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Park Lodge, Wimbledon, S.W.—Quotes from Duff’s English Provincial Painters, in illustration of a phrase in Nashe.

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Park Lodge, Wimbledon, S.W.
29 Jan 12

Dear McKerrow

Concerning tittle tittle est amen {1} cf. “The signatures of this book are curious, for the printer, having come to the end of his first alphabet, continued with contractions and then signed two more sheets one with ‘est’ the other with ‘amen’.” Gordon Duff, Eng. Prov. Printers, p. 37. {2} Of course this only shows that est was commonly regarded as part of the criss cross row. I imagine that it must have originally been one of the contractions (first ÷ later ē) & that when this grew obsolete the word est still retained its place.

Yrs
W.W.G.

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Formerly inserted between pp. 174 and 175 of McKerrow’s own copy of the Works of Nashe, vol. iv (Adv. c. 25. 75) , though the note it refers to is on a different page (see below).

{1} The reference is to the sentence beginning ‘I cannot explain what “tittle” means’ in the Works of Nashe, vol. iv, p. 205 (a note on a phrase in The Terrors of the Night, vol. i, p. 267, line 28). In the copy from which this letter was removed McKerrow has written in the margin at this point: ‘Cf also Duff. Eng. Prov. Printers p. 37 (W.W.G.)’. A similar phrase occurs in Have with You to Saffron-Walden (vol. iii, p. 45, line 36).

{2} E. Gordon Duff, The English Provincial Printers, Stationers and Bookbinders to 1557 (1912). The sentence is slightly misquoted.

Longmans, Green, & Co., 6 & 7 Clifford Street, London, W.1.—They cite a review of V. L. Griffith's Experiments in Education.

Describing the collection he intends to leave to Trinity College Library.

(An engraved form, filled up by hand, including an engraving of the Museum by E. H. New, 1910.)

Park Lodge, Wimbledon, S.W.—Transmits Nichol Smith’s reply.

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Park Lodge, Wimbledon, S.W.
9 Jan. 1924

Dear McKerrow

I enclose Nicol† Smith’s reply. {1} I have written to him that I was forwarding it to you with the suggestion that you should write direct if you saw fit.

I expect to be home again about Tuesday. {2}

Yrs
W.W.G.

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{1} MCKW A3/11b.

{2} 15th. Cf. MCKW A3/12.

† Sic.

86 Banbury Road, Oxford.—Declines to join the advisory panel, but expresses his support. Objects to a passage in the prospectus contrasting English and German scholarship.

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86 Banbury Road,
Merton College, Oxford {1}
6 Jan. 1924.

Dear Greg,

I fear I mustn’t. The invitation has pleased me greatly. But in view of the number of my odd jobs here, and above all of my obligations to the Press—all of which eat up too much of my time for my own work—I dare not take on any new responsibility. I cannot promise to give the Review the active support of contributing to it, and I doubt if in any capacity I should be likely to do enough to justify the presence of my name on the panel. Of course I am all in favour of the Review, & I mean to push it here, and of course I am prepared—should you ask me—to offer my opinion now and then for what it may be worth. But I shan’t be playing fair if I appear to promise more.

May I even now as a token of my good will offer an opinion on the first sentence of the prospectus? It would be much improved if it stopped at the word ‘country’. The reference to Germany is unfortunate. I for one do not feel it ‘something of a disgrace’ that we have not had an Anglia and an Englische Studien. All the vital, productive movements in English scholarship during my time have started in this country, and have been carried on most efficiently in this country. What has Germany given us since 1900, or 1890? Why is it a disgrace not to have had the German machinery if our output is better than what Germany has given us with her vaunted equipment? I am afraid that the writer of the sentence whoever he was (I am sure it wasn’t you) was unconsciously administering to the further swelling of the German head, and indulging quite unnecessarily, and perhaps inopportunely, in the English pastime of self-abasement.

My best wishes for the New Year.

Yours sincerely
D. Nichol Smith.

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{1} This printed address presumably ought to have been struck through.

Park Lodge, Wimbledon, S.W.—Rejects Nichol Smith’s criticism of the prospectus, and discusses the composition of the panel.

