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Pickering's Shop. - Came to Pickering's to check the metre of In Memoriam against Sidney; quotes Arcadia. Tennyson probably based metre on old sonnet form; quotes sonnet and discusses problems in construction. 'Sydney [sic] was the most determined & ingenious & enterprising rhymester I have met with...'

Poem starting "One faire par-royall, hath our [is]land bred", with "R.C. 1596" at bottom, accompanied by a later transcript starting "One fair pair-royal hath our island bred / Whereof one is alive and two are dead - / Sydney the prince of prose and sweet conceit, Spenser of number and heroic rhyme - / ... Camden thou livst alone of all the three ...."

140 Carlingford Road, West Green, N.—Is pleased that McKerrow agrees with him about the quality of Rankins’ writing. Discusses echoes of other works in Weever’s Epigrammes, and lists the sources of poems and songs in various Elizabethan collections.

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Transcript

140 Carlingford Road, West Green, N.
27-11-1911

Dear Mr McKerrow,

I am glad to hear what you say about Rankins, for I thought I had put my foot in it when I ventured to suggest to you that he was worthy of some recognition. Although his Mirrour of Monsters {1} deals with what is an unpopular subject, it struck me as being an exceedingly well-written work; and it interested me because his opinions of the stage had seemingly undergone some change when he wrote the Sonnet in Belvedere.

That L.L.L. passage in the Epigrams must be credited to Mr Bullen, for I should never have found it if I had not seen your letter in N & Q. {2} Mr Bullen has got a wonderful memory, and it seems a pity he does not make more use of it.

I picked up the other day a copy of Sidney’s Arcadia, in Routledge’s Early Novelists series, and, apparently, it follows the edition of 1598. Amongst other things in it that I had vainly searched for in my old Arcadia, which follows ed. 1590, though haltingly, I found the following, which affects Weever’s Dedication to the Epigrams, The Fifth Weeke, p. 90:—

“But I think you will make me see that the vigour of your wit can show itself in any subject: or else you feed sometimes your solitariness with the conceit of the poets, whose liberal pens can as easily travel over mountains as molehills, &c.”
Book I, p. 44

“Then would he tell them stories of such gallants as he had known; and so with pleasant company beguiled the time’s haste, and shortened the way’s length, &c.”
Ibid, p. 45.

As you pointed out to me that a simile, under Love, in Belvedere, came from Whitney’s A Choice of Emblemes, I went through that pretty book, and found much in it affecting Belvedere. And I found other things, especially the originals of several of William Byrd’s Songs. Perhaps the following refs. may be useful to you:—

Bullen’s English Garner, Some Shorter Elizabethan Poems {2}

p. 33 The nightingale so pleasant, &c.
Also in Musica Transalpina, p. 71—further on in Bullen.

34. The greedy hawk, with sudden sight &c.
    Whitney’s Choice of Emb., Spes varia, p. 191, ed. 1586.

35. Susanna fair, sometime assaulted &c.
    Varied in Musica Transalpina, p 68.

36. While that the sun with his beams hot &c.
    Also in England’s Helicon, as pointed out by Mr Bullen.

37. Compel the hawk to sit that is unmann’d, &c.
    Churchyard’s Jane Shore, in Challenge, p. 132, ed. 1593.

38. The eagle’s force Subdues each Bird &c.
    Ibid, of course, as Mr Bullen says.

    ”. Of flattering speech with sugared words &c.
    Whitney, Choice of Emb., Latet anguis in herba, p. 24, ed. 1586

    ”. In Winter cold when tree, &c. (2 stanzas)
    [Whitney, Choice of Emb.] {4}, Dum aetatis ver agitur; &c. p. 159, ed. 1586.

39. Who looks may leap and save his shins &c.
    [Whitney, Choice of Emb.], Verbum emissum non est revocabile, p. 180, ed. 1586.

    ”. In Crystal Towers, and turrets richly set, &c
    [Whitney, Choice of Emb.], Animus non res, p. 198.

I have been much struck by the accuracy with which Byrd quotes his authors, and think this fact is worth noting. It worries me to see good (or even bad) work unclaimed, and therefore I send you these refs. so that each man may have his own. Please do not trouble to acknowledge this.

Yours truly,
Cha Crawford.

PS. I thought of going over Romeo & Juliet, and other pieces mentioned by Weever, and will do so now that I find you are interested in the matter. I would have pointed out the Arcadia passages a week ago, but that I feared you were sated with the subject.

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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} A Mirrour of Monsters: wherein is plainely described the manifold vices, & spotted enormities, that are caused by the infectious sight of place (1587) (STC 20699). See ODNB.

{2} Notes and Queries, 11th series, iv. 384–5 (11 Nov. 1911). Cf. Add. MS. a. 460/2/5.

{3} The references of the succeeding quotations are arranged in a column. In this transcript a full stop has been supplied after each page-number.

{4} In this reference and the next two these words are represented by ditto-marks.

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.