Stuk 2 - Letter from Charles Crawford to R. B. McKerrow

1 single sheet

43 Elliott’s Row, St George’s Road, S.E.1.—The revelations about Thomas Lodge in the Review of English Studies are interesting. Points out the source of a phrase in Greenes Newes.

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Transcript

43 Elliott’s Row, St George’s Road | S.E.1.
30 Dec. 1933.

Dear Dr McKerrow

The Review is to hand, and I thank you for having it sent to me. The revelations concerning Thomas Lodge {1} are most interesting to me, and make me view that author’s work from a quite different angle. Of late I’ve had to linger much over his various performances, and those of Robert Greene as well; which reminds me now of a trifle concerning the latter which you might care to take a note of.

The somewhat strange phrase in B.R’s Newes both from Heaven and Hell (p. 4, line 22),

“those lynes, wherein I found such a messe of altogether,”

comes from The Blacke Bookes Messenger, 1592 (Bodley Head Reprint, p. 29), near the close of the tract:

“Never was gentle Angler so drest, for his face, his head, and his necke, were all besmeared with the soft sirreverance [from the chamber-pot], {2} so as he stunke worse than a Jakes Farmer. The Gentleman hearing one cry out, and seeing his messe of altogether so strangely taken away, began to take hart to him,” &c.

I wish you a prosperous new year, and God’s blessing in all you do.

Yours gratefully,
Charles Crawford.

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Formerly inserted in McKerrow’s copy of his edition of Greenes Newes both from Heauen and Hell, 1593 and Greenes Funeralls, 1594 (two texts in one volume) (1911) (Adv. c. 25. 82).

{1} See Alice Walker, ‘The Life of Thomas Lodge’, Review of English Studies, vol. ix, pp. 410-32.

{2} The square brackets are original.

{3} ‘sirreuerence’ in Grosart’s ed. and OED.