Item 13 - Letter from G. C. Moore Smith to R. B. McKerrow

2 folded sheets, 1 envelope

Sheffield.—Is trying to find a publisher for his edition of Tubbe. Discusses a phrase used by Nashe, and asks McKerrow to check a quotation in the British Museum. Asks whether McKerrow is a candidate for the vacant lectureship at Cambridge.

(With an envelope.)

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Transcript

Sheffield 8 Oct 1912

Dear McKerrow,

Many thanks for your letter—I am sorry Sidgwick is not able to undertake Tubbe—both because I should be glad to see its fate settled—& because I conclude that neither he nor you see anything of much interest in Tubbe’s so called poems. However I wd much sooner have this refusal than feel afterwards that Sidgwick had been let in on my account—And you & he are better judges than I am of what is saleable.

I am afraid the Cambridge Press—or the Oxford Press—wd see no advantage in having the Introduction in print for nothing—as they are punters themselves & would not issue other people’s work. So I am asking Sidgwick to send the MS. &c to Mr Murray {1}—to whom I have written—If he declines the honour, I think I shall get Secker to print off the Introduction as a pamphlet without any poems. This I think he will do.

Another Nashe-point Dont trouble to write about it.

I. 241. {2} they set up their faces (like Turks) to be spat at for silver games in Finsburie fields!

You say—‘I know nothing of these games.’ ‘Silver games’ means, I think ‘silver prizes’ Cp. Statute XXIV Henry VIII cap. 15.

upon their bonettes such games of silver ‥ as they may win by wrastling, shoting, (&c)

Ascham, Toxophilus—

some ‥ shooters shoote for a lytle moneye—I may cast my shafte ‥ for better game

J Cook. The City Gallant (Hazlitt—Dodsley XI. 249)

Now dost thou play thy prizes: if you can do any good, the silver game be yours.

Bishop L Andrewes 5th Sermon on Fasting (ed. 1631 p. 219)

‘To win but a prize at a running ‥ they will abstaine from all things ‥ and all is but for a poor silver game’

So these independent writers stick up their books to meet general contempt, as showmen in Finsbury fields stick up Turks’ heads to be spat at for a small silver prize.

Some time when you are at the B.M., I should be much obliged if you would look at Brydges’ Archaica vol. II pt. 4 p. 57. Mayor quotes from there two lines of Gabriel Harvey’s

‘Haddon farewel, and Ascham thou art stale
And every sweetness tastes of bitter bale.’

I dont find these lines in Harvey’s sonnets appended to the Four letters {2}—and I wonder if they come from some MS. source. I have given in the book Bullen in printing a list of Harvey’s MSS. so far as they are known to me—and I wonder if these lines come from one, which I didn’t know of. If so, I wonder where the MS. is—and what its other contents are.

Ever yours
G. C. Moore Smith.

It is strange that the two chairs of English at Cambridge should be vacant at the same time Are you a candidate for a lectureship in English which I hear is vacant at King’s College?

[Direction on envelope:] Dr McKerrow | 4 Phoenix Lodge Mansions | Brook Green | Hammersmith | London W

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The envelope, which was postmarked at Sheffield W.D.S.O. at 10.30 p.m. on 8 October 1912, has been marked on the front in pencil, ‘Notes for Nashe’, and on the back, ‘Acad. Registrar, | University of London | South Kensington. | Oct 19’.

{1} Followed by a superfluous full stop. The reference is to John (later Sir John) Murray (1851–1928).

{2} This passage, which is from Pierce Penilesse, occurs in fact on lines 7–9 of the previous page: ‘they set vp their faces (like Turks) of gray paper, to be spet at for siluer games in Finsburie fields.’ ‘(like Turks)’ is followed in the MS. by a full-stop.

{3} McKerrow has interlined here in pencil, ‘(Yes. Sonnet VI p. 241 of Grosart’s ed.)’. Cf. MCKW A2/14.