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Park Lodge, Wimbledon, S.W.
14 Jan. 1924

Dear McKerrow

We got home this afternoon & your letter arrived an hour later. I found one from Grierson accepting & wishing success.

I dont think Nichol Smith is in any way essential & as he was declining I thought his criticism unnecessary. {1} I told him I agreed generally that the most fruitful work of the last gener-ation had been English & not German but that that did not seem to me any objection to the sentence in the circular. I also said that while I had no desire to minister to German swelled head still less did I wish to pander to smug English selfcomplacency. So I expect he felt his knuckles rapped but being a nice fellow I hope he wont bear a grudge.

I am glad the appeal has been a success. I am not sure what representation we have from Cambridge—except on that score Chadwick is not the least essential. A. C. Bradley—except as an advertisement—would be no use at all me judice. {2}

Ever yours
W. W. Greg

I hope to be lunching on Thursday. {3}

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{1} See MCKW A3/11b.

{2} ‘In my judgement.’

{3} 17th.

Royal Pier Hotel, Southsea.—Would like to discuss the Marprelate tracts with him.

(Undated. A reference to the ‘3 Vols’ of the Works of Nashe suggests that the letter was written between the appearance of the third and fourth volumes of that work, i.e. between 1905 and 1908.)

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Royal Pier Hotel, Southsea
Sunday.

My dear Sir,

I am in receipt of your favor† of the 13th last, and shall be glad to meet you—if you will permit me to do so. Will you dine with us on the evening of Friday Week, when we shall certainly be at home. Please reply to Hampstead, {1} as we leave here tomorrow.

I do hope I did not mislead Mr. Greg by speaking too hastily regarding your work. I certainly did not intend to suggest that I had found any “Errors” in your informed & thorough notes. What I do mean to say is just this. I have always taken much interest in the Plays & Pamphlets of Nash, Green, & Dekker, & have never missed an opportunity of acquiring any of them. Of Nash I have quite a goodly lot, including the “Terrors of the Night”. {2}

Consequently when your 3 Vols. came to hand I compared most carefully what you had to say with the Bibliographical Notes I had made for my own Catalogue. I found that the conclusions at which I had arrived did not at all times agree with the deductions you had drawn,—& upon again examining the tracts themselves by the light of your words, I still found myself unable to fall in with your views. This, I may say, is in regard to the Mar-Prelate Pamphlets.

If you will come & chat the matters over with me for an hour after dinner, I think I shall be able to induce you to agree with me. If not, at all events we ought to get at the certain facts.

Very truly Yrs
Thos. J. Wise

I wish you could be induced to do for Green & Dekker what you are doing for Nash! The work is calling to be done!

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Two letters from McKerrow to Wise of 1909 and 1910, evidently subsequent to this one, were among Sir Maurice Pariser’s collection of ‘Wiseiana’, sold at Sotheby’s on 5 December 1967 (see the sale catalogue, p. 116).

{1} Wise and his second wife were in fact at this time living at 23 Downside Crescent, Belsize Park, but Wise characteristically preferred to associate himself with the more fashionable Hampstead, as he did on announcing his purchase of the house to J. H. Wrenn on 2 March 1900. See Letters of Thomas J. Wise to John Henry Wrenn: a Further Inquiry into the Guilt of Certain Nineteenth-Century Forgers, ed. Fannie E. Ratchford (1944), p. 180.

{2} Wise’s copy is now in the British Library (Ashley 1258).

† Sic.

Enderley, Great Missenden, Bucks.—Draws attention to a puzzling cancel in an early issue of Puttenham’s Art of English Poesy.

(The month is indistinct.)

States that she was glad to receive his letter, and also to receive one that came from H.F. Brown at the same time. Agrees that the latter 'is remarkably tolerant of criticism', and remarks on the difficulty of his task. Reports that the proofs 'have now come in up to the opening of the second volume [of the biography of John Addington Symonds compiled by Brown from his letters and papers]', and expresses her relief that Sidgwick and Mrs Green are to revise them. Agrees with Horatio 'that to Bowdlerise these letters till all colour of individuality is gone - would be untrue to the subject and unfair to the readers', and maintains that the question of suppression is one of degree. Does not agree that all allusions to ill-health should be suppressed, and hopes that the 'Harrow part' in the first volume can be amended. Refers to the bad weather that they have been experiencing of late, 'and now a change to glorious October.' Reports that her cat, [Quasjee], has knocked over her inkstand and has left a paw-print on the already addressed envelope. Has decided to send it on as it is, though admits that it is more in Francis Galton's line than Sidgwick's. Reports that [Mrs] Greg has written that she is going with Walter to stay at the Hunter's Lodge, and asks Sidgwick to make friends with her. Send her love to Sidgwick and Mrs Sidgwick, and refers to there visit to her in Davos-Platz as 'the pleasantest thing that has happened' to her that year.

