Item 9 - Letter from G. C. Moore Smith to R. B. McKerrow

2 folded sheets, 1 envelope

(Sheffield.)—Thanks him for his help with an article on Harvey. Adds further notes on Nashe and brief comments on other subjects.

(With an envelope, postmarked at Sheffield.)

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Transcript

7 Feb

Dear McKerrow,

It was very good of you to look at G. Harvey {1} again. I hope you did not go on purpose,—I am so sorry I did not tell you of all my wants at once.

Your corrections are in good time, as I have not received a proof of my N & Q paper. I am sorry to hear of your cold. & hope you are now all right.

Do vote for Cox. {2}

I have got ‘Grace Book Δ’ (a reviewer’s copy) just edited by Venn. It contains all degrees 1542–1589 & other University records. It will be a valuable book of reference—& save one from writing to the Registrary.

I have been reading part of Nashe again in connexion with my paper on Harvey—& send you a few notes on your notes. {3} (I am afraid, rather useless now)

Vol IV

p 154 l 8 for Erogonist, Ergonist

p 156 l 11 fr. bot. Was the Barnard so called from the proverb ‘Bernardus non vidit omnia’?

p 159 n. on 262. 5. Does not ‘book-beare’ mean ‘lectern’?

p 160 n. on 265. 28 Did Barnes write ‘Meg a Court’?

n. on 267 2,3. I suppose Nashe is parodying—‘Here beginneth the first Epistle to the Philippians &c’—but the expression is a clumsy joke if so

p 176 n. on 294. 23. I suppose you take Pistlepregmos as = dealer in Pistles, or Epistles.

p 181 n on 302 13. The louse had 6 feet I suppose like Harvey’s hexameters

p 182 n. on 305 24. Sailors, I am told still divide foreigners into ‘Dutchmen’ (Germans, Scandinavians &c) & ‘Dago’s’ (French, Spaniards &c)

p 183 n. on 305. 22. {4} I suppose Harvey is translating Summa Summarum.

p 189 n. on 313 23. ‘Matthew’ should be ‘Nathanael’—according to the Admissions to Fellowships in S. John’s Coll.

p 191. n. on 322. 31. Is this a certain explanation? Is there other ground for thinking that Nashe’s Lord was a Dudley?

316. n. on 29. 21. Is this to {5} Tho. Freigius? I dont know if he wrote a Paedagogus.

339 n. on 74. 18. Doctor Hum. Does not this refer to the Cambridge use of ‘hum’ as a sign of disapproval? [? scraping the feet—or making a noise with the voice] {6} Cp. Mead’s letter to Stuteville 27 June 1623 (Heywood & Wright’s Camb. University Transactions 315) ‘Mr Lucy ‥ was this week created Doctor ‥ with such distast of the regents that they hummed when he came in.’ {8}

n. on 76. 35. Is not Sir Edw. Dyer more likely? He was a Knight before Greville—but I dont know the dates

359 n. on 114. 16. Tennyson uses it in The Grandmother I think.

365. n. on 126. 31,2 See Pedantius l 194. {9}

Ever yours
G. C. Moore Smith

I am glad to hear your patient has got to Canada.

[Added on the back of the envelope:] Secker is going to print Tubbe. {10}

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

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The envelope, which has been marked ‘Notes on Nashe’, was postmarked at Sheffield S.D.S.O. at 1 p.m. on 7 February 1911, and at Paddington, W, at 7.15 p.m. the same day.

{1} Gabriel Harvey’s letter-book, in the British Library (MS. Sloane 93). Moore Smith’s paper ‘Gabriel Harvey’s Letter-Book’, which appeared in Notes and Queries on 3 April (11th series, iii. 261–3), included a number of corrections to the edition of the letter-book prepared for the Camden Society by E. J. L. Scott in 1884, prefaced by the following acknowledgement: ‘For some of the corrections below I am indebted to Mr. R. B. McKerrow, who was kind enough to look at the MS. for me after I had left London.’ The corrections supplied by McKerrow are dis-tinguished in the article by asterisks.

{2} Harold Cox, the Liberal candidate for the constituency of Cambridge University in the by-election held in this year.

{3} The succeeding notes relate to Nashe’s Strange Newes and Have With You to Saffron-Walden.

{4} ‘22’ is a mistake for ‘32’.

{5} Reading uncertain.

{6} The opening square bracket is original; the closing one has been substituted for a round one.

{7} Single inverted comma supplied in place of double inverted commas.

{9} Moore Smith had made this observation before in his letter of 13 November 1908 (MCKW A2/6).

{10} Moore Smith’s selection of the works of Henry Tubbe (d. 1655), a minor poet. In the event this work did not appear till 1915, when it was published by the Clarendon Press. Cf. MCKW A2/12–13.