney’s book. At least two more quotations signed “Weever” in E.P. come from Marlowe’s portion of Hero and Leander, and another (1949) {1} seems to be an imitation of Romeo & Juliet. Routledge’s copy of the Arcadia is very badly edited, being full of misprints and ridiculously wrong readings; and, in one case, there is such a very shocking mistake—the old ſ in “suck” being converted into an “f” that, I think, the publishers would call their editor over the coals, if they knew it (see Book IV, p. 535).
I mention these borrowings from the Arcadia because they seem to indicate that the work in which they will eventually be found was written immediately after the 1598 Arcadia appeared (Hero & Leander also appearing in the same year) and, apparently, before the Epigrams, which borrow from the Arcadia but not so closely. Here is a case in point, in support of this conclusion.
I pointed out to you that a part of the Epigram addressed to Shakespeare echoed lines quoted above Weever’s name in E.P. Now I will draw your attention [to] Ep. No 16, Second Weeke, p. 40, on Richard Upcher, which is a similar repetition of the following, ascribed to Weever, under Women:—
Women bee
Framde with the same parts of the minde as wee;
Nay, Nature triumpht in their beauties birth,
And Women made the glorie of the earth:
The life of bewtie, in his supple breasts,
And in her fairest lodging, vertue rests;
Whose towring thoughts, attended with remorse,
Do make their fairness be of greater force.
I. Weever.
It is not difficult to see the influence of Sidney in the Upcher Epigram, but it is difficult to find sufficient warrant for describing it as a borrowing from the Arcadia; but when one comes to compare it with the above quotation and then goes from the quotation to Sidney, the source of Weever’s inspiration is manifest at a glance. Note the following:—
[Women] {2} are framed of nature with the same parts of the mind for the exercise of vir-tue as we are. —it likes me much better when I find virtue in a fair lodging, &c.
Routledge (Book I), pp. 60–61.
I should think that Weever, if fully in print, and easily accessible, would be found to be a mine of wealth to those who wish to get information concerning the probable dates of pieces like Julius Caesar, &c., for he seems to have borrowed right and left, and whilst newly-issued books were hot in his memory. I must have a good cut at that Mirror of Martyrs again. I jotted down many of its borrowings in one of my books, which I misplaced. (I’ll look for it, now.) {3} Don’t trouble to reply to this, please.
Yrs. truly
C Crawford.
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Formerly inserted in McKerrow’s copy of his own edition of John Weever’s Epigrammes in the Oldest Cut and Newest Fashion, 1599 (1911) (Adv. c. 25. 81).
{1} ‘(1949)’ interlined in pencil.
{2} The square brackets are original.
{3} The words in brackets are written below the last words of the preceding sentence, to which they evidently refer. The brackets have been supplied.