10 Lauriston Road, Wimbledon.—The Bibliographical Society thank him for his List of English Plays, and he has been elected a member of Council.

British Museum.—Arranges to consult McKerrow and Greg about choosing books for the Museum from the Huth Collection, and invites McKerrow to subscribe to a publication in honour of G. F. Warner.

(With envelope.)

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British Museum

20. Jany 1911

Dear McKerrow,

I’ve got Fortescue’s leave to consult you & Greg abt one or two difficulties as to the (conditional) choice of books for the B.M. from the Huth Collection {1}—that is if you will suffer yourself to be consulted. Greg will look in here tomorrow (Saty) afternoon to see the books we have got up. If you can come in then so much the better, but if you can’t I’ll be glad to see you any day. It is more convenient however in† days other than Saturday to take you into Fortescue’s room (where the books are) between 1∙30 & 2∙30 than at other times.

2. Are you a lover of Warner or of MSS. If so, you may like to join a game which is on foot to reproduce the miniatures (occupations of the months) from a jolly Flemish MS. of which he is fond in his (Warner’s) {2} honour. He leaves in October & as it will take some time to get the thing done a start is being made. A copy of the book will be presented to each subscriber of a guinea, & I think he will get good value for his money!

Please regard both parts of this letter as confidential.

Yours ever,
A W Pollard

[Direction on envelope:] R. B. McKerrow Esq. | 4 Phoenix Lodge Mansions | Brook Green | Hammersmith | W.

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The envelope was postmarked at London, W.C., at 7.30 p.m. on 20 January 1911. The number ‘104357’ has been marked on the back in pencil.

{1} The book-collector Alfred Henry Huth (1850–1910) directed by his will that if at any time his library should be sold the Trustees of the British Museum should be allowed to choose fifty volumes from it. The principal conditions were that the Trustees should not select a better copy of any volume already in the Museum except by way of exchange, every copy so exchanged being counted as one of the fifty; that the volumes selected should be marked with the words ‘Huth Bequest’; and that the Trustees should print a separate catalogue of them. See the Catalogue of the Fifty Manuscripts and Printed Books bequeathed to the British Museum by Alfred H. Huth (1912), which contains an introduction by Pollard.

{2} ‘Warner’s’ was added above ‘his’. The brackets have been supplied.

† Sic.

Thinks William Aldis Wright was wise to use the Trinity MS rather than the Law MS as the basis of his edition.

British Museum, London.—Accepts the offer of a copy of his 'English Plays and Masques' (sic).

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P. 76 n. 1.

Another example of the use of ‘w’ as a signature is to be found in A. Fitzherbert’s “Graunde Abridgement” 1565, Vol. II pt. 2.

P. 81.

I was interested in your remarks in regard to the abbreviated form of the title sometimes found printed on a line with the signature because I had observed the use of this device in some of the books printed by Wynkyn de Worde. Recently I got together the books which we have in the Chapin Library from his press. I found sixteen originals and eight facsimiles. Of these, eighteen (13 originals and 5 facsimiles) were printed during a period which extends from c. 1509-c. 1530, and of the 18, fifteen had “title-signs” or “signature-titles.” This relatively high percentage may be due to the fact that 10 of the 18 are school-books (8 Whittington and 2 Stanbridge) and that de Worde found it convenient to use this method of identifying the sheets of that particular class of book which he published in such a bewildering number. However, the most interesting example that I found was in a volume of quite a different type viz. (S.T.C. No. 23877) his 1521 volume of “Ihesus: The floure of the commaundementes of god,” a folio in sixes, which has the title-sign “The.[a sign resembling a six-petalled flower].”

