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London, 15 Piccadilly, W. 1 February 1899 {1}

Dear Sir,

My experience does not extend to the contents of public libraries; but only to the books which have passed through public sales during the last forty years. I may therefore congratulate you on the possession of the finest copy I have ever seen of the first edition of the Genevan Bible.

I well remember the feeling of incredulity with which I listened some ten or twelve years ago to Mr Makellar’s {2} description of his copy as being a really fine one. When I saw it at his sale I was taken by surprise, and determined to have it at any price.

I thank you for the cheque—a receipt for which is enclosed;—and I am, dear Sir,

Faithfully yours
Bernard Quaritch

Professor W Aldis Wright

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{1} The first three figures of the year are printed.

{2} William Makellar, a minister of the Free Church of Scotland, who died in 1896. His library was sold by Sotheby’s on 7 November 1898. See List of Catalogues of English Book Sales now in the British Museum (1915), p. 434.

Wensleydale.—Submits some queries about imposition which have arisen in compiling a bibliography of Dodsley’s Collection.

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In Wensleydale
17:8:24

My dear McKerrow

In working at a bibliography of Dodsley’s Collections† of Poems by several Hands I have struck difficulties about imposition, and should be grateful for advice.

The original work in 3 vols. 1748 (reprinted 1748, 1751) is a duodecimo of the ordinary kind. It was imposed ‘for cutting’; a conclusion suggested to me by the fact that a whole forme (ex hypothesi) is wrongly paged, and confirmed by the watermarks, which fall on the seventh and eighth or on the eleventh and twelfth leaves (or on both pairs when there were 2 watermarks; 2 different papers were used). There are numerous cancels; and I was pleased to find my conclusions from examination of stubs etc. very prettily confirmed by the w.-marks.

The chain-lines are horizontal.

But my difficulty begins with Vols. IV (1755) and V-VI (1758). They are uniform with the earlier volumes, but are in eights. The chain-lines being (in V, VI) horizontal. I assumed that the books were 16o printed in half-sheets, so that each sheet yielded two copies of an 8-leaf quire. This would mean the use of a paper of an unusual size; but it may have occurred to Dodsley that he could economize by getting an extra four pages on to each forme.

But while reposing in this hypothesis I discovered that some of the chain-lines are vertical!

In Vol. IV they are all vertical (and of course this volume may be 8o).

In Vol. V 19 signatures, & 2 prelim. leaves, are horizontal; but A8 & C8 are vertical.

In Vol. VI 20 signatures + 2 prel. leaves are horizontal; but X8 vertical.

There are unfortunately no watermarks in these 3 volumes.

I do not know of any uncut copy. My copy of V is 6¾ x 4¼, and I suppose may have been nearly 7½ x 5 (7 x 4½ is a minimum). I cannot see what imposition would get this on to a sheet so nearly square that it could be put in either way indifferently.

Please don’t think of going to the Museum and hunting out these books. I trouble you with my difficulty only in the chance that it may be quite simple and that the solution may be already familiar.

I expect you are very busy with No I {1}—I wish it all success.

Yours sincerely
R. W. Chapman

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Numbers in signatures and the 'o' in '16o' and '8o' are superscript in the original.

{1} The first number of the Review of English Studies.

† Sic.

14 Vencatachalamudaly Lane, Triplicane [Thiruvallikeni], Madras [Chennai]. - Has been given a scholarship of at least one year of £250 a year which will be extended for a year if the reports from Cambridge are favourable. Is starting on 17 Mar. from Madras and will travel by sea all the way. Has written today to Mr Hardy. Asks Neville to 'take me or at least send some-body to London as I am new to anything and everything'; apologises for the trouble taken on his behalf by Neville.

Dictionary Room, Old Ashmolean, Broad Street, Oxford.—Thanks him for investigating the word ‘spattania’. Refers to the use of u, v, j, and i in Philemon Holland’s translations, and to his forthcoming note on the word ‘backare’.

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Dictionary Room | Old Ashmolean | Broad St | Oxford
Oct. 7. 1913

Dear McKerrow,

Many thanks for your second letter, dated 25 Sept., which I must really send you a line now to acknowledge.

The ‘Spartania’ in Textor’s Officina {1} may very well be the original & correct form of Greene’s ‘Spattania’. {2} But if no account of the plant so called is given, one can be certain of nothing. We are very much obliged to you for your search, although this time it has drawn blank.—Are any Italian books included in those you consult? After French & Latin, this is, I suppose, the next language likely to have afforded material to an Elizabethan.

