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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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Transcript

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.

These papers listed under this head relate to McKerrow’s edition of the works of the Elizabethan writer Thomas Nashe. They comprise letters written to McKerrow between 1905 and 1916, mostly by Professor G. C. Moore Smith, together with an incomplete draft of an article probably written in 1926.

The Works of Thomas Nashe was published in five volumes—the text (Volumes I to III) in 1904 and 1905, the commentary (Volume IV) in 1908, and the Introduction and Index (Volume V), originally intended for Volume IV, in 1910. The last volume also included a series of Errata and Addenda. The first four volumes were published by A. H. Bullen, the fifth by Sidgwick & Jackson; all were printed by Horace Hart. The help provided by the writers of some of the letters in the present file is acknowledged at various points in the work: e.g. Vol. IV, p. 2, note; Vol. V, p. 198, note 2; Vol. V, Supplement, p. 52 (note on Vol. III, p. 126, ll. 31–2).

In 1958 the five volumes were reprinted by Basil Blackwell under the editorship of F. P. Wilson. This reprint included, in the last volume, a Supplement of explanatory notes, comprising the Addenda originally appended to Volume V, together with further notes de-rived, firstly, from McKerrow’s annotated copy of the work and the material inserted in it; secondly, from printed sources; and, thirdly, from information sent to Wilson by other scholars. Wilson mentioned that McKerrow himself had intended at one point to publish the various additional information he had accumulated since 1910:

‘About the year 1925, soon after the appearance of W. P. Mustard’s valuable notes on Nashe’s classical sources [Modern Language Notes, xl. 469–76 (Dec. 1925)], he began to prepare an article, but unfortunately he did not do more than draft a brief introduction and some rough notes on Nashe’s borrowings from Lloyd’s Pilgrimage of Princes (cf. i.38.20–39.22).’

The article in question—the contents of which were duly incorporated in the Supplement—is A2/21. It does not appear, however, that Wilson used any of the other items in this file in preparing the Supplement.

Reference is made in Moore Smith’s letters to three of his own publications, namely ‘Gabriel Harvey’s Letter-Book’, an article for Notes and Queries (11th series, iii. 261–3 (1911)), his edition of Gabriel Harvey’s Marginalia (1913), and Henry Tubbe (1915), a selection of poems by a minor poet of the 17th century.

(On the back is a glossarial note by R. B. McKerrow, probably relating to Nashe’s Have With You to Saffron Walden.)

(With envelope. Individually paginated. Cf. Works of Nashe, iii. 397–416.)

Transcript

Dublin, 28 July 1817—

My dear Sir

I was a good deal surprised, I may say shocked, at the account of Layton’s marriage—his letter to you was one of the most desperate I have ever read—he fairly renders you the halter wherewith to hang him & is indifferent whether you do or not—he attempts no justification, shews no cause & with theatrical hardihood glories in self exposure. Is it not like the act of frenzy? no one can say it is the decision right or wrong, of a reasoning being. I really am sorry for him. You justly observe that you have yet to learn the circumstances that led to the event—something no doubt remains to be told, which indeed I should like to know, for the mysterious enigma in which the intelligence is conveyed fairly baffles me. The relation of this extraordinary transaction has led you naturally enough to general observation, & for what you have suggested as a warning to me that I make no shipwreck of myself, I receive as a further instance of your friendly regard. But tho’ I agree most entirely in the view you have taken, I must be allowed to submit in my own behalf that all your reasoning presumes (in the instance in which you apply it) that there has been if not a neglect, at least an indifference to the fair opportunity which is generally extended to all. This with perfect sincerity I can assure you is not the case with me. I may perhaps be romantic, tho’ I believe I do not pass for being so, but I have feelings about marriage which have hitherto excluded me, & may perhaps for ever, from entering upon the enjoyments (& no-one more highly values them) of that state. Without meaning to underrate worldly advantages, I never could contemplate a connexion of which these were to be the main considerations—& I know I have been blamed more than once, for what was considered turning my back upon myself—Othello says—

“But that I love the gentle Desdemona
I would not my unhoused free condition
Put into circumscription & confine
For the Sea’s worth.”—& so say I.

On the other hand, peculiar circumstances which it would be long & tedious to explain have prevented my exercising a choice free from the advantages above referred to. I never could in fact have so chosen without knowing that I was acting selfishly as regards others & impudently as regards myself. Celibacy is therefore in me, a state not of deliberate preference, but of submission to circumstances which I cannot confront & do not care to oppose.—You kindly tax me & what is worse, Mrs Turner taxes me, with protracting my stay in England & not going to you, in contempt of your joint invitation. It is true I did delay (for that is the proper word) much longer that I originally intended—but it was a delay without premeditation & without plan, continuing from week to week, or rather from day to day. I never had time sufficient in prospect, to enable me to propose an excursion to Yarmouth—to have accomplished which according to my wishes & engagements, could not have been done in a day. {1} I rely therefore on your candor for an excuse, & I must make the same appeal to Mrs Turner’s. It vexes me that you have not yet got Junot’s catalogue {2}—pray remind Mr Evans when you next are in town, that Mr Crosse of Hull, more than a year ago, sent his catalogue to be marked for you—this may bring the matter to his recollection. The Dublin Society has not yet ordered Cotman’s work, but I intend to propose it the first opportunity, I think with you that it will be of use to us. I have been searching “Nashe’s Lenten Stuff” in vain, for a word which I thought I had met in that tract, nor can I now remember it—it is that which Mr Kemble was offering an explanation of—it occurs as you told me in Shakespea[re] {3} & seems to signify some kind of ship—do remind me of it, that I may puzzle myself no longer. Mr Prendergast’s eldest son is now at Lowestoff† with a Cambridge tutor, who is cramming him during the recess—he has applied to me to bring him acquainted with some of the neighbourhood & I know no method so effectual as mentioning the circumstance to you, with an assurance that whoever may do him the kindness to notice him will find him to be an amiable, well-disposed young man, reasonably gifted & cultivated according to his time of life—he has but just left school & his residence at Cambridge is to commence with the next Term. I beg my kindest regards to Mrs Turner & your young ladies, Hannah not excepted, & believe Me to be

Yours very sincerely & faithf[ull]y
P L Patrick

[Direction:] To | Dawson Turner Esq[ui]r[e] | Yarmouth | Norfolk

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Postmarked 28 July 1817, and marked with the postage charge ‘1/6’. There are some indistinct pencil inscriptions on the outside. Letter omitted from words abbreviated by superscript letters have been supplied in square brackets.

{1} A few words in this sentence were torn away with the seal, and have been supplied by Turner.

{2} The catalogue of the Library of Field Marshal Junot, sold by R. H. Evans in 1816. ‘A very remarkable collection of books, printed on vellum by Didot and other eminent printers, the most noteworthy being the unique copy of Longus’s Pastoralia, printed expressly for him by Didot, with the original drawings by Prudhon, and a set of proof impressions of the engravings to illustrate the work. Sold for £37 10s.’ See F. Norgate, ‘Book Sales by R. H. Evans (1812-1845)’, The Library, series 1, vol. iii (1891), pp. 12-13.

{3} The end of this word is concealed by the guard.

† Sic.