That this device was used to aid the binders is evident from the fact that in the majority of cases the title-sign appears only on the first leaf of the single sheet quires and on the first and third leaves only of the six or eight leaf quires.

In two cases (really one for they were different editions of the same Whittington tract, S.T.C. Nos. 25533 and 25536) the title-signs were altered to accord with the contents in the manner of subject-headings.

(One of the Whittington tracts, a variant of S.T.C. No. 25484 dated 5 September 1522, has on both sides of the last leaf an earlier impression of de Worde’s device, No. 46β, than you have noted in your “Printers’ and Publishers’ Devices” p. 17).

None of the six books from de Worde’s press which we have printed either before or after the period mentioned above have title-signs, although one of them, a copy of M. T. Cicero’s “The thre bookes of Tullyes offyces” 30 Sept. 1534, belongs to the series of small 8vo. school texts which de Worde issued about that time and which would seem to be particularly suited for such a practice.

The source of the name “title-sign” or “signature-title” is not known to me though I have an impression that I have seen it in Herbert. Until I read your comment I believed it was in current usage.

P. 82.

In regard to the purpose of catchwords. Before I even knew what the name of this device was, from seeing it used in Everyman Library reprints, etc., I thought that it was provided as an aid to the reader that he might follow through, without pausing, while turning pages or passing from the foot of one page to the top of the next. On the face of it this seems rather more altruistic than is compatible with the use of so many of the eye-straining fonts of type of the 15th and 16th centuries and I have little evidence to adduce in support of it. However, the use of catchwords at the bottom of each column (2 columns to the page) in Berthelet’s 1532 edition of Gower’s “Confessio Amantis” seems a case in point. (I admit it also appears to strengthen the argument that this device is a guide “to the printer in imposing the pages”). Of the various usages which you have noted on p. 84, three of them, b, c (an English example of this is Pynson’s “Berner’s Froissart” PTs. III-IV (to S, with exceptions) 1525), and d, the first, b, obviously can be used to support no other thesis than the one you have advanced on p. 82, but c and d, as you noted in the case of the latter, are aids to the binder rather than the printer. The three other varieties you have listed there might be twisted to support the theory which I have here set forth largely because I cannot seem to get rid of the feeling that no matter what purpose the compositor had the device does serve as an aid to the reader. (An earlier example of ‘a’ than you have noted is Goodman’s “How superior powers, etc.” Geneva, J. Crespin, 1558).

P. 140.

Having recently read A. W. Reed’s “Early Tudor Drama” I was somewhat surprised that you did not refer to his chapter (VII), entitled “Notes on the Regulation of the Book Trade before the Proclamation of 1538,” which I had found very enlightening on the transfer of the authority from ecclesiastical to civil jurisdiction before 1538 when Pollard takes it up.

P. 155 ff.

In your treatment of unusual collocations you do not take up the matter of regularly alternating sequences of signatures. This practice while more common I believe in continental printing is not unknown in English books especially those produced in the first half of the sixteenth century. For example of the group of fifteen books with title-signs mentioned above from de Worde’s press I find that nine of them have either double or triple sequences.

The only example of this practice other than in legal printing, particularly year-books and statute-books, after 1550 that I have noted is Gascoigne’s “Droomme of Doomes day”, 1576 in which quires H-O are printed in alternating eights and fours.

In recording such sequences I have followed the formula set forthe by Prof. Pollard in the Introduction of the “Catalogue of XVthe Century Books in the B.M.” Pt. I p. XIX.

Do you know of any other explanation for this practice than that which Prof. Pollard suggests, namely, that it might serve to make the binding more flexible (see Trans. Bibl. Soc. VIII (1927) p. 132)? This seems to me very reasonable except that it does not explain the practice when applied to slender volumes of just a few quires. Or does it?

P. 229. Coryate. Crambe 1611.

The Chapin copy is in original gilt vellum but with green morocco label of recent date on back. It appears to have been issued first unbound and stabbed. It also has binders’ marks in pencil on contiguous leaves, Moreover, though the end-papers and flyleaves appear to be of early paper one of them has some marks in pencil which have been cropt. It has therefore probably been resewn. This may be the Robert Samuel Turner copy sold at Sotheby’s 18 June 1888 but that is suggested only because no other copy in vellum in listed in B.P.C. up to 1919 at which time this copy had been purchased for the Chapin Library.