As to Holland, the modern use of u, v, j & i is followed in his ‘Livy’, 1600. {3} I had a note to this effect, which I have just been verifying in the Bodleian. Whether it is followed through-out the volume consistently, I don’t pretend to say.—I have also an old note, which I have not verified, that in his ‘Camden’ 1610, {4} both the old & the modern practices are followed.

In the forthcoming number of the Mod. Lang. Review there are some observations of mine, called forth by a note on ‘Backare’ in the July number. {5}

Please accept my hearty thanks for the kind expressions of sympathy in your letter, & believe me

very sincerely yours
Walter Worrall

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This letter was written on black-edged paper, in token of the death of the writer’s father, the artist Joseph Edward Worrall, who had died on 7 September. It was formerly inserted in an off-print of McKerrow’s article ‘Some Notes on the Letters i, j, u and v in Sixteenth Century Printing’, reprinted from The Library, 3rd series, i. 239–59 (July 1910) (Adv. c. 25. 80). At the foot of p. 21 of this offprint (corresponding to p. 251 in The Library) McKerrow has written the following note, derived from the present letter: ‘The modern usage is also found in Holland’s Livy 1600—also in Pliny—? in Camden 1610 (W. Worrall)’.

{1} Joannes Ravisius Textor (Jean Tixier de Ravisi), Officina partim historiis partim poeticis referta disciplinis (1520, etc.), a Latin commonplace book, frequently reprinted.

{2} Worrall had evidently consulted McKerrow in connection with the article on this word for the New English Dictionary; see vol. ix, part i (1919). The dictionary’s earliest citation of the word is from Greene’s Mamillia (Works, ed. Grosart, ii. 23). Its origin is obscure.

{3} Titus Livius, The Romane History … Also, the Breviaries of L. Florus, tr. Philemon Holland (1600) (STC 16613).

{4} William Camden, Britain, or, A Chorographicall Description of England, Scotland, and Ireland, tr. Philemon Holland (1610) (STC 4509).

{5} The note was submitted by Percy W. Long (Modern Language Review, vii. 373). Worrall’s response appeared in the October number (ibid., 544–5).

10 Aldenham Street, St Pancras, London.—Professor Körting wishes to know which stanzas are contained in the fragment of the Chanson de Roland at Trinity (MS R.3.4), as he intends to publish a critical edition of the poem.

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Dear Sir.

Professor Körting, of Münster, wishes me to give him information about a fragment of the old Anglonorman Chanson de Roland, contained in a Ms. of Trinity College Cambridge {1}. I only got his letter after I left Cambridge, and so I am not able to look after the Ms. myself. But, as I should like to comply with the wish of my friend, I take the liberty to ask you for the information required, as perhaps you know the Ms. of so important a poem in the library of your college—Mr. Körting cannot give the exact number of the Ms., nor can I find a Catalogue of the Mss. of Trin. Coll. here. I should feel much obliged to you if you would be so kind to tell me of which and of how many tirades or stanzas the fragment consists, compared with the text published by Müller or Kölbing {2}, and if you would copy just a few stanzas, especially the first and last of the fragment, so as to be able to form an adequate judgement of the age, language and dialect of the poem. Prof. Körting intends publishing a critical edition from the several Mss. known of this oldest frensh† poem and is in need of the information required; he would be very thankful indeed, if you could help him. I answered to his letter that I should apply to you, as the only means I knew of ascertaining what he wanted to know. I shall be in London till this day week.

Yours truly
Dr C Horstmann.

London | 10 Aldenham Street. | St. Pancras.

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This letter must have been written during the period when Körting was at Münster, i.e. 1876-1892, and after the publication of Kölbing’s edition of the Chanson de Roland (see below). The sheet bears some notes in pencil by Aldis Wright.

{1} R.3.4, 15th c.

{2} Theodor Müller’s edition of the Oxford MS. of the Chanson de Roland (Bodleian Library, MS Digby 23, part 2) was published at Göttingen in 1863. Eugen Kölbing’s edition of the Venice IV MS. was published at Heilbronn in 1877.

† Sic.

Diary kept from 28 Jan. 1877 to 2 Nov. 1887, with entries for every day recording his own life, and noting events in the wider world as well. The diary starts while he was at Rugby and follows his progress through Trinity from Michaelmas 1878 as Bell Scholar, winner of the Chancellor's English medal, placing 6th Classic, and obtaining a fellowship in 1884. With photographs of family and friends, telegrams, letters, clippings, and dried flowers laid in to the volume, as well as notes of addresses and a clipped page of J. K. Stephen's signatures.