In regard to the collation of the Capell copy. From the description in Dr. Greg’s catalogue it appears to me at least possible, that a portion of that copy consists of sheets from the Crudities, 1611, viz. signatures a-b4 (repeated); c-g8; h-l4. {1}

In the Chapin copy the abnormal signature D consists of two quarto sheets, sewn between the 2nd and third leaves of each sheet and signed as you have described. As you suggest it appears that the whole of “D” must have been reprinted.

Sheet H would seem to be of a later issue than the rest of the work for it contains an address protesting against two insults which Coryate (somewhat quixotically) singles out in the pirated (?) Odcombian Banquet, 1611. The O.B., however, mentions the Crambe on the title-page and one is led to assume that some copies of the Crambe must have been in circulation before the O.B. was published and that the protest was then appended to the unsold copies of the Crambe. The format adds weight to such a conjecture, G4 being a blank.

There are two other matters concerning which I should like to be enlightened. The first of these is in regard to the short-titles sometimes found printed perpendicularly on an otherwise blank leaf. The only examples of this that I have met with are:

Browne, Sir Thomas. Hydrotaphia, 1658. recto [O8] {2}
Hookes, Nathaniel. Amanda, 1653; on leaf preceding engraved frontispiece.
Billingsley, Nicholas. Brachymartyrologia, 1657, [P4]? {2}
(This leaf is lacking in Chapin copy. Corser and Hazlitt state that it has “only the title on it,” thought they do not say in what position it is printed.)

These books were all printed within a few years of each other. Were these titles intended to be cut out and pasted on spines in the same manner as the extra paper labels now inserted in some books or as in the case of the horn “window” bindings of the 16th century?

The other matter is in regard to the rules frequently found immediately over imprint dates when these are printed in roman numerals. This practice is almost universal in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Mr. Edmonds of the Huntington Library first called my attention to it. He thought that the custom would not have become so widespread if it had no significance.

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Typed, except the flower sign, the β, and some inverted commas. The square brackets round signatures are original. The references to the Chapin Library (at Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts) suggest that the writer of these unsigned notes was W. A. Jackson, who was a cataloguing assistant there from 1927 to 1930. The notes, on four leaves numbered from 1 to 4, are evidently complete; but they may have been accompanied by a letter.

{1} The numbers in these signatures are superscript in the original.

{2} The number in the signature is subscript in the original.

(Place of writing not indicated.)—Discusses watermarks in quartos in the Huntington Library.

8 The Broadway, Hammersmith, W.—Praises Greg’s notes on John Phillip (as reprinted from The Library).

(Written on part of an envelope addressed to Greg at Trinity College, Cambridge.)

Sidgwick & Jackson Ltd, 44 Museum Street, London, W.C.1.—Sends page-proofs and refers to the air-raids.

(Putney.)—Comments on the printing of the 1664 (Third) Folio of Shakespeare.

(Undated. Postmarked 29 Jan. 1927.)

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Shakespeare Folio 1664

In quire 3H the inner forme of the inside sheet was the first to be printed.

You may be right about Cymbeline, but in that case the erroneous head-line (223v) was laid aside during the remainder of the printing of that quire, and then brought out again for 3a. This is possible.

W.W.G.

[Direction:] Dr. R. B. McKerrow | 44 Museum St | W.C.1

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Postmarked at Pu[tney, SW15] at 3 p.m.(?) on 29 January 1927. McKerrow has written some light pencil notes along the side.

Park Lodge, Wimbledon Common, S.W. 19.—Thanks him for a copy of his book, and praises it.

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Park Lodge, Wimbledon Common, S.W. 19
Near Tibbets Corner
21 Oct. 1927

Dear McKerrow

The Introduction to Bibliography has just arrived and I have to thank you very much for it. It makes a larger volume than I had anticipated. Of course it will be of immense value, & the only drawback I see is that one will no longer have any excuse for ignorance respecting what I once named the Elements of Bibliography.

Ever yours
W. W. Greg